Understanding and maximizing your GPT exploit (UPDATED)

[LowtherCastle]

Now that this is officially unbanned for SGOTMs, I thought it would be fair for all of us to understand how to maximize this "subsidy."

1. The AI will offer you 1/10th of his total population in gpt (for Lincoln, Suryavarman and Pacal it's 50% more or 15/100). That's the maximum he's willing to trade for all of his gpt for resource trades combined. So by counting his city pops, you know what he'll give you. You might have to cancel ongoing gpt deals to get the max offer. This exploit is limited by the max offer he'll put on the board.

UPDATE: It turns out that the AI could have his research slider up, thus preventing him from offering the full 8gpt. YOu konw this, of course, because you know what his population is. In such a case, it might be wise to wait a turn or two, checking each turn, to see if he lowers his slider and offers you the full amount of gpt.

2. So when the AI has between 90 and 99 pop, he'll offer you 9gpt, max, including any ongoing gpt trades. If you trade him corn for 9gpt, then his offer immediately drops to 0gpt for any other resources, because he's reached his coded cap.

3. So here's how to get 90gpt from him instead of the 9gpt he considers fair. First, you have to dominate the map resources, which of course is typical by the time he's got 90 pop. So by now you have 11 resources he'll accept in trade. You take a resource, like incense, which you only have 1 of, and make him an offer he can't refuse: incense+90gpt to him for free! Now when you trade him corn for 9gpt, he continues to offer 9gpt!!! It does NOT drop to 0gpt the way it's supposed to. That's your exploit in action. Don't stop there, trade him all of the resoources he'll accept, giving you now 90gpt for 10 trades.

4. Now to cap it all off, you send your chariot to pillage the incense! Bingo! You now have 90gpt in the clear for your 10 resource trades, starting now, and it has cost you but 5 worker-turns (or whatever) to improve that incense again.

Here is another example:
The pillage exploit is very pronounced in cases of ludicrously expensive resources like iron, asking 90+ gold/turn is stupid - to combat to stupidity, for instance, build the non-resource unit (like trebuchet), strike the deal and cancel after all-out upgrade action via pillaging a road or some resource. No gold changes hands and you get a bunch of shiny cannons.

EDIT: Thanks Folket, now I understand this example. Just a way to get iron when you don't have it, without paying gpt for it.I don't know what makes the AI offer 90gpt because I don't play extended games much, but this follows the same principle, times 10 (unless I misudnerstood bestsss' post). So in this example you'd be getting 900gpt for your shiny cannon upgrades. Not bad, huh?

Kind of reminds me of my son, when he discovered the cheat code for CivIII and was gifting himself millions of dollars cash.

To paraphrase Dr Seuss: "Exploits are fun, but you have to know how."

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Acknowledgments go to bestsss and ZPV for explaining this to me. They are not responsible for this post in any way, in terms of errors or the decision to post this.

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[Folket]

I don't know what makes the AI offer 90gpt because I don't play extended games much, but this follows the same principle, times 10. So in this example you're getting 900gpt for your shiny cannon upgrades. Not bad, huh? Kind of reminds me of my son, when he discovered the cheat code for CivIII and was gifting himself millions of dollars cash.
.

You are reading his example backwards. He is saying that you can buy a resource from the computer for 90 gpt and do upgrades, then plunder something to cancel the deal.
That way you got iron for your upgrades for free.

Otherwise a very informative post. I will try to see if I can reproduce this at home.

 

[nocho]

Thanks for sharing this, LowtherCastle.

I'll enjoy the game less from now on, but I guess once the first ones start using this, we'll all get it forced down our throats as much as it stinks. I see what you're saying with the example of your son. I can't help but think of the Tour de France, gotta swallow the dope to stay borderline competitive. It's "optimal" after all.

 

[LowtherCastle]

@Folket

Thanks for the clarification.

Attached is a save from the Kaku game just before Tachy made the trades that gave us 5*8gpt=40gpt. We didn't use the incense+40gpt and pillage the incense, evidently because Tachy didn't konw about it. That tidbit came from bestsss...


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[Pangaea]

I can't help but think of the Tour de France, gotta swallow the dope to stay borderline competitive. It's "optimal" after all.

Indeed

Since the floodgates are opened, however, it's good to have this information out there so all can decide if they want to use it or not.

 

[Gumbolt]

I have no idea why PD or Kauk need to use these tactics to beat an emperor/immortal game. They are much better than this. The fact is if you gave a human player 10 gold per turn he would not give you 10 gold a turn back for some rice or gold.

It's a minor exploit that has not been patched really. I still believe it is not in the spirit of the SGOTM.

 

[bestsss]

A note: the AI attempts to readjust its slider(s) and tiles, gold target upon striking a gold/turn deal. That's somewhat unfair as it act outside its own turn but... well.

However, if you give enough gold, there will be also enough enough surplus to milk the dumb AI. I do not agree what AI offers is a fair deal - it's poor programming and offering 8+gold/turn for a happy resource under monarchy civic is usually useless, likewise for health resources by an expansion leader. The deal not only boosts the human player but cripples the AI.
Pillaging a road costs 2 worker turns and 1busy unit. As long as there are available AIs and available resources (unowned by the AI), they can be considered X gold/turn. I've never used the exploit b/c it's really cheap.

 

[bestsss]

@Gumbolt

The exploit has been attempted to be patched alas quite unsuccessfully.

 

[vranasm]

what is even "worse" you can totally bankrupt an AI this way in low slider situation (well on Immortal it is less of danger of course, but this works even on lower diffs - if I remember right you don't need for an AI to have gpt before you start the trades to abuse this, so questionable if you couldn't use it always, but now thanks to supposed more AI gold it will be problem?).

I was the opinion it is banned in HOF games, but since I couldn't find this in official rules on HOF page, I guess it's not. But still got the feeling that at some point of mine history here I read a thread about banning this AI manipulation.

 

[Manco Capac]

what is even "worse" you can totally bankrupt an AI this way in low slider situation (well on Immortal it is less of danger of course, but this works even on lower diffs - if I remember right you don't need for an AI to have gpt before you start the trades to abuse this, so questionable if you couldn't use it always, but now thanks to supposed more AI gold it will be problem?).

I was the opinion it is banned in HOF games, but since I couldn't find this in official rules on HOF page, I guess it's not. But still got the feeling that at some point of mine history here I read a thread about banning this AI manipulation.

Really? I thought GPT has an AI-population dependency for that function. I just passed by that function today. Well, I skimmed, but it looked like that and on easier difficulty, the AI progresses so slowly it's hard to get more than 3 GPT early.

Of course, you can abuse successive 1GPT, but that doesn't make great profit at all.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I have no idea why PD or Kauk need to use these tactics to beat an emperor/immortal game. They are much better than this. The fact is if you gave a human player 10 gold per turn he would not give you 10 gold a turn back for some rice or gold.

It's a minor exploit that has not been patched really. I still believe it is not in the spirit of the SGOTM.

I propose you do not trade techs or fight in wars involving siege then.

SGOTM competition is really against other teams. Working over the AI mechanics in all sorts of ways is routine practice. Selectively banning one way is nonsense, especially considering its impact against perfectly normal and accepted practices that a "human would never do".

I was the opinion it is banned in HOF games, but since I couldn't find this in official rules on HOF page, I guess it's not. But still got the feeling that at some point of mine history here I read a thread about banning this AI manipulation.

Probably in civ V, where they rather notoriously banned resource trade abuse while leaving many other forms of early vanilla abuse intact...these kinds of inconsistency greatly damaged the civ V HoF. No reason SGOTM should mimic that.

Of course, you can abuse successive 1GPT, but that doesn't make great profit at all.

No, it doesn't, considering you'd need a resource for each 1GPT "profit" .