Top 3 Most Broken Exploits Currently (pre Fall patch)

[sresk]

On the builder charge exploit... I'm not too concerned with that as each builder you make causes the next builder to cost more cogs... so I'm not convinced that that exploit is all that bad... the rest though yeah no way I'm playing multiplayer until some of this is fixed.

 

[MyOtherName]

I think the more significant thing about the builder charge exploit is that it lets you bring your gold into play more easily in the very early game -- e.g. when you can buy half of a builder, you can sell the first to buy the second.

 

[sresk]

I think the more significant thing about the builder charge exploit is that it lets you bring your gold into play more easily in the very early game -- e.g. when you can buy half of a builder, you can sell the first to buy the second.

Right but then the 3rd costs more... like I said the fact that builders scale in cost at least helps mitigate this exploit.

 

[TwiceTheJava]

I have 1150 hours in Civil V and this is the first I've heard of a science overflow bug. I keep hearing about a trading bug in Civil VI, but I don't know what it is. Builder exploit? No clue. I've never found an exploit in a Civ game. I learn about them online. I don't go looking for them, so I don't find them.

Meanwhile everyone is calling them obvious and unbelievable. I suppose I could be clueless. I'm mostly an emperor player. Maybe these things are obvious for the deity players, but they are freaking obscure to me.

 

[elitetroops]

I think the builder selling exploit gets stronger later in the game when you have more charges. Early on you sell 1/3 of a builder for the price of half a builder. The gain is quite insignificant. Later you sell 1/5 or 1/6 with mids (or 1/7 if you are China and have mids), which is a significant gain.

Or, to put it another way, if you use the exploit then all your builders are half price and have one charge less than normally. Getting 2 charges for the price of half a builder isn't that bad, especially since the builder cost also goes up every 2 charges. China's 4 charges are still much better. But getting 4-5 charges for the price of half a builder is quite massive.

I don't think disbanding levied CS units is a very bad exploit. I also did the same in the first game I played. Once I just disbanded them all after I had used them for a war, mainly because I didn't want to look at all those warriors anymore, second time I did it to get rid of some units that were blocking my GS from getting to the desired spot to trigger him. In a way it's stupid that you can disband all their units before you attack, but it's not that powerful at all. It's not like they'll be able to defend themselves anyway. On the other hand, disbanding them can make city states more useful. After I disbanded all of Carthage's warriors, they spammed new up to date units. It wasn't long until they had a carpet off crossbows while all other city states still had warriors. This way you could perhaps have a city state keep up in military technology to efficiently use their levied troops for later wars as well.

 

[MyOtherName]

No clue. I've never found an exploit in a Civ game. I learn about them online. I don't go looking for them, so I don't find them.

That's too bad. "Looking for an exploit" is basically the same thing as "developing a good strategy" -- the only difference between the two is what you wind up finding.

(why yes, I am somewhat annoyed at the repeated attempts to shame the people who enjoy figuring out how things work and how to use them effectively)

 

[TwiceTheJava]

I'm not shaming. I'm pointing out that they are not blindingly obvious and unavoidable. One has to search for them. Intentionally searching for something, finding it, then complaining that it's there is really weird to me. Not that you are complaining, but others are.

 

[Aldrahill]

I think the more significant thing about the builder charge exploit is that it lets you bring your gold into play more easily in the very early game -- e.g. when you can buy half of a builder, you can sell the first to buy the second.

Absolutely, it's the fact that it creates more liquid gold in the early game, giving you a sizeable advantage over the AI and even others in MP if they're not using it. At this point, I always delete Builders with only 1 charge left, as the early gold is just so useful .Even just being able to purchase a unit tile to stop the AI (or someone else!) reaching something is so incredibly useful.

 

[greygamer]

That's too bad. "Looking for an exploit" is basically the same thing as "developing a good strategy" -- the only difference between the two is what you wind up finding.

(why yes, I am somewhat annoyed at the repeated attempts to shame the people who enjoy figuring out how things work and how to use them effectively)

This is why

exploit
verb.

1. make full use of and derive benefit from (a resource).
   
   
2. make use of (a situation) in a way considered unfair or underhand strategy

 

[elitetroops]

This is why

exploit
verb.

1. make full use of and derive benefit from (a resource).
   
   
2. make use of (a situation) in a way considered unfair or underhand strategy

What has that got to do with finding exploits?

 

[alpaca]

I'm not shaming. I'm pointing out that they are not blindingly obvious and unavoidable. One has to search for them. Intentionally searching for something, finding it, then complaining that it's there is really weird to me. Not that you are complaining, but others are.

But that is simply incorrect. You don't have to intentionally search for the trade bug, just trying to get a better deal with the AI will trigger it. You also don't have to search for the production overflow bugs, just chopping a tree while building a military unit with a bonus does it. These are not some obscure things you have to jump through hoops to find, they are there in virtually every game. Whether you pay attention to what happens in the game in such detail that you notice these bugs is, of course, a different pair of shoes and a matter of taste. But for those who do, these are obvious enough that you notice in your first or at least your second playthrough that something is off, that you can't avoid it, and, if you care about such things, that may even render the game soft-unplayable (as in not worth your time for the moment). Perhaps they are not obvious to all players, perhaps only to a fairly small minority. But that doesn't invalidate the concern.

You also may not have properly considered how one should deal with the issue in MP games. MP games are all about eking out any advantage you can get over your enemies. Surely you can't realistically expect everyone to adhere to some house rules all the time, unless you only play with friends? While that is not a big concern for me personally, because if I do MP I only do it with real-life friends, but I can definitely empathize with the pain this would cause you if you are primarily a MP fan. Of course one may argue that Civ is primarily a single-player game, but if the devs feel that they have to add a MP mode, they should damn well make sure that it works and doesn't have too many exploits.

I understand that games are usually released unfinished (a lamentable practice, but that is what players like me, who still buy the game on release even though they know it's probably full of bugs because they don't care enough about their money, incentivize managers to do), and I personally view threads like this as reminders to the devs about which problems are in the game so that they feel more incentivized to fix them. So even if you had to intentionally search for exploits, if you never complain about problems you find, chances are that they won't be considered important enough to fix.

 

[skyclad]

Its also a pretty broken exploit that 5 districts provide 2x yields to trade routes!

 

[KrikkitTwo]

E

Its also a pretty broken exploit that 5 districts provide 2x yields to trade routes!

exactly...the big problem with these exploits (cheating/underhanded play)
Is that many are triggered by normal parts of the game
-runa trade route=cheating
-using a production bonus=cheating
-trading w AI = cheating
-getting the craftsmanship civic=cheating
-disbanding a unit=cheating
-getting relic boosters and Mont michel or Kongo=cheating

Basically, because the game is bugged, almost everything you do is cheating.

These exploits are BUGS...the type of thing that if you find them, you complain...especially if you were looking for them.

For extreme case, lets say building a pikeman caused you to instantly win...would you complain anout that or just not build pikemen?

 

[MyOtherName]

Sometimes, the line between "exploit" and "good, legit tactic" isn't even clear. For example...

In Civ 4 BTS, know that building "wealth" converts one production into one gold.

If you are building a wonder and it's finished elsewhere, you receive "failgold" -- you receive one gold for every hammer invested in the wonder.

At high levels, by building wonders that get completed quickly, failgold lets you effectively build wealth before you actually research the technology that unlocks the ability. This made some people uncomfortable, even called it an exploit. But the devs left it in, and it has become a normal tactic.

Chopping trees and overflow from whipping doesn't convert to hammers when you build wealth (the hammers are saved until you build something else). But they go into wonders. So failgold lets you use chops and whips to get gold when you normally can't. Again, this makes people uncomfortable. But the devs left it in and it has become a normal tactic.

If you have stone, all of your production into wonders like stonehenge gets doubled. This lets you get twice as much gold than you would have by building wealth directly. Production from chops and overflow get doubled too. Similarly, the industrious trait and one of the religious civics have a similar but smaller effect. Failgold is the best way to produce gold, and many people were calling it an exploit.

But the devs left it in and it has eventually become a normal tactic.

This is eerily similar to the particulars of the horse economy....

 

[elitetroops]

-getting the craftsmanship civic=cheating

Just have to correct this, since my original info on that one turned out to be wrong. Some further research into that particular bug has shown that it has nothing to do with craftmanship, the bonuses kick in at some point early in the game no matter what you do. Still not sure what triggers it, but it was just a coincidence that it happened to happen at craftmanship in my first tests. I also just noticed that the production bonuses expire at some point later in the game. Not sure when that is either, but I don't have the bonuses any more in my game which is currently at around 200AD.

 

[Nathair]

But that is simply incorrect. You don't have to intentionally search for the trade bug, just trying to get a better deal with the AI will trigger it.

Um, maybe I don't understand the bug but doesn't it rather hinge on making offers you know are unacceptable over and over again while trading the same items back and forth? Who does that?

 

[elitetroops]

Um, maybe I don't understand the bug but doesn't it rather hinge on making offers you know are unacceptable over and over again while trading the same items back and forth? Who does that?

Only the version that gives you infinite gold. Getting unfair deals like 100 gpt for one resource can happen much more easily, just through quite regular haggling. Once you know the trick you can make it happen every time, if you feel like exploiting this bug, but you don't need to know the trick to accidentally trigger it.

 

[Aldrahill]

E

exactly...the big problem with these exploits (cheating/underhanded play)
Is that many are triggered by normal parts of the game
-runa trade route=cheating
-using a production bonus=cheating
-trading w AI = cheating
-getting the craftsmanship civic=cheating
-disbanding a unit=cheating
-getting relic boosters and Mont michel or Kongo=cheating

Basically, because the game is bugged, almost everything you do is cheating.

These exploits are BUGS...the type of thing that if you find them, you complain...especially if you were looking for them.

For extreme case, lets say building a pikeman caused you to instantly win...would you complain anout that or just not build pikemen?

I think the issue is exploits that are a result of poor planning on the part of the developers. The three I listed in the video are all things that could be pretty easily fixed - there's no way they were created intentionally with the current state in mind, because it would just... Just bonkers.

 

[Nathair]

Getting unfair deals like 100 gpt for one resource can happen much more easily, just through quite regular haggling. Once you know the trick you can make it happen every time, if you feel like exploiting this bug, but you don't need to know the trick to accidentally trigger it.

I realize that I've only got 142 hours in but I've not encountered anything remotely like that so far.

 

[Draco84]

I think the most glaring exploit that should be fixed is selling of armadas/armies. being able to make infinite gold (taking all the AI cash is not infinite) by simply buying and selling armies in the same city over and over again is more broken than anything else.

Armies/armadas should generate 3x the disbanding price of a single unit, not 9 times or whatever it is. I'm okay with Scythia getting 2:1 from light calvary for a relatively short period of time it's available. You can't buy districts so gold is of limited value in this game.

Just for kicks, I build a harbour/shipyard as soon as possible, then used that to rush buy an armadas and sell them the same turn being able to purchase every great person (except prophets) on the same turn.