LotR15 -- OPEN SG Regent With a Twist
- Thread starter Arathorn
- Start date
Number 1, this is not an exploit. Several SG's under the RBciv rules have used it.
Number 2, I've been playing this game since it came out. If you can't kill 3 civs with 110+ cavs + 7 armies, when India couldn't handle 10 cavs + 1 army, then you are a horrid player. This is regent and requires very little tactics.
This is a SG played using China. China is Militaristic and therefore, will get a leader back very quickly. This leader can sail back and rush the Palace back to where it was. There is no point in building cav armies when they are stuck on our continent. We could have sailed them over, but people put 4 men into them instead of doing 3, then adding the third when it reaches the continent.
If this was Diety or Sid and I pulled a stunt like this, then yes, you have the right to complain. With what we have it is about 15 cavs + 1 army per group. That is around 7 groups each taking out a city. Good luck losing with that ratio.
Number 2, I've been playing this game since it came out. If you can't kill 3 civs with 110+ cavs + 7 armies, when India couldn't handle 10 cavs + 1 army, then you are a horrid player. This is regent and requires very little tactics.
This is a SG played using China. China is Militaristic and therefore, will get a leader back very quickly. This leader can sail back and rush the Palace back to where it was. There is no point in building cav armies when they are stuck on our continent. We could have sailed them over, but people put 4 men into them instead of doing 3, then adding the third when it reaches the continent.
If this was Diety or Sid and I pulled a stunt like this, then yes, you have the right to complain. With what we have it is about 15 cavs + 1 army per group. That is around 7 groups each taking out a city. Good luck losing with that ratio.
grs
nameless one
Hey Foresight, just take a deap breath of fresh air and count to ten, k? 
Amidst the strife and tumult afflicting the Ruling Elite, the intelligensia saw an opportunity.
Their secret cabal toiled outside the knowledge of the government. (MM'd cities to use as many scientists as possible.) In their second season of activity, assistance came from the their neighbors on the fjiord. The means to revolution were obtained for detailed plans of locomotion. [Trade Steam Power to Scandanavia for Communism. Hmm ... Scandanavia, rails, revolution ... it all sounds familiar.]
The pointy-heads took up arms against their oppressors for 7 long seasons. The workers were promised the means of production, but first they had to get off their asses. [Next leader will find all home continent workers automated. I have no idea what they're doing, but at least they're doing something.]
And then the Proletariat took control. Anarchy was a difficult time for Brennus as well ...
Aww crap, settler-on-a-boat. (captured his last visible city and he ain't dead yet!) I'll play one more turn to position the troops and MM the cities.
Also get 5 Palace additions in 1 turn. I guess they won't do that in Anarchy.
I whack a Celt city just founded in the Tundra, and Brennus is still not dead. Sheesh. Send all Tundra Cavs on a mad scramble and finally nail the last settler.
Espionage is due in 3, and there is an MGL waiting outside of Madrid to rush the SPHQ.
The next player should be able to start an avalanche on the Indians on their 1st turn. I put a lot of workers on either Shift-A or Shift-W, so just watch them scramble around. At least it prevents screen burn-in.
Doubt it can be finished in 10 turns, but good chance to kill it in 15.
The World in 1756 AD
Their secret cabal toiled outside the knowledge of the government. (MM'd cities to use as many scientists as possible.) In their second season of activity, assistance came from the their neighbors on the fjiord. The means to revolution were obtained for detailed plans of locomotion. [Trade Steam Power to Scandanavia for Communism. Hmm ... Scandanavia, rails, revolution ... it all sounds familiar.]
The pointy-heads took up arms against their oppressors for 7 long seasons. The workers were promised the means of production, but first they had to get off their asses. [Next leader will find all home continent workers automated. I have no idea what they're doing, but at least they're doing something.]
And then the Proletariat took control. Anarchy was a difficult time for Brennus as well ...
Aww crap, settler-on-a-boat. (captured his last visible city and he ain't dead yet!) I'll play one more turn to position the troops and MM the cities.
Also get 5 Palace additions in 1 turn. I guess they won't do that in Anarchy.
I whack a Celt city just founded in the Tundra, and Brennus is still not dead. Sheesh. Send all Tundra Cavs on a mad scramble and finally nail the last settler.
Espionage is due in 3, and there is an MGL waiting outside of Madrid to rush the SPHQ.
The next player should be able to start an avalanche on the Indians on their 1st turn. I put a lot of workers on either Shift-A or Shift-W, so just watch them scramble around. At least it prevents screen burn-in.
Doubt it can be finished in 10 turns, but good chance to kill it in 15.
The World in 1756 AD
grs
nameless one
Good move to switch to communism!
Please point to them because I know Sirian would have disapproved of such a move and he wrote the RBC rules. Allow me to explain why this is an exploit. To transfer 110 troops and 7 armies requires 25 transports (at 110 shields each) for a cost of 2750 shields. Using this move transports the troops instantly removing the time required to build such a large navy and travel across the ocean where it would be at risk to attack. It also saves you the 50gpt you would be spending on such a navy in Republic, or 25gpt in Monarchy (I think this second number is right, though I rarely use Monarchy).Foresight said:
Most here would consider a free palace jump to be an exploit and that gives you around 400 shields for free. This is 7 times that many, with other free "perks." A clever move it is, but still an exploit, and if someone did it in a game of mine, I would likely invalidate the turns.
You are talking to the most experienced player in the SG community. LKendter has sponsored 70 games of his own and played in many RBC (and probably LotR) games as well. If he speaks to you about SG etiquette, it would behoove you to listen, rather than insult him.
microbe
Cascaded Mansion
- Joined
- Nov 16, 2003
- Messages
- 4,596
preturn: lux is still 20%. I lower it to 0, and fix a couple of towns for happiness.
We have 53% land and 76% pop. Stll 13% land to grab.
I switch many cities from wealth to settlers (all size-6 towns) and cavs. Probably wouldn't matter but I just hate building wealth, and we'll need a lot of settlers.
Switch Beijing from courthouse to cav in 2 turns. We'll rush the SPHQ there.
(1)1758AD: We still have 2 turn peace treaty with India, oh well..Is there a way to stop all the automated workers?
(2)1760AD: more movement.
I set a continental rally point next to Kafa.
IBT Espionage->Medicine.
(3)1762AD: India has Corporation. I buy it with Espionage+1360g, and declare on India.
Rush SPHQ in Beijing.
Cav army kills rifle and autoraze Kolhapur.
Cav kills rifle and capture Pune.
Cav army kills a rifle and spear and we capture Dacca (size-9).
Cav army kills a guerilla and rifle and we capture Bangalore.
Cav army kills rifle and capture Punjab.
Kill 2 rifles and we capture Bodo.
At Regent the AI defense is so poor. Even size-7 cities could have only one defender.
Losing 3 cavs in the process.
IBT India kills one of our elite cav.
(4)1764AD: Keep roading to the front. Create gems colony so we have our 8th lux.
Kill 1 rifle and capture Odense.
IBT We lose one cav after it fends off a guerilla and a cav. Palace expansion. India lands a cav and an MDI enxt to Odense. Saw an India leader runs back into Bengal after battle with Vikings.
(5)1766AD: We kill the landing but lose one cav.
Kill a rifle and cav and we capture Calcutta.
Kill 2 rifles and a cav and we capture Bengal.
Kill 2 conscript rifle and 1 reg spear and we capture Hyderabad (size-9).
Kill 3 rifles and 1 cav, we capture Chittagong together with Smith's Trading Company! This is the best wonder under Communism as it decreases the maintenance cost a lot.
Cleanup some units in our territory and lose 2 cav.
Start the attack on Delhi.
17hp army kills first rifle, but drops to 1hp after killing the second.
Another army kills the 3rd rifle and we capture it.
Kill 3 rifles in Karachi and we capture the city.
(6)1768AD:
Bombay is heavily defended (about 5 units) but we capture it at the cost of 2 cavs.
Kill 2 rifles and 1 cav and we capture Molde.
Kill a guerilla and a rifle, we capture Jaipur.
Kill 2 rifles, 1 guerilla and 1 spear in Madras and we capture this city.
Lose 2 or 3 cavs but we capture Lahore and:
We are 61% land and 88% pop.
I'll heal a bit this turn and declare on Vikings next turn.
IBT Medicine->Refining. It doesn't matter any more.
(7)1770AD:
I set Refinie to max to get it in 4 turns with -114gpt. We have too much money that we can't use under Communism. Oh I did upgrade 16 musketmen to infantry too.
Found more cities. We have 63% land.
I declare on Vikings.
Our cav walks into undefended New Yangchow and our home continent is all ours.
Kill 2 spears and capture Alsund. (64%)
Kill a rifle and spear and we capture Birka.
Kill 1 rifle, 1 cav and 3 spears, we capture Reykjavik. We now control Magellan's Voyage.
Kill 2 musketmen, 1 zerk, 1 spear and 1 cav, we capture Bergen. We now control Knights Templar.
We are now 66% land.
IBT we lose a cav to Vikings.
Our score is 2201, Mao the Clever.
We have 53% land and 76% pop. Stll 13% land to grab.
I switch many cities from wealth to settlers (all size-6 towns) and cavs. Probably wouldn't matter but I just hate building wealth, and we'll need a lot of settlers.
Switch Beijing from courthouse to cav in 2 turns. We'll rush the SPHQ there.
(1)1758AD: We still have 2 turn peace treaty with India, oh well..Is there a way to stop all the automated workers?
(2)1760AD: more movement.
I set a continental rally point next to Kafa.
IBT Espionage->Medicine.
(3)1762AD: India has Corporation. I buy it with Espionage+1360g, and declare on India.
Rush SPHQ in Beijing.
Cav army kills rifle and autoraze Kolhapur.
Cav kills rifle and capture Pune.
Cav army kills a rifle and spear and we capture Dacca (size-9).
Cav army kills a guerilla and rifle and we capture Bangalore.
Cav army kills rifle and capture Punjab.
Kill 2 rifles and we capture Bodo.
At Regent the AI defense is so poor. Even size-7 cities could have only one defender.
Losing 3 cavs in the process.
IBT India kills one of our elite cav.
(4)1764AD: Keep roading to the front. Create gems colony so we have our 8th lux.
Kill 1 rifle and capture Odense.
IBT We lose one cav after it fends off a guerilla and a cav. Palace expansion. India lands a cav and an MDI enxt to Odense. Saw an India leader runs back into Bengal after battle with Vikings.
(5)1766AD: We kill the landing but lose one cav.
Kill a rifle and cav and we capture Calcutta.
Kill 2 rifles and a cav and we capture Bengal.
Kill 2 conscript rifle and 1 reg spear and we capture Hyderabad (size-9).
Kill 3 rifles and 1 cav, we capture Chittagong together with Smith's Trading Company! This is the best wonder under Communism as it decreases the maintenance cost a lot.
Cleanup some units in our territory and lose 2 cav.
Start the attack on Delhi.
17hp army kills first rifle, but drops to 1hp after killing the second.
Another army kills the 3rd rifle and we capture it.
Kill 3 rifles in Karachi and we capture the city.
(6)1768AD:
Bombay is heavily defended (about 5 units) but we capture it at the cost of 2 cavs.
Kill 2 rifles and 1 cav and we capture Molde.
Kill a guerilla and a rifle, we capture Jaipur.
Kill 2 rifles, 1 guerilla and 1 spear in Madras and we capture this city.
Lose 2 or 3 cavs but we capture Lahore and:
We are 61% land and 88% pop.
I'll heal a bit this turn and declare on Vikings next turn.
IBT Medicine->Refining. It doesn't matter any more.
(7)1770AD:
I set Refinie to max to get it in 4 turns with -114gpt. We have too much money that we can't use under Communism. Oh I did upgrade 16 musketmen to infantry too.
Found more cities. We have 63% land.
I declare on Vikings.
Our cav walks into undefended New Yangchow and our home continent is all ours.
Kill 2 spears and capture Alsund. (64%)
Kill a rifle and spear and we capture Birka.
Kill 1 rifle, 1 cav and 3 spears, we capture Reykjavik. We now control Magellan's Voyage.
Kill 2 musketmen, 1 zerk, 1 spear and 1 cav, we capture Bergen. We now control Knights Templar.
We are now 66% land.
IBT we lose a cav to Vikings.
Our score is 2201, Mao the Clever.
-0blivion-
Musically inclined
Nice one 
Good job everyone who played. Try 200 turns next time Arathorn
On the palace jump, i consider that a major exploit. Even though this is an open SG, you still should of consulted the members of the forum before going through with it IMO. The majority would most likely have requested you didn't do it..
Speaker has already shown you the math, so i don't really have to say anymore. But nice one T_McC on the switch to communism
Good job everyone who played. Try 200 turns next time Arathorn
On the palace jump, i consider that a major exploit. Even though this is an open SG, you still should of consulted the members of the forum before going through with it IMO. The majority would most likely have requested you didn't do it..
Speaker has already shown you the math, so i don't really have to say anymore. But nice one T_McC on the switch to communism
microbe
Cascaded Mansion
- Joined
- Nov 16, 2003
- Messages
- 4,596
Some pictures.
We built our first city:
Then we finished our "expansion" in about 900 years:
We finished our war with Babylon and Spain and started the war with Ottomans.
Not before too long we wiped AI out of our continent:
Just before the war with India (Beginning of my turns):
Domination:
We built our first city:
Then we finished our "expansion" in about 900 years:
We finished our war with Babylon and Spain and started the war with Ottomans.
Not before too long we wiped AI out of our continent:
Just before the war with India (Beginning of my turns):
Domination:
SesnOfWthr
True Believer
Good job guys.
Geez Microbe, why didn't you just eliminate them? What would it have taken, 3 more turns?
Geez Microbe, why didn't you just eliminate them? What would it have taken, 3 more turns?
Oh well, you all consider it an exploit and I don't. An exploit to me is one with only positive results and no minus. We had a lot of galleons which would have gotten all the cavs over in time or close to it I think. It was the army that couldn't go over. Now, by doing the palace thing, I killed our continent. That is a huge minus. So really, all I did for a positive was get the extra armies over because the galleons could have gotten the cavs over in the 20 turns.
I wasn't insulting LK by the way.
I wasn't insulting LK by the way.
grs
nameless one
Very nice turns microbe; I really would like to try this on monarch (emperor? - may be a bit insane...).
Just to add to the exploit discussion (all below my personal opinion):
An exploit is when you are exploiting something - that sounds odd, but that is the basic idea - so there is a game feature that is there for some reason, but you exploit it; i.e. you use it for something it isn't meant to or you overuse it in a way that it wasn't meant to; or a bug that is in the game mechanics. In your example it is the feature to abandon a city and the feature that a palace will respawn if you lose your capital.
Without a look into the programmers minds, it should be easy to tell, that abandoning a city was not meant to move a palace and the idea that the palace is moved when you don't have your capital anymore was not meant to willingly abandon it. It was just overlooked that you can actually "free-jump" your palace that way.
Same would be ressource denial, ship chaining, etc. What I always think about is: Is this an intended game feature or not. If I am unsure I ask in the SG thread, if it is accepted by the sponsor and/or the majority of players or not.
You could call it a skillfull move (whether it was in this case or not) in a private game or a competitive game environment where it is accepted (like gotm or hof for example), but it stays an exploit and as of my limited experience exploits are out of question in most SGs or should be at least discussed before using.
Just to add to the exploit discussion (all below my personal opinion):
An exploit is when you are exploiting something - that sounds odd, but that is the basic idea - so there is a game feature that is there for some reason, but you exploit it; i.e. you use it for something it isn't meant to or you overuse it in a way that it wasn't meant to; or a bug that is in the game mechanics. In your example it is the feature to abandon a city and the feature that a palace will respawn if you lose your capital.
Without a look into the programmers minds, it should be easy to tell, that abandoning a city was not meant to move a palace and the idea that the palace is moved when you don't have your capital anymore was not meant to willingly abandon it. It was just overlooked that you can actually "free-jump" your palace that way.
Same would be ressource denial, ship chaining, etc. What I always think about is: Is this an intended game feature or not. If I am unsure I ask in the SG thread, if it is accepted by the sponsor and/or the majority of players or not.
You could call it a skillfull move (whether it was in this case or not) in a private game or a competitive game environment where it is accepted (like gotm or hof for example), but it stays an exploit and as of my limited experience exploits are out of question in most SGs or should be at least discussed before using.
Just to be clear on what we're talking about:
The "Palace Jump Exploit" is when you abandon your Capital and your Palace magically appears elsewhere in your empire. Can be easily manipulated by the player, if he so chooses.
What was done in this game is a magic teleport due to giving a city away. If you have units in the city, they have to go somewhere so the game sends them to your capital. The fact that sometimes your capital isn't even on the same continent can make this quite powerful. I think this was a bit of lazy programming, as a more logical solution would be to send your troops to the nearest tile not under the control of another Civ (either your territory or neutral), like is already done when another civ gives you the boot order.
It would have been nice if this hadn't happened (as it really cheesy), but in the end the only difference it made was that I tried for conquest on my turns instead of domination. We could have easily achieved the domination limits with the cities on hand if we wanted to rush some culture. Either way the game had 20-25 turns to the end.
So I think the take-home lesson is: Don't try to learn anything from the HoF games.
The "Palace Jump Exploit" is when you abandon your Capital and your Palace magically appears elsewhere in your empire. Can be easily manipulated by the player, if he so chooses.
What was done in this game is a magic teleport due to giving a city away. If you have units in the city, they have to go somewhere so the game sends them to your capital. The fact that sometimes your capital isn't even on the same continent can make this quite powerful. I think this was a bit of lazy programming, as a more logical solution would be to send your troops to the nearest tile not under the control of another Civ (either your territory or neutral), like is already done when another civ gives you the boot order.
It would have been nice if this hadn't happened (as it really cheesy), but in the end the only difference it made was that I tried for conquest on my turns instead of domination. We could have easily achieved the domination limits with the cities on hand if we wanted to rush some culture. Either way the game had 20-25 turns to the end.
So I think the take-home lesson is: Don't try to learn anything from the HoF games.
- Thanks for helping finish this up. I really don't like games left dangling, even when they are clear wins.
- Moving the capital, and gifting a city to get free movement is, in my mind, very clearly an exploit. It's outside the designer's intention and clearly gets something for nothing, in my opinion. Simply gifting a city and getting troops moved to your capital in its original location is less clear in my mind, but it's not something I would do. This has been done in RBC games in the past, I'm fairly sure, as Foresight said (check out one of the Viking games in RBC13, as I recall).
- I've run about 16 games in the LotR series now and this is the very first time I've had a turn that I felt, at the time, was exploitive. That's an amazing run. I don't plan on codifying a ruleset any time soon. Thanks to all the players for keeping honor/gameplay high in this series. "Maximal ethics" (trying to do as much as possible) instead of "minimal efforts" (avoiding a list of "do not"s) are definitely in play.
- In the larger picture, though, the exploit barely mattered. The game was won a long time before. Delaying 100 turns at the very start isn't long enough. Delaying too long gives you no place to found without declaring war, which is problematic at best. Maybe a delayed start combined with passive to encourage trading? Dunno. Maybe it was just a one-time thing.
- Welcome to all players. I saw some more LotR newbies. Welcome to the club of the insane!
Arathorn
- Moving the capital, and gifting a city to get free movement is, in my mind, very clearly an exploit. It's outside the designer's intention and clearly gets something for nothing, in my opinion. Simply gifting a city and getting troops moved to your capital in its original location is less clear in my mind, but it's not something I would do. This has been done in RBC games in the past, I'm fairly sure, as Foresight said (check out one of the Viking games in RBC13, as I recall).
- I've run about 16 games in the LotR series now and this is the very first time I've had a turn that I felt, at the time, was exploitive. That's an amazing run. I don't plan on codifying a ruleset any time soon. Thanks to all the players for keeping honor/gameplay high in this series. "Maximal ethics" (trying to do as much as possible) instead of "minimal efforts" (avoiding a list of "do not"s) are definitely in play.
- In the larger picture, though, the exploit barely mattered. The game was won a long time before. Delaying 100 turns at the very start isn't long enough. Delaying too long gives you no place to found without declaring war, which is problematic at best. Maybe a delayed start combined with passive to encourage trading? Dunno. Maybe it was just a one-time thing.
- Welcome to all players. I saw some more LotR newbies. Welcome to the club of the insane!
Arathorn
Okay, then I will give a sorry to everyone who participated in this SG. I consider the ROP rape, ship chaining, etc to be exploits, but I never considered this one until now. You are right, I should have asked before I attemped it. Just like in my games, I never do it until the end when I know the win is there. I don't like spending an extra 50 turns when a game can be won in 20.
I am also sorry for getting edgy. I don't like being thought of as an exploiter, considering I do whatever I can to make sure I don't. I don't even replay turns (which I know at least one person on these forums must do because no one will ever find out).
I guess the reason why I never found this to be an exploit, besides what I stated about negative/positive is I've seen it in a few other SG's and no one seemed to complain. Or in the Sid Space sg, there was already a suggestion of someone taking the city, then giving it away so their troops will be sent back to the capital for free. This is somewhat different than what I did, but still in the same mind-set.
I hope this doesn't detur anyone from letting me join their SG's because with this exploit gone from my mind, there is nothing left that I can say, "what if I used this one because it isn't quite an exploit." All the other exploits are clearly defined.
I am also sorry for getting edgy. I don't like being thought of as an exploiter, considering I do whatever I can to make sure I don't. I don't even replay turns (which I know at least one person on these forums must do because no one will ever find out).
I guess the reason why I never found this to be an exploit, besides what I stated about negative/positive is I've seen it in a few other SG's and no one seemed to complain. Or in the Sid Space sg, there was already a suggestion of someone taking the city, then giving it away so their troops will be sent back to the capital for free. This is somewhat different than what I did, but still in the same mind-set.
I hope this doesn't detur anyone from letting me join their SG's because with this exploit gone from my mind, there is nothing left that I can say, "what if I used this one because it isn't quite an exploit." All the other exploits are clearly defined.
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