Palace Corruption Exploit

[Dianthus]

Originally posted by SirPleb
I do think that if this decision creates too much work for the staff, e.g. if a lot of people were to start pushing the spirit of the rule, changing the rule in future to say "no moving the Palace" would be an acceptable alternative. Because that's what we'll probably be faced with in the long run anyway in Conquests.

I would personally be a lot happier with "no moving the Palace". I have taken some advantage from this Rank bug in both GOTM26 and GOTM27, though not to the extreme you're talking about in your HOF entry . I think I'll probably stick to "no moving the Palace" in the future anyway, because I don't think I can avoid thinking about this exploit when I make the Palace placement decision.

 

[Tech Step]

I personally think that the free palace jump is a bug and any "moving" of the palace is an exploit.

In the real world you would have to rebuild the palace. If your capital gets sacked then your capital should move but you should have to rebuild the palace. this would make defending the capital of supreme importance.

Just think of all real world examples.

1: Iraq. Bagdad was taken by the Americans and the war was over. (sort of)

2: WW2. Berlin was taken and the war was over.

I remember that in CIV1 if you took the capital of a civilization that there cities would go into rebellion and more often than not half of their cities would convert to yours and the rest would stay theirs.

I agree with Dianthus + Sir Pleb.

I think any palace jumps etc are not in the spirit of GOTM and should be outlawed.

 

[Justus II]

For what it's worth, I had never even considered deliberately moving my palace until I started to play GOTM. Even then, I resisted it, as it just seemed unnatural, after all that's what I thought the FP was for. (Of course, my FP placement wasn't all that great until I started GOTM either!). I never moved it in any of my eariler submissions, but constantly read how it was such a key strategy of the better players (all before the Rank exploit was known of course, just 'normal' palace jumps). My first "real" palace jump was in GOTM26, when the two-settler start seemed tailor-made for a jump to establish a second core. Then, in GOTM27, the start on one end of the continent made me want a central FP, and I thought about using a palace jump to get started on another continent.

Anyway, my point is that I think the new rule to exclude palace exploits makes sense, and should be pretty obvious, but if all palace moves are disallowed, I would be just as happy, as it fits my natural play style anyway.

 

[civ_steve]

I'm only able to check this forum every couple of days or so. I was hoping to see Spoiler 1 for Gotm28 open, but I see this has been the hot thread for the last couple of days. This is a good topic, and for the sake of the competition of Gotm, I'm glad to see this exploit banned.

And it looks to me that most issues surrounding the movement of the Palace to avoid Rank corruption have been discussed. Are there grey areas left? Yes, there are! But, keep in mind that ALL players have agreed to abide by the spirit of the Gotm competition. The first line of game 'checking' is, and should be, the player himself/herself. So, if you move your Palace to that remote location, you should be sure in your own mind there is a valid, Gotm approved, reason to move it. (Perhaps you should email the staff if such an action occurs, with your valid reasoning for performing the palace move, if it appears the move may be questioned.) Otherwise, don't be surprised if your game submittal is challenged or refused.

 

[Salte]

Originally posted by SirPleb


It is interesting (and sad) to note that moving one's Palace will almost always be a bad thing to do in Conquests. At least, that's how it stands with the 1.15 patch.

Could someone please explain this. I have played C3C for a short time now, and i dont know about any moving-palace-penalty new for C3C, enlighten me .

 

[ainwood]

In Conquests, all rank corruption calcs are taken from the Palace (whereas in PTW/Civ they are taken from the nearest palace-like structure).

Therefore in Conquests, you need to be very careful about where you move your palace to - the previosuly productive area around it will become very unproductive, even if the FP is nearby.

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by ainwood
We therefore have decided to ban it.

Therefore: You must not rebuild the palace in a location remote from the majority of your empire in order to gain a significant corruption advantage".

Is it legal to build the radius of first (and maybe the second ring too) ring around the palace at greater distance than the radius of the first ring around the FP? For example:

Radius of the first ring around the Palace = 5, radius of the first ring around the FP = 3 and second ring around the FP = 5. Basically, you would get free corruption for your first ring round the FP. Would this be considered as Palace Coruption Exploit too? In any case, the benefit isn't much, but we may well get it out in the open.

Btw, the same technique can be repeated for the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, ... ring around the Palace too. Where do we draw the line?

 

[denyd]

My understanding is that if your palace is in St Louis and you move it to Berlin and build/develop cities around Berlin this is ok , you could then move the palace to Cairo and repeat the process and it would still be ok. But if you were to move the capital to Honolulu (distant island) or Sydney (and build no cities), that would be a .

PS: Welcome back

 

[Moonsinger]

Actually, I concur with Dianthus. Why not add a new rule to disallow Palace relocation in the GOTM? Since the AIs do not relocate their capital in anyway, it would add more balance to the game if we follow the same rule. Since we are all playing the same GOTM, it wouldn't matter much if the palace was built at the northpole or wherever.

 

[ainwood]

Welcome back, Moonsinger. Gonna play with us a while?

The ruling was specifically aimed at stopping people using the exploit that Qitai discovered with the city ranking of cities closer to the FP than the palace. We may not have got it completely right, but I think after the discussions in this thread so-far that there is a general acceptance that the intent is right, and that the aim is more for setting the spirit-of-the-game, rather than making hard and fast rules to overcome what are viewed to be bugs or weaknesses in the software.

Personally, I am in favour of keeping the ability to move palaces, as from a game design perspective it allows more flexibility. Perhaps it is exploitive with the AI not using it, but (for example) I would sooner stop the free palace jumps than palace moves altogether!

As for the point in your e-mail above: Yes that is fine. You are getting some benefit in those cities around the FP , but the benefit is nowhere near the scale of the 'infinite distance' bug.

As for moving the palace around and building up cities near it, that is fine too, depending on the implimentation. Building far away, waiting 100 turns and then building around the new capital would not be allowed. Just build the core if cities all around the same time as you move the palace.

 

[killerloop]

I'm very pleased with the new 'rule', still feel there's a need for a clearer one.

I guess somebody in this threat already suggested it:

Define per GOTM a date after which a palace jump isn't allowed anymore

Reasoning:
This still gives the possibility to optimize your layout early in the game (peninsula layout, GOTM 26 Han with 2 cores)
Players that are able to establish a far away capital city before this date, just are better players vs. others that couldn't.
The AI cannot use it, so the early advantage should be enough to be able to beat them.
It keeps the competition clean of (the no doubt rightly made but difficult) interpretations of games by the GOTM staff, and saving some time for them as well.


PS: of course one exception to the rule: your original capital gets taken by foreign forces!

PPS: an interesting thought on the PS - wonder if you could play such that foreign forces take your capital giving you a desired palace jump...

 

[Dianthus]

Originally posted by killerloop
PPS: an interesting thought on the PS - wonder if you could play such that foreign forces take your capital giving you a desired palace jump...

When your capital is captured the palace moves to a location using an algorithm that tends to place it at the centre of your main core. This won't move the palace a location that would contravene the spirit of this rule.

 

[ainwood]

I thought that the palace moved to your biggest city (biggest in terms of number of native population?)

Re a time limit: A good suggestion, but would penalise those that don't go to war as much, seeing as it is great leaders that are normally used to rush the palace (although a disbanding palace jump could be used)...

 

[Dianthus]

Originally posted by ainwood
I thought that the palace moved to your biggest city (biggest in terms of number of native population?)

No, the rules for palace relocation are the same if your capital is captured as are used when you disband it. See DaveMcW's Free Palace Jump article for details.

 

[AlanH]

Originally posted by ainwood
I thought that the palace moved to your biggest city (biggest in terms of number of native population?)

Re a time limit: A good suggestion, but would penalise those that don't go to war as much, seeing as it is great leaders that are normally used to rush the palace (although a disbanding palace jump could be used)...

I'd be in favour of a ban on the Free Palace Jump. I think that's an exploit ... a new palace should at least cost a leader. As it is it costs half the free settler who built the old one, and a few written down buildings. Also, never mind the AI ... I would never use it It makes my brain hurt if I ever try to understand the logic that determines where it will jump to, and it's totally counter-intuitive to manipulate the populations in various cities to make it go where you want it to. I think it would be detectable for policing purposes, as you'd see the capital disbanded while all the local cities remained intact.

 

[von Riesling]

I would favor a rule where you could not use a free palace jump by disbanding a city, but would be allowed to move it via building it or using a GL. I'd add to this the limits of when or how far and how well surrounded, as was discussed earlier.

 

[Kriz]

I just took a free palace jump to a bigger continent in GOTM 40, to get a productive stronghold there. I intended to immediately build a city next to my new capital, but got attacked by a large force, so I had to retreat my settler. Presently I am building up a force to take some nearby towns. However I notice that indeed my old core cities experience less corruption. So I realize I'm inadvertently enjoying the benefits of the exploit . What should I do? Should I quit GOTM 40? Or should I just play it out and await the judgment?

 

[civ_steve]

I'd say play it out, but establish a new core around your new capital (by conquest or Settling) as quickly as you can!

 

[bradleyfeanor]

Whatever you do, do NOT use unit teleportation in order to colonize/protect the area around your new palace. Unit teleportation refers to filling a city with units and then gifting that city to an AI. This causes all your units to be teleported to the location of your palace. I used this method a few GOTMs back in order to deal with the same problem you are having now. It is very effective, but now has been ruled an illegal exploit under GOTM rules.

 

[MOTH]

I just looked at the rules and threads and couldn't find anything making the unit teleportation illegal.

Can the staff provide us with a full list of illegal tactics (or update the Rules page)?