Time games

[Noble Zarkon]

OK I've just finished a Time game on Arch so will start a new one on B&S now for direct comparison!

 

[Cunaxa]

For me, it's using standard game mechanics, so no exploit. As cold-whipping is a big part of it, I actually even doubt that the conversion-rates from to are that extreme, though Kremlin and Factories do make it powerful in time games. This method actually is so powerful, because it's the only method I know of, that converts into . It's also an amazing way to make the core-cities pay the extreme expenses for the newly settled non-courthouse cities. Additionally, the core-cities lose pop while the newly settled one gain pop resulting in all cities reaching about the same size once settling is finished, which is great for maximising population.

But don't you think that method is still a pretty game breaking exploit? I mean the effect of this is much bigger than for example the GPT trade exploit and probably the most effective way to generate large amounts of gold, right? Sure, it's within the game's rules but you still 'trick' the game to be able to whip 'Food -> Wealth' which is normally not allowed. I don't like the idea that this becomes a must-use-to-be-competetive method for HOF players but that's what this seems to be!?

 

[Seraiel]

But don't you think that method is still a pretty game breaking exploit? I mean the effect of this is much bigger than for example the GPT trade exploit and probably the most effective way to generate large amounts of gold, right? Sure, it's within the game's rules but you still 'trick' the game to be able to whip 'Food -> Wealth' which is normally not allowed. I don't like the idea that this becomes a must-use-to-be-competetive method for HOF players but that's what this seems to be!?

GPT trading is no exploit, it's bugusing, because it allows something that is not intended, the DEVs even stated that.

Exec-Failgold is totally intended, it's like Wonder-Failgold. What makes the method special is, that Food first gets converted into Hammers via the whip and that then, Hammers get converted into Gold, making Food get converted into Gold in final stance, so if something was exploiting, it would be Slavery, not Exec-Failgold.

I thought about it again btw., and Food -> Wealth is i. e. also possible via Merchants. Noone would think that Merchants would be an exploit, so the mechanic is not as unique as I thought at first.
What makes it powerful is when being used massively, but there are various other mechanics that are just the same, like mass-drafting, mass-whipping, mass-specialists and and and.

 

[WastinTime]

@NobleZarkon. What I do is Arid Arch. settling on a desert gives 2 food that the original generated map did not count against your score

 

[Cunaxa]

I guess you're right and it's not as powerful as I first thought compared with other methods/tricks. I probably overestimated the effectiveness because of your characterization of it as 'godmode'^^

But i'm not sure it was the exact intention of the devs to give the player a way to pay for his huge empire by turning slaves into corporate executives who then get converted to gold because of the limited number of national units

 

[Seraiel]

I guess you're right and it's not as powerful as I first thought compared with other methods/tricks. I probably overestimated the effectiveness because of your characterization of it as 'godmode'^^

But i'm not sure it was the exact intention of the devs to give the player a way to pay for his huge empire by turning slaves into corporate executives who then get converted to gold because of the limited number of national units

Well, if CIV was still developed nowadays, they could fix that method by making us able to produce as many Execs as we want.

"As many execs as we want" ... What a dream ^^ .

 

[WastinTime]

Are u aware the game originally had no exec limit? It was patched out

 

[Seraiel]

Are u aware the game originally had no exec limit? It was patched out

I began playing with 3.19, so most overpowered things from prior CIV versions were live without me. I especially regret that I didn't play a game where Tanks could still cause collatgeral dmg., though this also probably would have been awesome. The thought alone, having 70 cities and being able to spread Sushi to the remaining 70 cities, how great! I also would have liked to play with the longer GAs.

 

[WastinTime]

I began playing with 3.19, so most overpowered things from prior CIV versions were live without me. I especially regret that I didn't play a game where Tanks could still cause collatgeral dmg., though this also probably would have been awesome. The thought alone, having 70 cities and being able to spread Sushi to the remaining 70 cities, how great! I also would have liked to play with the longer GAs.

Yes, both of those exploits (unlimited execs, and 45 turn Golden ages) were used in the infamous Deity/Large 775AD space game and another space game by the same player.

Now, I love finding and using (abusing) a 'tactic' as much as anyone. Once it goes from being a tactic to an exploit, it shouldn't be used any more.
I respect players that discoverways to push the games limits. It doesn't count as 'discovering' a trick if the designers tell you it's been nerfed.

Note this timeline:

June 2009
BtS 3.19 was released and the two exploits above were fully revealed to players and patched out of the game.

July 2009 and Sept 2009
The two space games were submitted using 3.17. Among other 'issues' with these games, each abused the two patched features.
I presume they were grandfathered in.

 

[Seraiel]

I've taken elite's advice and played my current time-game a lot faster. Only 70 hours .

The result however is really good. 80k points, and that with a medieval start. Soon I got so much experience with time-games, that I can make a writeup about them. Wanted to show you this screenshot for which I worked very hard:

Spoiler :

61 through Sushi. Had to leave 3 AIs alive for this, so I could trade for their resources. Was a little bit difficult diplomacy wise once I started chain-sabottaging their spaceship parts, but made it to keep everybody at cautious with shared favourite civic and espionge-religion-change ^^ . If you take a look at the maintenance btw., that one was a little crazy, -120 GPT in the capital which ofc had a Courthouse. I kept Sushi-resources low for a great part of the game because I would never have been able to pay so much, even with Exec-Failgold. Once I could switch the AIs to Caste and switch to Caste myself, it still didn't became easy. Out of an instant benefit from 8k GPT after the switch and the micro, nothing was left after I screwed Sushi from 40 to 60 Food. Only with all cities running Merchants and all cities producing Wealth with having Mining, it became possible to only slightly raise the slider again. Ofc, I had those awesome Stock Exchanges already in most cities, including Grocers and Markets mostly.
In the end, I won the game by time only 10T before a great part of my cities would have turned Legendary, so really nothing possible to be optimized regarding Sushi. Only thing that could have brought me up to the 90k points WastinTime had, would have been more Wonders and more Future techs. Reached Future Tech 150, which is quite nice for a game that only lasts 375T. Was funny in the end, got a GP every 2nd or 3rd turn, and all of them could bulb a complete Future Tech.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Impressive! What size of map was that?

 

[Seraiel]

Impressive! What size of map was that?

That was Large / Normal / (Arid) Archipelagio with high Sealevel.

And thx .

Btw.: Was 10 tiles before triggering domination in the end . Felt a little bit strange to be at 58.7%, but Archipelagio is really great because of the culture-mechanics. If an island has 1 tile to the next, culture jumps over and stops 1 tile after being on the other island. If 2 tiles are coast or sea, culture only develops for the BFC, so everything one would have at 20%, not more.

This made it really easy to optimize the number of cities, because I could say in advance that "that city will have exactly 3 tiles, so 3* 0.125% = x%" . Probably could have even founded 1-2 more cities due to this, but stopped at 181 because I found that was enough.

Once I had a slightly odd moment: Captured a barb-city on another island. Even though I razed it instantly, the tiles the barb-city had in his inner BFC were 0% english afterwards. There was nothing i could do to make that culture go away again. If I would have known that mechanic before, I would not have conquered that city, like this, it costed me 7 tiles = 2 total cities at least.

 

[WastinTime]

Once I had a slightly odd moment: Captured a barb-city on another island. Even though I razed it instantly, the tiles the barb-city had in his inner BFC were 0% english afterwards. There was nothing i could do to make that culture go away again. If I would have known that mechanic before, I would not have conquered that city, like this, it costed me 7 tiles = 2 total cities at least.

You need to put an AI on that spot. then the tiles won't be yours. The culture from your island will not flip the tiles outside the BFC.

 

[Seraiel]

You need to put an AI on that spot. then the tiles won't be yours. The culture from your island will not flip the tiles outside the BFC.

I would have loved to, but once I got aware of that mechanic, it was already to late because I razed the city and the tiles belonged to me still. Ofc, I could have re-settled the spot, but I wasn't too sure that I could gift the city away then, so I just let it be.

The 2nd part of your post I don't understand, do you mean, that tiles which lie outside the BFC of a city are generally not-flippable? I had other experiences there, Frederick had a city which expanded to 40% culture direction southwards. I had an island in the south with 1 tile between both islands, culture went over without problems and flipped the 40% culture tile to a 40% culture tile of mine.

It's really like I described, 1 tile jumps over to the next island but stops after 1 tile then, 2 tiles cost / sea and culture will not jump over to the next island.

 

[Seraiel]

Ok, the "planned" version of Fail-Exec-Gold and on Marathon settings is really ridiculous. With investing 1T of production, I can 1pop-whip Execs with 180 OF and something like 50 as cash.

I just made 8k in 5-6T by 1T producing -> whipping Execs in all of my cities. I can research with 100% and the whipping anger problems will get solved by future tech hopefully ^^

Again, great tip. Executed right and with Kremlin and Factories, it's "übah-killah" .

 

[WastinTime]

I told u I was giving away one of my big secrets

 

[Seraiel]

And I love you for that

 

[Noble Zarkon]

OK I've just finished a Time game on Arch so will start a new one on B&S now for direct comparison!

I had two Time games accepted into the Hall of Fame this update, both Time games, Epic Speed on Tiny maps - one B&S and one Archipelago. Here are the details - I've used T'Hawk's excellent Victory Score Calculator to normalise the scores to Deity for comparison purposes (I set the Tech and wonders to the same score as I don't think they were really affected by the different maps).

Item | Arch | B&S Cities |60|95
Pop |1,498/446|2,384/625
Land |179/258|368/527
Tech |1,986/334|1,965/334
Wonders |250/310|285/310
Time Played |06:35|10:37
Actual Score |12,421 (Settler)|19,980 (Chieftain)
Deity Score |62,112|66,603

High Sea Level, Arid, Tiny Islands, Mixed in

So basically B&S gives a small boost to the score but at the expense of a lot more time due to a 50% increase in the number of cities.

 

[Seraiel]

Aren't the "actual score's" already normalized? Then the Deity-scores would differ greatly. I don't believe it, but are you really sure that those numbers are all correct?

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Aren't the "actual score's" already normalized? Then the Deity-scores would differ greatly. I don't believe it, but are you really sure that those numbers are all correct?

I'm using normalise in a slightly different sense - to see what a result on Deity would have been for games played at lower levels. The scores are correct - if you don't believe me the details and links to the Calculator are all there for you to do your own calculations