Is this an Exploit?

[AlanH]

You don't need a mod to create a poll. If you want to do it, it should probably be a separate thread with a first post defining exactly what you want to achieve and referencing key information from this thread if you want players to make educated responses.

I think the statistical value you would get from this would be minimal-to-zero.

I predict a rather small sample will say they have used the technique, and they will be higher performers than average. Opinions will vary over whether that was because they used it. But given the size of the sample we'll have and the multitude of other factors affecting performances, I doubt there will be any way to validate one opinion over another.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Basically though people should only vote in the poll if they know what is being discussed though, and would thereform form thier own idea of the 'exploit/tactic' in question.

If you really posted a poll in this forum, you'd get a lot of random votes from people who don't really understand the issue.

alright let me know id this makes it more clear:
for the poll it applies to:
*Note this applies to chop/switching for a worker or settler
*Allowing your city to grow while producing a settler/worker
*Switching the production mid turn to allow for this

It's still quite unclear. Every production switch is "mid turn", because it comes after the beginning of the turn but before the end of the turn.

I still can't tell whether the question is supposed to apply only to switching production during the turn and then switching back in the same turn, or whether it's supposed to apply, e.g., if you're building a granary, you have a settler partly completed, your turn starts, you switch to the settler, chop to generate hammers for the settler, and then leave the settler in the queue so that it comes out next turn.

If everyone's voting based on their own different ideas of what is or isn't part of the "exploit", how will the results mean anything?

There are two different ways you can phrase the question, and, imho, they lead to quite different answers. Either you mean it to apply only when you change production twice in the same turn (usually, changing a settler or worker to apply chop hammers to it, and then changing back within the same turn to what you were building originally), or you mean it to apply whenever you change back and forth between two different productions, perhaps over several turns, to juggle the accumulation of food and hammers.

 

[bradleyfeanor]

There are two different ways you can phrase the question, and, imho, they lead to quite different answers. Either you mean it to apply only when you change production twice in the same turn (usually, changing a settler or worker to apply chop hammers to it, and then changing back within the same turn to what you were building originally), or you mean it to apply whenever you change back and forth between two different productions, perhaps over several turns, to juggle the accumulation of food and hammers.

In an indirect way, this paragraph exemplifies the heart of the whole problem for me, and we experience it over and over in this forum: an exploit is defined differently by every player. Using your example to apply to my own gameplay in 4oTM1, I happily switched from producing a granary to producing a settler in order to funnel the hammers from the chop into the settler. I did not, however, ever switch back to a granary in the same turn because I felt it was exploitive. In my mind, one method was part of good strategy, but the other was exploiting the game mechanics. So that is where I "drew the line." Now how subjective and silly is that?

The only exploits I am really concerned with are those that limit gameplay options, making their use mandatory in order to compete for a fastest finish or high score. Essentially, I don’t want anything that makes our competition less fun or limits creative play. But that is obviously no definition of an exploit. I fear it is beyond my ability to define an exploit in the abstract, but I hereby issue a challenge to all would-be masters of logic: define a Civ4 exploit in the abstract. It will likely be worth its weight in gold in the coming months.

£ I have, it is time I lack: I've bought the game, just haven't played it.

Ohhhh my. If your response is anything like mine when you first play, you will be both thrilled and dismayed: thrilled because there are many more strategies open to you than there were in Civ3, and dismayed because there isn't nearly enough time to explore them all. Hmmm...I'm starting to feel like a heroin pusher so I guess I will stop there.

 

[civ_steve]

This definitely is not a democracy, but to call it a ludocracy is uncalled for and rude IMO, especially considering the amount of uncompensated time the staff contribute to run this competition for our benefit.

I am quite aware of all the work the staff is doing, having been in that positoin myself.
Apparently you do not know the meaning of the word. It is a technical term for when the world is ruled by a game (or games).
There is also a slang meaning, but I'm not writing slang.

I have not heard the term, so before I posted, I did a casual search for ludocracy in Merriam-Webster's online site, Brittanica.com, Google and AskJeeves. There were no entries in Merriam-Webster's or Brittanica; Google and AskJeeves linked to an entry in the Urban Dictionary. "Ludocracy - the state of when a group of ludacrous occurences/ideas/objectives all meet at the same time and place", and one of the examples is "my job is a ------ ludocracy". The Urban Dictionary is a slang dictionary, and I assume the ludacrous is misspelled. Ludicrous (according to Merriam-Webster's) has an archaic meaning of "relating to, characterized by, or designed for play or amusement : not serious", but the modern meanings are "2 a : amusing or laughable through obvious absurdity, incongruity, exaggeration, or eccentricity" and "'2' b : meriting derisive laughter or scorn as absurdly inept, false, or foolish " None of the other rather limited number of links lead me to any other understanding of the term, so I concluded and still conclude that you took a cheap shot at the GOTM staff for how GOTM is run.

While I was there, I looked up the word 'exploit', since you continue to use that term for this tactic (I guess I could call coal a diamond - all that's missing is pressure and heat). Amusingly enough the definition for the noun 'exploit' is "a notable or heroic act". There are 3 transitive verb definitions. "1 obsolete : ACHIEVE, PERFORM", "2 a (1) : to turn (a natural resource) to economic account ... (2) : to take advantage of : ", and "'2' b : to make use of meanly or unjustly for one's own advantage or profit : take undue advantage of " The definition that comes closest to the use of 'exploit' for this thread is 2 b.

I would argue that for one's personal use of CIV, nothing you can do ever meets this definition. The object of the game is to win with any and all capabilities you can derive or use within the game, and if the game has a game-breaking exploit you are free to use it (or not) if you wish, for your own games.

For GOTM purposes and submittals, the staff generates a standard of what isn't acceptable. The standard is an open one so that if a player is aware of a powerful tactic they wish to use they are required to submit the tactic to the staff prior to its use for a ruling. This allows for a fair and just comparison of submitted games (all non-excluded tactics are available for use by all players), and allows the staff flexibility in these rulings. And it's discussions like this one, and the spoilers, that help educate the average player in the tactics that are available to use. If the staff has not excluded a tactic for GOTM purposes, then it is not an exploit for those same purposes.

I don't mind the discussion of this tactic. What concerns me is that constantly calling a GOTM-ruled acceptable tactic an exploit will convince a new player not to use this GOTM acceptable tactic. I initially responded to this thread because Memphus sounded like he'd been convinced that his game was unacceptable and he wouldn't submit it. That was unfair to him and I'm glad that the discussion continued and convinced him otherwise.

 

[Aeson]

define a Civ4 exploit in the abstract. It will likely be worth its weight in gold in the coming months.

First you need to give the standards that the definition will be judged by. Without that, technically any definition will fit your request. Even the potential qualifier of "worth it's weight in gold" could apply to outrageous (ie. hillarious) definitions.

If the standard is a definition which everyone will accept from their relative point of view, then it is an impossible request. It is also unnecessary in this instance because the applicable (to actually playing the GOTM) question is not whether this is an exploit or not, but whether this is allowed for the GOTM. (Which is an easy thing to define at this point, though even such "absolute" issues won't always be accepted by everyone.)

That said, there have been definitions of "exploit" made in this thread. When that occurs, it is perfectly reasonable to discuss whether or not that specific definition would apply to this tactic. When Ribannah said, "What makes it an exploit is that you gain an unintended advantage" she gave a definition which then can be used. (And it's a rather good definition of exploit in regards to what is allowed/disallowed in the GOTM actually. If you add the significant as a qualifier for advantage.) If the application of that reasoning can be supported by evidence, the assertion that chop switching is an exploit holds up. If there is no evidence to show that it is unintended or an advantage, it doesn't.

 

[Smirk]

But that is obviously no definition of an exploit. I fear it is beyond my ability to define an exploit in the abstract, but I hereby issue a challenge to all would-be masters of logic: define a Civ4 exploit in the abstract. It will likely be worth its weight in gold in the coming months.

possible exploit:
Any act or action that uses any technique in such a manner that results in an excessive or unbalanced advantage. Where advantage is to mean relative advantage as compared to other competitors who don't use it.


exploit:
Any possible exploit after having been judged by the gotm staff as harmful to competition that can be detected, monitored and enforced.




The ring city placement of vanilla and PTW are a good example of "possible exploit" that never made it to "exploit". It was so harmful to competition that after its discovery and examination you couldn't ignore it in any later game. But it couldn't be an exploit because you could get the benefit inadvertantly (and many people did before it became widely known). And in fact without even knowing about the specifics chances are you have a couple cities in any given game that take advantage of this calculation error.

Another example is ROP rape, it however was balanced by possible negative ramifications of breaking such a deal.


Those are both examples in Civ3, there are/were quite a few exploitive practices in Civ4 so far, but many have been quickly fixed in the two patches. So they really didn't have the longevity to even be judged, AFAIK.

 

[DaviddesJ]

When Ribannah said, "What makes it an exploit is that you gain an unintended advantage" she gave a definition which then can be used. (And it's a rather good definition of exploit in regards to what is allowed/disallowed in the GOTM actually. If you add the significant as a qualifier for advantage.)

In a game of the complexity of Civ4, there are always going to be many strategies and tactics that were not foreseen or intended by the designers. That doesn't mean we should limit ourselves to only the strategies they explicitly intended to allow. That would be a very restrictive way to play (not to mention it would imply a lot of guesswork about exactly what the designers were thinking).

My definition of an exploit would be: "A technique that achieves something that the designers intended to disallow." I.e., if you discover ways to use the game mechanisms that the designers hadn't thought of, that's fine. If you discover loopholes that bypass the restrictions they intended to impose, that's not.

But not all exploits should be banned, because the cost of banning something can be very high. You have to create an explicit rule to tell all players unambiguously what is and is not allowed. And then you have to explain it to many hundreds of players, most of whom don't care very much about the micro-details of the game. And then you have to worry about whether your rule achieves the purpose (preventing the exploit from being effective) and doesn't unduly interfere with legitimate play (as some of the suggestions here certainly would). Exploits should only be banned if (1) the effect on gameplay is large, and (2) it's very easy to draw the line between legitimate and exploitative play. I don't think either of these is true of chop/switching, although, since it's still not clear that people can even agree on a definition of what it is, that necessarily makes it hard to draw the line!

The GOTM staff seems to understand all of this very well, so I'm confident they will do the right thing.

 

[DaviddesJ]

possible exploit:
Any act or action that uses any technique in such a manner that results in an excessive or unbalanced advantage. Where advantage is to mean relative advantage as compared to other competitors who don't use it.

exploit:
Any possible exploit after having been judged by the gotm staff as harmful to competition that can be detected, monitored and enforced.

Personally, I'd call RCP in Civ3 an exploit. The designers intended that, as you build more cities, they necessarily increase in corruption. They just overlooked something in their design.

But it became an "allowable exploit" rather than a "disallowed exploit", for exactly the reason that Smirk states: it's just not clear how to draw a line and rule against it.

 

[Aeson]

I said it's a good definition of exploit in regards to what is allowed/disallowed in the GOTM. That was commenting on the reasoning used to have allowed/disallowed these issues by the staff in the past. You are saying the same thing with different terms. If the designers intended X (which includes things they did not intend) and !X occurs, it can be something that was not intended, or simply unforseen.

For it to be unintended in the way the Staff has used the term in regards to these issues, it needs to go against what was specifically intended, as best as can be determined. Not just unforseen action. And yes, that involves guesswork at times... but if you need to make a decision and don't have all the information available to base a decision off of, "best guesses" are necessary.

 

[jar2574]

Really, it's only important if you care about fiddly details of the game, and enjoy (or, at least, are obsessed with) managing them. By itself, it's not really a significant factor in the results of play.

There are times when the chop-switch is better than conventional chopping. In those circumstances the chop-switch will effect the results of play. Whether the affect on scores is significant or not has yet to be seen AFAIK. Regardless, I don't think it should be banned.

But like I said, this debate only really matters to those of us who care about HOF and GOTM scores. Someone outside of these HOF and GOTM forums could care less whether we think it's an exploit or not. They'll use chop-switch if they like it and won't use it if they don't like it.

 

[jar2574]

possible exploit:
Any act or action that uses any technique in such a manner that results in an excessive or unbalanced advantage. Where advantage is to mean relative advantage as compared to other competitors who don't use it.

Like founding your first city?

 

[DaviddesJ]

For it to be unintended in the way the Staff has used the term in regards to these issues, it needs to go against what was specifically intended, as best as can be determined. Not just unforseen action.

OK, that would make for a fine definition, but I don't agree that that's what the word "unintended" means. Anything that is unforeseen is necessarily unintended, because, you can't intend something if you don't foresee it.

 

[MeteorPunch]

Personally, I'd call RCP in Civ3 an exploit. The designers intended that, as you build more cities, they necessarily increase in corruption. They just overlooked something in their design.

Not really. They intended for cost to be based on distance as well, distance more than number of cities. People can take the time to calculate their best city arrangement to achieve better results.

As far as exploits go, I there were too many things classified as exploits in Civ 3. To immediately ban something like Moonsinger's deity strategy lets the game designers off the hook easy. They should be responsible for delivering a balanced game, whether upon initial release or in subsequent patches. There's no, "Well they banned it, I guess we don't have to fix it." We still have a list of unfixed "exploits" in the HoF/GotM that Firaxis has ignored.

 

[kingjoshi]

The "possible exploit" is specific to ALL these conditions:
1) You begin the turn in a City X that is not building a worker/settler
2) change production in City X to a worker/settler
3) finish chopping forests to gain hammers for worker/settler in City X
4) change production in City X to something other then worker/settler

The reason this is considered an exploit by some is because it's assumed that the intent of the game designers is to stunt growth in City X during production of settlers and workers. By doing this course of 4 actions, you continue to grow in the city except on the last turn in which the worker/settler is created.

However, if the game designers don't consider this an exploit, it's not. If it has minimal or no advantages, then it's not an exploit or not an exploit worth banning.

Right now, I'm leaning towards this being a weak exploit in that it circumvents an intention of the designers (which we can only assume for this discussion) but it's not always the case where you want to change production out of the worker/settler because it could delay the creation of worker/settler.

Maybe this can go under "strategy" for newbies to let them know how they can continue to grow in cities if they have already decided to go the chop route. Because regardless of whether it's an exploit or strategy, I think in many cases, it would be advantageous to go this route. But I don't care about this issue enough to do test cases and such as others did...

 

[jar2574]

My definition of an exploit would be: "A technique that achieves something that the designers intended to disallow." I.e., if you discover ways to use the game mechanisms that the designers hadn't thought of, that's fine. If you discover loopholes that bypass the restrictions they intended to impose, that's not.

I like your definition.

And though chop-switch may fit this definition, like you said, the costs of banning something can be too high. And here the costs would be too high IMO.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Not really. They intended for cost to be based on distance as well, distance more than number of cities. People can take the time to calculate their best city arrangement to achieve better results.

Well, as Aeson said, decisions about what the designers intended are necessarily conjectural. I believe that the designers intended that, if you have 15 cities other than your capital, one of them must be the 15th furthest from the capital, and that it would necessarily suffer a high corruption penalty. Not that you could build 15 cities all at the same distance and none of them would be penalized.

But this is just my opinion and I freely admit that I have no proof.

To immediately ban something like Moonsinger's deity strategy lets the game designers off the hook easy. They should be responsible for delivering a balanced game, whether upon initial release or in subsequent patches. There's no, "Well they banned it, I guess we don't have to fix it." We still have a list of unfixed "exploits" in the HoF/GotM that Firaxis has ignored.

I think this is completely illogical.

There's no reason to believe that what the GOTM does or does not decide to ban has any effect on what Firaxis does or does not patch. And, if there's any effect, it's probably in the other direction (i.e., if they pay any attention to the GOTM at all, they are more likely to specifically include fixes in their patches for issues that are so serious that they give rise to GOTM rules, as they become aware of the collective judgment of the community that these are serious issues).

And, regardless of whether Firaxis does or does not patch any particular issue, the reason to create the rules is to increase our own enjoyment of the game. Some hypothetical effect on what Firaxis does or does not patch in the future is much, much less important than making the game fun for ourselves right now.

 

[jar2574]

OK, that would make for a fine definition, but I don't agree that that's what the word "unintended" means. Anything that is unforeseen is necessarily unintended, because, you can't intend something if you don't foresee it.

You both agreed that an exploit must go against designer intent, and not just have been unforeseen. You just expressed yourselves in different ways.

 

[DaviddesJ]

The "possible exploit" is specific to ALL these conditions:
1) You begin the turn in a City X that is not building a worker/settler
2) change production in City X to a worker/settler
3) finish chopping forests to gain hammers for worker/settler in City X
4) change production in City X to something other then worker/settler

If it has minimal or no advantages, then it's not an exploit or not an exploit worth banning.

If the "exploit" is defined so narrowly as above, then its value is clearly quite minimal (because you can achieve almost the same effect just by switching back one turn later). And I agree that that's a strong reason not to create a special rule about it.

I'm leaning towards this being a weak exploit in that it circumvents an intention of the designers (which we can only assume for this discussion)

I don't agree that we should take that as a premise of the discussion. In Civ3, you had to have excess food to build a settler, because you needed to (first) use the food to grow extra pop, that would then be subtracted for the settler. You could think of a Civ3-style settler as costing 50 food plus 50 production, while the Civ4-style settler costs 100 food+production in any mix. IMHO, the most plausible reason for this change is probably just to simplify play, and make it easier for the beginning player to understand.

I do think that they are unlikely to have intended the chop/switch as a strategy. But, as I said above, I think the fact that it was not intended doesn't imply that it was contrary to their intention. It seems more to fall into the large gray area of things they simply didn't think much about.

 

[MeteorPunch]

There's no reason to believe that what the GOTM does or does not decide to ban has any effect on what Firaxis does or does not patch. And, if there's any effect, it's probably in the other direction (i.e., if they pay any attention to the GOTM at all, they are more likely to specifically include fixes in their patches for issues that are so serious that they give rise to GOTM rules, as they become aware of the collective judgment of the community that these are serious issues).

I agree that we don't know which way the GOTM decisions affect Firaxis (if at all). The truth is though that Firaxis in the past has a terrible record for fixing problems. So far with Civ 4 they have been decent. Hopefully this improves.

And, regardless of whether Firaxis does or does not patch any particular issue, the reason to create the rules is to increase our own enjoyment of the game. Some hypothetical effect on what Firaxis does or does not patch in the future is much, much less important than making the game fun for ourselves right now.

I wasn't saying we shouldn't ban things - I just haven't seen anything in Civ 4 worthy of being banned. Moonsinger's deity strategy is exploitive of unbalanced design: overpowered Praetorians and forest chops and a broken system of anarchy. Do I think it should be banned? No - it's part of the game, same as the forest chops for workers/settlers.

 

[ainwood]

Moonsinger's deity strategy is exploitive of unbalanced design: overpowered Praetorians and forest chops and a broken system of anarchy. Do I think it should be banned? No - it's part of the game, same as the forest chops for workers/settlers.

No, Moonsinger's strategy exploits a flaw in the way the anarchy / revolt turns are set, and essentially bypasses the major mechanism designed to limit growth.