HoF Rules: Objective Analysis

[iggymnrr]

Has anyone played settler level with barbs on? Granted a person wouldn't play settler level for real, but in an HoF setting people will. Personally, I think the only real problem with barbs in civ v is naval units: "trireme beats battleship" situations and archipelego problems.

 

[lawofqr]

Everyone plays settler level with barbs on. Yes it's a pain meeting everyone on a huge islands map for any civ other than Ottomans.

 

[da_Vinci]

i meant original intent. those points are obvious, however they're not proof they purposefully added the counter intuitive mechanic of RA blocking, which rewards players for researching part of the techs they don't want.

I don't think of it as a reward for researching things I don't want ... sometimes I complete the techs I was blocking on for a while (I want them eventually). It's a way to maximize yield from the RA. There is a situation when I don't want a tech ...

The issue that makes tech blocking (probably a better term than RA blocking) potentially an exploit is that it leads to path blocking (or branch blocking, if you prefer). The ability to take a huge swath of the tech tree off the table for RA yields by invensting 33% in the key nodal tech may be what some see as overpowered. One solution to this would be to add more vertical cross links to the tech tree. Of course, that reduces the ability to beeline techs (tech blocking significantly accelerates the ablilty to beeline techs).

dV

 

[da_Vinci]

I had posted these potential criteria for a ban-able setting or tactic:

1. Its clearly a cheat, in the sense of my earliest post here.
2. It violates the spirit of the game (as if there is a consensus on that ... maybe the moderators get to decide that?)
3. It hugely abuses the AI ... taking candy from a baby (again, how huge is huge?)
4. It give the player using it an unfair advantage over other participants in the competition?

Regarding #4, TMIT wrote:

Yes, if this advantage is not applied to all players. Tactics/settings that fall under the category of "more games = more lucky outcomes" are prime candidates for this rule because it literally changes the distribution of player rankings w/o changing quality of play, if only a little bit.

Actually RA tech blocking and RA in general draw a lot of attention from #4.

It's a good point that certain settings might create a wider distribution of map-specific (or also RNG-specific?) luck, such that using certain settings + time to generate and initial play multiple maps per competition cell conveys the "more games = more lucky outcomes" benefit. More attempts means more chance to get into that really lucky tail of the distribution.

It has made me wonder if my criterion 4. only really applies to settings. For tactics, aren't all players free to use it or not, so even if use provides an advantage, if all are allowed to use, where is the inequity? Unless we think that there are certain tactics that can be combined with more maps to generate the "more games = more lucky outcomes" benefit.

Which makes me ask, is my #4 the reason some people think tech blocking might be an exploit? No doubt using it, at least for certain objectives, is a big advantage (actually, how can getting the 20 turn tech from the RA, instead of the 15 turn tech, ever not be an advantage?). But Best Play is always an advantage compared to inferior play. We aren't going to ban Best Play are we? Rather, we want to reward Best Play, and everyone should be seeking to achieve Best Play.

So I don't think the issue with tech blocking is that it is better than not doing it. I think arguments with tech blocking will fall into my categories 1 to 3.

dV

 

[da_Vinci]

I had posted these potential criteria for a ban-able setting or tactic:

1. Its clearly a cheat, in the sense of my earliest post here.
2. It violates the spirit of the game (as if there is a consensus on that ... maybe the moderators get to decide that?)
3. It hugely abuses the AI ... taking candy from a baby (again, how huge is huge?)
4. It give the player using it an unfair advantage over other participants in the competition?

Denniz gave us his list, so I looked at how well they map onto each other.

On the topic of exploits:

The definition of an exploit is subjective. The criteria I use therefore are subjective. Some of them are:

• Is it a balance problem in the game that the games designers should fix? Sounds like my 2 or 3
• Is it a bug that circumvents the normal play in some significant way? Sounds like my 1
• Does it force players to adopt a certain strategy in order to be competitive? Is this my 4?
  (There is a different between a dominant strategy that most players agree is a good approach vs. one that people object to using because they feel it is an exploit. Said another way, if there is a huge thread out there with people posting about whether or not it is an exploit, then it probably is an exploit.)
• Would anyone let you get away with it in a multiplayer game? (Not the way I would have phrased it before I saw it expressed that way, but it is a more succinct that way to put it. ) Maybe this is my 3, if he means you couldn't pull it off against humans, only AI stupidity lets it happen
• Is significant enough to affect HOF standings? People that find out about it first get all the benefit (i.e. medals). Those the come late to the party don't get a level playing field. This sounds like my 4. But the late comers only miss a level playing field if it is banned before they arrive but after the early medalists are entrenched.

I could go on but the essence was best expressed by the example someone gave about the Supreme Court porn case ruling: “I can’t define it but I know it when I see it.”

Perhaps another consideration, again sadly subjective, is whether a tactic, setting, or other issue trivializes the game in some way. An extreme example might be if we allowed everyone to change the code so human combat units all had 10x strength, while AI units had 1x strength. If everyone does it, the playing field is level among the human competitors, but it is not really the same game anymore. This kind of intervention could be argued against by my criterion 1 to 3. Is no one cheating better than all cheating equally?

Unfortunately, Denniz's latecomer disadvantage argument probably applies more to continual patching than to any potential exploit. Well, if exploits get banned late, without retroactive game redactions (which would be pretty hard, I think) that is the ultimate latecomer disadvantage. Hence the attempt to pre-empt exploits from the start. But that is a self-policing approach, which means having as much clarity as possible for the various selves out there as to what potential exploits to ask about before using would be desirable. We are trying to define a line between appropriate vs. inappropriate means to get better results. The problem is always the cases in the center of the distribution.

dV

 

[TheMeInTeam]

the trouble with the gotm or playing a pregenerated random map is the ease of cheating; as far as i know there's no easy way to see if the player opened the map, played through it completely using firetuner to reveal it, then played it multiple times until perfecting the outcome for the map. i'm sure people would abuse that. granted i am cynical.

Same can be said for the "random" HoF maps.

HoF is better against cheating than you might expect, though there are likely some obvious/unfortunate workarounds for the especially paranoid cheaters that always does keep me a little cynical/paranoid also.

Has anyone played settler level with barbs on? Granted a person wouldn't play settler level for real, but in an HoF setting people will. Personally, I think the only real problem with barbs in civ v is naval units: "trireme beats battleship" situations and archipelego problems.

Please don't clog the thread with posts ignoring earlier points . Many issues with barbs even on settler have already been mentioned. Saying you don't think there'd be any problems while completely ignoring arguments suggesting problems is bad form.

Which makes me ask, is my #4 the reason some people think tech blocking might be an exploit? No doubt using it, at least for certain objectives, is a big advantage (actually, how can getting the 20 turn tech from the RA, instead of the 15 turn tech, ever not be an advantage?). But Best Play is always an advantage compared to inferior play. We aren't going to ban Best Play are we? Rather, we want to reward Best Play, and everyone should be seeking to achieve Best Play.

Drawing a LOGICAL line between "best play" and "exploit" that has some reasonable basis is what I've been alluding to doing since the OP.

The reason a tactic can be fitting in #4 is that the outcome of the tactic itself can be sufficiently random to make game spam > skill. Let's use an extreme example to illustrate:

- You're gambling at a casino. You bet $1 and have a 10% chance to receive $1000 in return (never mind that this will bankrupt the house). It is spectacularly obvious you should take this "bet"; the expected return is incredible. However, if 2 people bet $1 in this scenario 10 times, the difference in final cash can be very large. One guy might be $10 in the hole while the other has $2997.

RA at their fundamental level function very much like this. You have a small chance (AI declares on you for example) of getting nothing from the RA or having something interfere with your timing, while the expected ROI is still so ridiculous that you definitely want to spam them, and direct tech where useful (which is often).

I'm afraid HoF is going to be somewhat screwed by patches no matter what. Firaxis didn't finish their game on release and hasn't finished it now. It's neither HoF staff job nor is it truly within their capabilities to finish the game by itself before starting HoF. This is indeed going to mess with the strength of the rankings, but I don't see a way around it; tiering rankings by patch would be a mess just by itself.

 

[vexing]

Same can be said for the "random" HoF maps.

all i know is saves keep track of playing session start/ends, so if a person loads up a good map, plays through it, then plays it again using the initial autosave it will be 100% obvious they did so, as it will say their 2nd session started on turn 1 (and it will violate the 30 minute session length rule). the gotm can't do that. i'm sure there are ways to "successfully" cheat in hof as well, but i expect it's more difficult than the advantage of replaying a map (prescient of where ruins are, on which turn they would grant what benefit, etc)

 

[da_Vinci]

The reason a tactic can be fitting in #4 is that the outcome of the tactic itself can be sufficiently random to make game spam > skill. Let's use an extreme example to illustrate:

- You're gambling at a casino. You bet $1 and have a 10% chance to receive $1000 in return (never mind that this will bankrupt the house). It is spectacularly obvious you should take this "bet"; the expected return is incredible. However, if 2 people bet $1 in this scenario 10 times, the difference in final cash can be very large. One guy might be $10 in the hole while the other has $2997.

RA at their fundamental level function very much like this. You have a small chance (AI declares on you for example) of getting nothing from the RA or having something interfere with your timing, while the expected ROI is still so ridiculous that you definitely want to spam them, and direct tech where useful (which is often).

An interesting example. In your gambling case, I think it is fueled by the low probabilty of the good outcome. In the RA case, what has the low probability is a poor outcome. There will be variation in the good outcomes of RA, but the probability that RA beats no RA is pretty high.

But if there were a Civ tactic that works 10% and fails 90%, most of us would not use it, unless we have the luxury of playing 100 games per cell to get the benefit 10 times. I can't think of one offhand, but if it could be policed, it might be worth considering a ban on your remove game spam > skill criterion.

dV

 

[Martin Alvito]

There will be variation in the good outcomes of RA, but the probability that RA beats no RA is pretty high.

If you know what you're doing, RAs will lead to huge advantages much more often than they lead to situations implying a restart. Personally, I am a much better strategist than tactician and micromanager, so I tend to shaft myself more often than those that play the game exceptionally well.

In my opinion, no logical, ex ante line between optimal play and exploit exists. It seemed quite clear to me that RA blocking violated developer intent, given an objective analysis of the situation. It is also quite clear that I was wrong, and that the developer intent standard is flawed. (An objective, "what the developer logically must have intended" standard could work but requires far too much education to be actionable.)

I believe that the best solution is that we put our heads together, declare the behaviors we find unacceptable because they both violate the spirit of the game and are enforceable, and agree that anything else goes. If a problem with the mechanics cannot reasonably be enforced by the HoF staff, we should not ask them to enforce it and we should instead just all agree that it's kosher and use the problem until patched out.

 

[iggymnrr]

I believe that the best solution is that we put our heads together, declare the behaviors we find unacceptable because they both violate the spirit of the game and are enforceable, and agree that anything else goes. If a problem with the mechanics cannot reasonably be enforced by the HoF staff, we should not ask them to enforce it and we should instead just all agree that it's kosher and use the problem until patched out.

This might be the best statement in all this discussion. Personally I believe that the HoF was a bit premature. The game itself has had problems will failed expectations which are slowly being resolved. It is no surprise that these same failed expectations would create much negative emotions with things, like the HoF, surrounding them. Gauntlets, meanwhile, avoid this simply because the limited time frame in which they are played also limits expectations.

 

[Max M.]

Huts definitely deserve discussion for being banned. It's almost silly that they're in the game especially compared to some of the other rules.

Uh, I think I'll take that ungrateful part of advocating huts. Me is actually OK with both huts on and off, but:

Spamming maps until every hut (ruin) is an ideal outcome isn't an "exploit"?

Is this ever possible (w/o reloading for each hut with random reseed on)? I don't think so. More over, my vision is that:
"The more random factors are in game, the less chances you can get a positive outcome of every random thing". Thus, banning all random options won't automatically make the game more balanced - the result will most likely be the opposite. Just don't take it wrong - i.e. of course I do not mean the ideal game should be a complete random mess and a total roulette, but blindly treating something as "cheatable" just because it's "random" is a very questionable approach (mostly because randomness is in the very core of this game - you won't transmute it into Chess by disabling all random factors that are possible to disable).
Just imagine a game with huts off, barbarians off, "balanced" resources on etc. etc. - what's left? Starting spot, yours and AI positioning and lands in between - now THAT's what I would call easy cheatable with infinite rerolling.

There're some obviously broken "random" factors (things like El Dorado in particular - I don't doubt it should be patched out - at least with a HoF MOD as soon as it comes). But huts (and barbarians as discussed earlier) can be seen as yet another "balancing" factor - within a certain point of view. Yeah, that may sound strange, but...

 

[da_Vinci]

In my opinion, no logical, ex ante line between optimal play and exploit exists. It seemed quite clear to me that RA blocking violated developer intent, given an objective analysis of the situation. It is also quite clear that I was wrong, and that the developer intent standard is flawed. (An objective, "what the developer logically must have intended" standard could work but requires far too much education to be actionable.)

Short a clear statement of developer intent, all we have on that is "what developers SHOULD have intended" or "what we THINK the developer intended", which as you say is a tricky criterion, particularly if we are all trying to apply it to all kinds of tactics a priori.

I believe that the best solution is that we put our heads together, declare the behaviors we find unacceptable because they both violate the spirit of the game and are enforceable, and agree that anything else goes. If a problem with the mechanics cannot reasonably be enforced by the HoF staff, we should not ask them to enforce it and we should instead just all agree that it's kosher and use the problem until patched out.

This makes a lot of sense. Two things to consider banning: things within a single game that violate the spirit of the game, and perhaps things that have a low probability of a spectacular advantage, and a high probability of no advantage or a disadvantage. The latter option or tactic, if allowed, rewards having the time to play enough trials to realize the spectacular advantage. It is a unique problem of a "best ball" type of competition.

So should huts or barbs be banned? There's this view:

Uh, I think I'll take that ungrateful part of advocating huts. Me is actually OK with both huts on and off, but:

Is this ever possible (w/o reloading for each hut with random reseed on)? I don't think so. More over, my vision is that:
"The more random factors are in game, the less chances you can get a positive outcome of every random thing". Thus, banning all random options won't automatically make the game more balanced - the result will most likely be the opposite. Just don't take it wrong - i.e. of course I do not mean the ideal game should be a complete random mess and a total roulette, but blindly treating something as "cheatable" just because it's "random" is a very questionable approach (mostly because randomness is in the very core of this game - you won't transmute it into Chess by disabling all random factors that are possible to disable).
Just imagine a game with huts off, barbarians off, "balanced" resources on etc. etc. - what's left? Starting spot, yours and AI positioning and lands in between - now THAT's what I would call easy cheatable with infinite rerolling.

There're some obviously broken "random" factors (things like El Dorado in particular - I don't doubt it should be patched out - at least with a HoF MOD as soon as it comes). But huts (and barbarians as discussed earlier) can be seen as yet another "balancing" factor - within a certain point of view. Yeah, that may sound strange, but...

I guess the question is whether a series of games with huts/ruins/barbs has a wider distribution of potential outcomes than a series of games without huts/ruins/barbs. My guess is that you might indeed have two bell curves with the same mean, but the one with more random factors has a wider range: the tails of the distribution go out to more extreme good or bad results.

So it's not a question of whether the random factors shift the curve toward higher results (it might, but let's assume it doesn't). Rather it is the shift of the tail of the curve to higher potential results that would be a problem. That has two implications.

1. Results unachievable without the random factors become possible (although improbable) with the right constellation of random benefits.

2. The results in the high tail of the curve for no random factors are now more probable under the allowed random factors situation.

So it seems that while average of all results might not change much random factors or not, best results will preferentially come from the ramdom factors on settings, I think.

And to some extent, the luck of a good conjunction of benficial random effects will influence this.

To paraphrase the old proverb: "Fortune favors the repeater."

dV

 

[Denniz]

If anyone isn't entirely clear on the gold war exploit (if it is one), then check this vid out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utUTuXuIdWQ&feature=channel_video_title

Minute 13 I sell the one gold lux twice in one turn. I gain plenty of cash from it. Granted, I did it because I was about to declare war on the chinese, and the gold just happened to pop just before it so I was able to soak their cash on hand before declaring war.

Is that an exploit?

Good question.

This may seem contradictory but it is a question of intent. Fleecing an AI of it's cash on hand before you attack is acceptable since it denies them cash to upgrade units. But it should be as you did it, trading something concrete. [Trading gold per turn (gpt) for gold is never acceptable.] You have to really be going to war though. No phony wars to circumvent the intent of the rule.

That said, selling the lux again the same turn is borderline but short of a pattern of abuse is okay. (It seems silly to say you should wait x turns.) As I said it is a question of intent. Selling resources each turn for several turns prior to attack (more than one for the rules lawyers) is more about the gold than the war.

It is trying to get something for nothing by mis-using a game mechanic or bug. You should notice the two expolits we banned were related to resources: Gold and culture. Resources are the fuel that drives the game. Unbalance that and you have an exploit. Getting free techs like that Civ4 bug was banned there for the same reason.

RA blocking doesn't seem to raise to the same level. The fact that Firaxis has been tweaking it means they see it as a balance issue. But it is a slow enough process that it is hardly something for nothing.

 

[Denniz]

On the topic of randomness, I am not particularly for or against it. It is part of the Civilization game. The Hall of Fame is about showcasing the best play of the game of Civilization. Luck messes a little with comparability. Sometimes rewards people with extra time. But it also gives different play styles a chance to occasionally rise above the mechanical play produced by the pure crunching of the numbers. In the end, you still have play well to take advantage of whatever good luck you have or overcome the bad luck. Good play shows up through consistency of results. Random luck evens itself out over time.

I would like to see more reports people overcoming a bad break or riding a good one to new heights. That would be Hall of Fame worthy even if there is not way to rank them. Tossing the game at the first adversity may maximize your time for games that may place well in the standings but there isn't that much to talk about. My opinion. :shrug:

I should point out that the rule about barbs is not about one setting being better that the other. Is it merely for the sake of comparability. So was increasing the number of definition of what constitutes an official table to include leader and map type. Barbs on is closer to what one would define as the basic game. Comparing games with the same Victory Condition, Difficulty, Map Size, Speed, Leader, Map Type, and the Barb setting in Civ5 is a lot more precise than just Victory Condition, Difficulty, Map Size, and Speed as we do in Civ4. We eliminate three big variables. Leader and Map Type increased the number of tables from ~14,000 in Civ4 to ~280,000 in Civ5. So it a bit of an experiment. Barbs just is not important enough to double that to close to 600,000. So we picked one. Same thing with Goody Huts.

Random Personalities is a little silly as someone noted. But, if you see a game in the tables with Civ x, you can be sure it was Civ x as you have encountered it in your games.

Resources other than normal/standard were excluded for the same reason that certain map types and the scenarios were left out. They are not the basic game. They are variants of the game, for MP or otherwise, not the basic format. ~280,000 tables will never be filled as it is, we don't want more.


--------------------

The GOTM competition is about everyone playing the same map. Doing that with HOF is redundant. The rule about everyone generating there own maps and playing them only once is about preventing pre-knowledge of the map from influencing results. Everyone can play a map better if they know where the land masses and features are.

--------------------

What else? Ah, yes. The 'C' word. Cheating. We are against it.

Across the versions of Civilization and the forums about them (HOF, GOTM, etc.), I have seen various rationalization and justifications for it and arguments against it. What you do when you are playing for fun is you own business. When you submit a game to a competition like HOF or GOTM, though, you are agreeing to play by the same rules everyone else does. Following the rules is about having the maturity and integrity to compete fairly. You either have it or you don’t. I am happy to say that most do. They are already bigger winners in life than mere online competition can provide. Have fun playing and don’t forget to enjoy the journey in your pursuit of victory.

 

[Max M.]

So it's not a question of whether the random factors shift the curve toward higher results (it might, but let's assume it doesn't). Rather it is the shift of the tail of the curve to higher potential results that would be a problem. That has two implications.

1. Results unachievable without the random factors become possible (although improbable) with the right constellation of random benefits.

2. The results in the high tail of the curve for no random factors are now more probable under the allowed random factors situation.

So it sees that while average of all results might not change much random factors or not, best results will preferentially come from the ramdom factors on settings, I think.

That makes sense. A few remarks though:

Since it's not "best result with huts" vs. "best result without huts" competition (the former is faster of course), the questions about "theoretical limits" vs. "practical considerations" arises... The only difference between these bell curves is how wide they are - i.e. theoretically possible maximum number of turns between the fastest finish and the "not so fast" one. But in both cases the "ideal" win comes from "ideal reroll" and remains "the win" no matter how far above average it is. Now it starts to look like a question more about which set of settings actually encourages the "infinite" rerolling - the one where everything is clear on turn 0..5 (and the fastest finish is just a matter of continuous attempts to apply some icy "ideal" strategy (which will be found for every vc/map-settings sooner or later) to different maps again and again) - or the one where "lucky/unlucky" thing is not so obvious till turn X and "ideal" strategy still needs to be more adoptable (unless you're really hoping to catch "ideal random outcome")?... Something like that...
Or (let's just get back to basics since my English already starts to laugh on me) - is the possibility/probability of "ideal reroll" a valid argument against any option at all? Does it finally make sense to declare something to be not fun only because some robot with infinite time can get unbeatable #1? Or some not-robot can get the same jackpot once per a century? etc. etc. Hmm...

 

[MadDjinn]

Good question.

This may seem contradictory but it is a question of intent. Fleecing an AI of it's cash on hand before you attack is acceptable since it denies them cash to upgrade units. But it should be as you did it, trading something concrete. [Trading gold per turn (gpt) for gold is never acceptable.] You have to really be going to war though. No phony wars to circumvent the intent of the rule.

That said, selling the lux again the same turn is borderline but short of a pattern of abuse is okay. (It seems silly to say you should wait x turns.) As I said it is a question of intent. Selling resources each turn for several turns prior to attack (more than one for the rules lawyers) is more about the gold than the war.

It is trying to get something for nothing by mis-using a game mechanic or bug. You should notice the two expolits we banned were related to resources: Gold and culture. Resources are the fuel that drives the game. Unbalance that and you have an exploit. Getting free techs like that Civ4 bug was banned there for the same reason.

RA blocking doesn't seem to raise to the same level. The fact that Firaxis has been tweaking it means they see it as a balance issue. But it is a slow enough process that it is hardly something for nothing.

ok, so hitting a golden age the turn before attacking and then selling all gpt to an AI with 15k gold on hand is not ok? The AI always has mass gold on hand and the only way to get it from them is a severe one-sided peace deal, or fleecing. You don't get a portion of their gold on hand when you take a city. It's not 'free' given that you're about to go to war.


in a not so different note:

some tactics for being able to get the initial library or the first RA include selling gpt to AIs for cash. Note that the tactic does not include declaring war. It's just to get a loan. (which does not come out even for you over the length of the trade)

Is that an exploit given your [Trading gold per turn (gpt) for gold is never acceptable.]?

 

[Max M.]

humor:

Spoiler :

There's non-zero probability that one can win a deity-domination game without building any units at all (actually nothing but "next turn" clicking needed). It's quite simple: AIs just destroy each other and the last capital is captured by a city-state. More over, there's non-zero probability this could be the fastest deity-domination win. Possible solution for this exploit is obvious: ban city-sates…

 

[Martin Alvito]

Yes, the statement in red is a problem. First of all, it can be read as that no GPT for gold trades are ever acceptable, which I don't think is what was meant given the context. Borrowing from the AIs is often a good idea even though it's costly if you repay the loan. It's an especially good idea when you know that you're going to end the game before 30 turns are up.

Second, selling luxuries then declaring is just as abusive as selling GPT then declaring. Either way, you're giving the AI a resource and then taking it back for your own use. If the AI has a ton of cash, you could sell it cities then reconquer, which I also think is at least as abusive if not more so.

The result is that we have a situation where we don't know what's legal and what isn't, and as a result we can't make reasoned decisions. If we lay down an "X" turns rule, then that encourages us to just delay the abuse, so I don't think that's the answer. Relying on an intent standard is problematic. Intent is hard for the staff to infer; I might have sold the AI stuff fully intending to repay, then had the AI denounce or settle right next to me and changed my mind.

 

[Denniz]

ok, so hitting a golden age the turn before attacking and then selling all gpt to an AI with 15k gold on hand is not ok? The AI always has mass gold on hand and the only way to get it from them is a severe one-sided peace deal, or fleecing. You don't get a portion of their gold on hand when you take a city. It's not 'free' given that you're about to go to war.


in a not so different note:

some tactics for being able to get the initial library or the first RA include selling gpt to AIs for cash. Note that the tactic does not include declaring war. It's just to get a loan. (which does not come out even for you over the length of the trade)

Is that an exploit given your [Trading gold per turn (gpt) for gold is never acceptable.]?

Yes, the statement in red is a problem. First of all, it can be read as that no GPT for gold trades are ever acceptable, which I don't think is what was meant given the context. Borrowing from the AIs is often a good idea even though it's costly if you repay the loan. It's an especially good idea when you know that you're going to end the game before 30 turns are up.

Trading GPT for gold with no intention of keeping the agreement is an exploit and is never acceptable. If you keep the agreement then you are fine.

Second, selling luxuries then declaring is just as abusive as selling GPT then declaring. Either way, you're giving the AI a resource and then taking it back for your own use.

Yes, it is an exploit as well. The amout you can get is more limited. The one exception case is as part of your pre-declaration. I would rather ban the exception then broaden it. If I am underestimating the magnatude of what you can get then let me know. We will ban it too.

If the AI has a ton of cash, you could sell it cities then reconquer, which I also think is at least as abusive if not more so.

I would estimate that what you can get for a city can be more than a luxury. In any case, selling cities for gold just so you can take them back is the same in my mind as pillaging resource to break an agreement.

The result is that we have a situation where we don't know what's legal and what isn't, and as a result we can't make reasoned decisions. If we lay down an "X" turns rule, then that encourages us to just delay the abuse, so I don't think that's the answer. Relying on an intent standard is problematic. Intent is hard for the staff to infer; I might have sold the AI stuff fully intending to repay, then had the AI denounce or settle right next to me and changed my mind.

I agree that judging intent is difficult. We have plenty of examples of what is clear intent. There is only the one exception for luxuries pre-declaration that I am being to regret allowing. Beyond that, intent is inferred from repetition. Same as with barbs pilliaging your luxury. Once might be an accident, twice is streaching credibility. Even once repeated over the course of multiple games streaches credibility. Everyone should avoid even the appearence of impropriety.

 

[MadDjinn]

so...

Basically what you're saying is that normal ingame options, which are somewhat required on Deity play, can't be used. (I wouldn't bother using them below Deity anyways)

I'm fine with your intent though since it's your HoF, but this may just be another point where people are making judgment calls on what the Dev. put into the game. (No, don't take this as a generalization or go off tangent. The game is still in flux and the dev may go about and change the trading system in a month or so to handle these situations)