The ethics of milking

[DaveMcW]

I don't recall ever saying there was only one winning strategy, do you have a link?

I'm sorry if I offended anyone by dismissing their strategy.

However, I'm not sorry for backstabbing AIs left and right - that is allowed by the GOTM rules. I certainly wouldn't do it in an RB game though.

 

[barron of ideas]

Maybe there is another word than milking that describes what is going on, when players keep playing after the game is over. I thought about "masterbation" but that is probably too harsh.

Going for high score is a legitimate activity, while the game is going on. After it is won, is it still legitimate. Reasonable people differ. If you want a big reputation, at least among people who play, I guess some (M word) is needed. Sirian has all the reputation any reasonable person would need, so doesn't have to invest his time in that (boring to him) activity.

Personally, I am out of the battle, I don't even understand how to download the tournament games. I have read the references to the threads, but don't understand even the simple things, like where to find the file to put the download in.

Putting something in alphabetical order is tough when you don't know the alphabet. All the instructions seem to assume a lot more computer literacy than I have. Which is ok, I like lurking and admiring. Every once I a while I have an idea.

Today's idea is that milking is one of the stranger names for the activity under discussion. Winning with a bigger score is what I think is meant, by the people who think it is a good idea. "WinBig" for short?

The opponents probably will like masterbation.

 

[alamo]

I must admit that milking first seems to be cheating in a way. If you have the ability to claim a victory, then why not? How can you compare game results when there is the option of delaying the inevitable?

I guess it is really just another aspect of the game. Not necessarily an aspect that I want to explore right now, but something of intellectual interest. Of course I would rather review the tax code and balance last years checkbook first, but it's always there.

Just kidding about that green-eyeshade stuff. If you want to weigh that box of cereal to see if you got shorted then go ahead...

But seriously, the first order effects of the game is empire building and warfare. I am happy enough to play those lines for now. After about 12 hours I grow tired of the game, and start looking for the easiest way out (launch, culture or domination, usually).

 

[alamo]

Wow - a big thread for this discussion.

There was a similar thread a few weeks ago.

I am no slouch at the game, but I must be a novice to those who know they've won at 4000BC.


The game is definitely in a different phase when you go to milk, and most people don't get there. You can call it jelousy or sour grapes, but that's a bit farther than I want to go.

 

[alamo]

Now that I have read several of the longer post to this thread, it seems there is way more abstract opinion than practical application. How about some specific situations to discuss?

Since I'm not Udderly involved in milking, I image the closest thing is the intense managment at the start of the game - mood, tiles, improvements, build order, unit actions, finance, diplo, etc.

Situation:

Capital starts building wonder - need to maximize production to achieve wonder in shortest time. This involves mood, tiles, workers, finance, defence.

IMHO, not being able to depend on the gov and workers to do the right thing is a MAJOR pain. I realize that growth needs to be balanced with shields, but the gov does not even maximize shields when set to max prod. The worker automation is infamous, so I won't even go there.


At this point in the game I am much more interested in how the game is unfolding in scouting, founding new cities, and diplo. Why do I have to check to see if everything is still ok in the captial when I haven't changed the goal for that city? Forget to check it once and you may have disorder.


Generic Situation:

It is a few turns-to-go before new tech. You can adjust the sci spending to save gold while achieving the same turns-to-go. Why do I have to do this? Can't I just get a refund? This isn't an every turn thing to check, but it isn't regular either so I wind up missing it 1/5 times.


These are examples of things that I find frustrating and mind-numbing. If this is what milking is like then it's not for me. You can Brand me lazy, but I get buffalo'd by all the nitpicky details when I'm just playing a game for fun.

 

[alamo]

Ok, nobody took the bait last time.

Can some milker please give the uneducated masses a couple of examples of the finer points of milking? I remember city placement being important, and I image build order is different in dairy farm mode.

 

[alamo]

OK, thanks for the specifics. I guess it is an interesting aspect of the game, but I'm just not ready for that yet.

I have come to the realization that I'm probably not really ready for Monarch level, either. Beating the AI at military tactics is easy, but the rest of my game seems to be lacking.

As far as ethics, I guess there is really no problem. If a player can milk the game then the game was too easy in the first place. Until players can be appropriately handicapped the milkers will rule the GOTM scoreboard.

 

[GI JOE]

I myself have more enjoyment of playing the game
to obtain certain goals.Not just how high a score
or fastest victory.There are too many loopholes
to take advantage of.Hopefully Civ 4 will deal
with that.There are times when a bit of milking
is needed but alot of players get way too carried away with it.I want to win in the honorable way.
The chess analogy above is a good example.

 

[Phantom Lord]

Originally posted by Moonsinger
Therefore, I don't see why milking is unethical or it's done by people who have no real skill to win the game through early conquest, space launch, or whatever. IMO, most milkers have the ability to win the game early too.

From what I've seen here they certainly are.

But why do some people take the issue so serious, it's a game, a beloved game for sure, but only a game.

Usually one should think that everything that's possible is OK and here we have a community that even gives itself additional ethics by playing games under the vow of non-reloading, non-exploiting obvious imbalancing features, non-cheating. If there is such a thing as "ethics" in a computer game, the members of the GotM community certainly have lots of them.

Of course, one could also give the nobel prize for saving the environment to a warmonger who extincts everything that moves unless one AI unit in one AI city, then disbands his own Civ, leaving nothing but a lone settler and one tank in front of the AI city behind, finishes the last AI unit in the last AI city with the last tank and then disbands his last tank instead of doing the second move. It's just a question of personal style I think.

I've never milked a Civ 3 game and it's probably beyond my capability to do so. I've been milking a few emperor games back in Civ 1, just out of curiosity where the limit is. It felt great to see every square used and optimized, every city maximized, every citizen happy, it felt like "OK, this is one possible way to master the game." Being ten years older today I've surrendered to the idea of mastering another game for many reasons, but it's fun to see what people can get out of Civ 3. And I also have the feeling that especially these people contribute a great lot of strategy articles, background knowledge and insight into game machanisms and share their knowledge. They remind me much more of researchers who gladly share their insights than of people who are simply out to show others how great they are.

In my personal hierarchy of things, enjoying the game is far more important than the final score. Milkers combine both, their analytic view of game play and scoring mechanisms almost accidentally leads to unbelievable scores and with the knowledge gained from all their anlysis they most likely ...

Originally posted by Moonsinger
have the ability to win the game early too.

They only decide not to do so.

 

[Phantom Lord]

Originally posted by EMan
I like a simple set of rules.......like in Chess for example (The Ultimate Game).

OT: Go is a strong competitor for that title, three basic rules, almost infinite possibilities.

 

[kklaus]

hello everyone
I can't understand why it's allowed to use external programs. I think that any external help should be avoided.

kk

btw I'm a newbie here, really a great site, many thx for all your efforts in running it!

 

[kklaus]

Hello
@Moonsinger... "people would still be able to count the tile to determine the domination limit. " ...maybe... the point is the time you need to count them w/out mapstat. How many tile are present on a huge map? Are u able to count them all?? I think that will take a bit of time: how many of you will count them w/out mapstat? Anyway the rules are fine for me
BTW my brain is not a program... it is muuuuuch much more

@cracker: I played GOTM 15, enjoing the discussions about it: really really nice!

kk

 

[Diogen]

I will not claim milkers not to be ethical (thou want!). Just lut us use not the nude score of the game, but as I posted in a new thread (I did not catch this one, sorry): + Turns(2500-year_of_the_victory)*30, where Turns(x) means the amount of turns inthat period.
This formula comes obviously from GOTM14 (and others) table. Thus Zahriel will be in the first 4, not 12th.

 

[mad-bax]

Here is a dumb ass newbies 2 cents.

Milking is an inevitable consequence of the games scoring system. If the game didn't award a score then the game could still be won or lost and people could still compare how well (or not) they have done. But, you do get a score, and so trying to acheive the highest score is a legitimate objective to set yourself. The purpose of the game is to enjoy it. It is a game after all.

The question in my mind is " Does a 20000 point victory in 2050 carry as much weight as an 1100AD space race victory?" So, if you are going to measure how well a game has been played then some formula has to be derived which will balance the various factors that decide how well a game has been played. The new scoring system attempts to do this, but I worry that it still favours the milkers.

If people want to play games that are not populated with milkers then they can play the tournament.

The GOTM organisers are trying to set games that are inclusive, and allow people with all gameplay styles imaginable to participate in. Long may this continue.

Moonsinger: As far as I see it you should play the game exactly as you please. I hope you and your herd of cattle are very happy together.

 

[Shillen]

Milking is nearly mindless. I don't buy for a second that it takes a great deal of skill to manage every detail of the game, keeping your citizens happy and growing, etc. The skill it takes to reach the domination limit fast is much much greater than the skill it takes to milk that game out and get a high score. Read SirPleb's article on maximizing score. It's one of the most simplistic articles in the war academy. It doesn't take practice. Your first or second time milking you'll have nearly perfected the art. Sure there are a few things SirPleb's article doesn't cover, and you can come up with some slightly new strategies, but overall it isn't that difficult or skillful. Any way you find to improve it probably won't make as much difference as shaving a few turns off the time it takes to reach domination would.

All it is is a way for people with lots of time on their hands to unfairly raise their standing compared to other players, both less and more skilled. Milking should be discouraged. The Aeson system is a step in the right direction, but I still think there's incentive to milk, and IMHO there shouldn't be any.

As for Moonsinger's comments, those exploits will help both unmilked and milked games. So making it not worthwhile to milk doesn't lead to people using those exploits any more than they ever did.

 

[Shillen]

I don't know if you have tried to milk a game or not, but to be fair I think you should try it against others who have milked the same game. Look at the results for the last GOTM there were several games that were milked, but their is a huge disparity in the scores that were received.

I have milked one game so far. A regent game that I was going to use for a HoF entry. My score is 12000 in the year 1920 and using SirPleb's calculator I should get close to 18000 if I ever finish milking it. This would get 2nd place on the HoF. Only Bamspeedy has higher, and much higher at that. But I viewed Bamspeedy's playback for his game. He reached the domination limit over a millenium before me. That is why his score is so much higher, I highly doubt his ability to milk is any better. He was much more skilled than me at reaching the domination limit, but that's all. Now sure this isn't comparing exact games. But they are similar maps. There's a pretty obvious standard to use when going for a high score for the HoF. Huge map, 8 civ's, pangaea, warm, wet, 5 billion years.

There's no way for me to tell for sure, but I would imagine that that's the reason for the disparity in the GOTM scores. Sure lots of people milked, but they all reached that critical # of tiles at different times. I would bet that the players who scored much higher were the ones who had the game in control and reached the domination limit the soonest, and it's not because they're more skilled at the milking aspect.

Edit so as not to double-post: On a side note, if milking does take skill, then why is mapstat allowed? All mapstat does is make milking take that much less skill. It would take quite a bit of skill/luck to get close to the domination limit without knowing when you would hit it.

 

[Shillen]

It's more than just maxing out all cities then hitting the space bar to 2050 AD.

I understand this. The best way to increase your score is to look at every city every turn. Make sure you have all tiles worked, have the appropriate specialists, all the improvements you need, etc. Even if you only did this every 3 turns it would make a drastic difference in your score. But would you consider that skill? I wouldn't personally. It's just one person is willing to sacrifice more time/effort than the other person. I guess there's a whole 'nother debate whether you should reward that extra effort even if it didn't take any extra skill.

I admit a lot of my argument is speculation. Maybe, to be fair, I'll attempt to milk my next GOTM and hopefully other people will so I'll have someone to compare with. I don't think it will change my mind, though.

 

[Shillen]

Yep, it will be my second GOTM, if that means anything. I notice you made that reference in another person's post about the scoring system. Personally I think it's irrelevant. The best analogy I can make is say I moved to a new town IRL. The new town had a town meeting. I went gave my opinions and ideas on various town issues. Then the town official tells me looking at your records I see you've only been here one year. Come back 5 years from now and you can have a say.

 

[Shillen]

I do see your point SirPleb. I did have to make most of those decisions you mention in the game I milked. Well I will, like I said, try to milk my next GOTM game. Hopefully it's not deity or I might struggle to even win the game hehe. Even if I do manage to milk it until 2050 I do not in the least expect to get a top score. But like I said I don't think the reason for that is my lack of milking skill, but my lack of skill in other areas of the game like keeping up on tech and conquering other civ's, etc. I'm not a stubborn person I don't think, so if I do change my mind from the next gotm, I won't be afraid to say it. And with that I'll stop here. I think I've said everything I wanted to say.

 

[Shillen]

It seems that players who are anti-Milkers are implying that if you want to win a medal at GOTM, you "ONLY" have to Milk the game instead of winning it at the first opportunity. That somehow, by putting in long hours on the game, you are winning a medal that was not "earned"..............viz. Trophy Hunters.

Is this the "CRUX" of the matter?

I think you've misunderstood what the anti-milkers have said. Most of the posts I read say that yes, the top scorers do have the game under control the earliest and definitely deserve their high scores. But, on the other hand, milking is a way to artificially inflate your standing. Under the old scoring system it was very easy for someone who didn't have their game under control until 1800 to get a higher score than someone who won in 1200, purely by milking the game to completion. Therefore they've artificially inflated their ranking above someone who obviously had more skill than they did, if not as much time.

It's a pretty poor argument to blame someone's opinions on jealousy. Obviously that reasoning doesn't apply to me. First I've only competed in GOTM17 which hasn't even been scored yet and I don't plan to get a high score anyway. But I would bet you atm I have more free time than anyone who reads these message boards. So you would think I would be pro-milking because I do have the time to artificially inflate my standing. The only explanation why I would be against it is because I do think it's unethical and not because of any harbored jealousy or anything like that.