HOF Rules Discussion

[TimBentley]

3. As stated above, when a city is in Civil Disorder, The Mob may level buildings in your city.

Not if it only riots for one turn.

 

[EMan]

I thought the idea with "Worker Exploit" was to have the city rioting for MANY turns..............if it quits rioting, then it will begin Starving.....and Specialists don't count on starvation turns.

 

[Moonsinger]

That Civil Disorder Exploit seems like a lot of works and the pay off isn't much! I think you are all better off finding map with high domination limit and good starting location with two or more cows. IMO, an extra 100 tiles or more tiles for farming would out-score any Civil Disoder Exploit.

 

[LulThyme]

Other than the Cure for Cancel and the Longvity which I could easily prebuild both of them ahead of time (hint: use the palace to prebuild one of them and the UN or the Internet or whatever useless Wonder to prebuild the other), Wonders are useless in a milk game.

I dont want to be disrespectful, Moonsinger, but all you comments seem to be about all these exploits have no "big" effect on score.
-I think how big the effect on score isn't that relevant, but wheter its an exploit or not. Even if somethings has a rather small effect, if it completly against the spirit of the game, or exploiting what is clearly a bug, then it should be dissallowed.
-Many (most?) games in the HOF are NOT played for score, and many of the bugs mentionned here (would) have GREAT consequences on those games.


I want to make it understood that I do not say I disagree with anything specific you say, just that saying something has a small effect on your kind of game (early killing of everybody, then milk the rest of the game) is not an argument for or against it being an exploit or not.

 

[EMan]

I agree with you LulThyme except to say that playing a Milk game on lower levels does not compare to Milking at Sid Level.............It is NOT possible at Sid on a Huge map (viz. Moonsinger's #1) to "early killing of everybody".......in fact I'm not sure that MS in her game even had ANY Military in the Ancient Age........I think a High-Scoring Sid Game on a Huge Map requires MAJOR knowledge of EVERY aspect of the game.....and I think MS's point was that the "Rioting City Exploit" is NOT a major factor in the Big Picture of an entire game!

My definition of an Exploit is something which is widely Accepted as a BUG in the Civ program AND a bug that will ALWAYS have a SIGNIFICANT adverse impact on the Final Score or End-Date of a game!

 

[LulThyme]

Well how about earliest possible killing of everybody.
My point still stands, wheter it is a major factor or not just says how pressing the issue of deciding if it is legal or not, not what the outcome of the issue should be, so in a way talking about that is not really constructive.

 

[EMan]

I agree with you.

However, questions come to mind!:

1. The Exploit is Based on what information? (Talk or Game Examples?)
2. One Position or Multiple Positions; Games for and against the Exploit?
3. Delete games from HOF that used the newly-defined Exploit?
4. Who will contact ALL the authors of ALL the HOF games to explain the New Rule(s) and then ask them whether they used an Exploit in their game?
5. Or, do you have to "wipe the HOF clean", every time you add an Exploit Rule?.......This would be unthinkable IMO!

 

[DaveMcW]

We shouldn't even be having this discussion. The "worker dogpile" exploit has been banned in the GOTM and HOF for years. I don't know why it got left out of the latest exploit list, but it should be re-added immediately.

The math is simple: 1 specialist with 0 food upkeep beats 1 happy person with 2 food upkeep. Calculate a bit more and you'll see you can score 80k on regent with a dozen cities at 9999 pop.

Suggested wording:
"You may not join workers to a city that is starving."

 

[punkbass2000]

I could be wrong, but a city in disorder isn't starving. I would imagine this exploit wasn't listed because it was supposedly fixed. AFAIK, it was only a recent discovery by Worthington that you can circumvent the code that prevents infinite-worker-joining by having a city in disorder, so that it consumes no food whatsoever.

 

[Moonsinger]

I dont want to be disrespectful, Moonsinger, but all you comments seem to be about all these exploits have no "big" effect on score.
-I think how big the effect on score isn't that relevant, but wheter its an exploit or not. Even if somethings has a rather small effect, if it completly against the spirit of the game, or exploiting what is clearly a bug, then it should be dissallowed.

As I said previously, I have absolutely no objection on it being banned and I have been labeled it as an "exploit" and should be banned. However, I'm really curious on to see how big of an impact would this exploit has on the final score and that doesn't seem much.

-Many (most?) games in the HOF are NOT played for score, and many of the bugs mentionned here (would) have GREAT consequences on those games.

My focus was strictly on a milked games because most of my games were milked; therefore, I will leave the rest of the un-milked issues up to you.

I want to make it understood that I do not say I disagree with anything specific you say, just that saying something has a small effect on your kind of game (early killing of everybody, then milk the rest of the game) is not an argument for or against it being an exploit or not.

I haven't disagreed with anything everyone were saying so far. Just simply want to see how far it goes...perharps knowing how to detect it being used in a game.

 

[Moonsinger]

Well how about earliest possible killing of everybody.
My point still stands, wheter it is a major factor or not just says how pressing the issue of deciding if it is legal or not, not what the outcome of the issue should be, so in a way talking about that is not really constructive.

Before today, I didn't even aware of this Civil Disorder Exploit...but now, I think I know everything there is to know about it...I consider that's very constructive. Since I'm in the programming business for a living, I seek to understand more about the behavior of the bug rather than just simply label it as "bug".

 

[Moonsinger]

I agree with you.

However, questions come to mind!:

1. The Exploit is Based on what information? (Talk or Game Examples?)
2. One Position or Multiple Positions; Games for and against the Exploit?
3. Delete games from HOF that used the newly-defined Exploit?
4. Who will contact ALL the authors of ALL the HOF games to explain the New Rule(s) and then ask them whether they used an Exploit in their game?
5. Or, do you have to "wipe the HOF clean", every time you add an Exploit Rule?.......This would be unthinkable IMO!

I concur! Stealing is a crime, there is no question about it. However, I would not make a big deal about it if the thief was just stealing a few pennies here and there in comparing to a huge amount of cash.

 

[LulThyme]

Oh! Im all for discussing the exact working\mechanics of these bugs, thats very important, and I guess discussing their impact makes sense to a point, I just got the impression from a few of your post that if it didn't impact score, it wasn't worth discussing, but it seems I was wrong which is great.

In any case, what Dave is saying mostly implies to me that the problem is mostly that many rulings have already been made and need to be officialized.

To take myself as an example. I have been reading this board for maybe 8 months without missing a single post, and though I may just have forgotten, I know many of the things mentionned in the last few pages I would be hard pressed to know if they are legal or not, and they are not in the rule list.

 

[LulThyme]

I agree with you.

However, questions come to mind!:

1. The Exploit is Based on what information? (Talk or Game Examples?)
2. One Position or Multiple Positions; Games for and against the Exploit?
3. Delete games from HOF that used the newly-defined Exploit?
4. Who will contact ALL the authors of ALL the HOF games to explain the New Rule(s) and then ask them whether they used an Exploit in their game?
5. Or, do you have to "wipe the HOF clean", every time you add an Exploit Rule?.......This would be unthinkable IMO!

I dont understand question 1 and 2.

3,4,5 are sorta related.
My opinion on this :
Most of the things we are discussing here are either minor, or have sorta been implicitly agreed on by everybody in the past.
What needs to be done is update the rule list, but I dont think it is necessary to go back and modify the HOF.

 

[Gyathaar]

Now let's talk about Civil Engineers in the Middle Game.
Okay, you're right....if you add workers to a rioting city and turn them into civil engineers, each worker added will add 2 shields to the city production providing it's an improvement or Wonder.

This does not work.. the city will not produce shields when in riot, and if you set it so it doesnt riot, the civil engineers are converted to taxmen or scientists before the procuction phase (and after the commerse phase) so you gain nothing.

Some other considerations:
1. When your Riot city gets Pollution, and it probably will, the city will CEASE to riot for that turn!...AND, you will have to set up the "Riot Structure" all over again
2. When a city starves on a turn, the Civil Engineers' shields do NOT get added to the Production Box
3. As stated above, when a city is in Civil Disorder, The Mob may level buildings in your city.

I'm NOT saying the Big Rioting Cities is NOT an exploit.....BUT, it's not that clear that it is!

To prevent this you could just build the city on a 1 tile island (or only allow it to work water tiles that cant be polluted). As for loosing buildings.. the only buildings you need is aqueduct and hospital, and I dont think you can destroy a hostital in a city that is larger than size 12

Personally I think this should be banned, thou I have no idea how big impact it would have on score. Since it was clearly theintent that you should not be allowed to have more citizens in a town than its food allows.

Now.. the real grey area is for size 12 cities before hospitals that you add workers into just to make them riot and do research... the cities will easilly have enough food available for you to simply add the workers into them without having to let the cityriot first.. You just join the workers, let it riot and do research for you.. These cities will need to improvements at all.. you just build them on a river or fresh water in a highly corrupt part of empire, and dont connect them to your luxes. Later all you have to do is connect the road, rush a market by disbanding units and you instantly have a size 12 city with 12 happy people when you no longer need to research fast.

I expect you only need 1 of these in AA, and a few of these in the MA to do 4 turns research with 0% sci. They would mostly likely be producing somewhere between 24 and 30 science beakers per turn (make sure they work only unroadded tiles, and is as corrupt as possible to lower the effect they get from lux tax)

 

[Aeson]

We shouldn't even be having this discussion. The "worker dogpile" exploit has been banned in the GOTM and HOF for years. I don't know why it got left out of the latest exploit list, but it should be re-added immediately.

It was only left off because it had supposedly been fixed. There is a hard cap at size 255 that would limit the impact somewhat but it would still allow for quite a boost in scoring when used. Probably 1.5x max score or thereabouts.

Definitely should not be allowed.

 

[superslug]

The HOF is NOT a Democracy, since we don't do things by vote or with elected officials!

Has anyone suggested otherwise? If so I have to assemble a firing squad. Hmm, Dianthus doesn't have great aim, maybe ainwood can help.

Therefore, I feel you should WEIGHT favorably the answers of the PROVEN, STRONGER (Defined by results in HOF) players......like Moonsinger....obviously one of the strongest players in the CFC World.

Despite the rampant discussion, it's not likely to have much affect on me as I compile full comprehensive rules this weekend. There will probably be little change, just clearer presentation.

From time to time there will be situations where I feel poster input is helpful in my decisions. Those particular cases get specific threads, but again, those cases are advisory, not votes.

 

[superslug]

We shouldn't even be having this discussion. The "worker dogpile" exploit has been banned in the GOTM and HOF for years. I don't know why it got left out of the latest exploit list, but it should be re-added immediately.

Just did so, and used your wording verbatim.

As far as having this discussion, I'm not so sure it was pointless. While it didn't sway me much at all, it is educational. And it did get the exploit back on the list where it should be!

 

[Aeson]

Worker dogpiling, for score or research rate, is something that is possible to detect.

 

[superslug]

It was only left off because it had supposedly been fixed. There is a hard cap at size 255 that would limit the impact somewhat but it would still allow for quite a boost in scoring when used. Probably 1.5x max score or thereabouts.

Definitely should not be allowed.

Thanks for dropping by!