G-Minor III

[iggymnrr]

to me it seems like declarations for the sole purpose of peace treaties falls under the "gold exploits" clause. it is cheesy, and at this level the repercussions are so minor that it provides a clear unreasonable advantage.

we could use a clear ruling by hof staff.

I will wait too. But Persia can abuse this for XPs and a GG GA too.

 

[Tabarnak]

Okay, so it sounds like people are saying self-police to not abuse DoW after lux trading or for peace offers. Fair enough, as long as these games are excluded.

Tabarnak...I'm not so sure about Germany getting us there. It's possible, but everything has to fall right. I just had a game where I killed 3 civs (no 2nd cities yet!) by turn 92, and a 4th resisted my 4 warriors + general on the weak side. Granted I had only about 1/10 conversion of brutes, and could only settle 2 iron.... This was with Honor for barb farming and GG, later extra exp. Maybe not the best way to go. Germany has potential but it's more of a crap shoot than a chess game.

Might be time for something completely different....

I killed 3 civs before turn 45. Germany is so great at pumping fast armies. For now i don't see any other civs that can do so well before turn 50.

 

[Onan]

Yeah, I agree. I tried Egypt recently and the war chariots got stopped in their tracks after taking down maybe one opponent. Giving Greece a whirl atm. Rerolling is a pain in the ass.

Oh and if the double culture ruin is what wins this game...then it's just like I said: a crap shoot.

 

[iggymnrr]

Giving Greece a whirl atm.

Good luck. Chopping will help. Slow though.

Edit: I don't like the double culture thing either. Another guessing game. I can't see an iron UU like Mohawk or Legion so I'm thinking I don't want to guess. Headache.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Double Culture ruin plus Iron will yield an excellent time with the right civ. Obtaining those conditions isn't as hard as you might think. Getting everything you need to go lower with a civ that has useful abilities but needs some extra luck is going to be a lot harder.

Egypt's War Chariots aren't the answer, but the fact that you can carry as many as you want and upgrade them as Horses die is very useful. Egypt is probably the weakest of the Horse candidates, though. It seems pretty clear to me that Alex is the best Horse civ. You can get early Hoplites via ruins without bothering with BW, and Hoplites can kill cities. The extra move on CCs is insanely good. They aren't the beasts they once were, but they still roll cities without the risk of death.

 

[Ozbenno]

Extrapolate this, and you can have a large amount of money and gpt from multiple civs when declaring war against everyone you see for the first time. Sit down and wait a couple of turns...It really feels like an exploit. For prince level or under, this seems cheesy. Since i want to kill them all before they get a sufficient force, this strategy is clearly overpowered. For domination wins on low levels of difficulty this strat must be banned imo. Being first in soldiers and some other stats may determinate if a civ will give you money or not for a said timeframe.

Sincerely, i don't want to exploit this.

Good point. Worker stealing has been a long held tactic in Civ IV but the silly and quick and benficial peace offers in V make it a tricky point. We'll get a ruling to you on this soon.

 

[DaveMcW]

Good point. Worker stealing has been a long held tactic in Civ IV but the silly and quick and benficial peace offers in V make it a tricky point. We'll get a ruling to you on this soon.

If you want Civ4 AI, go and play that. Don't ban all the feaures of Civ5.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Mallow's gameplan is pretty clear. 2 Culture ruins, Iron and proper planning should consistently yield that time with the civ he must have used.

If you want to go much lower, you're going to need to gamespam using a civ that requires some luck (hut or Germany) to be successful.

I'd say that declaring just to get an imbalanced peace would fall under the "gold exploit" clause as it's currently understood, but we could use a ruling on that.

Declaring virtually always results in an "imbalanced peace'. War isn't fair, it's designed so that somebody gets hosed by the other side's military. It would be a joke to ban this under the current exploit clause because

a) declaring war has a legit and often significant opportunity cost
b) nothing about the tactic involves getting around game rules
c) there's nothing particularly different about the tactic than other ways of screwing the AI

Protecting units is part of basic civ IV gameplay. Making competent deals is part of basic civ IV gameplay. Banning this is like banning accepting cities in war or banning research agreements. There's no clear line to draw here and if HoF rejected Tabarnak's submission on the basis of an "unfair war deal" it would damage its credibility; this mechanic is NOTHING like self-pillaging and is consistent with most beneficial play.

 

[Martin Alvito]

I make no value judgments on whether we should or should not exclude here. All I'm saying is that if you're declaring with no intent to prosecute the war but clear intent to extract at the peace table, that falls under the exploit rules as currently defined.

If you want an opinion, we should ban luxury resales post-pillage, permit all the GPT and conference table abuse players can come up with, and be done with it.

 

[iggymnrr]

I tend to favor the no ban but DoWs can also be used because the AI doesn't have writing too. This can get by wierd border pops. I also don't play upper levels so this may be more of a feature/hazard at lower levels.

Edit: I guess my sense is that if this is not possible at upper levels than a ban erases the prince level distinction advertised.

 

[Tabarnak]

Oh and if the double culture ruin is what wins this game...

No it's not...trust me.

 

[iggymnrr]

No it's not...trust me.

Go for it! Germany's not my cup of tea. Beer perhaps.

 

[Tabarnak]

Go for it! Germany's not my cup of tea. Beer perhaps.

I really like Guinness. Smooth and tasty!

About exploits, does HoF staff can see if a player have declared war against everyone in the turn page log(or whatever it's called)? Can they see all sort of trades?

I guess not....yet?

 

[iggymnrr]

About exploits, does HoF staff can see if a player have declared war against everyone in the turn page log(or whatever it's called)? Can they see all sort of trades?

They can probably see that stuff. But I would guess that would involve time to look for it.

Tested Nappy and he can get to ironworking about the time BW kicks in--on a double culture hit.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I make no value judgments on whether we should or should not exclude here. All I'm saying is that if you're declaring with no intent to prosecute the war but clear intent to extract at the peace table, that falls under the exploit rules as currently defined.

If you want an opinion, we should ban luxury resales post-pillage, permit all the GPT and conference table abuse players can come up with, and be done with it.

Actually the exploit clause does *not* ban a war declaration to farm for gold. When it comes to the tactic in question it specifically bans only the obvious social policy switch "resource trade/pillage and other gold/gpt exploits" as follows:

The AI is stupid. Trading a resource for gold or GPT only to pillage the improvement or trade route to break the agreement and trade it again. Breaking agreements like this to take all the AI's gold is just too easy. Please no gold exploits in the HOF.

(full rule ban can be found at http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ5/rules.php?show=disallowed )

There is not a single thing in this clause to suggest that declaring war without the intent of actually killing someone or even fighting is an "exploit". Actually it bans precious few things and aside from the resource pillage issue most of what it bans would wind up being an arbitrary ruling (why do you think I hate this HoF rule in its current form? I didn't call it out for fun).

Wars in history and in civ are declared without the intention to prosecute said war but rather to extract resources from the target aren't exactly uncommon. The reality argument is only a bonus here; but it should show that such a tactic isn't even incongruous with what one might expect in this game.

Apparently the Vikings used an exploit . But in all seriousness, nobody's presented a credible gameplay reason to ban this tactic. "It's the best option within the narrow constraints of this gauntlet" is not a credible reason; you'd be selectively banning new things on a constant basis as each new gauntlet arose (and doing so would cut into player strategic potential in the long run).

 

[Martin Alvito]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=10388635&postcount=86

Biased citation doesn't make your argument true. Reread the fourth paragraph (about intent) in the linked post. I agree that an intent standard is problematic, but it's what we have.

States don't make war on other states to extract resources. States threaten to make war in order to extract resources. If a threat is rebuffed, states follow through on threats to make war in order to ensure that future threats (both against the target and against other states) are credible. The problem in CiV is that you don't have to establish credibility. You declare war, do no harm, and get paid off.

 

[Onan]

Okay, well...I got the best start I'm willing to try for...Germany (couldn't get crap with Alex), double culture ruin, even a free pop. Had second city down by...I think it was turn 12? Each of first cities built on hill with gold / gems. Cash flowing.

Granted perhaps I got lazy and didn't actively seek out horse in the second half of the game as I should. Ran into resistance at various phases and got bogged down. Only 6 iron, which was cut by a barb at one stage. Also lost a naked general to a barb, taking chances. Currently around turn 116, should be a sub 130 finish...which seems woefully slow given 91 as a target. Two civs still holding their caps. One of them facing only a weak force of two swords / three archers.

Obviously I'm not doing something right. Or more likely, several things. ah well.

 

[Peets]

I wanted to trade an extra resource for some GPT but I accidentally hit the propose button before I asked some GPT. Now he's getting a free resource hehe.

 

[Onan]

Okay, done and dusted with that beautiful start. Turn 122. An improvement of 30 turns over my first try, I'll take it.

Some bad luck with iron (no 6 tile I could settle), and mistakes were made:

1) Lost 10+ turns having to mine the iron.
2) Lost another 6 (?) turns having to fix the improvement once it was pillaged.
3) Failed in one attack on England (3rd or 4th civ to assault, I think it was at the same time as Gandhi on the other side of the world)--brutes were repelled / destroyed as he had a warrior garrison and his city strength was 11 or 12. Should've waited for reinforcements but the iron was still many turns away.
4) Had many more units than necessary, mostly warriors which never arrived on the scene. Should've made settling / working horses a priority.
5) Possibly on this start a better use of the double culture ruin, instead of a very quick 2nd city, would have been to take honor to farm barbs more actively and get an early GG.

Somewhat disappointed, but I notice my turn 152 game is still at number 5 on the list...maybe you guys are theorizing and not playing?

Curious to try something totally different, but pretty burnt out at the moment.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=10388635&postcount=86

Biased citation doesn't make your argument true. Reread the fourth paragraph (about intent) in the linked post. I agree that an intent standard is problematic, but it's what we have.

States don't make war on other states to extract resources. States threaten to make war in order to extract resources. If a threat is rebuffed, states follow through on threats to make war in order to ensure that future threats (both against the target and against other states) are credible. The problem in CiV is that you don't have to establish credibility. You declare war, do no harm, and get paid off.

You can't expect people submitting games to all have read a closed or even open thread started by non-HoF staff (in other words, by me) that isn't even seen from the hall of fame rules and then apply rulings on page 2 of said thread to in-game. I certainly don't (nevermind how loosely even that ruling would have to be applied to actually ban this tactic). For people playing the HoF the only viable source of the rules is the HoF's listed rules or possibly stickies by HoF staff here although that would need some kind of link to them from the HoF page. That "citation" I provided was a link to the current HoF ruling on this in its entirety. How is that biased? Show me how this violates current HoF rules.

In that post he's talking about gpt for gold deals and violating them. DoW outright is a different issue and the "for minimal cost" is a VERY loose definition to work with; for example you'd find it hard to get consensus on whether going to war is ever minimal cost due to RA lost, alternative trade opportunities, etc.

In other words, anything other than what you call biased citation is *impossible*, because the rule is written so that it only bans the resource pillaging without being arbitrary. The rule itself is biased; how can one expect me to apply it in any other fashion?

How about worker stealing? This is a basic tactic and has also existed in multiplayer for as long as I recall. Only really good players (with good connections) were/are (especially true in V with no buffer against double-moving) able to defend it every time, even if they did see it coming. Worker steal requires an investment though; units. That is the same unit investment required to get gold from the AI in a peace deal. If the AI is actually stronger than you, I'm betting it doesn't get gold.

So...if you DoW AI turn 10 on deity and do nothing, will it give you gold? In other words, will the AI give you gold for peace when its power rating is higher? If the answer to this question is yes, we have a serious issue with the game and I think one could make a case that it's probably going to get patched (it would represent a very bad war success evaluation)...and the rule would need to be added.

If the answer to the above is no, however, then do we have difficulty specific "exploits"? Is repeatedly chipping units and maybe 1 city then taking gold an "exploit"? These tactics were left in the game by the devs, the AI uses them on occasion (if only by sheer chance, but then that's how it does everything), and they carry a decision of cost/opportunity cost/return behind them that does not make them consistently the best option. The exploit clause is far too vague to ban such tactics without banning anything that does not constitute playing like an AI. A game rejected based on above tactics would be a game rejected arbitrarily. That is a horrible thing for the integrity of the HoF and competition in general, and I don't think they'll do it.

This is why the rule needs such serious work though; a basic tactic is eliciting major discussion in the HoF competition and a potentially valid submission risks rejection, all while not being explicitly banned.