SGOTM 09 - Maintenance Thread

[Niklas]

I can only agree with Renata. Every time something like this comes up, I hate the game. Please don't use this exploit, mkay?

 

[LowtherCastle]

I'd like to share next info.

How anyone can move airship into black color map.
1. You need open borders with AI.
2. You don't need to know AI map at all.
3. Select your airship, press and hold right mouse button and move mouse cursor over black map. When cursor is green it means that you hold them on AI's city! Release right button and your airship will be moved to that city.

It's easier than this. Once you have open borders with an AI, you just click on the re-base icon for the airship. You don't need to hold down anything on the mouse, you just move the cursor around till you find cities that you can rebase to, which, as you say, are highlighted with the green square.

Since you can only do it once you have OBs, I don't view this as an exploit. It's programmed that way. I thought this was general knowledge. In any case, Murky Waters is way past the point of no return on this one, just for general information, whether it's viewed as an exploit or not.

 

[ShannonCT]

XTeam has already been using this, so now that Gosha has spilled the beans, other teams better use this to their advantage.

If people think they have a strategy/exploit they think needs to be revealed to all, shouldn't it be done through PM to Alan?

 

[ChrisShaffer]

If people think they have a strategy/exploit they think needs to be revealed to all, shouldn't it be done through PM to Alan?

Strategies, yes. Exploits, no. I, personally, hate the freaking exploits and they diminish my appreciation of the game and interest in playing it. What reason is there for keeping exploits secret, other than (imho, unfair) competitive advantage?

 

[ShannonCT]

Strategies, yes. Exploits, no. I, personally, hate the freaking exploits and they diminish my appreciation of the game and interest in playing it. What reason is there for keeping exploits secret, other than (imho, unfair) competitive advantage?

Just thinking that Alan should decide what's a strategy and what's an exploit. And competitive balance could be overthrown when these things are posted in the middle of the game when some teams are at 500BC and some are at 1000AD.

 

[Gosha190]

It's programmed that way.

It's almost exactly the same what AlanH said via PM and I felt me free to share this game feature with all of sgotm players.

And you can feel you free to hate it or to love it

 

[Lord Parkin]

Distinguishing between strategy and exploit is fairly easy. Most of us would know intuitively when there's an exploit, because it's something that's not "supposed" to be permitted in the game (eg moving air units to unknown tiles).

And I personally think that it's very good practice to post any exploits here as soon as they become apparent. In an ideal game environment, of course there wouldn't be any exploits. But since they are there, it's better that all teams know about them than that one team keeps the information to themselves.

Either way, it's going to skew the competitive balance a little (or maybe a lot, depending on the exploit). But at least letting the other teams know goes some of the way to restoring the balance. It's not going to be perfect, because different teams will be at different stages of the game - but it's less skewed than one team keeping the exploit secret for their own use.

 

[ChrisShaffer]

Just thinking that Alan should decide what's a strategy and what's an exploit. And competitive balance could be overthrown when these things are posted in the middle of the game when some teams are at 500BC and some are at 1000AD.

My point is that a team at any stage who used this exploit would not have competitive balance with a team at any stage who didn't know about the exploit. There would be an imbalance caused by knowledge of a bug in the programming. The mere fact that one team knows about an exploit and another does not creates imbalance. Keeping it secret does not maintain balance, it maintains imbalance.

Further, any team that wants to reveal a strategy can do so, as long as they don't release spoiler information. There's nothing in the rules that says we aren't allowed to discuss or reveal strategies.

edit - xpost with Lord Parkin - what he said

 

[Gosha190]

And competitive balance could be overthrown when these things are posted in the middle of the game when some teams are at 500BC and some are at 1000AD.

There are a lot of alternative sources to get new info on BTS gameplay. So I can not agree with you. I could share that info via bugg report path.

 

[Renata]

Well, any team that has been making use of this has already gained an advantage over us, because we haven't been. (And if I know my teammates, we won't use it now, either.) But it will really stink if competitive advantage and who gets the laurels comes down to who used this to get contacts faster and who didn't.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I don't see this detail as anything close to game-breaking. Gyathaar has created a very complicated set-up and winning is going to require skillful, thoughtful integration of a whole gamut of details, strategies, tactics, and game knowledge, just like in the last SG.

 

[ShannonCT]

Distinguishing between strategy and exploit is fairly easy. Most of us would know intuitively when there's an exploit, because it's something that's not "supposed" to be permitted in the game (eg moving air units to unknown tiles).

I'm not sure what the designers intended with airship rebasing. I mean, why can an airship scout and attack only 8 tiles away but rebase to a city 100 tiles away? That's a little screwy. And of course it makes sense that an airship can scout fogged tiles. So I have a hard time deciding whether the designers intended rebasing into the fog or if they forgot to disallow it.

There are a lot of alternative sources to get new info on BTS gameplay. So I can not agree with you. I could share that info via bugg report path.

Posting a strategy/exploit in this thread is a bit spoilerish. It tells people that a particular strategy/exploit is useful is this particular game. But if Alan approves, .

 

[Mad Professor]

Distinguishing between strategy and exploit is fairly easy. Most of us would know intuitively when there's an exploit, because it's something that's not "supposed" to be permitted in the game (eg moving air units to unknown tiles).

I can't agree with you here. You're saying I think that something doesn't make common sense (like moving air units to unknown tiles) is an exploit and not supposed to be in the game? The game is not real life and does not come close to approximating it (or history). For example, I've seen a spearman beat a gunship. Sure, the gunship was wounded at the beginning of the battle, and it was one of the RNG flukes that happen occasionally, but that's part of the game. Doesn't make any sense at all, shouldn't happen, but does. I think you're making too much of the distinction.

Either way, it's going to skew the competitive balance a little (or maybe a lot, depending on the exploit). But at least letting the other teams know goes some of the way to restoring the balance. It's not going to be perfect, because different teams will be at different stages of the game - but it's less skewed than one team keeping the exploit secret for their own use.

No way. What if one team does some careful research in many discussion groups etc., and comes up with some feature (strategy or exploit, who can tell??) that the other teams don't know about it. Must they share it to "restore balance"? I think not. You're assuming it's clear cut what it "Exploit" and what is "strategy", but I disagree with you on this. I think it is not clear at all.

 

[ChrisShaffer]

Posting a strategy/exploit in this thread is a bit spoilerish. It tells people that a particular strategy/exploit is useful is this particular game. But if Alan approves, .

Are you seriously suggesting that saying "airships can be rebased into fogged tiles" is a spoiler? You really believe there is anyone playing who is so dim they wouldn't realize such a strategy would be useful in this (or nearly any) game?

 

[ChrisShaffer]

What if one team does some careful research in many discussion groups etc., and comes up with some feature (strategy or exploit, who can tell??)

I know it when I see it and if it stinks, it's rotten. You may not be able to tell that this is an exploit, but I know for certain that it is.

 

[Renata]

I am most bothered by tactics -- I consider them exploits, but if you disagree, "tactics" is fine for the purposes of this argument -- that actually *remove* thought/discussion/strategy from the game, and this one unquestionably does that. No more thought required about where the best place to scout is; it's all decided for you. And that would seem to go counter to what these games are supposed to be about.

 

[Lord Parkin]

I'm not sure what the designers intended with airship rebasing. I mean, why can an airship scout and attack only 8 tiles away but rebase to a city 100 tiles away? That's a little screwy. And of course it makes sense that an airship can scout fogged tiles. So I have a hard time deciding whether the designers intended rebasing into the fog or if they forgot to disallow it.

The fact that you can't do it unless you fiddle around with the mouse kind of makes it a fairly obvious exploit. The giveaway should be that the "straightforward" method of selecting the "recon" mission and then hovering over a blacked-out tile doesn't allow you to move into an unknown city. (At least, as far as I'm aware it doesn't.)

 

[Lord Parkin]

I can't agree with you here. You're saying I think that something doesn't make common sense (like moving air units to unknown tiles) is an exploit and not supposed to be in the game? The game is not real life and does not come close to approximating it (or history). For example, I've seen a spearman beat a gunship. Sure, the gunship was wounded at the beginning of the battle, and it was one of the RNG flukes that happen occasionally, but that's part of the game. Doesn't make any sense at all, shouldn't happen, but does. I think you're making too much of the distinction.

Well, you're not really talking about the same thing. With a weird RNG result, you at least have the combat odds displayed before the battle that clearly say "99.9%" or whatever. So it should be clear to any player that they do not have a 100% foolproof chance of defeating that unit; just a very good chance.

With an exploit like the airship thing, you don't get a box coming up when you press the recon mission saying "to rebase in unknown territory, right-click and drag the mouse until you see a green circle somewhere in the fog". Since it's not mentioned at all, it's very likely that it was overlooked by the developers. On the other hand, combat odds quite clearly are mentioned in very obvious terms.

These are two completely different cases, so you can't really compare them. I understand the general point you're trying to get at, but your argument isn't really supporting it.

 

[AlanH]

I was aware of the rebase facility. Since I have no way of knowing whether it is a design feature or a bug, I have not banned it.

I didn't specifically notify everyone of it in this thread, as I assumed anyone who wanted to would have explored all of the extra options relating to fog exploration after I pointed to the move order feature. I'm sure that is how it was discovered by the teams that have used it already. I didn't give explicit details of how to use the move order facility, and I do not expect to have to spell out the details of every other capability that the game allows.

I guess the rebase-into-fog option is unusually useful in this game, as airships are available before the map is widely explored.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I am most bothered by tactics -- I consider them exploits, but if you disagree, "tactics" is fine for the purposes of this argument -- that actually *remove* thought/discussion/strategy from the game, and this one unquestionably does that.

Without spoiling, I can say that this 'tactic' does indeed require thought/discussion/strategy. There are very good reasons to not use this tactic early on and wise strategy discussion weighs the options. I'll leave the rest for you to figure out.

The fact that you can't do it unless you fiddle around with the mouse kind of makes it a fairly obvious exploit. The giveaway should be that the "straightforward" method of selecting the "recon" mission and then hovering over a blacked-out tile doesn't allow you to move into an unknown city. (At least, as far as I'm aware it doesn't.)

Not true. As I said in my response to Gosha190 above, all you need to do is click on the rebase icon and it works just like usual. No fiddling with the mouse needed whatsoever.