How powerful are the "exploits"?

[Lily_Lancer]

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.

All your critics are simply focusing on the "no war" setting, which is unreasonable as it is not stable at all. If players only play "no war" setting, why does it exist so many different types of units and so many techs that provide nothing but combat bonus( e.g. unlock a unit )

Sure you can claim that this thread doesn't prove that ban exploits+no war shall yield below T200 on random maps. Yes I admit that. However, I never tried to prove that, I just said with "ban exploits" you can still win SV below T200 on a random map with random Civ (which is an below-average-strength SV Civ, according to your tier lists), that's exactly what this thread is talking about.

About the "tier list" thread,
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/science-victory-gs-elimination-thread.654506/, Scythia rates 42th among 46, and many people here are criticizing Scythia for "they already know" Scythia being overpowered in SV, interesting.

And what will you do if AI declares on you following your "no war" setting(like what Canada did on me)? Just abandon the whole game?

As for your 800-1200, your assumption is that science output in future era shall be the average between your science output between Satellites and Nanotechonology. If that's your game, I have nothing to say. I guess we're talking about how many turns the future era tech placement shall affect victory time, and I guess we shall refer to SPT on future era, not the "average SPT between satellites and nanotechnology".
Do you stand still at 800-1200 even on future era?

As for me, I usually triple my science yield on future era than that when I research satellites, so SPT on future era shall be 2000~3500.

That's what I have said, discussing with you will only cause misunderstandings between both of us, as 1: you don't have a systematic view of how ~T170 SVs (or ~T195 ban exploits SV) shall be, and also, 2: I don't have an idea of what your games are like.

 

[leandrombraz]

If players only play "no war" setting, why does it exist so many different types of units and so many techs that provide nothing but combat bonus( e.g. unlock a unit )

For the same reason there's a whole system in the game that deals with nothing but diplomacy, both are optional ways to play the game. If you go out conquering everyone, there are a lot of mechanics that you don't use or use to a minimal. furthermore, even though we often use the terms "peaceful" and "no war" to describe this playstyle, it doesn't mean that war is completely banned from our games. I still use units to fight in emergencies, deal with barbarians, conquer rebel cities, liberate cities for the fun of it and if necessary, I don't have any problem with conquering a city here and there, as long as I don't eliminate other Civs and as long as I do it without affecting my relationships. Personally, I prefer to use the term "diplomatic" to describe my playstyle, since it definitely isn't peaceful. Point is, even without going on a conquest spree, units and other war bonuses are still used.

Sure you can claim that this thread doesn't prove that ban exploits+no war shall yield below T200 on random maps. Yes I admit that. However, I never tried to prove that, I just said with "ban exploits" you can still win SV below T200 on a random map with random Civ (which is an below-average-strength SV Civ, according to your tier lists), that's exactly what this thread is talking about.

That's the thing. Considering that you won on turn 197, only 3 turns from the magic barrier that separate us, mortals, from the sub200 gods, I strongly doubt you would have won this early if you had rolled Georgia or Canada, for example, or even if you had rolled an archipelago map, completely isolated from other Civs. The point isn't that you didn't prove that you can win in a "no war" setting, the point is that conquering quite effectively with a Scythian light cavalry rush, in a map that favors it, had a considerable effect on your win time, so you can't use this one game to claim that this is doable consistently with any Civ, in any map. Even though it was random, you got a favorable setting that bought you a lot more than just those 3 turns that separates you from the mortals realm.

To give an example, I'm playing a game as Shaka on a Tilted Axis map. I started in an island, completely isolated, with nothing to conquer, so even though I was planning to be aggressive this game, I wasn't able to do anything into I researched shipbuilding. No rush for me. The closest landmass has a lot of mountains forming corridors, which the AI filled with encampments, bogging down my progress through the region to a halt. Only Arabia was accessible and vulnerable so, even though delayed, I still managed to conquer them without issues, then the terrain made it impossible to take China and Germany in a feasible time. I still managed to do it, but winning a sub200 stopped being a possibility a looong time ago. I'm not playing in a favorable setting. If I was trying to win early, I would have failed despite my best efforts, not because I didn't play well, but because things just didn't go as I planned.

About the "tier list" thread,
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/science-victory-gs-elimination-thread.654506/, Scythia rates 42th among 46, and many people here are criticizing Scythia for "they already know" Scythia being overpowered in SV, interesting.

People certainly voted there based on their own experience, so they have a bias towards Civs that favors their playstyle, in the same way you have a bias towards Civs that favors yours.

And what will you do if AI declares on you following your "no war" setting(like what Canada did on me)? Just abandon the whole game?

You just don't take them out nor go out conquering everyone else. You cripple their army and call it a day. For me, at least, the rule is that I don't eliminate other Civs, unless I'm going for domination, and I care about diplomacy, so I don't conquer unless I can handle the diplomatic consequences. I would have tried to keep the peace with Canada instead of denouncing them and, if that failed, I would defend myself then settle for peace. If I chose to take a city or two, I would have to conquer one more city than I plan to keep and give it back to Canada, to remove that nasty -18 relationship penalty. I would also make sure that Canada would have enough loyalty to stay alive. Keeping other Civs alive and making allies out of former enemies are secondary objectives for me, which is a more interesting experience than just killing everyone.

I don't have an idea of what your games are like.

You can watch his games here.

 

[Minou]

Lily you should play a peaceful game with the same settings just so people can say you proved nothing again because you still improved resources/settled by a natural wonder/ popped tribal villages etc.

Yes Scythia is good for war but you could make the same argument about Persia, Sumerian, Aztecs, etc. I’m impressed with 197 with ANY civ under these four restrictions.

 

[Pietato]

You are not listening...

A single game perfectly set up for early war, with weak neighbours and the exact right size map, PROVES NOTHING.

 

[leif erikson]

Moderator Action: I'm not here to defend Lily, however, you cannot accuse him of setting this up as he posted the game settings. They are:

I see many people talking about “those who finish under xxx turns are using exploits, if you don't use exploits deity is hard”. However, I strongly doubt on this.

Game Setting: All random, standard, disaster 2, deity.

Moderator Action: It was a random setup. Please do not accuse members of things they did not do. Please try to be fair in your criticism.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

You are not listening...

A single game perfectly set up for early war, with weak neighbours and the exact right size map, PROVES NOTHING.

Explain, in great detail, what needs to be done to prove what @Lily_Lancer is claiming?

Is LL that far off?
I recall @Victoria getting into a discussion about Standard Deity SV Finish Times. If I remember correctly @Victoria stated that any Civ on any Map should be able to finish a Deity Standard Science Victory by turn 210 no matter the conditions. You all give LL the business but you all respect @Victoria continually on this site. Using mostly optimal play that is and we all know @Victoria doesn't play as optimal as he/she could if he/she wanted to.

 

[leandrombraz]

Explain, in great detail, what needs to be done to prove what @Lily_Lancer is claiming?

What I said in the very first comment I made after the game was over: Choose a Civ instead of playing random. Pick one that's as neutral as possible and that will better represent the variety of possible setups. That eliminates the chance of getting a luck roll. Even better, pick the worst possible options. If it can be done with any Civ, then... well, it can be done with any Civ, it shouldn't be a problem to do it with the Civ that he considers the worst he could roll. Same for the map, if it's doable in any map, then playing in the worst possible map for that Civ shouldn't be a problem. Preferably, do it more than once, with different combinations, before we start talking about establishing baselines. He already admitted that this doesn't prove that it can be done without war, so there's no need to ban that. This specific matter is settled and an aggressive strategy would be expected in a future game.

 

[Pietato]

Explain, in great detail, what needs to be done to prove what @Lily_Lancer is claiming?

Did you even read the thread?

Moderator Action: Please stop trolling. leif

 

[AlanC9]

If I may, it sounds like the problem is that there isn't any universal definition of "exploit." I don't know if whoever said that bit about fast Deity wins needing exploits counted military snowballing as an exploit or not, so it's impossible to determine if Lily's refuted the proposition or not.

I'd count it as an exploit, myself. Honestly, Civ 6 sometimes strikes me as a bundle of exploits masquerading as a coherent game design.

 

[leandrombraz]

If I may, it sounds like the problem is that there isn't any universal definition of "exploit." I don't know if whoever said that bit about fast Deity wins needing exploits counted military snowballing as an exploit or not, so it's impossible to determine if Lily's refuted the proposition or not.

I'd count it as an exploit, myself. Honestly, Civ 6 sometimes strikes me as a bundle of exploits masquerading as a coherent game design.

I think that Lily is referencing to a general atitude when the subject comes up, not something that a specific person said, but yeah, we're playing loose with the meaning of "exploit", and giving it a sense of anything unbalanced that helps the player. If we were to stick to the strict definition of exploit, it's anything that a player uses to his advantage in a way that wasn't intended by the developers.

 

[GrumboMumbo]

I have enjoyed reading along with this thread. But I think an easy fix to a lot of these exploits would be to play on Online/Quick speed instead. I know Standard is always used in the GOTM, and this makes comparing victory times and strategy easier, but I honestly believe it would be healthy for all the high level players to make a shift to faster speeds if they want to play a more balanced game. It won't fix everything, but it does nerf chopping and ICS quite a bit, I would be really interested to see how the meta changes if faster speeds were used in GOTM.

Obviously I would prefer if firaxis just ironed out all of these 'exploits' on standard settings, but they haven't yet and probably never will...

 

[Archon_Wing]

Scythia rates 42th among 46,

What, that happened? lol.

 

[Tabarnak]

I have enjoyed reading along with this thread. But I think an easy fix to a lot of these exploits would be to play on Online/Quick speed instead. I know Standard is always used in the GOTM, and this makes comparing victory times and strategy easier, but I honestly believe it would be healthy for all the high level players to make a shift to faster speeds if they want to play a more balanced game. It won't fix everything, but it does nerf chopping and ICS quite a bit, I would be really interested to see how the meta changes if faster speeds were used in GOTM.

Obviously I would prefer if firaxis just ironed out all of these 'exploits' on standard settings, but they haven't yet and probably never will...

He actually has played online speed for a while but maybe it was just to test himself in future mp games. He also claimed that online speed was the best speed to have better challenge against the AI, which is true, because of movement speed not scaling through different speeds.

But for his test he'd obviously choose standard because it's by far the most popular so most people can have a good look and compare.

At online speed a fast conquest with horsemen would stop earlier and probably slows down his general stuff.

Another way to counter early and fast conquests with UUs is to make sure that the AI beelines masonry and puts walls asap. Thats probably the major point around all this thread. When Scythia conquers his 4th civ after like 100+ turns and still no walls from the AI actually being attacked, it makes me think that they ''don't see'' what is happening. There should be a kind of alarm system to make them prepare for a future conquest knowing how their other opponents have been slashed earlier. It's all these little things that separate humans and AI, but i'm sure that some of these can be easily implemented.

In mp games a human can rush a wall with chop, etc. and at online speed it's pretty common to rush walls in 2 or 3 turns only, at least in the early stages.

 

[ccubed]

Are there custom civs that have no abilities? Like a totally blank slate to make baseline tests in experiments like this thread? No civ ability, no leader ability, no unique anything, just base units, buildings, etc.

 

[lotrmith]

Are there custom civs that have no abilities? Like a totally blank slate to make baseline tests in experiments like this thread? No civ ability, no leader ability, no unique anything, just base units, buildings, etc.

To hear it from some folks, that might describe Georgia or Canada

 

[hhhhhh]

I think everyone should try to consider units upgrade from the perspective of players that lose units more often. For experienced players, it's easy to keep most, if not all units that you build early and keep upgrading it, so for us it make sense to see it as a choice (upgrade vs hard build), an unbalanced one at that. For a player that lose units more often, hard building isn't a choice and getting to upgrade some leveled up units cheap is a reward for keeping them alive. If they get to the other side of a war with a lot of units intact, then they get to have a powerful army that doesn't take a lot to keep upgraded and ready to go.

I think the whole discussion is way too based on the assumption that players don't lose units, that they just keep surviving and upgrading units. That isn't true for everyone. It probably isn't true for the majority of Civ VI players.

I totally agree with this. But if the "award" argument is to be used, then only to those unit that fought hard in battles, and a good balance fix should have something to do with XP. Otherwise even players who are not good at war can build and upgrade brand new units.

Aside: an extreme example of how "exploitive" using gold to upgrade units, is from quadrireme to battleship. Battleship is unlocked on Refining. Unlocking battleship expires frigate, but not quadrireme. Quadrireme is actually become obsolete when Steel is unlocked (I believe it's because in the past, battleship was unlocked by Steel). So when you have Refining but not Steel, you can just dump all your Niter to an AI, build several quadriremes per turn, and upgrade them instantly. You can do this as long as you can avoid researching Steel.

View attachment 560820
The opening. (The terrain is shuffle.)There're a lot of trees, however I cannot chop them.
View attachment 560821
And, builder start as usual.

I'm late to the party. I like the discussion so far, but when I see that deer on the map I realized even if removing the deer give me 0 production I still prefer to remove it (maybe when I have lumber mills). Banning this kind of chopping is kinda pointless tbh. It removes some meaningful choice from the game.

And later when you have nothing to do with Canada so that you have to denounce them on meeting is also kinda weird. Again some meaningful interaction in the game are removed due to imbalanced design. So you don't even allow yourself to gifting things to AI to improve relationship?

 

[DanQuayle]

I think everyone should try to consider units upgrade from the perspective of players that lose units more often. For experienced players, it's easy to keep most, if not all units that you build early and keep upgrading it, so for us it make sense to see it as a choice (upgrade vs hard build), an unbalanced one at that. For a player that lose units more often, hard building isn't a choice and getting to upgrade some leveled up units cheap is a reward for keeping them alive. If they get to the other side of a war with a lot of units intact, then they get to have a powerful army that doesn't take a lot to keep upgraded and ready to go.

I think the whole discussion is way too based on the assumption that players don't lose units, that they just keep surviving and upgrading units. That isn't true for everyone. It probably isn't true for the majority of Civ VI players.

If your best cities has the infrastructure to pump out at the rate of let's say 1 advanced unit every 5 turns with a free promotion to boot then suddenly the burden of a killed unit becomes way less as it can be easily replaced. It is especially true if the frontline is close to your production cities.
Constantly upgrading units with gold is a high risk / high reward strategy.
High risk: if you lose your experienced units, you cannot replace them easily.
High reward: you get upgraded units at the frontline right when you unlock the tech, they are more experienced and have more promotions.
It works best when you are at the offensive and when you are playing against an unprepared player (AI).