Possible Multiplayer issue

[Krash21]

Hi all

I'm pretty new to this forum but I have been playing Civ games since they first came out. and have been playing multiplayer on several occasions.

My issue is this; one of the later might virtues gives you the ability to put up satelites in Trade stations orbital area, where you could be putting up Miasma Condensers, so only ppl with Harmony lvl 6 can be able to trade there... I find this to cause some troubles or making Harmony a very likely approach for most ppl on multiplayer...

What are your takes, is this a minor issue or could it be game changing...

 

[Umbral Reaver]

Go shoot down the satellites!

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Options

1. Shoot down Satellite (probably requires war)
2. kill the station
3. put up your own satellite
4. Get the Alien Hybridization tech (allows anyone to handle miasma without reaching Harmony 6...although the tech alone would probably give you Harmony 3)
5. reach harmony level 6

 

[omniclast]

Trade stations move around a lot and are pretty easy to kill. The same stations will also respawn if they're gone. So I don't think losing access to one this way will be a big deal.

 

[ggmoyang]

Another option: Plunder harmony player's trade route.

 

[ggmoyang]

Just thought possible exploit in MP team game.

If affinity level isn't shared in team, one player can produce basic units and gift them to other player who got affinity level. Free upgrades.

BTW if affinity level is shared in team, will 2 players getting 2 adaptive science give +40% to tech affinity xp?

 

[gunnergoz]

If MP players are so intent upon cheating and breaking a game, I trust human ingenuity will find a way to do so. I would think it is nearly impossible to design a game that is totally fool proof against all efforts to misuse it.

 

[ggmoyang]

If MP players are so intent upon cheating and breaking a game, I trust human ingenuity will find a way to do so. I would think it is nearly impossible to design a game that is totally fool proof against all efforts to misuse it.

That doesn't mean devs should stop trying.

 

[swordoflight86]

It seems pretty much every affinty has some cheese tactic that can be used in MP. Purity can rush Battlesuits, apparently Harmony can troll with miasma, and I am sure that Supremacy has some equally silly 1-d tactic to exploit.

They all share one thing in common: once you counter them the other guy is left in a pretty pickle, because all his eggs were in that basket. So I would not worry over much.

 

[omniclast]

If MP players are so intent upon cheating and breaking a game, I trust human ingenuity will find a way to do so. I would think it is nearly impossible to design a game that is totally fool proof against all efforts to misuse it.

This is just silly. If it were true, good multiplayer strategy games wouldn't exist. And they do.

Yes, people will always come up with new ways to cheese each other. Luckily, people are just as ingenious at coming up with ways to defeat cheesy play. The presence of really broken strategies that no one can get around is (a) actually pretty uncommon in high end MP strategy games and (b) a sign of bad or careless game design.

Edit: By the way, all of this is equally true for SP balance. A lot of people win Civ 5 Deity by constantly paying AIs to go to war on each other and selling horses for 2 gold each. If anything there are more ways to exploit game balance in SP since AIs can't figure out what you're doing and adapt. And yet strangely...people still suggest SP balance changes, instead of just throwing their hands up and saying, "Well, of course SOMEONE's going to break it. Why bother?"

 

[Browd]

MP players (and SP players) can also adopt "house rules" to promote balance and to bar exploitation of unpatched bugs (e.g., the multiplayer trade bug in CiV).

 

[gunnergoz]

My point is simply that no matter what a game's design is, someone somewhere will try to break or bend it to their advantage, be it in SP or MP, and designers have to carefully balance what is achievable in the way of safeguarding the game's integrity, vs what is just plain impossible within a reasonable budget.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Just thought possible exploit in MP team game.

If affinity level isn't shared in team, one player can produce basic units and gift them to other player who got affinity level. Free upgrades.

BTW if affinity level is shared in team, will 2 players getting 2 adaptive science give +40% to tech affinity xp?

Simple solution = no gifting units

Also if Tech is shared in team then affinity level will be mostly shared anyways.

 

[omniclast]

My point is simply that no matter what a game's design is, someone somewhere will try to break or bend it to their advantage, be it in SP or MP, and designers have to carefully balance what is achievable in the way of safeguarding the game's integrity, vs what is just plain impossible within a reasonable budget.

Well I think there's a bigger conceptual flaw in trying to balance an MP game before anyone's played it, which is that you just don't have enough data to tell what's actually going to be a problem. I agree there's not much point in pointing to things that might be a problem and demanding a fix...But not because it's impossible for the designers to fix those problems on a reasonable budget, more because it's impossible to tell what is actually a problem until people actually play the game against one another.

I guess I'm just frustrated that MP has always been an afterthought in Civ, and it seems like that's because everyone thinks it would be harder to balance since it's so much more variable. I'm not sure I agree; while MP is more complex, its also a lot harder to exploit a human player, and the requirements for a balanced game are a lot lower. In any case, I'd really like to see the devs do what they can to iron out any super cheesy strats and game-breaking imbalances in MP after the game launches -- the same as we know they will do in SP.

 

[gunnergoz]

Given that there have been some MP code changes in the Civ V engine that drives BE, I hope that those who enjoy MP find it a more satisfying experience. If they do, it bodes well for sales, which lift the entire franchise's future prospects.

 

[Gort]

MP players (and SP players) can also adopt "house rules" to promote balance and to bar exploitation of unpatched bugs (e.g., the multiplayer trade bug in CiV).

There's a mod to fix the multiplayer bug in Civ 5 now

 

[Umbral Reaver]

If it's anything like recruit defectors, gifted units change to the rank and abilities of the new owner's civ, so affinity upgrades won't be transferred.

 

[Japper007]

I would think it is nearly impossible to design a game that is totally fool proof against all efforts to misuse it.

Chess?

But yeah, I know what you mean

 

[Ojaiike]

In team game you research together so quests might work the same way in wich case you would always have the same ad levels.

 

[Obbu]

There are other offensive satellites in the game, I don't see this as a problem.

There are many ways to get rid of this tactic, expanding your territory and clearing the miasma, expanding your satellite coverage so you can launch repulsors, shooting down satellites, killing the outpost, and using the relevant techs/affinities yourself.

It's not an exploit to use a satellite offensively, its an intended game mechanic.

Of course, if you want to ban certain tactics, because you prefer a certain style of game (no early conquest, no DOWing that kind of thing) you're perfectly entitled to do that in a private game.

Getting random pub players to agree to arbitrary rules which you make up is a different story entirely