News: GOTM 146 England. Pregame Discussion

[Lanzelot]

2.) scout blocking resources is considered exploit, how about blocking it with worker/settler/warrior?

Blocking with worker/settler wold probably also be considered an exploit, but blocking with a warrior should be fine, because the AI can always ask "leave or declare war" when combat units of yours are inside their territory.

However, that brings up two other questions, about which I'm not quite sure myself:

1. Is it ok to block the AI's resources (with combat and/or non-combat units), if you sign a Right-of-Passage with the AI?
2. Up until two days ago I thought, that you will never get a boot order from an AI, if only non-combat units are inside their territory. (This is actually the whole point of the scout-ressource denial thing.) However, while playing a little test game in which I wanted to find out, whether it is possible to build an airfield inside foreign territory, I noticed the following: I had only a single worker inside enemy territory, which was waiting there until the time was ready for the "big airlift"... I was pretty shure that workers (like scouts and empty ships) will never get a boot order and was much surprised, when my worker suddenly got booted out of enemy territory!! Does anybody have more information on what determines, whether a unit will get a boot order?

(BTW: the result of my test was that you cannot build arifields in foreign territory, neither during peace nor during war. That's the reason why you need to bring an additional settler along, if you want to implement the "invasion tactic" I described here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=14077010&postcount=20 Airfields can only be built in your own territory or in no-mans-land.)

 

[templar_x]

i would say that settler-abandoning towns is simply possible either from size 1 or size 2. no exploit there. from size 1 it typically lasts longer anyway...
t_x

 

[tjs282]

I mean "settler-abandon at size 1". Don't tell me you haven't been aware of the fact, that settlers can also be built at size 1? No need to wait until the town grows to 2...!

Looks like no one understood what I mean... Pìu Freddo didn't and you neither.

Speaking personally, no, I wasn't aware that this was possible. I do remember you making this claim in ABLES-SG (re. Copenhagen), but no-one ever queried it, so I just assumed (whoops!) that the method I outlined above was what you meant...

"Settler-abandoning just as it hits Pop2" cannot work by definition: remember that a town needs to make 0fpt in order to abandon it? So how can it grow to size 2, when it makes 0fpt?

... which is why I specified MM-ing for 0FPT on the first turn at Pop2, so that the (Slave-)Settler completed on the following IBT. This is the method I have been using in my solo-games, for getting rid of captured enemy towns that I didn't want (while avoiding the attitude-hit for 'razing').

Presumably then, you would only do this for your own towns -- doing a Pop1 Settler-Abandon of a foreign town would surely also count as razing...?

No, I repeat -- you can build the settler at size 1 (with 0fpt), and you will get the popup asking whether you would like to abandon the town. You say "yes", and voila - you have generated 2 pop-points (a settler) out of 1 pop-point (a size 1 town)!
This is the whole point I'm trying to get accross: you can create additional population by building workers until population is down to 1 and only then settler-abandoning! (Instead of settler-abandoning when population is down to 2, as Pìu Freddo advised in his instructions above.)

So what you're saying, then, is that this technique is based on a bug?

Getting 'free money' for nothing, á la Emsworth deals is disallowed -- (why) is getting free Pop-points not (considered) equally exploitative?

EDIT: Wow, X-post with 3 people this time!

 

[Lanzelot]

a) I think you cannot avoid the attitude-hit anyway: even if you disbandon the town at size 2, it counts as "razing", as long as the town contains at least one foreign citizen...

b) I don't use settler-abandoning that often. (Actually can't remember the last time I did it...) But when I did, I never thought about this being an exploit: the town simply does not have enough population to build a settler (3 is required for that) and it is not growing (0fpt), so in order to prevent the production of that town going waste for the rest of the game, the game asks you whether you want to abandon the town. As simple as that. Whether the town is currently size 1 or 2 does not matter. Both numbers are < 3...

However, having said the above, I think the opportunities for application of that trick are rather small in number: If I want to settler-abandon my capital, then

1. either I don't have the time to wait till it is down to size 1 (everything is prepared for the palace jump and it needs to be done quickly now, otherwise I'm losing too much production/income by having a small capital for a longer period)
2. or I don't have enough cash to spare for squeezing out an additional worker
3. or that thing grows so fast that it hits size 2 all of its own, before the 30s for the settler are complete...

And if I want to abandon captured towns far away from home because of high flip risk, then I raze them right away, because by the time the resistors are subdued and the size is down to 1-2 and the 30s are completed, the town will already have flipped twice anyway...

 

[Lord AJ]

Getting 'free money' for nothing, ¨¢ la Emsworth deals is disallowed -- (why) is getting free Pop-points not (considered) equally exploitative?

No it isn't. 2 population is needed to create a settler and we get a town with one population so settler disbanding at size 1 gives back the investment. As for enemy towns, getting the settler is still requiring Shields, so imo is fine.

 

[Più Freddo]

i would say that settler-abandoning towns is simply possible either from size 1 or size 2. no exploit there.

Why is it not an exploit if it is possible? All exploits are possible, that is exactly why they are exploits.

 

[templar_x]

Features are possible too, and they are no exploits. I cannot follow your definition of possible=exploit here.

In order to call something an exploit, it must offer some quality of a one-sided, unwanted advantage. But I only see that you can abandon a town either of size 1 or size 2 into a settler. So what? I could not think of any game situation where I can actually "exploit" this. Unlike anything else that is called an exploit, like the "infinite Money exploit", the "ressource denial exploit", etc etc. I simply see this as a game feature, and like many other game features, it seems known to some and unknown to others. However, not knowing how a settler factory works would not make it an exploit, either.

Re Atishay - there is NO free population here. someone labelled it like that, but it is false. you have to invest time and shields into it. so it is NOT free. it is solely "free" with regard to usually needing 2 Pop to produce a settler (which turns into 1 Pop if you plant it!) and when settler-abandoning a town only needing 1 Pop. but it will most likely last longer to do so and it will still use all the 30 shields!

t_x

 

[Lord AJ]

.
Re Atishay - there is NO free population here. someone labelled it like that, but it is false. you have to invest time and shields into it. so it is NOT free. it is solely "free" with regard to usually needing 2 Pop to produce a settler (which turns into 1 Pop if you plant it!) and when settler-abandoning a town only needing 1 Pop. but it will most likely last longer to do so and it will still use all the 30 shields!

That is the same as what I'm trying to say.
I'm also saying that using size 1 settler disband is okay because if the city has native population, then we have already invested 2 pop points to make the settler which gave us a city of size 1. Therefore settler abandoning at size one is simply getting back what we had initially put in. Then I said that even if it is an enemy city that we use to get the settler, the 30 Shields that we are putting in are still our own so even that's not free.

P. S. I think you read only the part where I have quoted tjs282 and not what I wrote before you typed this.

 

[templar_x]

sorry then, only now i realized what your text was. true, exactly the same.

 

[Più Freddo]

It is an exploit, because you get one citizen for free. That you need shields to get the free citizen is irrelevant. That you lose two citizens to get the free one is irrelevant. That it doesn't win you the game is irrelevant.

 

[Più Freddo]

I cannot follow your definition of possible=exploit here.

That all exploits are possible doesn't imply that all things possible are exploits, but it does imply that something impossible impossibly can be an exploit. So let't not bring in the impossible in a discussion of exploits. Exploits are per definition possible.

 

[templar_x]

Sounds like circular reasoning to me, but let´s leave it with that i simply and clearly disagree with your definition of an exploit. To me, something I cannot exploit [to win the game], is not an exploit.
t_x

 

[tjs282]

I'm also saying that using size 1 settler disband is okay because if the city has native population, then we have already invested 2 pop points to make the settler which gave us a city of size 1. Therefore settler abandoning at size one is simply getting back what we had initially put in. Then I said that even if it is an enemy city that we use to get the settler, the 30 Shields that we are putting in are still our own so even that's not free.

Well hang on a minute. I agree that there's no 'advantage' if you found a town with the Pop1-Settler -- you just get the 1 citizen back. So if you're doing a Palace-jump, and using your last Pop1-Settler to refound your 'old' capital, no exploit there.

BUT if you instead added that Settler to an existing town, it would add 2 pop-points, because that's how much a Settler 'costs' according to the .biq. So in that situation, you have indeed gained 'free' population at a cost only of the shields/ cash/ chops you used to build it -- lost 1, gained 2. And that would IMO be exploitative.

In fact, isn't this how Tricky's 'Save the Mongols' game works? I didn't get it at first when I read his description, but if you can build Settlers at Pop1, it all makes sense.

Spoiler :

He started with a slightly modded game, giving his Civ (the Nerds) a Mongol Slave. He added that Slave to a Pop1 town founded by a native Nerd-Settler, and then built a native Worker from that town, leaving the Mongol in place, as the sole pop-point (this is how the game works -- natives always get turned into Workers/Settlers preferentially).

Then (using the Pop1 Settler-abandoning trick) he built a Mongol Settler out of the town, and added that Settler to a second Pop1 Nerd Town, bringing it to Pop3, effectively gaining 2 potential Mongol citizens from his original one (1 Nerd, 2 Mongols). That town then built 1 Nerd Worker, 1 Mongol Slave, and a second Mongol Settler, bringing his total Mongol population to 3.

Rinsed and repeated sufficiently often, the glorious Nerdish civilization now contains dozens if not hundreds of Mongols (last time I looked at the game-log).

And Jungle-clearing could represent another potentially exploitative tactic using a Pop1-Settler:

It takes 24T for a native Worker to clear a Jungle, but only 1T for a Settler. If you have sufficient cash, a Settler could be rushed out of a Pop1 town every 2T (to put at least 1s in the box) for max. 116g. So a Jungle-tile could be cleared every 4T: 2T to build the Settler, 1T to move it, 1T to clear+found a new city, Redo From Start. Assuming no roads, I'd need 8 Workers (8*[1s+36g] = 288g) to accomplish the same trick (1T to arrive, 3T to clear).

And in PtW, every abandoned town already leaves behind a road, and no ruins!

 

[lifetap]

Blocking with worker/settler wold probably also be considered an exploit, but blocking with a warrior should be fine, because the AI can always ask "leave or declare war" when combat units of yours are inside their territory.

However, that brings up two other questions, about which I'm not quite sure myself:

1. Is it ok to block the AI's resources (with combat and/or non-combat units), if you sign a Right-of-Passage with the AI?
2. Up until two days ago I thought, that you will never get a boot order from an AI, if only non-combat units are inside their territory. (This is actually the whole point of the scout-ressource denial thing.) However, while playing a little test game in which I wanted to find out, whether it is possible to build an airfield inside foreign territory, I noticed the following: I had only a single worker inside enemy territory, which was waiting there until the time was ready for the "big airlift"... I was pretty shure that workers (like scouts and empty ships) will never get a boot order and was much surprised, when my worker suddenly got booted out of enemy territory!! Does anybody have more information on what determines, whether a unit will get a boot order?

(BTW: the result of my test was that you cannot build arifields in foreign territory, neither during peace nor during war. That's the reason why you need to bring an additional settler along, if you want to implement the "invasion tactic" I described here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=14077010&postcount=20 Airfields can only be built in your own territory or in no-mans-land.)

Is abandong more important than this issue?

1.) thats why I asked if worker/settler tile/resource blocking is considered an exploit, because AI will still shoo you away.
2.) I use all block techniques in Sids games 16-32 players, with ROP. block wasted tiles so that they cant clean, or blocking choke points, or blocking everything so that it looks like tower defense already.

 

[Più Freddo]

An exploit in connection with blocking tiles from usage by the nominal owner must involve the bug that the AI won't kill or throw out Scouts, or a similar one.

Right of Passage naturally involves the risk of getting some tiles blocked. Military units will eventually be attacked or thrown out. In these cases the AI may be stupid, but not at a level that at the present state of the art can be called a blatant programming error and also not to an extent that significantly changes the gameplay in a perverse direction. No exploit here.

 

[templar_x]

sorry, but no. blocking resources is mentioned as one of the disallowed game exploits in the XOTM rules: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/games/rules.php

I guess you had in mind the HoF ruleset, where resource denial is allowed: http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ3/rules.php?show=allowed



t_x

 

[Più Freddo]

blocking resources is mentioned as one of the disallowed game exploits in the XOTM rules: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/games/rules.php

I see "Scout resource denial". I don't see "Warrior resource denial".

 

[lifetap]

I see "Scout resource denial". I don't see "Warrior resource denial".

That's What I thought also.

Yup I meant worker/settler/warrior (what I mean is any other unit other than scout). You see, its not for the resource anymore ( because probably its already connected, but yeah sure if its not yet connected ((I doubt, in sids)) ), but what I meant is for the waste they create, and also for the tiles they are going.

I do this usually with cavalries/drafts/modern armor blocking.

 

[lifetap]

Guys, another question regarding 100k required victory.

Is it okay to conquest first (ex. I win already and lemme play couple more games) then get the 100k without any enemy? Or should I halt my attack before I get to 70% pop and area, and be careful not to get more cities while waiting for a 100k? Because I might win a domination rather than a 100k victory.

 

[lifetap]

and, how do you get civ assist II to work on windows 10? haha!