[R&F] Game exploits to avoid that can ruin the experience

[Ansive]

Overflow exploit for chopping:
- don't use walls or ships 100% policies to chop into other things (like wonders, districts, units)
- it's ridiculous to slow build ships or walls to 1 turn and then Magnus chop for 'double' production (double what Magnus already enhances)
- I still use the 100% policies to create a navy or slow build walls
- some policy overflow is accepted (autocracy and policy wonder bonus)
- not using this exploit also lowered micromagement (no longer checking each city every turn to avoid completing the build)
- I have reported this exploit but I don't think it will ever be fixed

Trading before war
- if I know I'm going to war I will not trade away my resources for their money (planned war or before emergency)
- in Civ 5 they didn't allow lump sum trades if you weren't friends

Not an actual exploit but - save scumming (I have auto save set to each turn since the game crashes frequently)
- lose a wonder or a great person, too bad, if I chose not to chop or buy I stick with that decision
- don't reload for combat purposes
- I reload the turn's auto-save if I make an bad movement by mistake (due to unit cycling yoyo)

One unit per hex exploit
- I will not fully surround a suzerain city state or friendly city to prevent it from being captured

Questionable AI decisions
- sometimes the AI chooses to heal instead of taking an undefended camp or goodie hut, I usually take those (but I hope to see it fixed one day, like how they fixed ranged units moving and attacking in the same turn)


Tips for less micromanagement:
- in the later game only trade every 15 or 30 turns (with everyone)


Anyone have more 'self imposed' rules you follow?

 

[Ziad]

I want to say "don't reload the map 20000 times"... but I'm guilty.

 

[Icicle]

I agree with the overflow policy exploits, making lump sum deals before declaring war, and save scumming as enjoyment-decreasing exploits.

I've never actually surrounded a city state with units to keep it from being conquered but that honestly seems like more of a workaround for the problem of not being able to warn off an ally for attacking your ally-CS than an exploit per se.

And as far as questionable AI decisions, I don't think playing down to their level and missing goodie huts on purpose is really feasible. You just have to accept that 'bad AI' is not a bug and take advantage of these things I think.

I've never listed my self-imposed rules but I think one of them is I always try to fix food/housing problems. I'm not going to starve my people or subject them to living in the streets just because it's more convenient for me as a ruler.

 

[ChocolateShake]

I'm pretty sure the overflow exploit has been fixed for GS (and will be applied to vanilla)

The city state surrounding is pretty interesting, didn't realize that was being done. I guess if you're willing to dedicate up to six units to protect a city state that sounds alright, there really should be a way to form a defensive pact with a city state as soon as you're their suzerain. This reminded me of one of my pet peeves, when an AI decides to park units over key luxuries or places where I want to settle.

I suppose my typical rules are not to conquer cities (except in the rare games where I know I'm going for war, or when the AI really pushes it), not to chop/harvest except for very rare occasions, and like @Icicle I don't restrict city growth. I tend to go for as many amenities as possible, although I have started cutting back on that sometimes to have more gold savings, I've modded the game to make units cheaper and the AI tends to build huge armies, occasionally I need the gold

Emergencies are pretty great for my peaceful games since they give me an excuse to use my army. Though I like playing peacefully I can't deny that some combat can spice things up Sometimes I make a rule to get involved whenever a liberation emergency comes up.

 

[Disgustipated]

Not an actual exploit but - save scumming (I have auto save set to each turn since the game crashes frequently)
- lose a wonder or a great person, too bad, if I chose not to chop or buy I stick with that decision
- don't reload for combat purposes
- I reload the turn's auto-save if I make an bad movement by mistake (due to unit cycling yoyo)

I do suggest disabling auto unit cycling. I stuck with it for like 2 years, wish I had turned it off earlier. I do reload when I forget something important. My computer is 9 1/2 years old and isn't exactly fast at running this game. Too often I forget something important that I think of in between turns, but forget in the course of my actual turn. Doesn't help that Alzheimer's runs in my family, I fear that is my future. I don't reload for poor combat results. Combat is easy enough as is. Usually bad moves only result in a few turns extra.

I will not fully surround a suzerain city state or friendly city to prevent it from being captured

The city state surrounding is pretty interesting, didn't realize that was being done.

I've done it a couple of times. One time when going for a cultural victory, and it was the only cultural city state left, and Macedon was his neighbor. I think I had 1 mountain, so took about 5 units. Yeah I'm okay with this on occasion. The city state does seem unable to get workers out and their own units out, and don't fully recover. But I forgot you can use your own workers to improve city state lands. I didn't know that before.

Not really an exploit, but I do keep growing cities and developing my empire like the game has no end. Even if the ideal strategy may be to run projects over and over. I still continue building districts and buildings and improving my land. And this also involves not harvesting everything in sight. I still harvest things that are in the way, I just don't harvest everything in sight.

 

[Archon_Wing]

I don't preplace districts, sell GWs immediately or usually surround CS's with units.

Not out of a sense of fair play but rather because I think it is stupid and tedious

 

[Pietato]

I want to say "don't reload the map 20000 times"... but I'm guilty.

Necessary feature. If I play as a desert civ, I am going to reroll until I get a proper desert start.

 

[Draco84]

There is a really bad game breaking exploit with join ongoing wars.

If you ask the ail to join the war they will refuse, but if you add in a luxury they will empty their bank to join you. I'm talking sending you 2000 gold for one luxury and going to war for you.

If you try to just sell the luxury, they offer 1gold or other silly amount, so it's not that they need it.

Definately ruins the experience

 

[wige]

I avoid pretty much everything that you've listed there with the exception of surrounding suz'd City States to prevent capture. I think that's fair as there's no way to discuss/warn the AI from attacking.

I've also been known to block an AI's settler from a path to settling with 2 or 3 well placed units of my own...

 

[Elhoim]

I avoid pretty much everything that you've listed there with the exception of surrounding suz'd City States to prevent capture. I think that's fair as there's no way to discuss/warn the AI from attacking.

Yeah, that's the main issue, especially when it's an ally that's doing the attacking, AND you are the suzerain. It's really annoying that you can't ask them to not do it.

 

[Stringer1313]

It's interesting. I don't do any of these exploits except the surrounding city-state thing, which seems to be a common theme here. You really need to be able to ask people to promise not to attack city states for which you are the suzerain (and of course, the AI should be able to ask the same of you, with attendant consequences if you don't promise or break it). So like other posters I don't see it as an exploit, but as a hard workaround to a glaring deficiency in the game.

In the last game, I declared a protectorate war on a longtime friend and ally (the alliance/friendship had just expired) to get them to stop, triggering a betrayal emergency causing the entire world to declare war on me! Would've been nice to just ask my ally to not attack it. (though i admit having the entire world declare war on me was a nice distraction to keep the game interesting.)

 

[steveg700]

The city state surrounding is pretty interesting, didn't realize that was being done. I guess if you're willing to dedicate up to six units to protect a city state that sounds alright, there really should be a way to form a defensive pact with a city state as soon as you're their suzerain. This reminded me of one of my pet peeves, when an AI decides to park units over key luxuries or places where I want to settle.

...Or when the AI boxes a unit of mine with its borders, and I can't get an open borders agreement due to denouncement or having just declared peace.

Note that it's not necessary to dedicate up to six units, just enough to make it impossible to siege. Impeding movement is a bonus.

As others have said, what some people call an exploit in a certain perspective is from another a legitimate workaround for some of the glaring deficiencies in interacting with the AI. Give me a way to tell the AI to not conquer a city-state. Let me tell the AI to not forward-settle *before* it actually does so.

 

[MrRadar]

I use "limes/galley" overflow just for the fun of it, but certainly I will not cry it's loss in GS. It's really absurd.

Trading before war - no, not my thing, that's as blatant as taking a candy away from an infant.

Save scumming&reloads - never for different combat or build outcome. You do that - you forfeit your game and then keep playing some different reality. I only might reload if I horribly mis-click due to UI shortcomings. Like, you have a unit selected, you just want to drag the map and bam, for some reason that unit's been sent somewhere across the world. I disabled unit cycling as soon as I learned it how to do it, when it wasn't yet in the UI. But reloading is very much ok for experimentation and learning, of course.

But how surrounding your vassal CS can be an exploit? No, no, that's a fair and square measure, especially in the circumstances when my dear ally with which I've been trading since times immemorial half of my luxuries, decides to take my vassal Auckland and deprive me of a quarter of my production, as I'm very much coastal. In the absence of any other solutions I will move some blue helmets to cordon off the misguided invaders, be sure of that.

And I wouldn't see trade as a thing of micromanagement, but the horrible and awful deal screen UI makes it very much so. Still, I like the trading aspect of the game very much, so I'd better install some UI mods that allow me to stay in the screen and see what can be traded, also a reminder for ending deals. With a healthy lux trade you can postpone entertainment districts and use production for something else. So, FXS, fix the deal screen UI, pretty please!

 

[kaspergm]

I avoid most of these, but I'm not too fine to load a save game if I lose out on a key wonder by one or two turns. Depends on the circumstances, but if I have perfect Petra/Chichen Itza/St. Basils Cathedral/lake wonder thing place, and AI snipes it in an absolutely trash position, I will reload. I have also sometimes loaded saves if I take an early goody hut and get a eureka for something I was just one turn away from getting and had planned for - like in my last game, I had build a settler and wanted to settle on the coast on next turn, I send a scout for a hut, and got Sailing eureka ... sorry, but that was a reload.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

In GS it is said that the overflow being fixed.

Overflow with 30% is enjoyable, overflow with +100% seems ugly.

Unfortunately there are too many +100%s in Civ6.

 

[man_in_finance]

I regret reading this thread. Now I'm aware of many things I will probably never do in the game!

Who said Cypher was wrong in the Matrix?

 

[ezzlar]

Well, the US surrounds Taiwan with troops so it's not that unrealistic.

 

[BenitoChavez]

sell GWs immediately

I'm guilty of this sometimes because the gold is just too good. In GS with Mali in your game it's going to be insane if they don't fix it.

 

[Disgustipated]

Well, the US surrounds Taiwan with troops so it's not that unrealistic.

We don't have any troops over there. South Korea would be a better example, but I'm not sure 38,000 troops counts as surrounding. It certainly is a deterrent.

 

[UWHabs]

I never realize my CS suzerain is at war until too late, so I don't have time to surround it. I also have more or less stopped using Limes or the naval bonuses for overflow, not because of a large moral issue, but mostly I just keep forgetting and rarely feel that I "need" that bonus.

I also don't tend to trade before a war, usually since people hate me too much that they never give me anything if I'm going to war with them.

Another "exploit" which I don't often have time for is the turn you unlock a new government, I think you can set the policies in the old government, make use of them (for chopping/first envoy/upgrade/etc...), and then you can still change governments to the new one and select all new choices. This only saves me a little bit, so usually not worth the effort.