Rules: ROP, ICS, scout blocking ...

[BillChin]

There is a heated debate about rules on the GOTM spoiler thread. Rather than join that heated debate, I am starting a new thread with a proposal for action. (Please no spoilers in this thread.)

On the spoiler thread, right-of-passage abuse, scout resource denial are hot topics. I might add infinite-city-sleaze, and infinite ship hopping. In my opinion these are borderline tactics and would rather see them disallowed. However, Matrix makes the rules and I can live with them.

The current debaters may not realize this, but all the above issues have been discussed in the open, often several times and the current state is what we have. It is highly unlikely that Matrix will make a major change to the rules for the GOTM. Given the huge popularity and success of the current tournament, Matrix deserves a lot of credit and a big thumbs up.

There is something that the rule setters can do. Arguing here, will probably just generate a lot of heat and not change anything. My proposal for action is that the rule setters run their own tournament on Apolyton (or this board). I am thinking about letting the Unofficial Tourney games on Apolyton lapse because of lack of interest (six participants in the April tourney, about the same for May). If all the want-to-be rule setters agree to participate, that is enough for a decent tourney right there. If someone else agrees to run the tourney, I will participate and play by their rules, no matter what rules are agreed upon.

Link to Apolyton:
http://64.246.32.51/~admin1/forums/index.php

I suggest starting a new thread in the Strategy section. There is plenty of time to discuss and set up rules for a June tourney game.

I am a big fan of doing something, and really dislike complainers. Here is a chance for the rule setters to do something. Step up to the plate. Stop trying to get Matrix to do something, he has enough to do Besides, it isn't going to work and no one ever wins an argument on a bulletin board

 

[Lucky]

The RoP abuse has been severly limited by the latest patch, but it still is a viable tactic in my opinion, since it´s clearly not a bug but a rather realistic strategy.
I never used the scout ressource denial, so I cannot take part in that discussion, but with the latest patch the AI is also more likely to demand your scout to leave. I´d simply suggest that everyone should comply to this request, in spite of the fact that the AI ignores if you stay or come back a turn later.
The ICS (infinite city sprawl as I would name it) has been a tactic since the first Civilization. You simply cannot forbid the amounts of cities a player builds, it would be unreasonable and unrealistic.
The most likely exploit in this list is the infinite ship hopping, but that is costly and time consuming to set up and doesn´t bring that much of an advantage. It also impossible to control whether this rule would be followed in a game.

And I agree that it is rather useless to endlessly complain about bugs or exploits. Once a new patch or a new GOTM rule is out, people will find other things to get the advantage over the AI. And the things listed above are not that game altering.

 

[ainwood]

I too think that the infinite city sprawl is fine. It does increase your cities well above the 'optimum', so there is a corruption penalty anyway.

Ships? Haven't heard about this one, but I asume its like the Civ II one where you move a ship, unload the unit onto the next ship and move again. Question is; how many ships can you daisy chain? I'd imagine its only useful once you get to navigation (difficult to set up with galleys in ocean squares Anyway, I think "no, I won't use it", but I actually wouldn't be too upset about other people using it.

On the scout resource one, I'm not so keen on the dumping the scout on the resource to prevent the AI from developing it, although having a scout nearby to pillage it if (when) war breaks out is fine.

The problem with the ROP abuse (stated ad infinitum on the spoiler IIRC) is that the AI doesn't do it "properly". It does not move tens of troops in and attack; normally just one (although I can imagine the "protests" if they did attack en-masse. Still, it is a vlaid tactic (repercussions can cripple you if you can't trade with anyone on higher levels); so I say "OK".

 

[BillChin]

Thanks for the replies. As I wrote, these issues have already been debated. Matrix has gotten a lot of input, and made his judgements on each, and I can live with them. I am not here to debate each rule. There was enough of that on the May GOTM spoiler thread (and much earlier in other threads).

What I was hoping for was that the large contingent of would-be rule makers would step up and take action. Action in the form of a rules committee and setting up a separate tournament with their preferred rules. Unfortunately, some complainers, when asked to step up and do something instead of just argue, seem to lose their voice and start to stammer and make excuses or in this case, quietly fade away.

 

[Sirian]

Lucky: RoP abuse a realistic strategy?


BillChin: I was sorry to see the Apolyton tourney dry up. I played all but the first and enjoyed all I played except the last. One thing became clear to me after I "won" Apoly2 with the high score: the scoring system is jacked. It has some things going for it, but it's not up to the task. Game 3 revealed to me that a successful ancient war will always outscore a peaceful development, and when I triggered a domination win prematurely and submitted it, then I replayed without triggering domination and watched my score go UP by clicking Next Turn forty times... that was beyond absurd.

The way the luxuries work actually strongly favors ICS for score, since you get all your citizens happy instead of some content or unhappy in the metropolises. Playing for score by expanding territory and paying/working to keep the people happier is one thing. Sitting just short of domination when the game is already won is something else. One is a scoring emphasis as you play, the other is done playing and into... what? I don't even know what to call it. SirPleb calls it jigsaw puzzle assembly and that probably puts it in the best light: it does take thought and planning, but it's not the same sort of stuff. Suspension of disbelief vanishes; there's no tie in the game to the game. There is only the player running up the score.

If you make score your only goal, you'll have to submit to doing the same few things over and over every game, and within the same game. I can't fathom how that appeals to anybody on an ongoing basis, but it clearly does to some. I have trouble at times remaining interested in "mopping up" the endgame.

In chess, no mature opponent will struggle on in a clearly losing position unless they either have a point to make or don't you know well enough to be sure you won't botch the finale. When the game is lost, the losing player resigns. This isn't a matter of giving up, it's a matter of experienced players knowing when a game is over without having to follow it all the way out to the nominal "end" of the game, per the rules.

In backgammon you have the doubling cube. When a player feels they have an edge, however large or small (varies by player) they have the option to double. In a single game this means nothing, but in a match this is large. Even more so than in chess, where understanding a lost game is a matter of courtesy and sportsmanship, in backgammon you have to know when to hold em and when to fold em or you're going to get creamed by giving up points one way or the other, or both, by mismanaging the cube. In backgammon, luck over time evens out, but luck in a particular situation for a couple of make-or-break rolls can turn games, so it's customary to "hold out" even when you're in a losing position, but the cube can force your hand.

In Civ3, there IS a game in there. As a gamer I see it, but the game itself doesn't always seem to see it, and certainly the scoring system has no direct ties to it, since the score measures just a few of many variables and stats within the game. The different victory conditions I've heard labelled "too easy", but in my view they are an improvement over having to conquer the whole world or finish the whole spaceship to "mop up" a game that has already been won.

Any tournament for Civ3 that bases its results on the game's scoring system is going to be devoid of this essential "gamer" element, I've outlined in chess and backgammon: a focus on victory, on winning or losing. Maybe that will change with the expansion and multiplayer, but... I fear multiplayer civ will fall prey to "rushes" of various kinds: that gameplay will be reduced to who rushes the most troops the fastest and charges. In any event, fair or not, I can't help but look at "milking" the game from the perspective of a chess player dealing with an opponent who never resigns, but forces you every time to play the game all the way out, even though he never wins any of them. He's within his rights, but it's a low class way to play and if he never learns the balance between respect for the opponent and accurate assessment of his chances, instead of enjoying playing him, I would dread it, eventually refusing to do so any more. The milk is rather like that: a contest that asks you to play for score KNOWING that the only way to do so is to be forced to play well past the point of real victory... it's not mature, it's amateur. In my view.

Exploits are another matter. You can't apply a chess analogy because chess has mature, effective rules. Civ3's rules are a work in progress. Opinions differ on what ought to be viewed as exploitive or not, and some don't care, preferring to let "what the game allows" to be the standard.

The victory conditions are playable but all of them suffer from serious (SERIOUS) problems. Diplomacy is too last-minute. It doesn't measure history of the game, but rather a snapshot in time, which I find unsatisfying in most cases. Domination nominally sounds good, as it can spare you from the full conquest, but no, not really. The bar's not set correctly, as you invariably have the game way beyond a real victory point, and you have to grow your borders in all the unproductive distant cities. Cultural is a good concept but poorly implemented. Space Race suffers from the tech-deflation and AI-trading rules that keep all the AI's bunched in one pack. The game has no clue about when it's lost, and like the low class chess player, who forces you to prove to it what it should be smart enough to figure out.


In Master of Orion (the original), there were conquest and diplomatic victory options, and one was harder than the other, but there was NO SCORE anywhere in the game for anything, only the victory conditions. That suited the chess and backgammon gamer within me just fine. Play the game, and when it's over it's over, no distracting and limiting (and flawed) scoring system around which to run off into side pursuits. Civ1 was fun and I "milked" it a couple of times to see how far I could push that envelope (456% was the highest I got to, and the very last game of Civ1 I ever played). Civ1 was awesome and I played too much of it, but I could and did grow sick of it eventually. Why? It was the scoring system and what pursuit of score did to my fun, and also the drudgery of enforced mop-up, again because of score. If you wanted to score the game, you had to finish it out. This added to the game for a while, but eventually took away from it, for me. Master of Orion never suffered from this. The gameplay was slightly better, the tech tree and opponents MUCH more varied, just enough flavor difference in the races (Civ3 learned that lesson well, as these civs are just a wee bit different to play, very reminiscent of MOO), and I never, ever tired of it because the game itself was sporting. The diplomatic victory condition was not an empty, manipulative vote like in Civ3, but a REAL indication of how strong you were, and you could not pull an "OCC" kind of win under that system. When you got to a point where you were really leading the game, you could have a shot at winning, and you could ALWAYS win once you took a decent lead. There was no mop up phase at all, unless you wanted one. When you wanted to mop up and wipe them all out, you had the option, and you could also simply cash in the vote if you grew bored with it. There were other options and complexities as well, but the bottom line is that the game's handling of victory conditions was simply flawless. Sid's games are invariably solid, but this is one element he has either not mastered or not cared to master. And his games all suffer for lack of accurately targetted victory conditions. Civ3 is a step in the right direction, but still not even close to being in the league of MOO, which of all the conquer-the-world build-n-fight games, has been the most well balanced. Nothing since has lived up to the standard it set, but I keep waiting, keep hoping.

Unfortunately, some complainers, when asked to step up and do something instead of just argue, seem to lose their voice and start to stammer and make excuses or in this case, quietly fade away.

Since I opened that can of worms in GOTM7 Spoiler thread, I presume you're referring (at least in part) to me. Put up or shut up? Uh... yeah. I don't like those choices. Or rather, why should I be limited to picking one? What if I'm inclined to do both?


- Sirian

 

[Lucky]

Originally posted by Sirian
Lucky: RoP abuse a realistic strategy?

Of course, study history a bit more and you´ll see that this type of backstabbing happened quite often.

Probably the easiest example is the conquering of the New World. Peace with Native Americans was almost always followed by further advancement into their territory until the next conflict broke out! In North America they even built forts with the agreement of local chieftains, only to use them as military outposts against the same tribe some time later!
And that´s not the only example.
Roman expansion into "barbarian" territory was often peaceful and with the consent of local leaders at first, only to be later turned into a bloody conflict.

So if you see history as a Civ game, there are definitely campaigns which could be best described as RoP abuse in Civ terms!

 

[MuddyOne]

Sirian, I think a lot of it depends on if you look at it as a game- or a sport. Since GOTM and HOF are competative, I am more inclined to look at it as a sport, at least when in context of GOTM and HOF. And in sports, you generally don't give up regardless of how futile the effort seems to be. The competition isn't the AI though. It is the other submittors.(sp)

As far as the games victories conditions go. If you consider the game won, you don't have to play it any further. It would be nice if the game conditions matched yours, but this seldom happens with anything produced for the masses. The car was nice- except it didn't . . . Somethings you can rectify, others you can't. The game playing beyond the point where it has lost is easy to rectify. Start another game up.

 

[BillChin]

Originally posted by Sirian

Since I opened that can of worms in GOTM7 Spoiler thread, I presume you're referring (at least in part) to me. Put up or shut up? Uh... yeah. I don't like those choices. Or rather, why should I be limited to picking one? What if I'm inclined to do both?
- Sirian

Everyone is free to do as they please. I always hope for constructive outcomes. There are several players that wish for a different rule set. You may be the most vocal, but I am not singling you out.

The Game of the Month is enormously popular. Matrix deserves a lot of credit for the rule set and the way he runs the tournament. Changing the existing GOTM rules is probably a poor way to proceed.

If someone else sets up their own tourney, he/she can specify any rule set that seems logical. Anything that is in the spirit of the game as he/she sees it. That person is free to ignore score and date of finish, and use some other objective criteria such as reputation or something else for ranking participants. As I said, if someone sets it up, I will participate and play by their rules.

However, if all the complainers are going to take the easy out, that there is no set of rules, no set of objective criteria possible, then I see all those posts arguing about rules as a waste of time and energy, mine, yours and everyone else's.

Maybe it will be a breath of fresh air to have a tournament free of the exploits, and milked games. Maybe it will be a ghost town tournament because no one wants to play the game by such restrictive rules. There is a way to find out. The door is open.

 

[Cartouche Bee]

Well as far as I've seen, the GOTM has the best overall rule set, scoring, ranking system and participation. I know many have complained about the scoring that comes with the game but after 6 months I have yet to hear of any suggestion that is superior. Yes, the AI has not been programmed to use of the tactics and foresight of a human player but other advantages are afforded the AI to help compensate. If changes can be made that support more player styles, that would be great. However, I would be against changes that limit player styles or changes that rule out the ways players can win games. A players personal preferences should govern their own game and not the games of others.

Cartouche Bee

 

[anarres]

Originally posted by BillChin
Unfortunately, some complainers, when asked to step up and do something instead of just argue, seem to lose their voice and start to stammer and make excuses or in this case, quietly fade away.

i've gotta say that complaining is a totally valid and important part of *any* community. if people don't have the motivation to do anything but complain then so what? it's their loss, not yours.

personally i hate milking - i see it as a pointless excercise with no challenge in it at all. for this reason i joined the tournament. (it is also the reason i have finished the GOTM before but never bothered sending in results).

there is no advantage in milking in the tournament, and you get a comparative score against other players. you also get to play a difficulty that suits you, not one that may be far too easy or difficult.

back on the original subject, surely we should play the game as sid intended? some of the AI exploits mentioned here i do not consider exploits at all (RoP 'expliot'). the only exceptions to this are obvious bugs in the code (such as being able to remove units from armies and bombard anywhere), which the AI doesn't know how to take advantage of.

 

[BillChin]

Originally posted by anarres

i've gotta say that complaining is a totally valid and important part of *any* community. if people don't have the motivation to do anything but complain then so what? it's their loss, not yours.

Okay, there are two doors open. The first, is to complain and whine and try to convince other people that they are wrong. It is unlikely that the rules are going to change very much, because the GOTM is popular, and the rules have been debated, most of them several times.

The second option, is to do something constructive: create a rule set and an objective ranking system that is in the spirit of the game and host a tourney where like-minded players can participate. The ranking system may ignore score and date if desired or use them in some kind of overall evaluation formula.

I am hoping the energy, the passion, that goes into arguing can be channeled into the second option. If people continue with the first option, arguments that can never be won, that is okay. As I said, everyone is free to do as they please. However, arguments loose a lot of steam if someone is unwilling to back up their beliefs with action.

 

[Matrix]

Well, well...

First of all, sorry for being absent for about a month. I was at Pinkpop (Dutch music festival) last weekend , tired afterwards and then my girlfriend, my study...

Anyway, I wouldn't way an argument through a bulletin board is always fruitless, but indeed harder to win. I like rules to be debated as long as there are reasonable arguements. Arguments like it is historically correct is not a good one: Civ3 is a game, not a simulation. The only reason we make our own rules - I prefer to see them as gentlemen's agreements - is to make the game as fun as possible. Please keep that in mind when discussing about it.

Anyway, about the current set of rules:
Right of passage abuse: discussed before; I don't even see why this is an exploit. If you do it it's very bad for your reputation, and if you're a superpower and reputation doesn't matter...then you're gonna win anyway.
Scout resource denial: I thought this was eliminated by v1.17f? If it isn't, I'm open for a change here. I mean, it's stupid if the others can't use resources while the AI doesn't know why. The AI expects the scout to move anyway, since it's after all a scout. That's a bug if you ask me.
Infinite City Sprawl: Even if this is an exploit, should we deny people to build cities?

Can't be done, so we leave this.
Infinite ship hopping: Hum... I don't think this should be disallowed, yet without argument, except the one Lucky mentioned (too much time, effort).

Finally I want to say I try to read everything in the forums I moderate except the spoiler thread since that's far too much. But now there seems to be a big discussion about the rules and that should indeed not happen in that thread. I urge you to use the report this post to a moderator option if you encounter any illegal posting; also small things. I'm the one who has to judge whether somethings correct or not.

 

[Sirian]

MuddyOne: Spectator sports are obliged to play out the game for the spectators. Some sports, like baseball, no matter how bad the game is going, there is still some chance to win until the last out has been recorded, so there's legitimate reason to keep playing. Some sports involve individual statistics that would be skewed if games were called early. However, there are sports who do call games early. Golf tournaments, the field is thinned each round, those who don't "make the cut" being deemed to no longer have a realistic chance to win. What's the point of not allowing them to continue playing anyway? Some sports DO recognize the concept of the game being over before it has run its full course. In many amateur leagues where the point is to play, as opposed to entertain spectators, there are mercy rules of all sorts and sizes, recognizing some line past which the game is won before time expires.

Don't confuse marketing with sport. All the popular pro sports play every game out to the bitter end, and since those are the rules, participants observe them, but in many cases this has to do with obligations to fans who have more concerns than just those of who wins or loses the game. You should note, though, that huge numbers of sports customers pick up and leave early if they deem the game to have been decided already. Also note that it is universally recognized as unsporting to "run up the score" in the NFL, but not in ML Baseball. Why is that? It has to do with the nature of the game, with the one game having a point past which the game is definitely won but the clock still ticking, and the other in which comebacks of the most extreme sort are known to happen not just now and then, but with enough regularity to make them statistically significant. While in chess, there is such precision to the game that, between pros, there is clear understanding of when a game is over, often long before the final moves would be made.

In all the sports with score, score is what determines victory. In Civ3, victory and score are wholly unrelated. I've never gotten to the year 2000 in any game I've played because the game has always been decided by then. You have to sit back and sandbag, to "slow up" and avoid victory, to have a game last to the end of the clock and be measured then by the score.

NFL teams that continue to play their most valuable players past the victory point are deemed foolish for risking future games by risking injury to players in a "pointless situation". There's a bit of character on the line for players at that point: those who slack off betray their commitment to the fans to give their all at all times, and that makes sense within the rules of the game, but in another sense it doesn't match with the idea of pulling your starters off the field to protect them from risks. Is the game over already or is it not? In some ways, it is, in others not.

Milking in Civ3 is rather like that. The game's over, but the clock hasn't run out and players are competing for score. I don't blame the players, as those are the rules of the game, but I've only ever played three games of Civ3 in which I did not have the option to "milk" for score, one was GOTM7. I barely won at all. All my other Deity games could have been milked. I'm 4 for 4 at Deity level. I have not lost there yet. I lost once on Monarch, my first game, and I gave up once on Emperor. If you get control of the game at all, militarily, at any point, you've won, and it's no big deal to put your heel on the necks of the AI's and run up the score. It's only a question of whether scoring more is worth your time, in so far as it has little to do with the game itself. There are lots of ways to play Civ3 but only two ways to score: finish very quickly, or milk the population and territory (which also drives you down certain paths, further limiting your options). GOTM is good in that at least there are some options. Score isn't the only goal, but it certainly seems to be the most valued. It only comes out evenly if all players participating hold equal tolerance for and skill at the milking phase, but I don't see this as given.



Lucky said:

So if you see history as a Civ game, there are definitely campaigns which could be best described as RoP abuse in Civ terms!

Ridiculous.

When pushing into territory causes a war, that's the equivalent in civ terms of settling on someone else's lands. And comparing the length of a civ turn to the length of time that would pass in history before such incursion led to conflict, it's rather like using RoP to move a settler into place, settling, and war is declared.

There is nothing I know of in history except for the infamous Trojan Horse story wherein a betrayal rises to the magnitude of allowing an entire army to get into position without the victims seeing it coming, and even that does not compare since it is not on the scale of Civ3 nations. That was a story of a few operatives from the inside opening a locked city gate to let the attackers in. Civ3 has nothing comparable.

Using a RoP to move your entire attacking force into ideal position, in a turn-based game, with the targets frozen in time and wholly unable to respond, is beyond absurd. Don't confuse the fact that some limited RoP betrayals could be realistic with making a case that RoP Rapes are sensical on the scale that they take place in these competitions. Are you unable to distinguish between degrees? One kind makes sense, so they all do? I don't buy it, and I don't understand anybody else buying it either. You can make a case for it as a game rule, in that lots of Civ3 game rules ignore accuracy or sensibility for functionality, but as far as history goes, you don't have a leg to stand on.

No civ, no matter how trusting, would ever fall for the degree of betrayal as to let all their own railroads be used by a nominal "ally" to move simply massive forces into dozens of militarily ripe betrayal positions. Come on, now. Are you even arguing in good faith? Civ3 has no way to simulate what a real Right of Passage agreement means. The nature of the game means either they close out the option, or they leave it open to this much abuse. If you are attached to the abuse and enjoy it, that's one thing, but arguing that it makes sense historically? Give me a break.


- Sirian

 

[Sirian]

Matrix:

Right of passage abuse: discussed before; I don't even see why this is an exploit. If you do it it's very bad for your reputation, and if you're a superpower and reputation doesn't matter...then you're gonna win anyway.

Very bad for your reputation? Yeah, like reputation matters for SQUAT in Civ3. Of what use is a meaningless penalty?

No matter how bad your reputation gets, AI's never mistrust you when signing diplomatic peace treaties. They never refuse to make peace, never stop offering you "market value" concessions in line with how much damage you've done to them or how much stronger your power graph is compared to theirs. The more you beat them up, the more concessions they offer, and the more you cheat them, the more you can beat them up faster and harder. The cycle feeds on itself.

If the game design had any sense in this area, reputation would affect how civs deal with you at the peace table, but it does not.

No matter how bad your reputation gets, AI's never refuse to sell you tech or resources for cash, nor do the prices go up. All that they take off the table is the willing to sell you stuff in return for gpt payments. Likewise, they'll take their own cash payments off the table, but never refuse to buy from you for gpt, and they will never lower their cash offerings for tech.

The penalties are ridiculously insignificant, and pale even more in light of some of the rewards you can steal with min/maxing your abuse of the system.


As for "if you're a superpower and going to win anyway, then what does it matter?", that's dangerously close to sounding like arguments made all the time in defense of cheating. "If such and such, what does it matter if I cheat?" -or- "Because of such and such, I have to cheat." Heh.

You make your own case for why it should matter. The penalty is irrelevant. If the penalty is out of line with the reward, that's called "poor game balance". Firaxis clearly understands this concept, as they have taken pains through the patches to pull the rewards for Forced Labor down into line with the penalties, and close out some of the other flaws in the game. As with the ICS, which you point out cannot be regulated (can't forbid players from building cities), likewise there's no way to regulate RoP abuse through the game rules without killing off the RoP option entirely.

But likewise, if you can run any "gentlemanly agreements" at all, you could design one for this issue. You're not going to, and I understand that. But let's be clear here. It IS a flagrant abuse, rising to a level beyond all sense within context of the game, and the rewards of it are so good, the divide between those who build their games around it and those who shun it as unworthy, will be large.

As Archer99 points out, in combination with the "catch up effect" of the Great Library, if you RoP Rape your way to capturing the Great Library before you hit education, you get instant tech catch-up right on up through whatever is current, including well into the industrial age or however far it has gone. And this is not the only means by which RoP abuse can offer rewards wholly out of proportion with anything intended by the spirit of the game.

Scout resource denial: I thought this was eliminated by v1.17f? If it isn't, I'm open for a change here. I mean, it's stupid if the others can't use resources while the AI doesn't know why. The AI expects the scout to move anyway, since it's after all a scout. That's a bug if you ask me.

THAT's a bug, but RoP Rape makes sense to you?

The only flaw I see with resource blockade is that it amounts to an act of war, but the game doesn't recognize it as such. If, like settling in enemy lands or pillaging their roads, if resource blocking was an automatic declaration of war, I'd have no problem with it. There is a place for it, but just not a place that amounts to "free" blockading in a way that could never make sense in real life. It shouldn't be taken off the table, but war should be compelled onto only player who does run such a blockade.

You say that this is a game and has no bearing to real life, and that may be true up to a point, but... only to a point. The game has to retain some attachment to simulation, at least symbolicly if not always reflectively, or it ceases to make any sense.

Infinite City Sprawl: Even if this is an exploit, should we deny people to build cities? Can't be done, so we leave this.

I agree. Regulating where people put their cities is too much. There can be some recognition, however, that a denser build is "easier to do", just like it's easier to play if you pop a settler out of hut than if you don't. However, that concept of recognizing finer points like this in comparing games doesn't fit with the score/goal based system you have in place here, so I know it's not going anywhere for GOTM.

Infinite ship hopping: Hum... I don't think this should be disallowed

Why not? If you disallow reloads or worker-camp poprushing, as a gentleman's agreement, you could disallow this, too. You wouldn't have to enforce it. You couldn't really enforce it. But who out there NEEDS to shave a turn or two off a shipment of units badly enough to break the rules to do it secretly?

Why disallow it? Well... Why NOT disallow it? What value is there in allowing it?


One of the worst exploits in the game is one I haven't seen you mention: Phony Peace Treaties. Players signing peace to wring concessions out of the AI, then turning right around and attacking again immediately. The game SAYS "Peace lasts until war is redeclared" but no, then it also says that every peace treaty must last 20 turns or your reputation suffers, and the AI's are giving up concessions in return for 20 turns of peace. They would not give up stuff for nothing in return, and they would not keep on offering concessions to an enemy who never keeps his word.

However, since reputation is so wholly meaningless to the game, that's an irrelevant penalty. The game never catches on, it keeps right on handing over concession after concession after concession based solely on the power graphs, with no regard to reputation. A case could be made for such betrayals to be realistic, but only up to a point. Only up to a point, and that point is crossed regularly in the reports I see.

We could wait and hope that Sid and Co. could improve the game design, to reform the penalties to be more appropriate and to have reputation count for more, taking MORE off the table if you prove yourself to be a slimeball, but until such time, we either set our own limits in this regard where the AI is prevented from setting any, or... we continue on with the ridiculous status quo.

I know the status quo will remain for GOTM, but I just wanted to say my piece about it while I'm on the subject.


Finally, as for rules discussion not appropriate to the spoiler thread, where ELSE would you want them to be, when they involve debate about particulars involving spoilers from the latest GOTM event? If a spoiler discussion happens to involve some debate about tactics, rules, or anything else pertaining to the spoilers from the current game, where ELSE would you want them to be discussed? Should there be separate spoiler threads, one where it's OK to talk about other people's results, and one where it's not? Or is it never OK to debate the game results?


- Sirian

 

[Qitai]

One thing Sirian mention that is true here is the repeatition of the peace treaty/war cycle does make the game very much easier even in deity. And power measurement method in Civ3 makes it worst (I normally has a few hundred workers around which makes me look much more powerful then I actually am).

And the resource denied move should really be ban.

 

[Sullla]

I'm not going to state my opinions here on the various exploits under debate. I don't think that the rules for the GOTM are going to be changing anytime soon, as the competition is extremely popular the way it is now. I would like to advocate that there already exists a much more informal competition that forbids the exploits in question. This is the Civilization3 Epics organized by the Realms Beyond crew; the first game has been designed by Sirian himself. If you are a player who believes that Civ3 is about more than simply killing everyone else as fast as possible to get the most points, this might be something you want to check out. (Not that I wish to insult those who have mastered the art of successful warmongering! )

The site for the Realms Beyond Epics can be found here. I repeat that this is not the kind of game for everyone, as it's not really a competition at all, but I will put it out here because I think there are some GOTM players who would enjoy a game that focuses less on score and more on the value of a game well-played.

 

[Chieftess]

What exactly is ICS and Ship Hopping? (Last time I hopped a ship - onto a city in Civ2 - the game crashed. )

Is ship hopping moving a unit infinately from ship to ship?

Also, how about this variation on the ROP:

Say you have an ROP with Egypt and Persia, and Egypt is between you and Persia. You want to attack Egypt swifly. By signing an ROP with the 2 civs, you can waltz through both of the territories, and set up your units in Persia's borders - right next to Egypts', so you can reach their cities in 1 or 2 moves. The whole time you're conducting a military build up by land and sea, you let Egypt's ROP expire. (renegotiate after 20 turns, and cancel). Then, make them attack you first.

Is that an exploit, too?

Scout Blocking - ok, I can see this as an exploit, although, I've read that the AI eventually kicks your settler out. I did that with the Russians once (on my 2nd try of GOTM7), and they sent a warrior stack my way! (in the beginning of the game)

 

[Bamspeedy]

What exactly is ICS and Ship Hopping? (Last time I hopped a ship - onto a city in Civ2 - the game crashed. )

ICS is when you place cities only 2 or 3 spaces apart from each other (1 or 2 tiles in between city center squares). There are different purposes for this. At the beginning of the game, this gives you an early leverage in production and commerce with low corruption, easy defense, and also it greatly helps your 'power ranking'. One of the biggest things that determines your power is # of cities, so if you can get a bunch of cities built real fast the AI will respect you a little more.

Edit: The other purpose would be to culturally attack the AI. By placing several cities all around theirs and rushing temples and libraries, you usually can flip their cities.

Ship hopping is moving a unit from one ship to another. A ship moves a few spaces, transfers the units to another ship and that ship moves to the next ship and transfers the units to the next ship. With enough ships you could move units across a big ocean in one turn.

Say you have an ROP with Egypt and Persia, and Egypt is between you and Persia. You want to attack Egypt swifly. By signing an ROP with the 2 civs, you can waltz through both of the territories, and set up your units in Persia's borders - right next to Egypts', so you can reach their cities in 1 or 2 moves. The whole time you're conducting a military build up by land and sea, you let Egypt's ROP expire. (renegotiate after 20 turns, and cancel). Then, make them attack you first.

I guess what you are asking is if you can use a ROP with Egypt to get units to the other side of their territory, then attack, so that you are now attacking them from both sides? I don't know what Sirian thinks of this, but this wouldn't be as bad as what people are doing now. The ROP abuse that is being talked about here, is placing units (a huge stack of units) right next to the city so you can attack immediately. I guess if you were in Persia's territory at the time you declare war it wouldn't be so bad.

Scout Blocking - ok, I can see this as an exploit, although, I've read that the AI eventually kicks your settler out. I did that with the Russians once (on my 2nd try of GOTM7), and they sent a warrior stack my way! (in the beginning of the game)

Using a scout, the AI will often ignore the scout, because it is not a military unit. They ask you to leave, but usually won't demand you leave. If they do force you to leave, you can move your scout right back onto the same spot. You can do this repeatedly (unless the AI happened to get a worker on that tile during it's turn) without war being declared.

 

[Matrix]

Ok, scout resource denial will be disallowed again in the next GOTM. And I'll post a poll about ship hopping. I don't know what to think about that.

 

[Cartouche Bee]

I've never used the ROP attack exploit, scout denial of resources or ship hopping. I have used ICS, but I think that I now only use that when I'm setting up for a potential score milking or a cultural victory.

ROP Attack Exploit:
The reason that I have never done the ROP attack exploit is because I've never had enough forces to pull it off.
It would seem to me that if you have enough forces to park outside every city that the AI have (Do you have to use espionage to look at the target cities to ensure you have your forces deployed according to your adversaries defenses? That may not be so cheap!). Then declare war and win every city in one turn that you were going to win the war anyway! This does have the added benefit of preventing culture flipping back to the targeted AI but there are ways to deal with that problem in other ways also.
Anyway, I think this sort of blitzkrieg tactic is "war legal", in a turn based game.

Scout Resource Denial:
I've never tried this tactic either. I would think that this should be officially addressed by the game maker. On this topic, I wonder if resource denial by ROP is really acceptable? I recently tried this variation (place unit over a resource so they can't build a road to it) and it can really be more powerful than the scout resource denial. If you are strong enough you can really put the thumb on the AI.

ICS [Infinite City Sprawl]:
I have used ICS and it is very powerful. However, you have to focus alot of resources that may be better focused on other developmental areas such as military, expansion, or economic endeavors. I look at ICS as a milking and/or cultural tactic. The more cities that you have the faster you can get to a 100,000 cultural victory. I doubt I would use ICS for a conquest or domination type of victory.

Ship Hopping:
Don't really care if others do it. Yes you can move a few units farther faster but that is alot of setup just to get a small short term advantage.

CB