New Exploit Found

[Krill]

Well, a possible one, anyway, I'm bringing this up in our private forum, and directing the mods to it.

The exploit was found after I noticed a possible abuse of it by Cavs (note: Cavs may not have done this, but I can't think of anything else that it plausibly could have been).

An hour after Cavs ended their turn, their score decreased by 6 points. No other player was logged in at this point, and MS had not ended their turn. The former means that it could not have been a city gift (as there was no one to accept the deal, and there was no corresponding score increase), and it could not have been a barb related issue (as MS had not ended their turn, and all barb moves occur after MS hit enter).

Ronnie set up a test pitboss game for us to test this in, and showed that it is possible for a team to slave after they hit end turn, which is an exploit as explained below:


When you hit enter your and are allocated to your city (with that pop point) so if you after you hit enter you then slave away that pop point...you essentially get free , and

This is only possible in sequential pitboss because only in this game format is it possible to slave after the food et al is calculated; PBEM and SP, ending turn finishes all possible actions until the next turn starts, and in simultaneous turns the food et al is not calculated until turn rollover, so there is no free , or

So the game needs to be stopped and reloaded to Cavs turn so they can replay without the slave.

 

[dutchfire]

Could it have been the negative event they're talking about?

 

[Krill]

That was Kaz, this happened during the Cavs turn.

 

[Memphus]

So the game needs to be stopped and reloaded to Cavs turn so they can replay without the slave.

Or with the slave but it needs to be done on thier turn.

 

[Krill]

I'm currently trying to get my thoughts into one piece (it's right on so many levels) but I'm not entirely sure if it matters, except in a few instances.

 

[Krill]

OK, while still waiting on a secondary test, here is another way of looking at it (admittedly, I've not slept much last night so this may seem like a drunken rambling).

So long as the item slaved after the end of turn is not built until the build phase at the end of the next turn (ie turn X ended, item slaved, turn X+1 finished, item built), then why is it that you would slave at a point other than in your turn? Where is the advantage of it? Because you could slave not after turn X, but during turn X+1 and the same effect would occur, with the tile yields and city maintenence (which is calculated after hitting end turn, right?) being correct, with one exception that needs to be checked. If an item that has been completed after the end of turn is built before the next turns building phase, then they could have built 2 units that turn, which is a massive exploit (you can never build 2 things in one turn), but honestly, I'm just too knackered to know if that is possible due to a bug or something, or if I'm imagining things.

There are only a couple of other things I can think of that makes sense, such as slaving a city that was about to be taken by the enemy to reduce it's population ie slaving a settler with 0 hammers so that if it was about to be taken, it would be less useful to the enemy, or possibly hiding pop growth from other teams (ie for demographics purposes, it would hide which city was growing, making it harder to track builds). The former is actually a good enough reason to ban it on it's own, as there will come a point where cities are falling and doing this is the safest way to make sure that the enemy don't get all of the pop points, and that you get the tile yields for that turn, which you shouldn't be able to do (you should be able to slave to screw over the enemy, or not slave to not screw over the city if you might keep it if the attack goes badly; slaving after the end of turn gives you both, because you can slave during the attack when it becomes certain you will lose the city).

If it's true that slaving in the interturn is equivalent to slaving during the teams next turn, then there is no reason to not ban this because it can be abused, and if it is inequivalent, it should be banned because it gives an unfair advantage.

 

[General_W]

I'm not yet awake enough to participate here (need. more. coffee.) - but I just wanted to pop in really quick and say "Kudos" to Krill and Memphus for bringing this up here first before posting in the UN!

Till we get all our ducks in a row, we don't want to start a fight in the UN.

 

[Ronnie1]

I just ran through another turn of testing...

I did NOT track the actual food/hammer/commerce in the slaved city....

I DID discover that the slaved unit was NOT available the following turn. My interpretation is that if you slave AFTER you end your turn, from a USABLE point of view, you effectively slaved during the NEXT/FOLLOWING turn.

Someone else can log in and test the other aspects...or tell me what to look for with regard to the food/hammer/commerce output. You can't slave the Maya, their foolish leader wasted his opportunity to buy Bronze Working, and as such, they are backwards.

EDIT: I must be too drunk ALL the time...because I really can't tell how/when the beakers are figured. I played a couple more turns...and discovered that ANY actions taken after you end turn occur the following turn. But the food/hammer/commerce thing is more than I can get my head around right now....I know, that is really sad, (I even have a college degree, = EXTRA SAD).

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I just ran through another turn of testing...

I did NOT track the actual food/hammer/commerce in the slaved city....

I DID discover that the slaved unit was NOT available the following turn. My interpretation is that if you slave AFTER you end your turn, from a USABLE point of view, you effectively slaved during the NEXT/FOLLOWING turn.

Someone else can log in and test the other aspects...or tell me what to look for with regard to the food/hammer/commerce output. You can't slave the Maya, their foolish leader wasted his opportunity to buy Bronze Working, and as such, they are backwards.

EDIT: I must be too drunk ALL the time...because I really can't tell how/when the beakers are figured. I played a couple more turns...and discovered that ANY actions taken after you end turn occur the following turn. But the food/hammer/commerce thing is more than I can get my head around right now....I know, that is really sad, (I even have a college degree, = EXTRA SAD).

Well, that sounds like it's not an exploit at all. if it is just applied to the next turn, no big deal.

 

[Ronnie1]

Well someone smarter than me needs to look at how the food/hammers/commerce work....but yes, I think it is no big deal also.