I already mentioned that. You don't need to, but you should to make things easier, so no it's not required. I feel there still is a need for distinguishing between exploiting bad AI (unit movement, ranged units not being able to move and shoot on the same turn, suicide melee attacks etc) and exploiting programming oversights (selling strats for 2gpt even though their market value is 1.5, selling luxes that got banned, selling useless cities to Huns for MASSIVE gold, who proceed to burn them down, but perhaps that one is working as intended).
I don't look down on either, but I'm all kinds of disappointed in how they handled it in BE, rather than seeing the big picture, I feel like they half assed most of the fixes
BE is a completely different can of worms, I was disappointed that it mirrored many of Civ V vanilla's mistakes (though it is, at least, more stable) and improvements in areas like diplomacy and strategic tradeoffs are limited.
As a side note, this is always why I dislike it when people say the effectiveness of a strategy should be judged by its singleplayer performance: the AI code is so full of holes that it's often impossible to distinguish whether a strategy works well because it's good and whether it works well because the AI isn't programmed to play well against it, and conversely, it's hard to know whether a poorly performing strategy is bad because the game's systems make it bad or because the bonuses that high difficulty AIs get cause it to work worse than when used against evenly matched opponents.
The AI is a predictable opponent, far more so than human players. Judging strategies in the context of a known set of rules, even if they're meta-rules (IE the AI's decision-making process) is valid, though only valid insofar as they're effective strategies under the condition the existence of said meta-rules.
There is no "one tactic" for different situations. It is more rational to view some things as more (or less) effective in the context of a predictable opponent with large bonuses, and others more (or less) effective in the context of less predictable opponents with no bonuses relative to your own.
The existence of bonuses is a game state unto itself. It can and should alter one's model to predict which strategies will be more effective. The existence of predictable opponent shortcomings are also a known game state, and similarly tactics that utilize them are valid under conditions those shortcomings are known to exist.
The best way to look at this (that I am aware of) is to predict the strength of the strategy you use based on the information you know about your situation. It doesn't matter if "it works because of bad AI" or "doesn't work because bonuses", or if it "doesn't work because two other human players will likely get it first". If you can get a strong predictive model in your mind that shows your choices perform better than other choices, and your goal is to do well, it makes sense to evaluate that strategy as "good".
Heh, that honestly made me chuckle. I think we're all disappointed in how BE is being handled, but I wouldn't fault the existing developers too much: if you look at BE's credits, the game features less than half the programming manpower as Civ5, and all the designers have to juggle both designer and writer roles. Even if CivBE's designers know what needs fixing, they might not have the programming manpower to implement those fixes, especially when it's stuff that is a problem in Civ5, too (eg. a lot of the AI code).
If you want to fault the project management rather than the developers and have insider reasoning, I won't disagree (I've seen a lot of games burn on their project management). I don't have enough evidence to point to what caused BE's underperformance with confidence, and my inability to do anything even should I have that knowledge sours my desire to put effort into knowing it
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And this hinges on the feelings surrounding 'exploit'. It's this word that is a landmine, but let me ask you: Are those uneasy feelings between the warring sides of that conflict going to just go away when we shut down the word? The concept remains.
I haven't seen evidence in this case to say I know with high confidence, but my suspicion is that the discussion would be much less hostile and more fruitful if the term carried an agreed-upon definition. If you have an agreed-upon definition with objective criteria, any arbitrary number of rational observers can look at an action and say "yes, this meets the criteria" or "no, it does not". Whether the action meets that criteria wouldn't be in dispute. A large amount of heated debate on this topic has centered around whether something even constitutes an exploit, and it's difficult to envision at least that part continuing if participants go in with the same definition.
Your alternative is what - falling back to the word 'tactics' with no differentiation? Can the game be described like that, will one word be enough to talk about the game and what people do in it and explain what we want to explain?
The answer to your question is "no"
. Right now, the utility of the word "exploit" in gaming is
virtually identical to falling back to the word "tactics" with no differentiation, and yet carries an (inconsistent!) negative connotation. That's a serious issue with its usage. Attempts to define the word showcase that limitation clearly. We do need some kind of differentiation, but what kind?
What is the goal of defining something as "exploit". Is it to identify actions which should be removed from the game? Is it to identify actions that utilize bugs? Is it to identify actions which a person or community doesn't like, regardless of any other consideration? Indeed, what are we trying to accomplish in distinguishing them from an arbitrarily selected in-game choice? If there is literally no purpose to distinguishing them from other tactics, then there is no functional difference and no real incentive to use it. So why do we use it?
This is why I don't use it (at least not in a serious manner), and reject its usage unless the person using it has an actionable purpose for using it. If something should be removed because it provides too large an advantage relative to other choices and constrains strategy, then remove it on those grounds (hopefully with the ability to demonstrate that it is, in fact, that strong). If something creates mundane micromanagement via bug usage that everyone needs to do to be competitive, that's also grounds for removal/alteration. But in each case here, we're shifting to the reasons to change something because of its impact on gameplay, and whether that impact is due to an AI limitation or "just" a design flaw is trivial.
"Uses of peculiarities, at a high-resolution level of detail in a game, which afford a regular, predictable avenue for advantage."
I reject the notion that an interpretation of "peculiarity" is a particularly useful or unbiased way of evaluating the value of an in-game choice, while choices which afford a regular, predictable avenue for advantage...particularly when they are consistently available and greatly outstrip opportunity cost...are damaging to the game's strategy. Again, however, I emphasize that whether this seems "peculiar" is not a useful distinction. If you made a granary produce 20 food/turn, then an overwhelming majority of players would emphasize building it as soon as possible. It would be a false choice to delay it much, if at all. However, it wouldn't be particularly peculiar, rather just something "everyone does because it's always useful".
Knowing it to be true. The two-hundred-and-thirtieth episode of PolyCast, "Working As Intended", features regular co-hosts Daniel "DanQ" Quick, "Makahlua", Philip "TheMeInTeam" Bellew and "MadDjinn" with first-time guest co-host Carl "Carl5872" Blankschaen. It carries a runtime of 59m59s.
thanks for clarifying and furthering my point, Mad voiced out pretty much my exact sentiment on the topic
. The whole exercise is silly.
