Yeah, if the consequences were greater, I wouldn't care. The point is, you can continually drain the AI's money with essentially no consequences in preparation for war. There isn't much I consider a genuine exploit, but this I do.
Ignoring previous points is bad form, I see no reason to counter your points if you don't bother addressing mine.
It wasn't the same in practice, though, just because humans do things on a grander scale that makes it essentially game-breaking.
So basically everything is game breaking.
This isn't the only case. It is merely the most easily mathematically demonstrable one; the simplest existence proof. Many others exist. Eg: fake wars with civs on another continent when not tech limited (say, you need ten RAs with seven opponents to end the game), because the AI is incapable of executing amphibious assaults. In that case the only opportunity cost is the diplo hit...and that cost is nil if you've already re-upped the last round of deals with civs you aren't already in a DoF with.
The point is that this by itself isn't sufficient grounds to make something an exploit. DoW still has very real consequences, regardless of whether you care about them any longer or not. The decision on when/if to compensate for the consequences (or when they are acceptably minor) is part of the strategy of the game. To turn your argument around: is this a tactic you always want to execute at every opportunity in order to reach a fast victory? I'm betting you can't honestly answer yes to that, so your approach to "proving" exploit here is pretty weak.
Further, I went on to make the case (beyond the existence proof) that the endgame problem is not trivial and limited to the final turn. Distant civs many hexes away can safely be declared on many turns before the game ends, as long as you are not currently in a Research Agreement. The turn the game will end on can be known with near certainty thirty to forty turns in advance for all peaceful win conditons on normal speed. Adjust the victory estimate for game speed based on Research Agreement duration.
Even in this paragraph, you qualify the DoW! Think for a moment why you had to qualify it! You are also still ignoring that *all* opportunity cost drops as you near endgame since consequences for anything (good or bad) tend to run out of time to occur.
If you're going to insist on misrepresenting my argument by taking a portion of it out of context and ignoring the rebuttal of the quoted claim that I have already made (twice)
Aside from material the mods asked us not to discuss, you have no rebuttal I didn't address. All you've done is nitpick my "always" without providing a meaningful basis for calling DoW to break gold deals an exploit. I will concede that the opportunity cost is not *always* meaningful then, if that irrelevant point matters to you, but nevertheless point out that the evaluation of when doing this is helpful rather than harmful involves strategy and that the opportunity cost follows the precise pattern of the vast majority of in-game tactics - a point that ironically you've chosen to ignore in your "rebuttal".
The rule also reduces the influence of random factors. You have repeatedly insisted that game rules should attempt to reduce the influence of randomness. So which problem is more important: getting rid of random factors or preserving opportunities for strategic interaction?
Answer: preference.
Yeah, it's a tough question for me to answer too. The random factors I've hated the most are always the ones that involve no strategy or minimal strategy; when asked to choose between a random factor that adds strategy and its removal it becomes quite difficult.
opportunities to declare fake wars for monetary gain are generally pretty obvious
So is building libraries, only more so. Remember that we're both high level players. It's obvious to *you*, but watch a prince player play through the game with the mind to use this tactic every time the benefits outweigh the opportunity costs, and watch as he botches opportunities to use it, overuses it, or loses himself the game. On the other hand, he'll probably build libraries when it's cost effective, and with less coaching.
Sure, they'll tend to happen late due to diplomatic opportunity cost, but knowing when you will win thirty turns from the end of a Quick speed game that lasts 120 turns offers a lot of chances for fake war, no?
Depends how quickly you can get out of those fake wars. Also, you're now saying "this tactic looks really strong when I cook the settings to make it look strong".
What if I turned that on you, and dumped a huge marathon game on your lap? How many "fake wars" do you want to try?
You're still not differentiating this tactic from standard in-game tactics, making it increasingly hard for you to actually make an exploit case.
I proved mathematically that war does not consistently have opportunity cost.
Wrong. You proved mathematically that war does not consistently have *meaningful* opportunity cost. It always has some, unless you're actually ON t=0 where of course nothing matters in-game. The opportunity cost is always there; it's up to the player to determine when it's to high and when it is not.
Perhaps it would have been helpful had I cited them, but the simple fact of the matter is that you are wrong and that this can be demonstrated by cold, hard, unassailable logic.
Perhaps it would be helpful if you cited cases where this "exploit" differed from basic tactics like "sign research agreement" or "capture opposing cities, but the simple fact of the matter is that you are wrong and that this has been demonstrated by cold, hard (not warm and hard), unassailable logic...or at least your failure to provide any.
I'm not going to go any further because you have failed to address any of the major components of my argument, which can be summarized as follows:
- You've provided no reasonable basis for why the definition of exploit should be based on your preferences, and we've never disagreed on enforceability (possibly, this is why I didn't attempt to counter that part of your argument...)
- I'm not sure what meaningful response you want to "this is preference", other than that "preference" is not a valid means of banning something in a competitive setting, and is as valid as anything else in non-competitive settings.
- If discussing the basis of an exploit definition is misguided, why are you using misguided arguments against me? The purpose of this thread is to discuss a social choice problem; reasonable criteria for common grounds isn't a groundbreaking idea.
- While my guess on the purpose of Shafer's leaving the company is probably more educated than yours, I don't know his actual reason and neither do you.
- The definition of "exploit" in any dictionary you pick up suggests that it is a good thing to seek to do so actively in civ V. Not only the way people apply it, but even its base usage is inaccurate.
1. "exploiting" a bug in the system. e.g., a game error that gives the player an advantage due to a programming error. I think most would agree that this is exploitative.
"Most" would only agree if the bug allows one to actually overcome/break the stated rules (IE cheating).
2. "exploiting" certain game mechanics to generate an "unfair" advantage. e.g., the "lump sum trade and then DoW" tactic. Some find this exploitative while others feel that, since the AI does it too, it's not our fault that there are insufficient diplomatic penalties for pulling this stunt.
You've only demonstrated a fraction of the argument from the side claiming that this isn't exploitative, and the other points are pretty strong.
The debate here is primarily about whether certain player actions are in the second or third category.
Actually, a large part of the debate is whether #2 is a legit exploit. The only way #3 has been brought in is largely to compare the impact of tactics that fall under #2 or to debunk arguments by showing that arguments against a tactic in #2 also call tactics in #3 "exploit".
Exploit is about exploiting resources, no? I assume it doesn't mean exploit flaws in programming.
Separate programming flaws from intentional AI inadequacy, compensatory bonuses, and design decisions...and prove it. Nobody can do that, which is why this "flaws in programming" nonsense is a bit ridiculous to hinge an argument; better to use more valid approaches.
So far, the "this is an exploit" side of things has done no better than "personal preference of the majority dictates that things beyond cheating/bypassing game rules are exploits".