How powerful are the "exploits"?

[Tabarnak]

Lily Lancer replaces tommynt. The big difference is his ability to speak english much more well than tommy(he's german). But they have both same personalities and skills level.

Lily, you claim that you can do this thing with every civs(and map?). You push the bar very high and of course it will upset some players because you didn't bring all the proofs yet. Looking forward for some more.

 

[HereticalAppendicle]

And now, you're claiming that Scythia is OP in SV because of its Civilization-specific ability.

So you seriously are going to dispute that

1. the AI is completely hapless at combat/war

or that

2. Scythia is a strong early war civ

or that

3. early conquest (taking advantage of the AI's utter incompetence at combat) allows you to snowball and to do basically whatever you want after that, including going for victory types that your civ isn't especially suited for (like SV for Scythia)

You're certainly free to play however you like, with whatever civ, strategy, or victory condition you want. But if you're trying to perform some experiment or demonstration that you can win quickly without abusing massive gameplay advantages/exploits, making ample use of what is arguably the single greatest weakness in the game/AI invalidates the premise and so renders the whole exercise more or less pointless. So, by all means, play as Scythia. Go for a science victory. But do it without the exploit of early domination, if you want to prove what you set out to prove here. Or, if you insist on using early domination to facilitate a peaceful victory type, do it with a Civ that isn't extremely good at early war.

 

[Pietato]

I also believe that the game is too easy, and getting easier with each update, and that science, culture and eras need to be severely slowed down. But you just going around killing every other civ the moment you met them is not exactly proving anything,

 

[HereticalAppendicle]

Yes exactly. I for one remain interested in the premise of the thread/exercise (not in terms of what it says about any particular player's skill level- I could honestly not care any less about the e-peen measuring angle here- but rather what it reveals about the gameplay mechanics and the relative viability of various strategies in light of those mechanics)... but like I said already, making ample use of arguably the most glaring flaw/exploit in the game makes banning these other exploits sort of moot, and defeats the entire purpose of the experiment as far as I can tell. If you want to show that its possible to win quickly in Civ 6 without abusing massive flaws in the game or the AI, don't go for the early domination -> science/culture/whatever route, or if you absolutely must do so, do it with a civ that is especially weak at that rather than one who is especially strong at it (like Scythia, or like Sumer, Aztec, Nubia, etc). Otherwise you're just establishing what everyone knew already- that early war is super OP (because the AI sucks at combat) and allows you to do whatever you want, like go for a fast SV with Scythia.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

Lily Lancer replaces tommynt. The big difference is his ability to speak english much more well than tommy(he's german). But they have both same personalities and skills level.

Lily, you claim that you can do this thing with every civs(and map?). You push the bar very high and of course it will upset some players because you didn't bring all the proofs yet. Looking forward for some more.

This is a very true statment.
LL and Tommynt are one in the same personality in my opinion.
They both are very high tier Civ Players as well.
I miss reading Tommynt's posts but like you say, LL has basically replaced him.
The only difference is Civ VI instead of Civ V.
Keep up the good work @Lily_Lancer!
I too am looking forward to more of your detailed Let's Play posts.

Yes exactly. I for one remain interested in the premise of the thread/exercise (not in terms of what it says about any particular player's skill level- I could honestly not care any less about the e-peen measuring angle here- but rather what it reveals about the gameplay mechanics and the relative viability of various strategies in light of those mechanics)... but like I said already, making ample use of arguably the most glaring flaw/exploit in the game makes banning these other exploits sort of moot, and defeats the entire purpose of the experiment as far as I can tell. If you want to show that its possible to win quickly in Civ 6 without abusing massive flaws in the game or the AI, don't go for the early domination -> science/culture/whatever route, or if you absolutely must do so, do it with a civ that is especially weak at that rather than one who is especially strong at it (like Scythia, or like Sumer, Aztec, Nubia, etc). Otherwise you're just establishing what everyone knew already- that early war is super OP (because the AI sucks at combat) and allows you to do whatever you want, like go for a fast SV with Scythia.

You joined this forum on Monday and you are criticizing one of the better players on these boards.
He rolled a random Civ and Map.
This is not his first time showcasing this type of game with banning all those exploits.
He has done it over and over again proving that the game can and should be won before a certain time.
Just because you don't like his straight forward brashness doesn't mean that he doesn't know what he is talking about.
It's not like @Lily_Lancer just joined the forum on Monday and started making wild claims.
The guy has just about 2000 Posts in about 3 years.

 

[HereticalAppendicle]

You joined this forum on Monday and you are criticizing one of the better players on these boards.

Yep. And?

And actually, I'm not criticizing the player. As I said, they're free to play however they like. I only pointed out that abusing what is probably the biggest flaw in the game/AI defeats the purpose of this exercise. The players skill level doesn't magically change or contradict that, and I never commented on their skill level anyways. For all I know, they're an excellent player. But as I said already, I don't care about anyone's skill level here. I was interested in the premise of this exercise (for what it showed about the game, not about any individual players skill level), and so was disappointed when it was rendered moot by making use of an even greater flaw in the game than the banned "exploits".

Just because you don't like his straight forward brashness doesn't mean that he doesn't know what he is talking about.

I don't have any problem with their "straight forward brashness"- I didn't even notice them being brash. Nor did I say they don't know what they're talking about. If you weren't going to respond to anything I actually said, why did you quote me and give the false impression you were replying to me?

The guy has just about 2000 Posts in about 3 years.

That's nice. Still not relevant, but nice all the same.

 

[leandrombraz]

You joined this forum on Monday and you are criticizing one of the better players on these boards.
He rolled a random Civ and Map.
This is not his first time showcasing this type of game with banning all those exploits.
He has done it over and over again proving that the game can and should be won before a certain time.
Just because you don't like his straight forward brashness doesn't mean that he doesn't know what he is talking about.
It's not like @Lily_Lancer just joined the forum on Monday and started making wild claims.
The guy has just about 2000 Posts in about 3 years.

Are you serious? Is there a rule that prevents newcomers from fully participating that I'm not aware of? Some kind of Civfanatics official hierarchy that puts older members and members with a lot of messages above everyone else and above criticism? Did we become that elitist? If so, @HereticalAppendicle can use my Civfanatics street credits to do his comments at will. I think I earned some by now and I don't mind sharing.

Respect is earned, not given. I couldn't care less about how good Lily is, I won't take his "straight forward brashness" without answering at the same level, nor mindless accept every claim he makes, mostly when it's so blatantly wrong (and he knows it is wrong). There are a lot of good players here that know how to be humble and respectful, who shares their knowledge without making statements that diminish others and who can take criticism when whatever they are demonstrating doesn't pay off. Those I respect deeply and I value their collaboration way more than Lily's.

He rolled a random Civ and Map.

How he landed with that specific setup doesn't change the fact that he achieved this time with that specific setup, which clearly affected the result. If Lily was serious about proving anything and offering useful insight, he would acknowledge that, but that isn't really the reason he did this thread now, is it?

This is not his first time showcasing this type of game with banning all those exploits.

How many of those he won without abusing the AI weaknesses in combat or some other kind of broken mechanic?

He has done it over and over again proving that the game can and should be won before a certain time.

Like he did here? Oh wait... 220? Ridiculous.

Can he actually repeat this result consistently? Would he have done it if he had landed with Georgia or Canada, for instance? It didn't went that well as the Ottoman, so... idk, maybe I was right when I said:

It doesn't matter if it was random. You got Scythia and a Pangaea and made full use of her ability there, which certainly had a considerable effect on your win time. You can't call that baseline for anything but an aggressive Scythia game on a Pangaea, which is what that was.

Maybe the new guy is right. Imagine that, a guy that joined this Monday, posting commentaries with accurate questioning and stuff...

 

[cfc]

"Respect is earned, not given." You wrote this, leandrombraz. Still you havn´t played the save Lily offered, why is that? And this is not the first time Lily offered people to play the saves he´s been playing and none of his critics has done it. No, just pointless and disgusting bullying and bashing towards Lilly. So, no respect whatsoever for you or your friends in this matter.

 

[leif erikson]

Moderator Action: It is time to cease discussing each other and get back to the thread topic.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

Are you serious? Is there a rule that prevents newcomers from fully participating that I'm not aware of? Some kind of Civfanatics official hierarchy that puts older members and members with a lot of messages above everyone else and above criticism? Did we become that elitist? If so, @HereticalAppendicle can use my Civfanatics street credits to do his comments at will. I think I earned some by now and I don't mind sharing.

Moderator Action: While we hope participants will fully participate on these forums, there is a requirement to be civil to one another and discuss the subject at hand instead of each other. This thread has become about LL instead of the points he is trying to make. It is time to cease the personal stuff and get back to the topic. If you cannot get past LL's personality, then move on to other threads or face the consequences.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Like he did here? Oh wait... 220? Ridiculous.

That game was pre-NFP, a 218T SV with Ottomans, also under the settings of banning exploits( trade, pillage, chop etc.)

So basically this shows that NFP makes it faster for ban exploit SVs. (at that time Moksha didn't have the spaceport purchase ability, and campus didn't get +2 from reefs, religions follower beliefs not that strong,etc. there were also some other huge differences. )

Also at that time I was new to the "ban exploit" setting and wasted a lot of time before and after I researched Spaceport at T172.

So, yes, the 200T word is for NFP games after June patch.

 

[leandrombraz]

"Respect is earned, not given." You wrote this, leandrombraz. Still you havn´t played the save Lily offered, why is that? And this is not the first time Lily offered people to play the saves he´s been playing and none of his critics has done it. No, just pointless and disgusting bullying and bashing towards Lilly. So, no respect whatsoever for you or your friends in this matter.

I don't have the time, nor the will to play in a way that I don't enjoy.

I'm trying to finish a game before the next DLC comes out and I probably won't have the time to do even that. I won't abandon my game to start another game that I have to play in a way I don't enjoy, that I also won't be able to finish before the game updates, just to show off on Civfanatics. I have nothing to prove to anyone, I didn't make any claim besides pointing out the obvious. Besides, that would be quite pointless. If I play peacefully, I won't win anywhere near turn 200. I don't need to play Lily's game to know that. If I play aggressively, I'm not sure what I would be trying to prove (That I can win even earlier? What would be the point, aside from inflating my own ego?), mainly considering that I already saw Lily's game, which gives me foreknowledge and puts me in an advantage that taints the test. I can just copy what he did. Comparing a blind game to one where I already know how things will play out is pointless and it would serve only for me to brag about the result. Nobody would learn anything from it. I'm not going down that road.

 

[PotatoMcWhiskey]

Speaking personally here, I would consider going to war with the AI a bigger "exploit" than the 4 exploits "banned" at the start of this thread.

Its a bit like banning all the weakest exploits in the game, but using the biggest one available and being like "look see? it isn't that hard"

Its why I primarily play peaceful games and avoid war at all costs playing as greedy as possible to make the game more interesting for myself, since war based games basically boils down to "when do I get to the tipping point of killing cities in less than 3 turns and snowball out of control" Scythia as a civ basically reaches that tipping point in the Classical/Medieval Era.

I find it a bit absurd to claim that off a single test with the least powerful "exploits banned" that the typical SV game will take 200 turns. In my personal experience in games where I'm not trying too hard accross dozens of games with dozens of different civs avoiding war completely it takes me on average 230-260 turns to win a SV which I think is a pretty reasonable timeframe for even mid level players to achieve on standard small map settings with no war. In games where I am trying hard and going to war etc. it can dip below that by 30-50 turns.

The reality of the situation is that SV is going to take different amounts of time depending on hundreds of variables, your start location alone can shave off 10-20 turns because you get agreeable land with luxuries and nice campus locations with good early production for settlers. Hell, even the positioning of the Future techs can be a difference of 10-20 turns. Thats without even talking about other civs like Scotland and Korea being in your game gobbling up all the good GScientists.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Hell, even the positioning of the Future techs can be a difference of 10-20 turns. .

From this sentence I already know your level. First, you shall try to make this number around 5, at most 7 as NFP increased costs for future era techs, then we may talk about SV strategies without confusing each other too much.

Thats without even talking about other civs like Scotland and Korea being in your game gobbling up all the good GScientists.

It seems that your SVs still rely on Great Scientists? Interesting.

Anyway, you can download the finish save to see what scientists am I recruiting.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

I can just copy what he did. Comparing a blind game to one where I already know how things will play out is pointless and it would serve only for me to brag about the result. Nobody would learn anything from it. I'm not going down that road.

Welcome, you can use this advantage, sure. However, given your previous posts it is hard to believe your ability to "copy what he did". As long as I can see, there're so many fundamental misunderstandings of the game in them.

A suggestion for you: Things are better done than said.

 

[leandrombraz]

Welcome, you can use this advantage, sure. However, given your previous posts it is hard to believe your ability to "copy what he did". As long as I can see, there're so many fundamental misunderstandings of the game in them.

A suggestion for you: Things are better done than said.

There's only two things you did that I usually don't do:

• Played aggressively;
• Bought Spaceports with gold, a mechanic that I've been ignoring since R&F early days and that I'll certainly give another try in my next scientific game. I tend to forget that it exists.

Everything else is pretty much what I do, but without worrying too much about the turn I'm gonna win, so I'm not shy of doing things that will cost me turns in my win time, just for the sake of doing it.

 

[PotatoMcWhiskey]

From this sentence I already know your level. First, you shall try to make this number around 5, at most 7 as NFP increased costs for future era techs, then we may talk about SV strategies without confusing each other too much.



It seems that your SVs still rely on Great Scientists? Interesting.

Anyway, you can download the finish save to see what scientists am I recruiting.

I'm not surprised you think you can surmise my level from a single statement, considering you're using a single game to support all of your claims I don't know what I expected.

Seems like you're more interested in passive aggressively insulting people than taking any reasonable criticism of your claims on board and responding to the people's posts in the most uncharitable interpretation possible, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and remind you that the moderators have already asked people to stop sniping at people.

With regards to the future techs saving time, if the Exoplanet Expedition tech is perfectly positioned behind Nanotechnology, vs positioned behind Robotics that can easily be an extra 10 turns of research at 800-1,200 science per turn before you get it if you've been beelining, since there are 8 techs between Sat/Nanotech beelining and Robotics and so on.

And great scientists can have a pretty big impact on how quickly your game is completed, getting Hypatia, Newton and Einstein early can mean researching universities, Research Labs and spaceport techs sooner which snowballs your tech gains, but you just assumed I meant using great scientists for completing spaceport projects which was the most uncharitable way to interpret what I said. I don't think I've used GScientists or GEngineers for my last like 2 years of science more than 1/5 games where I had a really unfortunate start. Sometimes you get unlucky and drawn into a war, or a scientist is sniped between turns. It happens and can easily add a few turns to your game overall. Caveat being that I don't typically use war to win my science games and hit between the numbers quoted above.

I would really like to hear a response to my above criticism post in a reasonable fashion, instead of a smug thinly veiled insult

 

[HereticalAppendicle]

Speaking personally here, I would consider going to war with the AI a bigger "exploit" than the 4 exploits "banned" at the start of this thread.

Its a bit like banning all the weakest exploits in the game, but using the biggest one available and being like "look see? it isn't that hard"

Yes, this, exactly! Thank you. Making ample use of the single greatest flaw in the AI/game (i.e. the AI being completely worthless at combat/war) invalidates the premise of the whole experiment/demonstration.

Its also telling that no one is addressing this point, and is instead trying to turn it into an e-peen measuring contest about people's skill levels. Its a red herring. Lily Lancer could be the best Civ player in the history of the universe (and I could be the very worst), and it wouldn't change the fact that early war is a bigger "exploit" than any of the banned "exploits" here, and so banning these other lesser exploits is completely moot if you're going to use Scythia to early-blitz the AI and snowball to whatever victory condition you like.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

research at 800-1,200 science per turn before you get it if you've been beelining, since there are 8 techs between Sat/Nanotech beelining and Robotics and so on.

That's why I say we may confuse each other.

My fundamental assumption is that this shall be 2,000~3,500, not 800~1,200. You have Globalization, you have Scott in normal games which you can chop, you have Kilwa Ksiwani, also you have amenity bonus. Cities with all 3 buildings and powered provide 50+ base science, so this number is about 100% more. Late game cities provide 100+ science per turn each. And even on peaceful games you have no less than 15~20 cities.

However if you stay at the 800-1200 range it is sure that what we're saying may be very confusing to each other in all aspects. I always get 2000~3500 science per turn in late game. In this game the science peak is 2007 I guess. (I didn't build Scott as I cannot chop and it takes too long time to hard build, also there's only 1 Scientific CS on the map. So my SPT falls in the lower range.)

Not saying your 800-1200 being "incorrect" or so, just that I don't wanna be judged by misunderstandings and misleading statements. i.e. Judged from a 800-1200 point of view, everything in the 2000-3500 does may be hard to understand. For example, the 2000-3500 may take "How to surpass the 1-tech-per-turn limit" seriously in their games, and it may just be confusing about why doing so from a 800-1200 point of view. Other issues about Spaceport placement, how many builders needed..., etc. may also be totally hard to understand if one doesn't play at 2000-3500 himself.

About your unreasonable blames on great scientists, I really suggest you download the end save at #1 and have a look before making incorrect and misleading statements. Your comments make me laugh, seriously.

 

[PotatoMcWhiskey]

That's why I say we may confuse each other.

My fundamental assumption is that this shall be 2,000~3,500, not 800~1,200. You have Globalization, you have Scott in normal games which you can chop, you have Kilwa Ksiwani, also you have amenity bonus. Cities with all 3 buildings and powered provide 50+ base science, so this number is about 100% more. Late game cities provide 100+ science per turn each. And even on peaceful games you have no less than 15~20 cities.

However if you stay at the 800-1200 range it is sure that what we're saying may be very confusing to each other in all aspects. I always get 2000~3500 science per turn in late game. In this game the science peak is 2007 I guess. (I didn't build Scott as I cannot chop and it takes too long time to hard build, also there's only 1 Scientific CS on the map. So my SPT falls in the lower range.)

Not saying your 800-1200 being "incorrect" or so, just that I don't wanna be judged by misunderstandings and misleading statements. i.e. Judged from a 800-1200 point of view, everything in the 2000-3500 does may be hard to understand. For example, the 2000-3500 may take "How to surpass the 1-tech-per-turn limit" seriously in their games, and it may just be confusing about why doing so from a 800-1200 point of view. Other issues about Spaceport placement, how many builders needed..., etc. may also be totally hard to understand if one doesn't play at 2000-3500 himself.

About your unreasonable blames on great scientists, I really suggest you download the end save at #1 and have a look before making incorrect and misleading statements. Your comments make me laugh, seriously.

An interesting claim on the 2,000-3,500 science number, considering in your own game within the timeframe that I'm talking about - the time between Satellites and nanotechnology - you have about 750 science as you finish Satellites, and around 1500 when you finish Nanotechnology which seems to be about in line with what I said - especially considering I usually don't have globalization when I hit those numbers. I hadn't even checked all of your screenshots before hand but upon review they seem to be very much inline with what I said, only being inflated by about 25% on the high end, again due to the massive size of your empire from going to war which is easily the most powerful "exploit" used in this game which you still haven't addressed and is the most important point I'd like you to respond to. I tend to hit the 800-1200 number on less than 10 cities in teh same timeframe for reference.

Considering you ended with about 2,000 science in this game compared to your 3,500 number, I'll assume this was just a bad game and you could easily hit a 180 turn win with a real science civ and no war + the other exploits?

I would consider conquering the AI far more powerful than chopping, plundering, trading or neighbourhood gold, so its interesting that you didn't ban them and would be highly interested in seeing you run a game without war.

Might be a reading comprehension failure here, and in fact the more I read the more I'm convinced we're having simple communication errors.

The extra support of this is because I'm trying to talk about general cases, with experience from many games, where you might not always get the good great scientists in games where you're not going to war but you keep bringing it back to this specific game, which is not the point I'm trying to make at all because I don't think this specific game is representative of what you claim it to be representative of.

The fundamental criticism here is that your performance while impressive is not perfectly repeatable, scientific, or consistent and cannot be used to generalise about how quickly every civ in the game can win a SV because there are so many variables to consider and "RNG" can quite easily affect your game.

 

[Pietato]

- The game is too easy, and each new update is only making it easier.
- The era counter does not match the actual era speed of the player.
- The game needs to be slowed down, a lot.
- KILLING THE INEPT AI THEN GOING SCIENCE PROVES NOTHING ABOUT THE OTHER 'EXPLOITS', ESPECIALLY WITH SCYTHIA.

Just give it up, lily. Your insistence on warring with anything that moves is only undermining everything you say.