HoF Rules: Objective Analysis

[da_Vinci]

"- Any action that a) is beneficial to the player without exception and b) takes advantage of poor AI intelligence is considered an exploit."

MadDjin disagreed:

Let's please not enter into territory that is:

The developers were not good at making the AI do 'X'.
Therefore, do not exploit the fact that they suck at 'X' else your game will not be accepted.

...

Now I'll get a bit harsh here, but we shouldn't over generalize.

The AI can't handle battle formations and loses wars constantly even though they have 'bonuses' to unit production and maintenance costs. Is that an exploit if you destroy them?
The AI can't handle spending their cash on CSs to keep them as allies. Is it an exploit if you spend gold or perform the CS quests to get them away from the AI?
The AI doesn't know that going to war with you prevents buying of the CSs they are allied to. Is it an exploit to do the same to them?
The AI can't figure out that paying another AI to attack you is a good plan. Is that an exploit when you do it?
The AI gains or loses, depending on the difficulty level, bonuses. This is to make up for the fact that the AI does not handle all systems well. THAT is their way of covering over the problems with the AI 'exploits'.

The opening quote can be restated - "Every action that a) is beneficial to the player without exception and b) takes advantage of poor AI intelligence is considered an exploit." Stated this way, we see how that could be a really long list. I am afraid that thinking meets this criterion of an exploit. Although for some, maybe thinking is not necessarily beneficial without exception?

I think what I was begining to allude to in my 1a, 1b, and 1c categories of abuse above is that perhaps abuse of the AI alone is not sufficient criterion, since so many routine actions in Civ V take advanage of the AI's inability to think. If the abuse of the AI is rapidly repeatable, yields large NET benefits per cycle, and/or violates the "spirit" (if not the letter) of the game in some way, then that AI abuse rises to a level that is ban-worthy. There is subjectivity in each of these additional thresholds. But simply gaining an advantage by out-thinking the AI doesn't seem to work well as a definition of an exploit.

Maybe what we want to say is more like:

"- Any action that a) is beneficial to the player without exception and b) takes advantage of poor AI intelligence is a candidate for being considered an exploit." And then we need to develop a set of "case law" as various actions come to judgement by HOF staff.

dV

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I am afraid that thinking meets this criterion of an exploit. Although for some, maybe thinking is not necessarily beneficial without exception?

Thinking is not an IN-GAME action...maybe we need to state that explicitly? I think it's reasonable to imply in-game actions being exploits before we start trying to police what substances people use while playing .

I extend my challenge to Ozbenno to you also: come up with a couple things that meet that criteria. It's actually not so easy to think of tactics that are ALWAYS beneficial to do. They might be consistently beneficial in a given situation, but that's not good enough to fail that check. It has to ALWAYS be beneficial to do it no matter what. Literally none of Madjinn's examples are something you should do at first opportunity without exception in an optimized game. If you insist I'll go with it line by line:

The AI can't handle battle formations and loses wars constantly even though they have 'bonuses' to unit production and maintenance costs. Is that an exploit if you destroy them?

Is it consistently beneficial without exception to be declaring war to do this? If that were the case players would just declare war on everything right away but it's reasonably obvious that despite the AI suckage in war it's not always beneficial to go to war with them, only sometimes.

The AI can't handle spending their cash on CSs to keep them as allies. Is it an exploit if you spend gold or perform the CS quests to get them away from the AI?

Buying out crappy city states that give you no resources in return to the detriment of AI diplo when you can be using that gold for RA or even units doesn't seem particularly sound. Not only does this not hold up against alternatives on a consistent basis, it's not even consistently a net-positive action.

The AI doesn't know that going to war with you prevents buying of the CSs they are allied to. Is it an exploit to do the same to them?

Once again despite AI ineptitude in war planning/execution it's not always a good idea to be spamming war with it non-stop to gain these benefits. Even if you're pursuing a diplo win and want to keep Siam from buying out your city states, you're probably not going to DoW him ASAP. This suggests that there are opportunity costs to this tactic that outweigh it; even when you might consider it useful!

The AI can't figure out that paying another AI to attack you is a good plan. Is that an exploit when you do it?

It's not always a good plan to bring an AI into a war, there are going to be alternate ways to spend your resources and they're not always inferior.

All of these things are beneficial on a situational basis. None of them are beneficial without exception. This is why the "without exception" language is strong; it won't actually ban much but the things that DO meet that criteria should be fairly obvious bans IMO. Possibly, I'm wrong, but I'd like examples.

The case law is for the explicitly banned section.

I'm plenty willing to amend my proposal for the exploit clause, however before I do so I'd like to see someone come up with an example of a tactic or tactics that violates it yet should still be in the game. Certainly, I did this in the opening post for the present rule and would not be offended if someone pulled the same on me. The point of making these rules solid is so that they WILL hold up under scrutiny. Scrutiny on oneself is very difficult; help me out and show me how this rule needs to be amended.

Show me why it doesn't hold up with examples and we'll be a step closer to getting this thing right and moving onto the others.

 

[Denniz]

Moderator Action: This thread is closed. It has begun to distort and confuse the actual HOF Rules. The HOF Staff is responsible for defining the competition rules. The HOF Rules are as stated on the HOF website and in offical threads. Please use the Q&A thread if you are confused or have questions or need clarifications.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889