Hall of Fame Rules/FAQ

[EMan]

Is it okay to add Workers or Settlers to a city and then Pop-Rushing a unit or building?

(Since the time this tactic was considered "questionable", FIRAXIS have increased the city population's "Unhappiness Rating" Penalty.)

Thanks for the clarification 'slug. (See below.)

 

[superslug]

Is it okay to add Workers or Settlers to a city and then Pop-Rushing a unit or building?

My apologies, I thought this was already covered by the rules, but I suppose not clearly enough. Dumping Workers and Settlers into nonrioting/starving cities is legal, and so is poprushing, so yes this is legal.

NOTE:I've clarified the rules posts at the start of the thread. I'll be announcing this with the update, but the changes are already up.

 

[Smirk]

Exploits and Cheats: Questionable

Negative GPT - ... when in negative GPT, you may not give any AI any of your gold, either in lump sums or gpt deals. ...

I bolded the specific text of my question, I don't understand this particular aspect. Double negative I understand just fine, but say I pop a hut and get 25g, I can't gift this to an opponent?

 

[superslug]

Double negative I understand just fine, but say I pop a hut and get 25g, I can't gift this to an opponent?

There's more than one way to abuse dn-gpt. Voiding lump sums and gpt is the simplest (and perhaps only) way to cover all the bases, so no, if you get 25g it can't go to the AI.

 

[Dianthus]

There's more than one way to abuse dn-gpt. Voiding lump sums and gpt is the simplest (and perhaps only) way to cover all the bases, so no, if you get 25g it can't go to the AI.

Chief, can I just check, if my gpt is +ve then can I gift 25g to an opponent? Surely that doesn't cause 2x-ve?

 

[superslug]

Chief, can I just check, if my gpt is +ve then can I gift 25g to an opponent? Surely that doesn't cause 2x-ve?

That's perfectly fine! You can't go from positive to double negative with an AI deal. You also have to jack the sliders up and run out of money.

I've inquired in the GOTM forum about their specific definition of negative-gpt. I want to make sure I use the same definition as they do for the term, because there are really two forms of negative-gpt, one where you're drawing off your treasury and another where you're bankrupt and losing building.

 

[superslug]

The rules haven't changed, but I have tweaked the orange post to make a technical point I've gotten some questions on more clear regarding negative and double negative gpt.

The point primarily is this: just because you're losing money per turn, doesn't mean you're in n-gpt. N-gpt requires you be losing money per turn and not have the savings to cover the next turn's defecit. This is a subtle difference that affects whether or not you can give money to the AI.

Example one: (pure negative gpt)
You have no treasury and a budget status of -100gpt. You are not allowed to give the AI lumps sums or gpt.

Example two: (defecit spending)
You having a treasury of 1000 gold and a budget status of -100gpt. While this is defecit spending, you won't go bankrupt for 10 turns and you are allowed to give money to the AI.

The break point of legality would be when the treasury runs out. If you have gpt going to the AI at that point, you need to do one of two things:
1) Break the deal (declare war on any involved AI's), at which point negative-gpt would be legal.
2) Balance your budget (reduce sliders, abandon units, sell buildings, generate more income from other AI's).

 

[boogaboo]

I'm against banning this wonderful level dependent exploit og N-gpt altogether.
Let me handle them!

 

[superslug]

I'm against banning this wonderful level dependent exploit og N-gpt altogether.

I can understand your dismay. Please remember the Hall has been open for more than three years, it's only natural the rules got looser with time. For what it's worth, whatever the rules/exploits will be for CivIV, I decidedly won't be starting soft.

 

[Smirk]

I don't consider this that big of a deal here, its chieftain afterall, and was intentional.

The problem at higher levels is there is no continuance between turns, you lose a unit but that accounts for ~1g depending on government, but you may have been at -100 gpt, your budget the following turn should then be -99. Then this question of lump sum trading wouldn't be an issue, and there would be a larger long term effect of this as well.
But at the same time it wouldn't disallow a concept that is familar to all world governments and most individuals.

 

[Xerol]

Why exactly is adding workers to rioting cities banned? I do it occassionally to change the balance of natives/foreigners in the event of primary unhappiness being caused by "Stop the agression against our mother country" kinda things, to get them under control.

 

[superslug]

Rioting cities don't have a food restraint in regards the number of citizens they can support. You could theoretically drop in thousands of workers and thus run up your score, have a uberspecialist research city, etc, etc. It's one of the bigger exploits.

 

[Sandman2003]

Exploits and Cheats: Disallowed

Red exploits and cheats - disallowed.

Changing Laborers pre-Production Phase - Breaking into the build sequence and changing Laborers from high commerce tiles to high production tiles by navigating through the city arrows or F1. Changing the Laborers in a city which has already completed it's production phase is allowable though. (Civ/PtW/C3C)

A question re this rule. Obviosuly, if you break into the build sequence pre-production but after commerce/science to change labourers to higher production tiles, you are effectively getting increased benefit from your workers, hence the ruling.

What about if you were to move workers from high production to lower production (at this point commerce is irrelevant)? You may desire to do this to delay the completion of a pre-build for example, and in this case you are not gaining double work, so only really penalising yourself. Is this a permitted tactic, or banned as well?

 

[superslug]

There's more than one way to prevent a prebuild from finishing already in the HOF rules, so I really don't see a need for a new exception.

 

[Sandman2003]

There's more than one way to prevent a prebuild from finishing already in the HOF rules, so I really don't see a need for a new exception.

It was all about timing. Eg last IA tech tech completes in one teun, palace pre-build completes in one turn - during New Age splash big picture you can trade for sci civs techs. If you can pick up fission, then you can swap your pre-build to the UN. If for any reason you can not get fission during this IT (and it is probably only an issue because I have been trying some tiny maps), then I know of no other way to delay the pre-build completion at that time.

Of course I can live with it either way, I just wanted clarification.

 

[superslug]

Even if railing/work needs to be done elsewhere, I usually keep a fortified stack of workers beside/near core production cities, especially in 20k's. They typically get used for pollution cleanup, but every once in a while I need to dump one in due to one turn starvation.

The reason I mention this is because such a stack can get around your stated problem. At the end of a turn I sometimes irrigate a few target tiles, reducing the shield production and adding a turn to prebuild. I then remine those tiles the next turn.

 

[EMan]

I think Sandman2003 has a valid point and a good example. If you get Fission Inter-turn you want to build the UN, if not you delay the Build for a number of turns until you do get Fission.

You can't perform irrigation work Inter-turn and since the 1000-shield Palace Pre-build is the highest Wonder, you can't switch to a bigger Wonder.

It seems to me that if you change laborers to Entertainers, you cannot double-dip and you would solve the problem of building the Wonder too soon. This would seem to be within the spirit of the Rules.

The only other option I see, which is a bit extreme and has no guarantee to work, would be selling off city improvements like Temple/Cathedral/Marketplace to try and get the city into a state of Civil Disorder.....not a practical choice.

 

[sanabas]

Another reason to allow changing to entertainers is losing a luxury mid turn, either due to a war being declared on you, or your supplier having the luxury pillaged or the trade route broken. (I don't count a trade deal expiring, because you should realise that in your turn). If those interturn actions occur, your first chance to change it is after the science & cash have been tallied, but before all the cities do their production. Increasing lux % at that point is definite double dipping, changing workers to entertainers isn't, and is your only way to avoid a lot of cities (all those who had just enough happiness the turn before) lapsing into disorder.

 

[superslug]

You can't perform irrigation work Inter-turn and since the 1000-shield Palace Pre-build is the highest Wonder, you can't switch to a bigger Wonder.

You're assuming that the Palace in each of these cases would be the full 1000 shields, which might not actually be the case since the Palace cost is dependent upon # of cities.

As already stated, there's multiple ways at the end of the previous turn to prevent premature completion. Aside from the stack of workers to irrigate, you could drop the overall lux rate and in some governments move MP units out of town.

You could also (as you mentioned) instigate deliberate city rioting. This is largely the reason I'm not going to change the rule. Deliberate city rioting is a potentially huge exploit, but there's an established exception to salvage prebuilds. Tinkering with preproduction laborers is another potentially huge exploit, and I feel that establishing another exception to salvage prebuilds would be redundant and needless.

 

[superslug]

EDIT: Nevermind.