What's the effect of Emsworth Aggreements on the Civ3 HOF?

[Denniz]

The revelation of the Emsworth Agreements has a great impact on the Civ3 HOF. With Superslug gone, we can't just ask him to settle the issue. We have to figure out what is right for the Civ3 HOF Community past, present and future.

Should we just allow Emsworth Agreements as the past best dates don't really matter because those players don't participant anymore? Or, if we don't allow them going forward what about the games that have already been accepted? Is it fair to disallow a few of Lord Emsworth's games if there are other games left which take advantage of the exploit?

What would you think if one or more of your games had to be removed from the tables because you have used Emsworth Agreements?

What is best for the Civ3 HOF and Community?

 

[Chamnix]

How many tables will Emsworth Agreements be useful for to the extent that Lord Emsworth used them in a large chieftain 100K?

My first reaction is that they are unlikely to be as effective on higher levels because the AI will meet each other too soon, but of course I never thought they would be nearly as effective as Lord Emsworth demonstrated already. I'm curious if Lord Emsworth has been as successful using this method on other levels/maps, or if it is just useful to get some extra income but is generally not gamebreaking.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Is this an issue? Do we think that games other than the one talked about are affected?

Did I miss something with Superslug?

 

[rysingsun]

i voted to not have it apply retroactively because I think anyone willing to devote his life to perfecting something like that should at least have his game included.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

I voted for the second option, because it clearly is an exploit the way I understand the term. But I also would like to make clear that the exploit should neither be banned retroactively nor proactively. At least not, in a way that I think it is planned.

An "exploit" is a faulty game design (as opposed to a faulty implementation of game design, a bug) that can be used to the players advantage. As such, there are a lot of them: RCP (C3, PTW), remote palace (C3, PTW), armies, the 'tech trick' to get second tier techs(C3C), shipchains, workers build in towns joined to cities, double credit on commerce/shields, tiles worked by two cities on the same turn etc pp. Some of these are allowed, and some of these are not.

The determining factors if an exploit is to be allowed or banned should be (IMO) that there is (1) a clear line that can be drawn (2) without placing the player under absurd regulations; and not whether something is done deliberatly or not.

Take for example RCP in Vanilla or PTW. If you place you cities equidistant (i.e. at same distances) around your capital, you clearly evade a little bit of rank-corruption that you should have gotten. You take some undeserved 'non-corruption' for every two cities that are RCPed. Of course you can do this deliberately; say, for example two rings at distances 4 and 8 to form your core. Or undeliberatly where you just by chance place two or three of your core cities at distance 4. So where should you draw the line between legality and illegality? A clear line could be drawn in saying that all your cities have to be placed in such a way that you do not evade any rank corruption, IOW place all your cities at different distances. But that would clearly be an absurd regulation and so it is not done.

Another example is taking double credit for commerce. You can IBT when a new tech comes in use "Big Picture" to go to your Dom Advisor screen and simply up your lux slider to make all your cities happy. Of course, at that time your commerce actually has already been distributed between sci/tax/lux, and and you have already received the tax and sci shares - the only thing that is missing is that you get the lux share. If you now really up the lux slider you will be taking double credit for some of your commerce. You can do this deliberately, fully knowing that if you now move the lux slider to 100% you get something that you should not have gotten. Or you can do it undeliberatly, if your intention simply is to combat looming riots that you just now realized by giving a little bit more lux. But regardless of whether you use this double credit deliberately or not, this type of exploit is banned. It is not asked too much to simply stay away from the lux slider IBT. Period.

Now, with the 'Emsworth Agreement' things are a little bit complicated. That what makes this technique exploitive is the fact that the money to 'pay' for an AI's negative-gpt simply comes out of nowhere and flows to the global economy in general and the human player's pockets in particlular. Such a situation might occur when an AI signs a treaty to pay X amounts of gpt for something and then a few turns later sees the end of its golden age, loses a few cities, loses inbound gpt payments, switches governments, or I don't know what.

What about a situation where an AI signs a deal to sell techX for 100 gpt to the human on turn 100 and then on turn 110 signs a deal to buy techY from the human player for all its gpt? On turns 121-130 there will be 100gpt coming out of nowhere all else equal.

What about a situation where AI A signs a deal to sell techY to AI B for say 100 gpt on turn 100, then buys techY from the human for all its gpt? Would I be allowed to sign an MA with AI A against AI B before turn 120? After all AI A's DoW on AI B would mean that AI A now runs a negative gpt.

What about a situation where I sign an MA with AI A against AI B for say 50 gpt on turn 100, and then on turn 105 sell tech X to AI A for all its gpt? Should I wage war as normal or should I wait until after turn 120 to kill off AI B? And even if I wait, what about turns 121-125 where AI A would run negative gpt anyway?

In short I just do not think that you can ban the expoitive part of the 'Emsworth agreement' without making the rules either overly complicated, or in some situations to place the player into absurd regulations.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

How many tables will Emsworth Agreements be useful for to the extent that Lord Emsworth used them in a large chieftain 100K?

My first reaction is that they are unlikely to be as effective on higher levels because the AI will meet each other too soon, but of course I never thought they would be nearly as effective as Lord Emsworth demonstrated already. I'm curious if Lord Emsworth has been as successful using this method on other levels/maps, or if it is just useful to get some extra income but is generally not gamebreaking.

You can use this almost always when you kill a civ to make sure that you can sell at least some parts of your tech lead at market-values. Normally this will not exceed more than a few thousand gpt however; it depends largely on what kind of techs you can sell to how many civs.

The jumbling to and fro of large sums of cash for large gpt payments is something that is fairly hard to pull, and even then, most likely, only once.

 

[Bartleby]

I voted the first option. Although it certainly is an exploit, I think it should be allowed.

 

[Marsden]

If it were to be allowed, then there wouldn't be much point to the no double negative gpt rule either, would there?

 

[Marsden]

This is what the official rules pages states:

Giving the AI more gpt than you can afford

This is disallowed as it results in putting 'free' money into the international economy. While fixed for C3C, it is banned for all versions for the sake of consistency.

This is the precedent for not putting free money into the international economy and should only be expanded to: Giving the AI more gpt that you can afford or accepting more gpt than the AI can afford. Since the AI never shows up on it's own accord offering thousands of gpt, we can safely assume any gpt deals are engineered by the player and therefore subject to the rules. If there is any doubt about what the AI can afford you can ask for 99999 gpt and it will default to their total income available, you can't ask for more than that, minus any gold you are giving them. Forcing the AI into a double negative gpt situation is just as illegal as doing it yourself for the same reason, free money from nowhere into the international economy, speeding everyones research and getting faster finish dates than possible without 'voodoo economics'.

Please question or discuss as normal. Thank you.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

This is what the official rules pages states:



This is the precedent for not putting free money into the international economy and should only be expanded to: Giving the AI more gpt that you can afford or accepting more gpt than the AI can afford.

We are allowed to 'feign' gpt (i.e. temporarily moving down lux slider, rearranging tiles), or have I missed anything? And nothing else is what is being done here with the AI. What is not allowed is offering more than you can even feign, i.e. that what is only possible on Vanilla Chieftain: 100gpt when you are nominally making 50 gpt.

And anyway, that is exactly the kind of absurdity that I was talking about. Playing nanny for an AI, yay.

 

[Marsden]

But if you move the slider just to make a deal and then put it back you will be running a deficit. If you don't have the gold to cover the deficit, then it's already banned. What is the difference?

 

[Lord Emsworth]

But if you move the slider just to make a deal and then put it back you will be running a deficit. If you don't have the gold to cover the deficit, then it's already banned. What is the difference?

The difference is that I can tally quite easily what I am making, what I can cover in the future etc. while this can hardly be done for an AI.

 

[Marsden]

Maybe the version your using doesn't allow you to easily know what the AI has, but in conquests all you need to do is ask for 99999 gpt and the number that pops up on the table is the total income of the AI. Do you play on a mac?

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Maybe the version your using doesn't allow you to easily know what the AI has, but in conquests all you need to do is ask for 99999 gpt and the number that pops up on the table is the total income of the AI. Do you play on a mac?

Yeah, I play Vanilla on a Mac. The 999999 trick does not work for me AFAIK. But I still am able to figure out how much money an AI is nominally making.

 

[EMan]

My general feeling is you make the HOF administrators' job as easy as possible by using Firaxis Rules. (Viz. Play the latest Civ 3 versions with whatever is available, program bugs and all.)

If there is a bug which means that all 10 positions in a table are 1st equal (unlikely), then you may need a rule to invoke a skill factor.

The fact that a "strategy" like the Emsworth Agreement doesn't make sense in the Real World is irrelevant. Likewise, for example, there is a good argument in favor of double negative gpt.

Civ 3 is only a game........it doesn't have to have anything in common with Real Life!

Where I do feel STRONGLY, is that the SAME Rules must apply to everyone. You cannot allow Lord Emsworth to keep his games in the HOF using the Emsworth Agreement but ban future entries from using this strategy. It's all or nothing.

CONCLUSION: IMO, the HOF has no room for "Purists" or the word "Exploit"!

BTW, I've asked 'slug (where'd he go?) this before and he ruled it valid:

Using the Civil Engineer bug to potentially Cash-Rush city buildings cheaper by:
1. Cash-rushing a cheaper building
2. Switching to the desired building
3. Cash-rushing the building

It will be cheaper than an immediate Cash-rush of the desired bulding providing a Civil Engineer has been in use for at least 1 turn. (Will ask this again in the Rules thread.)

Is this strategy considered valid? (As long as it's available for everyone, I don't see why not.)

 

[dutchfire]

where'd he go?

Read this .

 

[Marsden]

Civ 3 is only a game........it doesn't have to have anything in common with Real Life!

Where I do feel STRONGLY, is that the SAME Rules must apply to everyone. You cannot allow Lord Emsworth to keep his games in the HOF using the Emsworth Agreement but ban future entries from using this strategy. It's all or nothing.

CONCLUSION: IMO, the HOF has no room for "Purists" or the word "Exploit"!

I agree, but firaxis must have thought these were holes in the game that were mostly fixed in conquests, so we are trying to use firaxis rules.

And the parts I quoted above I agree with completely. No games in the past should be kept as well as any new games. I'm sorry if anyone is upset at this, but our intention is to keep this as even as possible for all participants. Otherwise, why wouldn't everyone just us PTW, gift the AI 999999 gpt for a little while right before attacking them every game and just grab up the free money when you take their cities. Free money for everyone, equally, right? Why bother with conquests at all?

 

[Elear]

I have to honestly vote to ban this both for the future, and retroactively.

It's just taking advantage, and as sad as it is to go through and void games, we have to uphold some standard.

Let me tell you for one: I don't want to have to figure out how to use it just to be able to score higher/get better dates on HoF tables now. With competitions like the Quartermasters, etc., I am sure many other players would agree.

I am sure that other players have utilized this to an extent already; the unfortunate consequence is that the admins have to investigate this matter and determine which games should be voided.

-Elear

p.s. -

But I also would like to make clear that the exploit should neither be banned retroactively nor proactively.

This doesn't make any sense to me. You either allow it period, or call it an exploit and ban it (and all past/present/future games) period. Banning it but allowing your games to stay is confusing and unfair.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

This doesn't make any sense to me. You either allow it period, or call it an exploit and ban it (and all past/present/future games) period.

There are quite a few exploits which are allowed.

Banning it but allowing your games to stay is confusing and unfair.

But I also would like to make clear that the exploit should neither be banned retroactively nor proactively.​

Maybe I just voted for the wrong option.

 

[Elear]

There are quite a few exploits which are allowed.

And those players know who they are, so it's rather good on you to come forward with this, as I previously stated.

Red and green and yellow, it's all a blur, anyway.