HOF Questions & Answers

[Denniz]

I dont get why 'save promotions' is allowed but 'save policy' is not.

Could someone clearify this for me?

The option to save policies was put in by Firaxis in response to an exploit. Without it checked, you could save most of your points until you get the key policies/wonders that reduce the cost.

You just want to take ones that help towards gaining culture first like free speech, top two in Patronage, and the top right in Piety. After that, you need to save up as many as you can until after the Cristo Redentor is built.

Saving a promotion is hardly in the same league.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I dont get why 'save promotions' is allowed but 'save policy' is not.

Could someone clearify this for me?

The option to save policies was put in by Firaxis in response to an exploit. Without it checked, you could save most of your points until you get the key policies/wonders that reduce the cost.

If "Save Policies" is the Fix to the Exploit, why is "Save Policies" banned?

So is "Save Policies" checked OK? And "Save Policies" unchecked banned?

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Robert Smith]

If "Save Policies" is the Fix to the Exploit, why is "Save Policies" banned?

If unchecked save polices should have been a HOF Banned Exploit, so to make life easier for Dennis and Co every one should check this option.

Edit...
I mean Checking Save Polices is not allowed....

 

[Denniz]

If "Save Policies" is the Fix to the Exploit, why is "Save Policies" banned?

So is "Save Policies" checked OK? And "Save Policies" unchecked banned?

Sun Tzu Wu

If unchecked save polices should have been a HOF Banned Exploit, so to make life easier for Dennis and Co every one should check this option.

Making it an option was the fix. It defaults to not allowing player to save their points. Checking Save Polices is not allowed.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

The "Saved Culture" Exploit:

Making it an option was the fix. It defaults to not allowing player to save their points. Checking Save Polices is not allowed.

From my understanding of the "Save Policies" option is should have been called "Saved Culture" and thus my confusion.

So the original fix for the exploit is what we still have and game is still broken with respect to Cultural Victories! The developers put significant work into the "Save Culture" feature, but that was clearly broken, because the Culture price of a Policy could be manipulated by changing the No of Cities owned, thus the exploit. What I don't understand is if the game is fixed so Culture must be used to buy Policies as soon as that's possible (Culture can never accumulate beyond that needed to buy the next Policy), but defer use of the prepaid Policy till later as in the Policy that gives you two free policies, where is the exploit in doing that?

I would say that "Saved Culture" should be banned, but "Saved Policies" (as I prefer the term to be defined) should be allowed, assuming Civ V has been properly fixed in this regard. I have suggested several "developer level" fixes to the "Saved Culture" exploit; the latest one simply converts the Culture ASAP into a Deferred Policy, but it appears that the "Saved Policy" option is a misnomer and only confuses the issues surrounding the "Saved Culture" exploit and we are still waiting for the developers to provide a proper fix to the "Saved Culture" exploit.

I take it that the latest patch doesn't address the issue I've raised above. In that case, Civ V still remains truly broken. This won't be properly fixed for at least 1-2 years, if it ever is properly fixed.

Fixing Exploits Ruins Civ V:

Frankly, all the Civ V fixes to "exploits" have been turning a marginally OK game into a glorified tic-tac-toe game. The fixes have been systemically ripping out nearly everything that player skill can ethically leverage into winning a game. You don't fix a game by removing every game element that rewards player skill and replace it with something that penalizes player skill. That's the way I view the Civ V patches in general and why I now characterize Civ V as a "tic-tac-toe" game. How rewarding is skill in a tic-tac-toe game? First player to move always wins! The AI it seems can't even win at "tic-tac-toe" it would seem based on its evidently poor tactical skills.

There is also the Ruins game element that always rewards the player, unevenly I must add, for being able to find and enter Ruins which frankly doesn't require much more skill than playing "tic-tac-toe". My point here is the game does reward the player in this case, but _not_ for having skill. The mantra should be reward player skill and Ruins simply doesn't measure up and rewards unevenly on a random basis (You have rescued some survivors and your Pop 1 City instantly becomes Pop 2). This exploit is still permitted by the HoF rules.

More on "Saved Policies":

"Saved Policies" should be OK if implemented properly. However, the Civ V HoF still bans them, so they must _not_ be implemented properly after all, or perhaps the HoF is being too aggressive in stamping out all "exploits" resulting in the opposite problem, a game that no one wants to play, because skill is penalized rather than rewarded. Note: The game designers and their draconian fixes to "exploits" are to blame here; I'm simply stating the possibility that the HoF may in frustration go too far in banning "exploits"; I'm not saying they have actually done so; just suggesting that it may be possible.

Conclusion:

I know the Civ V game designers and the HoF staff are doing their best to make Civ V a worthwhile and rewarding game to play, but in my opinion at least it hasn't been working out as well as everyone hoped.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[vexing]

deferring policies significantly changes how culture victories work out. instead of picking and choosing policies and planning era changes for culture, the winning strat would be buy 9-11 policies, then save everything until you have completed cristo redentor so you save 25% of the culture cost of each of those. if you're late getting to cristo it could be over 5000 culture saved.

personally i'm glad the hof staff chose to disallow policy saving. it requires more planning.

 

[Neuro]

After playing both styles, they're both different animals.

Allowing Policy Saving means that the winning strategy is to take 1-2 policies and then save them for when you get Freedom unlocked and then take it. The skill is in deciding which and how many policies to take before saving them up. Do you take patronage? Liberty? Save them all for Freedom? The downside is that while you save culture on the backside, you can lose out on the usage of those policies along the way.

Disallowing Policy Saving means the winning strategy is to full-on tech burn to Astronomy and get into the Freedom Tree before you've had to burn too many SPs on other stuff, at which point it then becomes a tech race to Cristo.

I prefer Policy Saving, especially now that the exploits of the past (city razing/selling) have been eliminated, but I enjoy both. They are different animals though; in the first, you are more focused on generating culture early since it can be stockpiled, whereas in the second you are more interested in generating science and getting the culture on the backside when the policies are cheaper.

 

[lawofqr]

Is it OK to edit UserSettings.ini? One of the options is to turn on DebugMode, which allows the player to view the coordinate of each grid. This obviously gives an advantage at the beginning of the game to know one's relative position on the map.

 

[BSPollux]

Well, there are players who like to play Civ way above the numbers-level. I dont limit myself to the mathematical aspect which most of you seem to view as the most important part.

I dont abuse expoits or use other strategys that rely on the weaknesses of the game, even if i spot them, cause the win is the least of my problems.

Even with that 'strange' playingstyle I have had several entries in the early Civ4 HOF. I would like to take part in the Civ5 HOF again, but I realy hate to be forced to change my absolutely legal way of playing just because some attention-deficit victim used part of it to cheat. Same with No-DLC rules. I want to incluse them to increase the number of possible combinations of opponents.

There are cheaters, ok, ban or punish them if you spot them. But dont punish fair players instead. Change these rules!

 

[da_Vinci]

How rewarding is skill in a tic-tac-toe game? First player to move always wins!

Really!?! I always thought that the properly played tic-tac-toe game was always a draw.

If I haven't got that right eek, that would explain why Civilization gives me so much trouble ...

dV

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

deferring policies significantly changes how culture victories work out. instead of picking and choosing policies and planning era changes for culture, the winning strat would be buy 9-11 policies, then save everything until you have completed cristo redentor so you save 25% of the culture cost of each of those. if you're late getting to cristo it could be over 5000 culture saved.

personally i'm glad the hof staff chose to disallow policy saving. it requires more planning.

Saving Culture to Buy Policies Later is night/day Different from Buying Policies ASAP and Deferring their use. In the later case, cheaper Culture costs per Policy will not make the pre-purchased Policies any cheaper, because you have already paid for them at the higher Culture price.

You absolutely must pay a price for deferred use of Pre-Paid Polices. That price is not retroactively getter a lower Culture cost for them which is after the Exploit that was presumably fixed.

I should stop here, but the "Saving Culture" issue and the HoF decision to ban the proper fix, "Saving Policies", really bothers me:

If it weren't for this obvious "Saving Culture" Exploit, the HoF Staff probably would have never even considered banning "Save Policies" which is an entirely thing altogether. In my opinion, the HoF staff have gone too far, in reacting to the "Saving Culture" exploit, by restricting player options more than necessary by banning "Saving Policies". In my opinion, it is a draconian measure to fix Civ V that many consider to be fatally broken, but this fix is worst than the "Saving Policies" option. The default option is the probably the way the game designers intended the game be played after fixing the exploit. Unchecking the "Save Polices" option completely disables an entire Civ V subsystem. The consequences are perhaps far worst that the HoF staff even suspects.

Frankly, I'm not sure I would play Civ V again, even if the "Save Polices" option were allowed in HoF games. There are so many other ways Civ V is broken that still needs proper fixing or redesigning. I don't think I could stomach playing Civ V again until many other issues are fixed. Honestly, it will take 1-2 years of serious support from the Civ V developers to redesign part of Civ V so the game works the way it should have been on initial release.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

That's the way I view the Civ V patches in general and why I now characterize Civ V as a "tic-tac-toe" game. How rewarding is skill in a tic-tac-toe game? First player to move always wins! The AI it seems can't even win at "tic-tac-toe" it would seem based on its evidently poor tactical skills.

Really!?! I always thought that the properly played tic-tac-toe game was always a draw.

If I haven't got that right eek, that would explain why Civilization gives me so much trouble ...

dV

Thanks for the correction, da_Vinci! When both players make the best move each round, a tic-tac-toe game will always end in a draw:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tic-tac-toe

With the Civ V AI, I'm not entirely sure you would get a tic-tac-toe draw from it, even when properly programmed to do so. The Human Player will always Win.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[vexing]

Saving Culture to Buy Policies Later is night/day Different from Buying Policies ASAP and Deferring their use.

oh, sorry, i didn't even realize that was a possibility. it still allows saving culture via free speech. ie before renaissance is open you save policies 6-7-8, when freedom opens you spend them and get free speech, then policies 9-10-11 cost 25% less than they would have.

anyway, that's an added level of complexity that i'm sure the HoF staff doesn't want check for (making sure people are not saving culture even if they are saving policies). since they're hand checking every game anything that simplifies their process is helpful.

 

[Phoenix_Reaper]

I feel like I'm getting off topic with this question. I'm a OK with the game as it is and I just go with it. Anyways;

May someone please explain how the medals work out? I started late during this round and I don't plan on being behind next time. =)

P.S. I'm so happy I got highest points XD

 

[Ozbenno]

May someone please explain how the medals work out? I started late during this round and I don't plan on being behind next time. =)

If there are more than 1 game submitted in a category (leader/size/map/speed) then there are medals awarded.

2-3 games - 1st place = bronze medal
4-5 games - 1st place = silver medal and 2nd place = bronze medal
6+ games - 1st place = gold medal and 2nd place = silver medal and 3rd place = bronze medal

 

[Phoenix_Reaper]

If there are more than 1 game submitted in a category (leader/size/map/speed) then there are medals awarded.

2-3 games - 1st place = bronze medal
4-5 games - 1st place = silver medal and 2nd place = bronze medal
6+ games - 1st place = gold medal and 2nd place = silver medal and 3rd place = bronze medal

By first place do you mean by points or by quickest win?

Like what determines the medal how do you get placements? Sorry I'm new.

 

[lawofqr]

It appears that you can get up to two medals for each game, one for quickest win, and one for score.

 

[da_Vinci]

Wow, each of my Settler Duel Pangea Quick Dom games with a different Civ makes its own separate table of one? It's a three warrior rush any way you slice it, making the civ used almost irrelevant. The luck of distance between capitals has the most to do with times in that scenario.

dV

 

[Ozbenno]

It appears that you can get up to two medals for each game, one for quickest win, and one for score.

Yes this is also correct. Quickest time and highest score are seperate tables but the score includes all victory conditions for each set of conditions.

 

[da_Vinci]

Looks like we may have some glitch in the score tables for warlord diplo quick on standard inland sea with Sul. The Master table lists me with a 1958 score and a bronze ... but that belongs to Phoenix_Reaper. I had an 1875 score. For the detailed score table, I am not there at all. The date tables look right. I have 2nd score and second date, with PR and RS swapping 1 and 3 positions.

Now if only there was a combined table ...

dV