Firaxis, please fix the "steal-worker-exploit"!

[MadDjinn]

Stealing a CSs worker is not an exploit. To call the act of aggression against a CS an 'exploit' means that you also call any full war against the CS an exploit (game mechanics wise). It's not the act that is the problem, it's the 2ndary mechanics around it that is a problem.

Worker stealing has real consequences at higher difficulty levels. You don't play in a bubble, and others will notice the war. You only get '1 free war' wrt to the AIs warmonger ratings (as long as you don't wipe someone out) if those AIs have higher warmonger hate. Ofc, in MP there's no viable preventative mechanic and frankly, CSs are just cities you haven't gotten around to taking yet.

So, that said, I'm absolutely in favour of changes to the peace/war cycle mechanics getting changed. Those are very exploity, especially if you don't care about CS opinions (and the quick drop to permanent negative resting points with all CSs if you keep it up).

what is horribly 'exploitive' and needs a change is the on/off war button. You can DoW, attack and make peace on the same turn and the CS can do nothing about it.

So what 'should' happen is that wars with CSs last the same minimum number of turns as with major civs, and peace with them lasts the same number of minimum turns as with major civs.

So you can DoW them to worker steal or whatever, but you can't turn off the war right away within the same turn. As well, once a war is stopped, you can't restart it for some time.

2ndly, I'd even go so far as to have Pledge to Protect force trigger a direct war between the major civs. There are currently major diplo penalties for PtP civs, but there's no actual impetus for those civs to do anything other than get mad at you, diplomatically.

 

[cutelilduck]

Dropping in the say I wholly agree.

When I do it, I at least take the shot from the city.

 

[DemonMaster]

You mean people who play the game as is without their own made up rules, and who like making good decisions leading to victory.

In MP games I can understand the anger. But perhaps people should play against "honest" people who do not cheat.

There are plenty of cheats in all games. I don't cheat in any of them, because I wouldn't feel good about my achievements if I would have cheated.
For example in Skyrim there is a bug/exploit with the mannequins that allows you to get a copy of any armour you put on the mannequin. When I (by accident) found out about that I deleted the extra armour and played on.
In Civ I have never sold all my luxuries and then DoW them, I haven't taken a worker from a CS unless I am at war with the CS with the goal to conquer it.

Edit: In Civ 1 there was a bug/exploit that allowed you to finish an improvement in one turn, but I never used it.

 

[The QC]

stuff

Many good points, but one thing you don't mention is the fact that CSs don't protect their workers much and they SHOULD.

I'd also say that they get workers too early in the game. They should get them on the same timeline as players, so that they're not so advantageous to steal.

 

[hest]

Interesting, never used this before in my games! Two solutions that I could think of are:

* The worker is automaticly returned to the CS if you make peace. / CS refuses to make peace with you unless you give it back.(but will make peace without demanding it back if you can intimidate it with military presence).

* A fine, the cost of the unit with interest. Unless you pay it off, they might either refuse to trade with you, keep a negative modifier when buying influence, disqualify you from quests, not share luxuries or strategic resources and/or something else. Could be kinda cool if different city states have different punishments.

 

[DeutschDachs]

In MP games I can understand the anger. But perhaps people should play against "honest" people who do not cheat.

There are plenty of cheats in all games. I don't cheat in any of them, because I wouldn't feel good about my achievements if I would have cheated.
For example in Skyrim there is a bug/exploit with the mannequins that allows you to get a copy of any armour you put on the mannequin. When I (by accident) found out about that I deleted the extra armour and haven't played on.
In Civ I have never sold all my luxuries and then DoW them, I haven't taken a worker from a CS unless I am at war with the CS with the goal to conquer it.

"All is fair in love and war"

 

[MadDjinn]

Many good points, but one thing you don't mention is the fact that CSs don't protect their works much and they SHOULD.

I'd also say that they get workers too early in the game. They should get them on the same timeline as players, so that they're not so advantageous to steal.

CSs would be worse off if they waited to get the worker out.

How many player do you know would consider leaving every tile untouched and just make units and buildings?

Some CSs actually do create more units than buildings though, early game. It just depends on the situation really.

If a CS gets attacked it will kick out some more units (even if by barb attack) and I'm seeing a lot less workers stolen by barbs (generally) due to the CSs moving the worker back to the city when someone is near (they even sometimes do it when a major civ is near).

 

[IAmOzymandias]

the punishment does not match the crime. In my opinion, having an extra 5-12 turns in the early game to build something is a huge deal, and more often than not you don't feel the effects until later, at which point most people no longer consider "Hey maybe england hates me because I stole that city state's worker" as a reasoning behind the hate, and just blames it on AI.

Basically, it's steal a worker, get ahead and cross that bridge if/when you come to it is the no-brainer option. It's a total dick move but it gives you a distinct advantage with little to no short range repercussions.

 

[omnishakira]

(2) remove the citystate AI willingness to sign peace instantly after war has been declared..

its a bit extreme just to fix an exploit that nobody cares about

 

[kaspergm]

its a bit extreme just to fix an exploit that nobody cares about

Really? First off, looking at this thread, it does seem like a lot of people care about this exploit, and more-over, making this change would not *only* fix this exploit, but would *also* fix the exploit where you DoW a City State over and over each turn, only to sign peace before they can attack you. And given that it only sounds logical that someone would *not* want to sign peace with you the very turn you DoW them, I don't really see anything pointing against this change.

 

[brindle]

CSs would be worse off if they waited to get the worker out.

How many player do you know would consider leaving every tile untouched and just make units and buildings?

Some CSs actually do create more units than buildings though, early game. It just depends on the situation really.

If a CS gets attacked it will kick out some more units (even if by barb attack) and I'm seeing a lot less workers stolen by barbs (generally) due to the CSs moving the worker back to the city when someone is near (they even sometimes do it when a major civ is near).

Actually, I was just watching your Deity Venice and you left your lands untouched to make units and buildings (relying on steal to get worker) - point made. Perhaps the CS should make buildings and send a scout to player's city and steal ;_

As to troops. I don't see why at the minimum, the AI can't make a simple warrior before worker, and have warrior coded to stand in same spot as worker. Problem solved. (at least problem of quick scout snatches of workers)

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

* The worker is automaticly returned to the CS if you make peace. / CS refuses to make peace with you unless you give it back.(but will make peace without demanding it back if you can intimidate it with military presence).

I like this idea. Repatriation of prisoners should be a potential peace term.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Once you realize how incredibly hard it is to actually win a (mostly) peaceful game without the early-game speed boon that you get by stealing a CS worker on higher difficulties, you'll see that the ability to do so NEEDS to be in the game.

It is balanced - the second DoW gives you a quite big diplo penalty, so the decision on whether to steal or not makes a big difference if you're not planning to go Domination. Basically, if you have any intention to play diplomatic games (whether it is an actual Diplo win or signing a bunch of RAs or whatever) you simply cannot make another DoW for the ENTIRE GAME after stealing a CS worker. I call this a fair penalty.

Perhaps if the player didn't have this exploit,
1. Deity would actually be hard for the top players
2. The AI could lose some of its starting bonuses


Actually since Peace-War-Peace seems to be the exploit....
Perhaps CS should only declare peace if you
1. Pay Reparations (some big sum of gold)
OR
2. Have forces capable of bullying them
OR
3. make peace with their ally

So you would just have to change "Declare Peace" to "Declare Peace.....300 gold*" in the UI
*and adjust the amount for game speed

 

[Buccaneer]

I play at higher levels and I don't do this. Nothing wrong with stealing a worker but the consequences should be greater.

 

[DemonMaster]

What surprises is MD for example, why he is doing this type of gaming, he should be "good enough" to play without it. I have a friend back in the early 90s who used the "improve terrain in one turn" bug/exploit constantly because "the AI cheat so it's only fair". I didn't because I thought it was a bug/exploit and also the game become boring.

The solution to force a Civ to always be at war for at least 10 turns even against CSs will probably be quite useless, CSs are hardly any threat that early in the game. Combine with (more) diplo hit - maybe.

 

[Peac0ck69]

Isn't the fix for this the fact that declaring war on a city state will decrease your relationships with other civilizations and now in BNW you need that declaration of friendship to trade gold (unless we're talking gold per turn).

Workers in city states also don't appear until later in the game (~turn 32 on standard pace) so you will be waiting a while at the beginning of the game.

And other reasons stated such as the destruction of a relationship with the city state and not forgetting that depending how far away the city state is you have to wait for your worker to get to your city and keep it protected!!

 

[pkf]

I play at higher levels and I don't do this. Nothing wrong with stealing a worker but the consequences should be greater.

This and obviously MadDjinn's post, as always.

Please don't go around and make threads about "exploits".

 

[kingchris20]

I am in the minority here, but I see nothing wrong with the current system. When I'm playing culture or Diplo, I never do it because I don't want the negative modifiers.....however if I'm playing science or domination, I always do it, I mean in those cases, "I am bigger and badder" give me you worker, no, you know what, I'm just gonna take it!

Bigger empires of the past did that sort of thing to little city-states, so why not here.

Bottom line there are negative modifiers for it, the only thing I might change is, if you go to war with a CS, u must stay at war for 5~10 turns, PEACE BLOCKED. But then again that wouldn't do much of anything

 

[Hans Castorp]

In the words of Aristotle, who certainly did have the capture of slaves in mind, 'The art of war is a true art of acquisition.'

 

[NinjaGnat]

All they need to do is have the city state AI park a military unit on their worker, at all times. You could still pop in and take it, but you'd at least need 2 units to get the job done instead of a single scout.