HOF Rules Discussion

[superslug]

Since, I was reviewing a thread where an HOFer was Pop-Rushing, I thought I'd take a quick look at the current state of the HOF Rules.

No mention of Pop-Rushing....that's fine with me.

Pop-rushing is a legal part of the game. Traditional pop-rushing I consider legal, since it does carry the "balance" of unhappiness.

On the other hand, dumping 2000 workers into a city over a few turns to pop-rush ICBM's, well, that would run a serious risk of game exclusion.

 

[superslug]

Whatever you are doing with streamlining the use of the database is great,

Finished.

but one thing is I think the Rules could use some updating.
Whenever there is a decision made in a thread about some unclear point, there should be an update to the rules, to make it official.

That's dawned on me recently. The current set-up is decidedly insufficient. A reference/FAQ on the webpage itself might prove useful, rather than just having everything thread-based. People certainly shouldn't have to read the whole forum to know all the ins and outs of the rules.

(Im thinking of the going bankrupt and losing only one building at level higher then chieftain, if it is legal on chieftain etc.. but there are TONS of others...)

It's legal on all levels.

 

[Gyathaar]

On the other hand, dumping 2000 workers into a city over a few turns to pop-rush ICBM's, well, that would run a serious risk of game exclusion.

Just wanted to point out that in the last submitted game I never set up worker factories to do this, but i did join a lot of my existing workers to towns in 1000AD to finish poprush of a lot of colloseums so I could squeeze out the last bit of culture needed for a 1090AD win instead of a 1100AD win.. nothing I could not have done with normal poprushing over the last 9 turns, it was just much less work

Btw.. it would be very hard to poprush ICBMs , atleast in C3C.. since you cant join workers unless the city has enough food to support it.. to pull it off you would have to first let the city riot, then join all the workers.. then turn all into specialists, wait for next turn for city to stop riot, and then rush ICBM...

This brings up a couple another tactics/exploits that isnt listed in the rules.

1: Letting a city riot, then join tons of workers into the town and make them all scientists for insane research output.. you will only loose 1 worker per turn. The more workers you join the higher advantage you gain from it.

2: Tactical nukes are much cheaper than ICBMs, and can also nuke anywhere on map by pressing the keycombo 'g' followed by 'b'

 

[superslug]

Just wanted to point out that in the last submitted game I never set up worker factories to do this, but i did join a lot of my existing workers to towns in 1000AD to finish poprush of a lot of colloseums so I could squeeze out the last bit of culture needed for a 1090AD win instead of a 1100AD win.. nothing I could not have done with normal poprushing over the last 9 turns, it was just much less work

Oh, absolutely nothing wrong with that! On huge/milk runs workers are dumped back into cities by the thousands, and scrolling through towns and whipping all of them is common on the last turn of Despotism.

2: Tactical nukes are much cheaper than ICBMs, and can also nuke anywhere on map by pressing the keycombo 'g' followed by 'b'

:shakehead No. This would be too extreme exploitation of a bug.

(I'll get back to you on #1.)

 

[Gyathaar]

I simply cant imagine any case where you would want to use ICBMs in a HoF game thou...

(perhaps for altering terrain types in vanilla (does it work in ptw too?) , but by then you would have rails anyway, so tactical nukes would be better to use for this)

 

[superslug]

I simply cant imagine any case where you would want to use ICBMs in a HoF game thou...

I can! While the majority of HoF games are "finished" at rather early dates, 20k and Diplo games can go down to the wire. I can also well invision a Sid game where nuking and attacking an enemy capitol or city would be needed to prevent an AI win (spaceship, maybe UN, possibly 100k culture via Internet).

(perhaps for altering terrain types in vanilla (does it work in ptw too?), but by then you would have rails anyway, so tactical nukes would be better to use for this)

Nuclear terraforming was investigated once for possible milking benefit, but the few patches this was possible under are no longer legal. Aside from that, the time involved wasn't worth it, especially since C3C ag civs are the way to go for milking.

 

[Gyathaar]

I was reading though the HoF dicussion thread, and saw this in post 175:

Quote:
Originally posted by Grey Fox
Is it allowed to use the Worker-Poprushing teqnique?
​

As long as it is something that can be done in a normal game, it is allowed.

 

[superslug]

I was reading though the HoF dicussion thread, and saw this in post 175:

DoM isn't currently the HoF admin. I am.

Okay, enough ego-stroking: That post is almost three years old and games from that era are no longer on the tables. I've had at least three predecessors. In order to fully formulate "total" rules based on all the questions and precedents, I'm going to have to read every post in every thread in this whole forum. It's the only way to be sure.

This may take a few days...

 

[Offa]

Originally Posted by LulThyme
(Im thinking of the going bankrupt and losing only one building at level higher then chieftain, if it is legal on chieftain etc.. but there are TONS of others...)

It's legal on all levels.

This seems a bit surprising. This is definitely illegal on GOTM. I know you wish to distance yourself from GOTM but this tactic is surely underhand.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

1: Letting a city riot, then join tons of workers into the town and make them all scientists for insane research output.. you will only loose 1 worker per turn. The more workers you join the higher advantage you gain from it.

Even better, as long as the city riots, nobody will starve. Of course, in C3C you need enough food to join them. But a rioting size 12 city in AA disconnected from your roadnet can have 10 Scientists...you can even found cities around it after it riots, the work all the original city tiles except for the centre.
30 beakers/turn...you'll get any AA tech within 4 turns with that .
I do not even think it is such a huge exploit (you have to waste either a high-food city, or 5+ Workers early on; so you essentially trade growth for research), but a clear ruling here would be appreciated.

 

[Gyathaar]

In rioting cities the citizens dont use food.. so as long as you have a hospital (or shakespeares thou it would be hard to get a city with shakespares into rioting) you can join unlimited number of workers..

Adding all those specialists will take your city out of riot thou, and from then on you will loose 1 citizen every turn... however.. say you joined 200 workers, you will around 600 science beakers first turn, 3 less then next and so on.. the power of adding them gets exponentially higher the more workers you add the turn the city was in riot.

Using this in say the milking phase, you can do 4 turn research towards Future sciences for extra score (plus all those specialists add an extra point of score each) while running 100% lux if you wanted.
Ofcourse you would have insane pollution in this city, but it would be starving anyway, so would not matter much if all 20 workable tiles had pollution. Would prolly be best to place these cities on 1 tile islands where pollution would not matter

 

[EMan]

2 cents worth:

A lot has been said debating the "legality" of adding workers to a city.

Which I think is fine.......Because what has NOT been stressed is that Workers do NOT grow on Money-Trees!.......you have to build them....and the resouces to do that could be used for other Production. (And, you have the "UNhappiness Factor" to deal with too, if Pop-Rushing!)

So, if you want to build 'em and then sacrifice them at the rate of 1 per "over-loaded" city per turn, why not?......YOU built them and it's YOUR choice to sacrifice them!?

If you do it in the End-game (I'm thinking of Milk Runs), you will only add a few points to your score at most!

 

[Offa]

2 cents worth:

A lot has been said debating the "legality" of adding workers to a city.

Which I think is fine.......Because what has NOT been stressed is that Workers do NOT grow on Money-Trees!.......you have to build them....and the resouces to do that could be used for other Production. (And, you have the "UNhappiness Factor" to deal with too, if Pop-Rushing!)

So, if you want to build 'em and then sacrifice them at the rate of 1 per "over-loaded" city per turn, why not?......YOU built them and it's YOUR choice to sacrifice them!?

If you do it in the End-game (I'm thinking of Milk Runs), you will only add a few points to your score at most!

I am also a bit surprised by this. Horrible exploits involving adding vast numbers of workers were banned in gotm as it was possible to increase score massively this way. There was a lot of discussion about this after an early gotm (german game, about no 5, on which sgotm2 was based). It is of course possible that later patches have neutered this exploit.

 

[superslug]

This seems a bit surprising. This is definitely illegal on GOTM. I know you wish to distance yourself from GOTM but this tactic is surely underhand.

I'm afraid you're way off the mark with this assumption. My intention is to make the Hall of Fame more like the GOTM (in regards to consistent operations and success of popularity). However, that agenda has no effect on my rulings decisions. Those I largely base on the precedents established by my predecessors.

And therein lies a major problem. I ruled initially that bankruptcy was okay. I did so on the basis that I once (as a player) asked if that was okay and was told yes. The problem is that I can't find that post. I thought it was in this thread!

So for now, the bankruptcy thing is very much in question.

As I previously stated, there's dire need for me to formulate full and formal rulses as comprehensively as possible. Until I do that, I'm afraid I'll have to refrain from answering any further rules questions in this thread.

I *should* have full rules this weekend, so don't anybody stop Mapfinder from running.

 

[superslug]

I am also a bit surprised by this. Horrible exploits involving adding vast numbers of workers were banned in gotm as it was possible to increase score massively this way. There was a lot of discussion about this after an early gotm (german game, about no 5, on which sgotm2 was based). It is of course possible that later patches have neutered this exploit.

I haven't ruled on that one yet.

 

[MeteorPunch]

Hi, first post here. I have some quick questions about the HoF rules, and I didn't feel like ready the entire thread just to *possibly* get it answered already. So are these allowed under the rules:

1 I generally start up a game, save it, then retire and check out the map to see terrain/start locations. Very old fashioned, but is this legal.

2 Also, say that before you attack a city, to be safe save your game. Your attacking army dies, you reload. Is this all right?

3 What are the savetimes? 4000bc, 1ad, 1000ad, endgame?

 

[Gyathaar]

1 and 2: no.. you may only reload when:

Reloading - Reloading a save to try and change game events is not allowed. You may reload if the game crashes, you have started a new playsession, or to avoid Domination victory.

going back to an earlier save is only allowed if you go over the domination limit by accident (easy to avoid this if you use mapstat usually).

3: 4000BC and save after you finish (press I want to keep playing after you win, then save) are mandatory. 1000BC, 10AD and 1000AD are optional (thou those prolly dont have to be exact dates.. having them just makes it easier to prove you didnt use exploits or something)

 

[superslug]

Hi, first post here.

WELCOME TO CFC!!

1 I generally start up a game, save it, then retire and check out the map to see terrain/start locations. Very old fashioned, but is this legal.

No, this is not legal.

2 Also, say that before you attack a city, to be safe save your game. Your attacking army dies, you reload. Is this all right?

This kind of reloading is also illegal.

3 What are the savetimes? 4000bc, 1ad, 1000ad, endgame?

The required .sav's are 4000bc and the turn after you win. The submission page also has three other .sav slots for other turns in between. Those three others are optional, but providing the .sav's makes it much easier to for me to analyze games.

 

[MeteorPunch]

No, this is not legal.

I could be wrong about this, but I feel start location is possibly the most important determiner of a Civ game. So, 2 more questions:

can the moderators actually check to see if someone used these "exploits?" I'll admit, no.2 there is definately cheating.

Also, what's the difference to using a map selection program? That's still kinda cheating too.

 

[bed_head7]

The GOTM and HoF moderators have their ways. Methods beyond the comprehension of simple minds like yours and mine.

Using MapFinder (the map selection program to which you refer, I think) automates a process that could be done easily enough by a human. It starts the game, sees if there are certain tiles (and you preset your requirements) and it saves games for you to play later. It does not check out the surroundings or learn anything that you could not learn yourself by doing the same thing. It does tell you domination limit of the map, which apparently can be extracted legally in some way from the save, another detail which I am not sure of.