Logic behind the time restrictions for HOF

[Shadowsong]

The spirit of the Hall of Fame is to celebrate the best results done without resorting to reloading and replaying or using other exploits to gain an unfair advantage. (And please, nobody needs bring up the anarchy exploit. It was fixed in 1.61 and none of those games will make it into the permanent HOF. )

Are you sure it was fixed? In that case, will my submission will make it? http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/game_info.php?entryID=1585

 

[Denniz]

Are you sure it was fixed? In that case, will my submission will make it? http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/game_info.php?entryID=1585

Firaxis made a change that required 5 turns between revolutions. If you have found a way around that, then that is unfortunate. I don't set policy, but I would assume that Superslug will ban any new incarnation of the anarchy exploit from the Permanent HOF.

You know, you could have told us about this sooner. Your entry was from 4/18.

Now we will have to recheck all the 1.61 entries eligible for the Permanent HOF for this exploit. It would have been much easier doing the first time through.

 

[VirusMonster]

Hello all,

Sorry Conroe, but Denniz understood me correctly. I also liked the way he explained this issue that I don't understand the spirit of the HOF rules. I think I understand the spirit, but have little incentive to follow it.

But my article and my thoughts on the HOF save/reload policy are 2 different topics. My strategy works not only under the letter, but even under the spirit of the HOF rules. I updated the 2nd part now as well and hope someone will use it to get the nr.1 on the HOF table for a huge deity map win. In my eyes, what matters most is the satisfaction one gets beating a high difficulty level FAIR and SQUARE. In my experience, save&reload by itself has been a useful tactic to learn the game. If I were to you win through excessive dependency on save&reloading on my OWN games (not HOF), I assume I would get less satisfaction than a person who did not save& reload at all.

On the other hand, coming to my views on HOF save&reload policy, I see no need to hide that I am against the illusion created by the HOF rules that no one tries to cheat or most cheating attempts get caught or the observation of too little cheating is a good thing.

People will cheat at every opportunity and if you can't detect one sort of cheating %99.9, I don't even want to call cheating, let's say "way of overcoming the system", I find it unfair to discourage people through fear or accusations of being shameless or through excessive unfair penalties that their "way of overcoming the system" is against the SPIRIT of whatever rules you want to empose. If HOF staff, as the authority of the HOF rules, can't detect a particular type of exploit in %99.9 of the cases, then I have little incentive to follow the spirit of the rules, because 1) there is a very high probability that at least a single person is on the HOF list who has used a particular "way of overcoming the system", and 2) I find it not smart & unfair to being forced to silently observe the fact that some people are left untouched doing their "way of overcoming the system".

Now tell me: After a 1 hour play session, I attack with my quechua an archer and lose the fight. I quit the game, reload some other save and play for 15-20 minutes, then reload the beginning of the turn where I lost my quechua to an archer. This time, I don't attack and skip, wait next turn. I attack next turn and win the battle, then play on. Can you detect it or not?

I do this tactic on some critical battles. Can you detect it or not? Do you expect me to remember the moves I did previously and repeat them? Are you recording each of my moves before a turn save? Don't gimme that "Why do you wanna know?" talk.

I am sure you can get suspicious about a person looking at save/reload logs, but what can you prove? Let's say you catch a particular person, do you go to sleep thinking you did a fair job, catching that person or do you feel bad for being unfair to that person, because you let many do it unnoticed?

Thus, I suggested those who try my strategy to save&reload only if they lose 5 times in 5 different quechua rush games at %85 combat odds. The chances for losing all 5 (4 combat I quechua vs 2 archer battles) is (0.15)^5, an ultra small probability. Once you get your 2 quechuas upgraded with city raider I and cover, things are easier, because now you can sacrifice weak ones and let your experienced ones fight vs damaged archers on subsequent base attacks.

P.S. Similar, but more serious stuff happens in real life and not many can speak up vs harsh penalties of authority where the justification becomes: "We can't catch and punish all, so to scare others off, you need to be punished extra for whatever you did." All this is being done to protect the illusion that there is fairness, but not fairness. Please don't try to protect the image of fairness. The truth is fair enough by itself alone.

 

[superslug]

Are you sure it was fixed? In that case, will my submission will make it? http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/game_info.php?entryID=1585

I've gone through your logs and threads, and think I have a vague idea what you're doing, but I'm not entirely sure. Can you post a specific description here in the HOF forum?

 

[superslug]

Now we will have to recheck all the 1.61 entries eligible for the Permanent HOF for this exploit. It would have been much easier doing the first time through.

This is actually more my fault than anyone elses.

GOTM has a rule about "new" exploits and strategies being inquired about with their staff either publically or privately before submission, but I neglected to add that to the HOF rules thus far. So, if Shadowsong did reinvent the anarchy exploit and submitted first before asking questions, he/she was within their rights.

I will be amending the rules about that before Wednesday. And a case by case review of 1.61 mod submissions before the 25th was something I was going to do anyway, just to be on the safe side.

 

[superslug]

In my experience, save&reload by itself has been a useful tactic to learn the game.

For experimenting and education outside the HOF (which I believe is what you're saying ), you're right on this point. I don't personally care about how people play when it doesn't get submitted.

On the other hand, coming to my views on HOF save&reload policy, I see no need to hide that I am against the illusion created by the HOF rules that no one tries to cheat or most cheating attempts get caught or the observation of too little cheating is a good thing.

It's not an illusion that's created by the rules, it's just that cheating doesn't get talked about much on the forum. Most players are interested in having fun and focusing on the play, leaving the dirty work to be done behind closed doors by a small group of willing volunteers.

People will cheat at every opportunity and if you can't detect one sort of cheating %99.9, I don't even want to call cheating, let's say "way of overcoming the system", I find it unfair to discourage people through fear or accusations of being shameless or through excessive unfair penalties that their "way of overcoming the system" is against the SPIRIT of whatever rules you want to empose.

First of all, since I'm the final authority on the HOF rules, I'd say I'm the one who gets to say what is and isn't against the spirit of said rules, much less what that spirit actually is. You can get the gist of it further above in the post though.

"Discourage people through fear"?
Sounds as if I'm sort of tyrant. Might explain why compared me to Hitler once in III HOF. Oddly enough it was a compliment.

"Accusations of being shameless"?
I hope anyone that's ever received one of rejection notifications knows that we're just informing them their game doesn't meet HOF standards. We rarely can tell if it's genuine malicious cheating, an accident/mistake or just ignorance/misinterpretation of the rules.

"Excessive unfair penalties"?
And what exactly would those penalties be? Last time I looked, all I do is decide if games meet the HOF rules and send them in the appropriate direction. It's a lot like doing quality assurance in a factory. If a product is good, it goes on the shelf. If it's bad, it goes back. I don't hunt down and whip the guys who were involved in making it.

If HOF staff, as the authority of the HOF rules, can't detect a particular type of exploit in %99.9 of the cases, then I have little incentive to follow the spirit of the rules, because 1) there is a very high probability that at least a single person is on the HOF list who has used a particular "way of overcoming the system", and 2) I find it not smart & unfair to being forced to silently observe the fact that some people are left untouched doing their "way of overcoming the system".

Here's a counterexample, and a very true one at that!

Suppose there's a cheat we can't detect as effectively as we'd like at some point in time. Now, six months later, because we're constantly improving in our detection and enforcement ability, we're able to retroactively check the HOF tables twice as thoroughly for said cheat. We find one or two odd games out of the thousands that have to be retroactively removed, because they're in noncompliance with a longstanding rule. The rest of the games stay on the tables, because 99.9% of the players followed the rule. They didn't follow the rule because we could enforce it, they followed the rule because it was there.

If we went with your model, we'd wait those six months before making the rule in the first place, and we'd have to remove hundreds of games. And there might only be hundreds of games instead of thousands because the interim legality of the assumed cheat would mean the HOF wasn't very fun anyway.

Now tell me, how fair is that scenario?

Now tell me: After a 1 hour play session, I attack with my quechua an archer and lose the fight. I quit the game, reload some other save and play for 15-20 minutes, then reload the beginning of the turn where I lost my quechua to an archer. This time, I don't attack and skip, wait next turn. I attack next turn and win the battle, then play on. Can you detect it or not?

I do this tactic on some critical battles. Can you detect it or not? Do you expect me to remember the moves I did previously and repeat them? Are you recording each of my moves before a turn save? Don't gimme that "Why do you wanna know?" talk.

I am sure you can get suspicious about a person looking at save/reload logs, but what can you prove?

I quoted this part of your post so you know that I read it, but I really don't have any response that you'll like. I just hope you'll understand from the example above one good reason why I won't answer such questions.

Let's say you catch a particular person, do you go to sleep thinking you did a fair job, catching that person or do you feel bad for being unfair to that person, because you let many do it unnoticed?

I do what I have to for the Hall of Fame, to protect the tables, because I love the Hall of Fame, because I love the rationalization that this community type service of running the HOF somehow justifies the time I spend playing Civilization.

But you know what? I don't like sending rejection notifications. I much prefer the days that all the games that get vetted are good, when I can relax and learn from the submissions. It's less paperwork and more Civ time. Or more forum time as the case often is.

P.S. Similar, but more serious stuff happens in real life and not many can speak up vs harsh penalties of authority where the justification becomes: "We can't catch and punish all, so to scare others off, you need to be punished extra for whatever you did." All this is being done to protect the illusion that there is fairness, but not fairness. Please don't try to protect the image of fairness. The truth is fair enough by itself alone.

Jurisprudence, law and order, government-they're all very strong metaphors for how things work here in the Hall of Fame, but at the end of the day this isn't a democracy. I'm an objective HOF administrator working for a benevolent dictator (Thunderfall), and the way I choose to do things is how it's done.

But it's not really about power, it's about precedent. Before I took over HOF III, I was a player of extreme passion with a smidgen of actual skill. I organize this competitive arena based on the work of the three HOF admins I played under in III. And they based it off GOTM3, HOFII, GOTM2...

Basically, if ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

[Moonsinger]

Firaxis made a change that required 5 turns between revolutions. If you have found a way around that, then that is unfortunate. I don't set policy, but I would assume that Superslug will ban any new incarnation of the anarchy exploit from the Permanent HOF.

There is absolutely no way around that! There is absolutely no new incarnation of the anarchy exploit! Shadowsong's game was played in according to the GOTM and Firaxis rule. There was 5 turns wait between each revolution. Yes, he went into anarchy on purpose to save some money and buy some extra turns, but not much.

 

[Shadowsong]

I've gone through your logs and threads, and think I have a vague idea what you're doing, but I'm not entirely sure. Can you post a specific description here in the HOF forum?

Since people said the exploit was eliminated, I thought it was ok to put myself into anarchy. And it's true that I had to wait between the turns.

 

[Dianthus]

Since people said the exploit was eliminated, I thought it was ok to put myself into anarchy. And it's true that I had to wait between the turns.

It's fine to go into Anarchy. The exploit was that it was possible to stay in anarchy continuously by switching civics/religions before the previous anarchy period ended. Continuous anarchy shouldn't be possible in 1.61. What confused us is that you seemed to be saying it *was* possible!

 

[VirusMonster]

superslug thx,

I don't want to enter any unfriendly debates. I think civ4 is a great game; it brought me back to the turn based strategy world I once enjoyed so much. (master of orion I&II,colonization, civI,II,III, Heroes of might and Magic)

The community you have on this site is wonderful. To me, that is what matters most. It is just me who is slightly anarchist and has little respect for rules.

I did not mean to say, it was a mistake to imply, that HOF staff does "accusations of being shameless", threatens with "excessive penalties", and 1 more thing I dun remember I said you do, but real law enforcement or similar does, or in my experience they have been I am just against the general concept of seeing "ways of overcoming the system" as something that is ethically on a lower scale than being a clean player. You got your rules, great, but don't expect everyone to believe you have a clean "whatever"(I am talking outside civ4 here) list, although my experience on the Civ4 forums has been most believe so. I am in the minority probably.

I don't buy your argument of catching others later when more techniques become available. I wished it was as simple as you mentioned, perhaps it is so simple on the topic of save&reloaing. Let's say you actually do that and expect others to believe fairness will eventually come, but in real life, what gets mostly done, at least in my experience it has been, to catch a few& punish them harshly to leave the impression that justice is being made, and leave a dozen out in the streets&schools. Again, my discomfort is with the illision of justice.

Ok, I will wait before I make any judgement about the way HOF works. When I submit a save, if I everdo, and you catch me, , and you ban me , then I will say "You are really good at catching." I already said how I would cheat.

Take care, read my article and make comments if you like. I made it less luck dependent now for the HOF competition. It covers only upto 500BC.

 

[Denniz]

There is absolutely no way around that! There is absolutely no new incarnation of the anarchy exploit! Shadowsong's game was played in according to the GOTM and Firaxis rule. There was 5 turns wait between each revolution. Yes, he went into anarchy on purpose to save some money and buy some extra turns, but not much.

Since people said the exploit was eliminated, I thought it was ok to put myself into anarchy. And it's true that I had to wait between the turns.

I am glad to hear it was just a misunderstanding.

 

[Moonsinger]

What is the final verdict for the anarchy tactic? Is it allowed or disallowed?

 

[Dianthus]

What is the final verdict for the anarchy tactic? Is it allowed or disallowed?

Going into anarchy is allowed. Perpetual anarchy isn't allowed, though we believe this isn't possible in 1.61. If anyone finds it IS possible then we would like to know!

 

[Moonsinger]

Going into anarchy is allowed. Perpetual anarchy isn't allowed, though we believe this isn't possible in 1.61. If anyone finds it IS possible then we would like to know!

Will there be a limit on how many time one can go into anarchy? For example, go into anarchy, emerge from anarchy, 5 turns later, go into anarchy, emerge from anarchy, 5 turns later, go into anarchy,....,etc. I really don't think anyone would want to play like this...but just in case. Will this be allowed?

 

[Dianthus]

Will there be a limit on how many time one can go into anarchy? For example, go into anarchy, emerge from anarchy, 5 turns later, go into anarchy, emerge from anarchy, 5 turns later, go into anarchy,....,etc.

Is there a significant advantage to doing this? I'll have a try at this myself, but some expert opinions would be welcome .

 

[Moonsinger]

Is there a significant advantage to doing this? I'll have a try at this myself, but some expert opinions would be welcome .

Significant advantage? Not really! There is an old saying "when life give you lemons, why not make some lemonade" or something like that. Once in a blue moon, we will run into someone who can actually make million with their lemons. But really, did they make their million by turning lemons into lemonade? Not really! Or did they make their million by selling lemonade? Not really! It's the combination of everything, lemon, lemonade rocket formula, business opportunity, etc...

 

[superslug]

Will there be a limit on how many time one can go into anarchy? For example, go into anarchy, emerge from anarchy, 5 turns later, go into anarchy, emerge from anarchy, 5 turns later, go into anarchy,....,etc. I really don't think anyone would want to play like this...but just in case. Will this be allowed?

For now, no limit. The eternal caveat of course is that if I get uncomfortable with how much it's done, it may be retroactively dealt with, but that's a possibility for any trick, so nothing to really worry about.

 

[alatari]

I got one free anarchy from switching from no religion to adopt the religion I 'discovered' then switching civics immediately after that first anarchy. I tried playing with switching religions then civics then religions but it wouldn't allow it after that first freebie. So I guess the exploit is patched.

 

[Murky]

I have question that is related to this thread. If you start a game then decide you don't like the map, reload the initial save then regenerate the map, does that count as reloading to the mod?

 

[Equendil]

People will cheat at every opportunity and if you can't detect one sort of cheating %99.9, I don't even want to call cheating, let's say "way of overcoming the system", I find it unfair to discourage people through fear or accusations of being shameless or through excessive unfair penalties that their "way of overcoming the system" is against the SPIRIT of whatever rules you want to empose. If HOF staff, as the authority of the HOF rules, can't detect a particular type of exploit in %99.9 of the cases, then I have little incentive to follow the spirit of the rules, because 1) there is a very high probability that at least a single person is on the HOF list who has used a particular "way of overcoming the system", and 2) I find it not smart & unfair to being forced to silently observe the fact that some people are left untouched doing their "way of overcoming the system".

I've been playing competitive games for many years, it's sad to see that no matter the game, the same old things always pop up.

There's basically three kinds of competitors:

1) Your average player, also known as the "scrub". Those don't even need telling what the rules are because it's obvious to them. They'll stay away from anything they think is "cheap" whether the rules allow it or not, and you won't see one using an exploit, banned or not. They don't really play to win, and they usually don't either because of their self inflicted barriers and the second category of players below.

2) Lawyers. They play by the rule, but they play to win and they often do. They abide by the letter of the rule, not necessarily by the spirit of it. If an exploit is not banned, it's fair to use.

3) Cheaters. Cheaters usually manage to convince themselves that what they are doing is "levelling the playing field". The cheater only follows rules if there's a reasonable chance he will get caught breaking them, otherwise there might as well be no rules. Since cheating doesn't make someone a better player, the cheater tends to assume every good player out there, especially in category 2 is doing it too. "Everybody does it" is the most infuriating yet common excuse I have heard over the years (that and "it was my bro" ).

Now the question is, do you want to be in category 2) or 3)