How powerful are the "exploits"?

[yung.carl.jung]

The exploit is repeated buying/selling. So if I can sell 3 favour in 3 separate deals for 3gpt, and then buy back the 3 favour for 2gpt, and rinse and repeat, that's very clearly an exploit, since there's no way that can be the intentional design.

Most of the other pieces mentioned here (neighbourhoods, upgrades, pillaging, etc...) as a poster listed above wouldn't really be exploits, but they're simply heavily unbalanced features.

fully agree. buying and reselling is definitely an exploit, because it offers a benefit without drawback or opportunity cost (you could argue there is a minor one, but eh..).

Also, as @Victoria pointed out you really need to replay the same map at least thrice to begin to prove anything...

let's be real here. the empirical validity of our Civ experiments approaches zero. they are basically all anecdotal evidence. interesting nonetheless, but we shouldn't really hold ourselves to actual scientific standards, because then we really couldn't say much.

I fully agree with your assesment. imho the single most broken gameplay feature which constantly gets overlooked is locking the AI into friendship, and the fact that friendship is always 100% renewable when it runs out, and completely deflects any form of attack, and is very easy to achieve.. it makes peaceful play a complete breeze. especially compared to Civ 5 with its backstabbing Lizzy & others. there was a real sense of danger/threat. if you have your neighbors befriended the game ends, simple as that.

all of those mechanics mentioned in the OP only help you win faster and more efficiently. friendship locking makes it so that you genuinely cannot lose, as long as you regularly finish before t300. that is much more gamechanging imho.

another borderline broken mechanic no one ever mentions is paying AIs to go to war. in almost all of my games I can pay multiple AIs to go to war with my current neighbor for exactly 1 gold. Not even 1 GPT, one gold. The effect of this is that the AIs economy is crippled and they waste their units in stalemates, lose a trading partner, it's generally never beneficial for the AI and a major benefit to the player. Pay an AI to go to war with your current enemy, then after the war drained them, you have a super easy time taking on your next victim.

I have no problem with disbanding old obsolete units. In fact, I think it should be more common place in a balanced state.

also, please give us back minor gold for disbanding units and great people. it used to be so broken in vanilla, instead of just adjusting the numbers they patched it out. what a shame.

there are so many Great Engineers and Great Merchants which are only useful for CV and useless for every other VC. but you still get them, because you cannot pass (the AI takes like 50 turns to generate a GP in the lategame..). it's such a design flaw, and incredibly frustrating, to get a GP and then instantly delete it because it's factually useless.

I don't understand the point of this radical approach to game balance where everything, including fun (which is the whole point of playing in the first place) must bow to it.

for you

sometimes I play games for fun, sometimes for challenge, and sometimes to fuel my (sado)masochistic tendencies. sometimes playing games can even be a transcendental experience.

 

[DanQuayle]

This adds no gameplay value whatsoever.

It adds gameplay value because it makes the alternative approach of hard-building units more competitive.
Currently militaristic city-states are more or less useless unless you get their suzerain bonus.
Currently unique units that cannot be upgraded into are also more or less useless despite some "cool" abilities.
That would change with increased upgrade costs.

It's just poor game design and an extra hurdle for the AI to manage.

The same hurdle is placed equally on the player and the AI.
If I remember correctly, Deity AIs get +80% bonus to both production and gold. Since production is worth 4 times as much as gold, any mechanics that favors hard building versus gold rush buying/gold upgrading will favor the AI since it is where its "unfair" competitive edge lies.

How so? The human player isn't playing in a vaccuum. The AI would have no idea what to do with your proposed approach, and that would make it easier for the human player.

I recently played a deity game where I upgraded 14 horsemen with gold into coursers on the same turn I discovered Castles.
I only saw 1 courser by the AI in that game. (It was the most advanced unit built by the AI that I saw.)
If I hadn't been able to pillage, maybe I would only have been able to upgrade 6 of them (rough estimate).
If upgrade costs were also double, I would have only been able to upgrade 3 of them.
3 coursers against 1 seems much fairer than 14 against 1, don't you think?

The only thing you should be hard building for 20 turns are wonders.

I am not saying that each individual unit should take 20 turns to build, only that the timing when you reach the critical mass of military units to make an offensive should be delayed (limited by your lower production cities and strategic resources). This will allow the AI more time to get prepared. In my previous example, my 3 upgraded coursers + maybe 6 delayed hard-built coursers would now face maybe 4 coursers from the AI. Or maybe the AI has pivoted to Military Tactics and now has Pikemen!

I don't think you're putting much consideration to any of your suggestions. Everything you suggested has consequences elsewhere in the game yet you speak as if you could isolate them.

Oh, but I have. In fact, I made this specific suggestion knowing that @Lily_Lancer said he was removing chopping from the game. Incorporating Magnus into the equation makes the evaluation much more complex.
I could delve much deeper on that subject if you are interested, but I feel I have already derailed the thread a bit.

We're 4 years into the game. Upgrades work as intended. It's not an exploit, it's by design. You wish the design were different, but at this stage that belongs in a Civ 7 thread, not in an exploits thread.

I am not saying its an exploit, merely that it is heavily unbalanced as I have mathematically demonstrated.
And that in turn, it limits the number of viable alternative strategies.

I don't understand the point of this radical approach to game balance where everything, including fun (which is the whole point of playing in the first place) must bow to it.

Is the current cost to upgrade units more "fun" or "feel" better"?
I don't know. All these are subjective and personal considerations...
Personally, I would argue that an added challenge and diversity of approaches would make the game more fun!

 

[Onii-chan]

I wouldn't necessarily say all those things are exploits but anyway I think the more important part is that most people just... don't really care about how many turns it takes to win. I most certainly wouldn't say that strategy A is non-viable because strategy B takes 5-10 turns fewer to win with on average. That's just a crazy way to look at Civ to me. Maybe if you're playing competitive multiplayer these kinds of things make sense to look at to keep things fair but for most people I just don't really see the point of even talking about this

 

[ATEX]

I wouldn't necessarily say all those things are exploits but anyway I think the more important part is that most people just... don't really care about how many turns it takes to win. I most certainly wouldn't say that strategy A is non-viable because strategy B takes 5-10 turns fewer to win with on average. That's just a crazy way to look at Civ to me. Maybe if you're playing competitive multiplayer these kinds of things make sense to look at to keep things fair but for most people I just don't really see the point of even talking about this

you are ofc completely correct. But w
e discuss it because we are civ-fanatics.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I wouldn't necessarily say all those things are exploits but anyway I think the more important part is that most people just... don't really care about how many turns it takes to win. I most certainly wouldn't say that strategy A is non-viable because strategy B takes 5-10 turns fewer to win with on average. That's just a crazy way to look at Civ to me. Maybe if you're playing competitive multiplayer these kinds of things make sense to look at to keep things fair but for most people I just don't really see the point of even talking about this

Clearly some people here really enjoy improving their gameplay and I don't see nuffin wrong with that. You can win in Civ 6 at the highest diff with just about any strategy, playing entirely "suboptimally" and roleplaying for fun. I've done that, too. But it's not satisfying to me anymore at all. The knowledge that any game, even on Deity, is decided by T50 pretty much means that the only way I can find challenge in this game at all is by improving myself.

Civ 6 is also pretty much just applied maths, because it is one of the few games with zero mechanical skill involved, and I really like figuring these kinds of things out. A map is like a riddle. Many ways to solve it, some are more satisfying than others.

I'm not jumping into roleplaying threads and telling people to play this way or that way, and I don't understand why that courtesy can't be extended to everyone else. Not everyone wants to play optimally, sure, but are we at least allowed to talk about it? Do I have your permission, big bro?

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Clearly some people here really enjoy improving their gameplay and I don't see nuffin wrong with that. You can win in Civ 6 at the highest diff with just about any strategy, playing entirely "suboptimally" and roleplaying for fun. I've done that, too. But it's not satisfying to me anymore at all. The knowledge that any game, even on Deity, is decided by T50 pretty much means that the only way I can find challenge in this game at all is by improving myself.

Civ 6 is also pretty much just applied maths, because it is one of the few games with zero mechanical skill involved, and I really like figuring these kinds of things out. A map is like a riddle. Many ways to solve it, some are more satisfying than others.

I'm not jumping into roleplaying threads and telling people to play this way or that way, and I don't understand why that courtesy can't be extended to everyone else. Not everyone wants to play optimally, sure, but are we at least allowed to talk about it? Do I have your permission, big bro?

Some issues I don't understand at all is that:

1: Those ‘role players' claim they're not playing optimal strategy, just role playing.

2: However, they don't want to make the game more challenging( for example, fix the bugs and exploits, balance trade and chop yield, reduce suzerain bonus etc) because they think if so they won't be able to win again on Deity, also they don't wish to lower their difficulties which I cannot understand.

3: They seem to be very interested in ranking Civs, and are very aggressive in spreading their rankings. They will call others "*******" or sth. like that if others disagree with their rankings.

4: However, their rankings are not based on the level of role play of Civ abilities, they seem to be based on their understanding of power( not real level of power due to their serious misunderstandings), which contradicts to their claim of being "role players".

5: They actually care for their winning time, for example, I see one of them claiming "I can win diplo victory on T220 with multiple aid requests, which suggests my strategy is good", however, when I show him a stable T202 diplo victory without any aid requests, he begins claiming he's more of a "role player", which is confusing as he is the one who focuses on winning time first.

They seem to be in all ways contradict with themselves.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Game started

The dice rolls to an upper-middle Civ, Scythia.

 

[monikernemo]

I wonder if declaring war on AI is an exploit too given how AI are not the most proficient at combat.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

The opening. (The terrain is shuffle.)There're a lot of trees, however I cannot chop them.

And, builder start as usual.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

The 1st Civ met, Canada. The 51st state of the United States.

"You're NOT an independent Civ, you're just a puppet of United States, without its +5 combat strength but as blank as a cat! You shall not be here, GO BACK and I'm waiting for you to provide +3 radius for industrial zones!” Denounce Wilfrid as soon as I meet him.

Because I can't trade with him, for me it is better to denounce him ASAP.

 

[Pietato]

Some issues I don't understand at all is that:

1: Those ‘role players' claim they're not playing optimal strategy, just role playing.

2: However, they don't want to make the game more challenging( for example, fix the bugs and exploits) because they think if so they won't be able to win again on Deity, also they don't wish to lower their difficulties which I cannot understand.

3: They seem to be very interested in ranking Civs, and are very aggressive in spreading their rankings. They will call others "bull sh i t" or sth. like that if others disagree with their rankings.

4: However, their rankings are not based on the level of role play of Civ abilities, they seem to be based on their understanding of power( not real level of power due to their serious misunderstandings), which contradicts to their claim of being "role players".

5: They actually care for their winning time, for example, I see one of them claiming "I can win diplo victory on T220 with multiple aid requests, which suggests my strategy is good", however, when I show him a stable T202 diplo victory without any aid requests, he begins claiming he's more of a "role player", which is confusing as he is the one who focuses on winning time first.

They seem to be in all ways contradict with themselves.

What the hell are you even talking about?

Moderator Action: Please read your own example in post #53 below and follow your advice instead of trolling. leif

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I wonder if declaring war on AI is an exploit too given how AI are not the most proficient at combat.

literally the third time this has been posted ITT. It's not a bad joke, I mean I made it myself, but I wish people would read.

What the hell are you even talking about?

His point is that even the people who roleplay or play "just for fun" care about efficiency in some regard, and care about strong strategies in some regard, contrary to what many people claim, and that "well I don't want to play optimally" is often used to simply deflect criticism. there has been a very negative climate against people tryna have fun with optimal strategies/fast win times/minmaxing and people have been coming in threads (even in this one, just a few posts above.. you know, you could read the thread..) just taking a dump on our parade. it feels like a weird double standard.

now arguably @Lily_Lancer brought this upon himself when he flamed people for playing "badly", something most people on here have never done, but it still feels unnecessarily hostile and unwelcome. it also seems like some people took it very personal when Lily made some comments on their gameplay. I think some people (I know I do) just want a place where they can discuss strategies without someone telling them "OMG why are you even trying to win fast this game is only about fun".

Also note your incredibly hostile tone towards Lily, which is not how normal, civil conversation looks like. Lily's flaming people for playing "bad" and your flaming Lily for their elitism are two sides of the same coin.

 

[Pietato]

Lily, and you, are once again wrong. You are conflating multiple issues, and even combining multiple people into one strawman you can attack.

No one person is doing what he said, and his idea of 'exploits' is completely wrong. Yes, the game is far too easy and is getting easier with each patch, but that does not mean you go around labelling everything an exploit and then act like a victim when you are called out, especially when you are obsessed with win time. Instead, make actual logical arguments. For example:

- Selling diplomatic favour early is too powerful. It not only gives you crucial early gold, but also drains it from the AI. It is sometimes possible to economically cripple an AI opponent, especially if they are seeking a diplomatic victory and therefore valuing favour twice as much as normal.

 

[bengalryan9]

Some issues I don't understand at all is that:

1: Those ‘role players' claim they're not playing optimal strategy, just role playing.

2: However, they don't want to make the game more challenging( for example, fix the bugs and exploits) because they think if so they won't be able to win again on Deity, also they don't wish to lower their difficulties which I cannot understand.

3: They seem to be very interested in ranking Civs, and are very aggressive in spreading their rankings. They will call others "bull sh i t" or sth. like that if others disagree with their rankings.

4: However, their rankings are not based on the level of role play of Civ abilities, they seem to be based on their understanding of power( not real level of power due to their serious misunderstandings), which contradicts to their claim of being "role players".

5: They actually care for their winning time, for example, I see one of them claiming "I can win diplo victory on T220 with multiple aid requests, which suggests my strategy is good", however, when I show him a stable T202 diplo victory without any aid requests, he begins claiming he's more of a "role player", which is confusing as he is the one who focuses on winning time first.

They seem to be in all ways contradict with themselves.

Oh please. I win on deity the vast majority of times, never make use of any of these so called "exploits" of yours, and don't bother playing anywhere near what you would consider optimal.

The irony of you whining about other players having a different opinion than you and being dismissive of your opinion while you yourself constantly whine about other players having a different opinion than you while being dismissive of their opinions is pretty hilarious. Maybe you should take a look in the mirror for once? Is it really that hard to come to terms with the idea that you play the game in a very specific way that most people don't care for, and so our opinions might not fall in line with your strict "conquer everything to do anything approach"?

Those ranking threads you get worked up are fun little games some of us like to play and are by no means a definitive ranking system. You like popping in there and making completely ludicrous claims from time to time ("Gandhi is better than Chandragupta at domination, you noobs!") without ever actually explaining why while being extremely judgmental towards everyone else. I can't imagine why nobody would take you seriously in them...

This thread basically turned in to exactly what I thought it would - a place for Lily to brag about his own playstyle while talking down to everyone else. Can't wait to see how the game turns out... spoiler alert: he'll roll over the overmatched war AI that Civ6 has, call it a diplomatic victory, and then brag about how good he is while wondering why we're all so far behind his level. Exciting!

there has been a very negative climate against people tryna have fun with optimal strategies/fast win times/minmaxing and people have been coming in threads

Yes, let's just pretend that the people "tryna have fun with optimal strategies/fast win times/minmaxing" never antagonize or talk down to everyone else, nor act like this is the only way to play. Clearly you all are completely innocent in all of this and everyone is just picking on you.

Moderator Action: Please do not troll. If you have an issue with another member, please report their post and let staff handle it. leif

 

[yung.carl.jung]

this will be my last post on the forums for a while, the whole experience is just draining and frustrating. I had so much fun talking with you guys @knighterrant81 @Bibor @Denkt @The Highwayman @Victoria , but especially @Fluphen Azine , thank you very much for that, but I'm not super masochistic and frankly the Civ 6 strategy forum was mostly a stillbirth compared to the Civ 5 one, even though there were many beautiful attempts to revive it. the climate here is very toxic recently and that kills all of my enjoyment. I hope maybe the benchmark thread will stay alive, but even if it doesn't it's fine

Yes, let's just pretend that the people "tryna have fun with optimal strategies/fast win times/minmaxing" never antagonize or talk down to everyone else, nor act like this is the only way to play. Clearly you all are completely innocent in all of this and everyone is just picking on you.

now arguably @Lily_Lancer brought this upon himself when he flamed people for playing "badly"

you never read my post, you just come here to start a fight, exactly like I outlined in my other post. if you had read my post, you'd know that I agree with you in this regard. @Pietato also didn't read my post at all, else he would have realized I completely disagreed and critisized Lily for his ridiculous definition of exploits. but alas, I'm bad by association.

but yes, of course people coming into these threads and being combative for absolutely zero reason, especially when the thread does not even interest them, is something I completely made up. this post here never happened:

What the hell are you even talking about?

that's just regular, everyday, nice discourse. exactly how it should be.

I just don't really see the point of even talking about this

yes, indeed, why even try to have a conversation? why would anyone be allowed to post about strategies without constantly being reminded that it's a weird and totally unfun approach to the game?

have a nice day everyone. peace

 

[The Highwayman]

@yung.carl.jung Likewise, I enjoyed our discussions within the strategy forums. I've learned much from you and others. I've temporarily stopped playing Civ VI so I haven't been contributing lately. But hopefully one day you'll come back and we can discuss more strategy! Cheers

 

[bengalryan9]

you never read my post, you just come here to start a fight, exactly like I outlined in my other post. if you had read my post, you'd know that I agree with you in this regard. @Pietato also didn't read my post at all, else he would have realized I completely disagreed and critisized Lily for his ridiculous definition of exploits. but alas, I'm bad by association.

You're not getting criticized for associating with Lily in this thread, you're getting criticized because you're guilty of a lot of the same things he is in other threads. You both make broad generalizations about how most people play the game and when you think most people should win a game, despite constantly being told by several posters that hey, maybe most players don't actually play the game how you think most people do.

There's a big difference between making a post saying something like "Most every good player should be winning their games before T200" versus something like "Some good players are able to win their games before T200". The first statement is dismissive, elitist, and talks down to the vast majority of players here, while the second acknowledges something that can be done and encourages those who might be interested to give it a shot. People have pointed this out time and time again and yet nothing changes.

If I constantly included something like "Conquering the AI in this game takes very little skill and those who take advantage of it are lesser players than I am since I don't need to in order to win on deity" in 90% of my posts, a lot of people here would (rightfully) be ticked off at me and would call me out for being so close minded. I would never do this because who the hell am I to say how anyone else should play the game or enjoy the game. If you want to pursue domination every time you play, then by all means go for it. I respect how others play the game, and it would be nice if people returned the courtesy.

CivFanatics has plenty of players who play at very high levels while min/maxing who are capable of talking to the rest of us without sounding so arrogant so it can certainly be done...

Moderator Action: Your posts could use a bit more civility as well. leif

 

[Minou]

I am going to go out on a limb and say that I love Lily's posts. They are often very informative - my favorite post on this whole board was his scoring of each Civ's unique abilities/units. Of course there are many other great teachers on this forum who are little less in-your-face. Victoria of course has thought us all so much about the game's mechanics and I enjoy DanQuayle's GOTM reports and thread comments. I sure miss Whacker, CivTrader6, and Boyan_Sun - was hoping the New Frontiers pack would lure them back. But tone aside, Lily is posting very useful stuff 9 times out of 10.

He is totally right and helpful too point out that Deity is too easy because of all the broken features. I lost the first Prince game of Civ 6 I ever played because I had no idea what I was doing. But in the past 3 years I have never lost a non-Deity game. To be fair I have lost about a dozen Deity games, but in every case this was in the first ~50 turns. Basically, you can get killed by an aggressive neighbor showing up with 4 Warriors (with +4 combat from difficulty) before you even get Archery and die. But that's about it. If you live past the Ancient era it is almost impossible to lose the game even on Deity. Lily is making a valid point that the hardest level should be very challenging. If people find it too grueling, it is easy to drop down to the next level and still have fun, so making it too hard hurts no one while making it too easy bores players who want a dogfight.

So, as many have said, Civ 6 becomes a race against yourself instead of a contest against enemies. It's not whether you will win, but how fast that is the challenge. And I think that is why serious players focus so hard on getting the fastest time. I'm not a great player but if I was focused only on winning at all, I would have gotten bored and quit years ago because it is a cakewalk. Playing for a fast time at least requires some planning and decision making, and keeps me playing one more game. And it is fun!

Sure, I enjoy "role playing" sometimes too, typically by playing a "moral" game where I won't declare war to conquer weak Civ unless they have done something "evil" like killing a City State or declaring on a friend. That's a fine and fun way to play. But, when I play the GOTM I always go all out for the fastest time because it's really fun to compete against other players and see how my ideas stacked up against other strategies. That's when I really wish these exploits were fixed - I won't use the broken trade exploit but it's there for any competitor who wants to use it. Why not close the loophole?

And, some of these exploits are not easy to avoid. Diplomacy is a good example. I want to make friends/allies many games but if the AI will just sign an infinite Friendship agreement and never abandon it feel broken. You could be wiping out other Civs, forward-settling them, converting their cities, sabotaging them with spies, and your Friend will never react. I would like to be able to sign legitimate Friendship deals but what am I supposed to do if the interface is broken? When a deal expires, should I make the calculation myself whether it is "fair" to re-sign? It would be nice to just have the game decide in a reasonable way.

 

[bitula]

I don't think civ 6 can be played without at least partial role-playing attitude or personal habit, because when going fully competitive the game adds nothing to the experience as compared to games specifically tailored for this, like chess. Neither can it be purely role-played, since it's main feature set comes from tactics and strategy, for which there exists concrete mechanics and not just a flavor set. Therefore the challenge comes from - at least for me - to win with an "imagined optimal" but in reality or in mathematical terms sub-optimal strategy.

Edit: This is possible solution to
Lillys: Those ‘role players' claim they're not playing optimal strategy, just role playing.
Dilemma. At least from my point of view I could also claim "not playing optimal strategy, just role playing", but not optimal only in the mathematical sense.

 

[Tabarnak]

View attachment 560823
The 1st Civ met, Canada. The 51st state of the United States.

Not bad, we have our own civ even as a state(or vassal?) from another country. And still not decimated.