Is this an Exploit?

[Memphus]

Edited --Since a picture is worth a thousand words I direct you to my better explanation...What I couldn't do the first time I direct you to

Edited again -- a thread which no longer exists

please continue reading on for the micromanagement/exploit vivid description starts on page 2

Thanks to the almighty God powers of AlanH my noob error of two threads has been erased

 

[Arizona_Steve]

You wouldn't lose the production anyway, even if you didn't switch from the warrior. Civ 4 differs from Civ 3 in that any shields (hammers) which are left over after completing a build are applied to the following build. So this is not an exploit, in my opinion.

Edit: Post 666. Uh-oh...

 

[Pie-es-Tasty]

I agree with Steve. Also, there are only so many forests around your city. You could do this mabye three or four times before you run out of forests.

 

[Memphus]

You wouldn't lose the production anyway, even if you didn't switch from the warrior. Civ 4 differs from Civ 3 in that any shields (hammers) which are left over after completing a build are applied to the following build. So this is not an exploit, in my opinion.

You are very correct in that statement, which is why I wasn't sure about it being ok or not.

But the question come more not from the overflow, but the fact that you never lose out on any city growth during the construction of a second worker or settler.

You could do this mabye three or four times before you run out of forests

As it turns out with cultural borders expanding in the fist GOTM there is enough forest for 2 settlers and 1 worker ( beyond the first worker where there was no city growth) for which my city was only not growing for a grand total of three turns.

So if this is ok then cool

 

[ainwood]

Its fine to do this - shields stored towards your worker or settler do decay when you're not building it, by the way.

 

[BeefontheBone]

You wouldn't lose that city growth if you did the same thing by starting the worker or settler and chopping the forest(s) either, and then would avoid any potential decay losses.

 

[Memphus]

@BeefontheBone

You wouldn't lose that city growth if you did the same thing by starting the worker or settler and chopping the forest(s) either, and then would avoid any potential decay losses.

Could you explain this a little more pls.

Because as is I can build a 2 warriors and a settler with 3 chops, and on only one turn does my city not grow (last turn to produce the settler, when food goes towards production), my city gows by a size of one

vs. if I jsut start making and chop it takes 2 chops but my city doesn't grow for 8 turns

 

[DaviddesJ]

I don't understand why people are pooh-poohing this issue: it's certainly an important tactic if it's allowed. Often you would love to have your food go toward growth, but your shields go toward a worker or settler. But the game doesn't allow this. But the queue switching does allow you to direct the shields from the forest toward a worker or settler, even while your food is going toward growth, and this is quite useful in managing growth vs production.

In principle, it's better if the game doesn't have this sort of sharp tactic that's available to human players but the computer opponents are unlikely to adopt. The ultimate effect of such tactics is to require greater handicaps for the human player to keep the game competitive.

But I don't think it can be disallowed as an "exploit". It's just too hard to make reasonable rules of the form, "You can't change production at certain times." So I think it's likely to just become a standard tactic, just like some of the standard early-game tactics in Civ III.

 

[pindicator]

I think it is an exploit, especially if you read the thread that it is discussed in within the strategy files. The basic principle is that you can build a settler with only sacrificing one turn of growth, but it is presumably due to a threading issue within the game, having the notices turn up mid-turn rather than the IBT that Civ3 used.

In this way, pulling off the strat is largely a cause of twitch-timing conducive to RTS games, and not the planning style of a Civ game. The worst part is that you never end the turn building a settler until the last turn to get the settler out. I think it violates the spirit of the game and should not be allowed.

Edit: This post in particular illustrates well why I think this should not be allowed.

 

[Pie-es-Tasty]

After reading the post pindicator linked to, it seems like an exploit to me. The way the thread starter phrased it I understood it diffrently. It does seem to have to do with the lag time between the start of the turn and when the forest chopping message is displayed.

 

[DaveShack]

You can get the exact same effect without switching production. If your "other" build only needs a couple of hammers at the time the chop comes in, the extra hammers will automatically go to the next in queue item. If that gives the next in queue settler enough to almost finish, then the number of growth turns sacrificed is indeed diminished, and without doing anything hokey to the interface.

The fact that a human can plan this ahead where the AIs probably cannot currently is the difference between intelligence and programming. If it's a big enough advantage to the human to unbalance the game, it will just prompt a tweak to the AI to do it too.

 

[Shillen]

Ok yeah I see the difference between the exploitive and non-exploitive way of doing this. At first I was thinking they switched to settler the turn before the chop was complete and then ended their turn to let the chop hammers go to the settler. But they're not doing it this way. They're abusing the delay in the forest chop by switching production at the start of the turn, then getting the forest chop hammers mid-turn, then switching back to building whatever they were building in the same turn again. This essentially bypasses the lost growth turn through lag. When abusing lag it's an obvious exploit. But if you don't abuse the lag and accept the 1 turn of lost growth then I don't think it's an exploit.

You can get the exact same effect without switching production. If your "other" build only needs a couple of hammers at the time the chop comes in, the extra hammers will automatically go to the next in queue item. If that gives the next in queue settler enough to almost finish, then the number of growth turns sacrificed is indeed diminished, and without doing anything hokey to the interface.

Nah you're missing the issue. Carefully read my above paragraph or read the linked thread above.

edit: All this said I don't think it gives you a major advantage. Sure your capital will grow larger but your settlers will be produced slower than if the city actually contributed to building them. You're also losing all your forests and using extra worker turns. Don't get me wrong, I use chops to speed up a settler but I don't build my settlers entirely from forest chops.

 

[Willburn]

After considering this for a while, i think personaly the (ab)use of switching to settler before the worker chop is processed on a turn can be considered an exploit. This exploit can be fixed by making sure the first thing processed on a turn is forrest chopping.

in the meantime people should never do this with any form of intention. The easy way to say if someone is doing this on intention or not is if they are required to switch to settler/worker (the two items that limit growth on construction) before the worker chop is finished on a given turn.

In the GOTM game ive sent now ive stayed away from this on purpose. (game was finished even before this discussion was started.)

 

[Memphus]

Thank you guys, sorry for ripping someone else's thread

in the meantime people should never do this with any form of intention. The easy way to say if someone is doing this on intention or not is if they are required to switch to settler/worker (the two items that limit growth on construction) before the worker chop is finished on a given turn.

In any case no problem just no submission for me this game. I can live with that, can't wait for the second one

 

[Smirk]

I think some of you are missing the point, being able to switch builds and maintain the amassed production is a feature of Civ4, having worker jobs complete during your turn is only appropriate. You can do this with anything, the fact that you can build a settler with tree clearing without any growth being "lost" is the value of tree clearing.

Also the thrust of the argument is centered around incorrect reasoning, growth isn't "lost" or in any way removed, its merely appended onto the production of the settler or worker. This is by design, and in my opinion good design. So you have a tree giving its correct production to an active job, this is exactly as designed and therefore not exploitive.


Above all there is absolutely no reason why one couldn't decide exactly what job the tree production goes. And who said micromanagement was outlawed for this game? I hope these absolutionists go away after a few weeks cause this sort of thing and the no cheating AI rants are gonna get old.
The goals seemed to be to reduce cheating AI and micromanagement, lets be reasonable folks.

 

[civ_steve]

Memphus: don't be so hasty! This is discussion only; GOTM Staff have the final say and Ainwood so far has allowed this.

I don't think this is exploitive, just a form of MMing that has made it into CIV. It's limited by how many forests are around your city, your stored shields may decay and you do have at least 1 turn of growth loss at the end of the Settler production. Taking advantage of the turn sequence is OK IMO, as long as you don't use the same resources twice (e.g. in Civ3, after learning a Tech, switching citizens from commerce-rich tiles to shield-rich tiles would use that citizen twice); here you avoid the loss of growth which is Firaxis' replacement of losing 1 pop-point for a Worker and 2 pop-points for a Settler in Civ3. You would have the same effect if you had enough Workers to chop all the forests you needed in 1 turn, so purely avoiding loss of pop-growth is not sufficient to call this exploitive.

And there are lots of things the AI doesn't do that the human player can and will do. Not sufficient reason to be called exploitive.

If the game developers feel it's exploitive, or sidesteps their intention, they can release a patch where Forest Chops can't be added to Worker and Settler Production.

 

[ainwood]

Its not a game-breaking exploit.

As has been said, it is limited by the number of forests, its limited by whether you have bronze working, its limited by the rate at which you can chop forests, its limited by the decay of shields on units that you're not building, its limited by you not getting the surplus food allocated to production, and the growth benefits aren't huge anyway.

 

[TLHeart]

And if you love to micromanage the game to this level, to maybe increase your city growth, and settler production by a very small amount, then go for it. If you feel it does you good, then do it.

I like that some of the micromanagement is gone...I hate to micromanage, but love to marco manage.

 

[Vardis]

It's not even really a lag issue. Shields and research aren't the only things that you don't lose - partial work on improvements are kept as well. If you have a worker who will finish chopping a forest next turn, and they have already moved this turn, you can cancel the action, and then do the chop next turn when the city is producing what you want the shields to go toward.

I don't really see what the big deal is, since forests aren't a renewable resource (random growth notwithstanding), and really you should be able to allocate those shields wherever you want IMO. Especially given the level of control they give you in being able to switch production back and forth as much as you want without losing those shields.

 

[Ribannah]

If it is indeed as Memphus describes, then it is a bug.
If, like in the 3OTM, bug exploits are allowed (and therefore effectively forced if you wish to compete), I'm outta here.
I want to play Civ4 comparison games, not bug-exploit comparison games.