Palace Corruption Exploit

[ainwood]

Many of you are aware of an exploit in PTW and vanilla Civ, where the corruption of your empire can be greatly decreased if you move your palace/capital to a remote location, well away from your core empire.

There have been a few cases where this has been used in GOTM games. The staff have discussed it, and agreed that it is outside the spirit of the game, offering an massively unfair advantage to those that use it.

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".

To give an example: Moving your capital to the barb island in GOTM 27 is viewed as exploitive (although won't be penalised retrospectively). Moving it to the 'other' continent would also be considered exploitive, if you didn't establish a significant empire there.

It is not an easy thing to write a hard-and-fast definition for, what is acceptable, because 'remote location' obviously requires some interpretation, we hope that you will respect the intent of the guideline, rather than try to push its limits.

Again, remember that the Game Of The Month competition is a friendly competition, and we therefore expect the participants to play within the spirit of it.

The rule applies from NOW.

 

[Kuningas]

Great news

 

[CdB]

Originally posted by ainwood
Moving it to the 'other' continent would also be considered exploitive, if you didn't establish a significant empire there.

I understand the spirit but I think it is going to be close call at times. What is exactly a significant empire ?

In my game I purposely did not use a GL to build a new Palace (rushing an Harbor instead !) in the New World because it was a GOTM (fearing this news).
If I would be playing alone : I would have done it because it will fasten not only the old world development but also the new world instead of cash rushing / putting on wealth all cities.

And at the end I add a fairly 'significant' empire... mainly because I had many armies there and I enjoyed playing with them...

 

[Singularity]

Excellent.

Firaxis has struggled for a long time with this, and I guess GOTM staff have to spend some time to decide each case that should present themself as a potential palace exploit.

It's easy for the players though. Just consider the ups and downs of moving the palace. And the question you should ask yourself is: Would it(the palace move) be worth it if the corruption zones where not bugged?

 

[Shevek]

Originally posted by ainwood
Moving it to the 'other' continent would also be considered exploitive, if you didn't establish a significant empire there.

It might be a difficult call, on occasion.
I myself was not really aware of this bug. But I moved my palace to the other continent for other reasons such as making it harder for newly captured cities there to flip and to get some basic military production going and therefore reduce the need for long shipping times.
I will refrain from now on if in doubt, of course.
I guess the decision to ban it is the right move, after all.

 

[TedJackson]

There seems to be a fairly simple rule of thumb here:

If the Capital is moved then providing it is surrounded by a core of cities at distances similar to those around the FP then I see no problem.

It's when the Capital is isolated - i.e. no surrounding core - that it becomes an obvious exploit IMHO.


Ted

 

[mad-bax]

I agree with this, but it will be difficult to police effectively. For instance, move your palace 30 tiles from your next nearest city, play a 100 turns, and a couple of turns before you win settle a dozen cities and join all your remaining workers in. Catching that would be difficult. Similarly you could just move the palace back into your core late in the game.

I would prefer a cut and dried rule, but such a thing is difficult. Perhaps you could specify a maximum radius that the FP is allowed to be from the capital, which could vary from game to game, combined with a "no palace moves allowed after 1000AD" (say) rule.

People who lose their capital after 1000AD will be submitting a losing game though.

The only really clear cut rule would be a blanket "no palace moves" rule, since even removing the ability to build a palace in the bic will still allow a free jump. (Either that or it will crash the game).

It's difficult, but looking at where the palace is at the end of the game will not stop the people who want to use the exploit, but will penalise people who the staff judge to be breaking the rule when in reality they had no intention of doing so.

 

[TedJackson]

But that sort of behaviour would show up clearly in the replay and could be policed quite easily.

My standpoint here is that I feel there is no intrinsic exploit in leader rushing a Palace (or FP) on another continent or at the far end of the starting landmass providing that Palace is accompanied by a core of cities (at similar distances to the FP).


Ted

 

[dojoboy]

Originally posted by mad-bax

The only really clear cut rule would be a blanket "no palace moves" rule, since even removing the ability to build a palace in the bic will still allow a free jump. (Either that or it will crash the game).

Good points in the full post, and thanks for sharing the work-around.

Policing it has been my concern since ainwood posted the news. The GOTM staff has enough to do as is. If this exploit is serious enough, a clear cut rule as mad-bax proposes is needed.

Historically, there are countries that have chosen to move their capital (Brazil), and some countries have more than one capital (South Africa), for practical reasons.

Personally, I've not considered it as unfair, more savy than unfair.

 

[zagnut]

What the rule is designed to do is to prohibit a Palace move simply for the purpose of exploiting the bug. GOTM 27 was an unusual game. There were compelling reasons to move the Palace to the new world. I almost did it myself. That would not be forbidden in the future.

However, moving it to the barb island is a clear case of exploiting the exploit.

 

[Justus II]

I applaud the new rule, and wanted to offer another example from GOTM27 that I would hope illustrates the difference. In my case, I had built a central FP on my main continent, and used a leader to rush a palace on the Oda continent. As I mentioned in the write-up, I knew it would affect corruption at home, but I would have made the move even if there were no corruption bug, as it turned the Oda island into a large, productive core (I kept the old Oda cities, and even added 3-4 more of my own, including an Iron Works city), which would otherwise have been hopelessly corrupt. However, if I had razed all their cities, then built one city for the palace, it would certainly be exploitative. I think the replay ability might be the best way to catch such actions, although it certainly could add to the staff workload if they had to watch a replay of every game.

 

[CdB]

Originally posted by Justus II
I think the replay ability might be the best way to catch such actions, although it certainly could add to the staff workload if they had to watch a replay of every game.

Unless you win just in the process of building a second core...

Originally posted by mad-bax
The only really clear cut rule would be a blanket "no palace moves" rule

I remember the game 6-2 where one player moved several time the Palace to develop each time the core so that you can build up faster cultural building. I think this was VERY clever and not exploitative at all

 

[Txurce]

I wouldn't worry too much about close calls. If it makes some sort of sense to move the palace other than to take advantage of the exploit, then it's not exploitive.

As for policing it, this happens to be one of the rules which the Staff tools can monitor more effectively than others.

 

[denyd]

I moved my capital a couple of times in GOTM 27, each time with the goal of getting the local area productive. The first move to Madrid, the second to the center of the Viking lands and finally the third jump was to the center of the new world. In each case, the goal was to build a productive core of cities around the new capital with the eventual target being a 100K victory. I ran out of time and rush a couple of cities to complete a domination victory, but each of the palace moves was made not to exploit the programming flaw but to increase the power of the new lands.

I hope there would be some way to keep this ability in the future, otherwise why would keeping a remote city (w/o a wonder) make any sense. The only way to complete improvements is rushing and there would always be the chance of losing them to flips.

 

[Svar]

Originally posted by mad-bax
I agree with this, but it will be difficult to police effectively. For instance, move your palace 30 tiles from your next nearest city, play a 100 turns, and a couple of turns before you win settle a dozen cities and join all your remaining workers in. Catching that would be difficult. Similarly you could just move the palace back into your core late in the game.

Before anyone this just be aware that this will be very easy to catch. Just look on the F5 screen to see when the palace was built, if it is in the original location but built 50 or less turns before the end of the game there was probably an exploit.

 

[akots]

Well, better later than never. Six months after the exploit was discovered it is finally banned!

Not moving the Palace is a very easy thing to do. Just don't touch it, leave it as it is. Fight that temptation and live with it. Try to squeeze out what is possible with what you have. It is very clear and as clear as Mobilization exploit or Mobilization by itself.

Essential core on another continent is a very unclear statement however. Does the core have to be established before the Palace move or after? How big it must be to justify the jump? There is no way to tell. So, just don't do it. Move FP instead. Or play C3C.

Originally posted by denyd
I moved my capital a couple of times in GOTM 28, each time with the goal of getting the local area productive.

It is clear also that you should have moved FP instead. That is what SirPleb did in the recent Persian medal play game for 100K cultural win.

 

[denyd]

How do you move the forbidden palace (short of abandoning the city where it is located) ?

If there was some method of allowing distant cities to be productive (making courthouses more powerful or increasing the effect of Democracy, etc), I probably would never move my capital unless is was poorly placed (end of a peninsula).

 

[akots]

Originally posted by denyd
How do you move the forbidden palace (short of abandoning the city where it is located)?

Certainly, abandoning the FP city is good enough in this case.

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

And this is apparently exactly what you did by trying to make the remote areas productive. Verdict: guilty. Well, no offense ment, its just a game, isn't it?

 

[AlanH]

Originally posted by akots

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

And this is apparently exactly what you did by trying to make the remote areas productive. Verdict: guilty. Well, no offense ment, its just a game, isn't it?

I plead guilty to having drafted this rule, and no one has come up with a better wording in the short time it has been discussed. I'm sure we would all welcome a better attempt to define what is intended. However, as Ainwood pointed out, this is a friendly competition and the minimum of rules are defined in order to provide guidance on good behaviour. People who clearly flout such guidance will be duly and summarily penalised

To your previous point about this being six months late: This rule would only have been required six months ago if earlier games had invited the use of this exploit, or if players had demonstrated that they needed such guidance. GOTM27 was the first game to highlight the need for an explicit ruling, so I would contend that it's a maximum of one month late - a mere blink of an eye as gotm timetables go .

 

[Justus II]

Originally posted by akots


Certainly, abandoning the FP city is good enough in this case.

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

And this is apparently exactly what you did by trying to make the remote areas productive. Verdict: guilty. Well, no offense ment, its just a game, isn't it?

Maybe I'm missing the point, but I don't think so. Any palace move will improve corruption near the new location. As I understand it that is a perfectly acceptable reason for moving the palace, to create a new productive area, assuming that you have or build a new group of cities to take advantage of that. The bug, and exploit, is a result of the effect on corruption in the "old" palace area, which presumably now has the FP. Moving the Palace far away suddenly reduces corruption near the FP, when it should not have any effect on it. The exploit is moving the palace where it would reduce corruption in the original core, rather than to start a new productive core. Perhaps the wording should be adjusted to reflect that. "remote from the majority of your empire in order to gain a significant corruption advantage in your previous holdings" or something like that. And I do think that is the legitimate use for the Palace, since the FP cannot be readily moved.