View Full Version : Ring City Placement and Palace Jump, exploits?
At CFC there's a discussion going on about this great article.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=57026
In a sense this article describes how you can profit from a programming bug regarding the way corruption is calculated. As a result you can lower corruption by placing your cities in a certain pattern.
And then we also have the palace jump. Also a design feature with which it is possible to abandon the capital and get the palace in a place you desire.
I think those are exploits that are not in the spirit of the game. What do you think and why?
Ring city placement on purpose sucks (I think) because the other player
should do it too to get as much g/p/t. Then you always will get the same
pattern game after game. But I am sure none of us will do this IMO.
Palace jump on purpose sucks of course because it was not intented by the
programmers to be used this way... But you should not prohibit it either
IMO. If people that much need such a thing they are stuck in an awefull
location and deserve a new one in a PBEM IMO!
Also palace jump isn't prohibited in GOTM and tourny either IIRC!!!
For me it's not about if it's prohibited in GOTM and the tourny. It's more that I have the same concern as ERIKK and that the game loses a certain charm because you are forced to use these techniques because the other player may also use it.
Eldakkar
11-07-2003, 12:17
I don't think a palace jump is a so called exploit. There are people who say so because the ai can't do it.
But there are a whole lot of things the ai can't do:
- suicide galleys
- preparing for mass upgrades and disconnecting resources thereafter so as to build a new lot of cheap units for another mass upgrade
And there are many many more naturally
A palace jump is within the rules of the game. And it is not that easy to perform all the time imho. I am very glad that this exists, the only other way to move your palace is getting a leader. There are however many games in which you do not get a leader or you get it much too late.
Ring city placement is nice but usually strategic decisions or geographical reasons will make you deviate from the ring pattern.
I am not so scared that all human civs will look the same eventually.
quote:Originally posted by Eldakkar
I am not so scared that all human civs will look the same eventually.
Me neither of course!
quote:Originally posted by Eldakkar
I don't think a palace jump is a so called exploit. There are people who say so because the ai can't do it.
But there are a whole lot of things the ai can't do:
- suicide galleys
- preparing for mass upgrades and disconnecting resources thereafter so as to build a new lot of cheap units for another mass upgrade
And there are many many more naturally
Suicide galleys and mass upgrades were implemented intentionally. I see the palace jump and RCP as programming bugs. That's the difference imho.
As these are two totally different techniques I'll split my answer into two, first my view regarding the use of the "free palace jump":
I agree this method is abusing a (not very well thought out) game mechanic and therefore can be classified as an "exploit", however I personally would strongly disagree with banning this one from the PBEM-environment because of its balancing effect on 2 player games. The main use of a palace jump is to act as a back-up plan in the event of a severe leader-draught, to be able to move the capital from a sometimes very bad position, where it's greatly hurting one's economic output of the empire. With the general approach of PBEMs being somewhat militaristic, the lack of a leader and thus the possibility of creating a 2nd palace on a decent location can mean game over if the other player does get one early on.
Having the possibility to disband your own capital (and, also combined with the efforts it requires to get the capital at the correct spot, it is a heavy price IMO, especially when not playing against crappy AI) the importance of getting that first leader greatly diminishes, reducing the luck factor of the game and allow for a player to continue putting up a challenge even when haunted by bad luck. (And with only 1/16 chance for getting the leader, such bad luck will surface every once in a while).
Concerning RCP, it is bad that Firaxis has made such a miscalculation in their formula defining city corruption, but I don't necessarily see this as an exploit, because this is how the formula works. This just becomes another factor to consider when doing initial city placement, next to the usual factors as resource spread, enemies' positions, strategically important locations etc.
Also, it seems to me it's very rare that the map is built in such a manner you can take real profit from this, an early settler factory seems worth much more to me than correct ring placement, especially against human opponents. I also believe that if this would be disallowed, it could lead to arguments about how people place their cities, if for example "unintentionally" a player's placement of his/her cities takes more advantage of this faulty calculation of corruption than the other human's placement does.
Eldakkar
11-07-2003, 12:41
Like you say, Aggie, maybe it is a matter of opinion, and where you draw the line. I think the mobilization exploit and the changing from wealth to production exploits are real programming bugs. BTW the palace jump in the sense that you get a new capitol after yours has been destroyed is quite intentional imho.
How do you feel about shiphopping?
quote:Originally posted by Kemal
The main use of a palace jump is to act as a back-up plan in the event of a severe leader-draught, to be able to move the capital from a sometimes very bad position, where it's greatly hurting one's economic output of the empire. With the general approach of PBEMs being somewhat militaristic, the lack of a leader and thus the possibility of creating a 2nd palace on a decent location can mean game over if the other player does get one early on.
Having the possibility to disband your own capital (and, also combined with the efforts it requires to get the capital at the correct spot, it is a heavy price IMO, especially when not playing against crappy AI) the importance of getting that first leader greatly diminishes, reducing the luck factor of the game and allow for a player to continue putting up a challenge even when haunted by bad luck. (And with only 1/16 chance for getting the leader, such bad luck will surface every once in a while).
I don't agree that this is mainly a back up plan. You can decide very early in the game that the location of the palace is bad. When you then decide to use the palace jump you can make sure that the capital gets almost no improvements, so that a palace jump doesn't cost that much (or even nothing).
You're right Aggie, I should have said "for me" it's mainly a back-up plan.
You can indeed plan early if you're palace is at a rotten location, but jumping the palace involves more than just disbanding the capital. To get it at the right location usually involves heavy placement of cities around the designated target city or heavily dogpiling one specific city with native workers and decreasing the size of core-cities which usually have lots of cities around them in the 8x8 square.
Getting a leader requires no effort at all, and allows the palace to be built instantly at the perfect location without having to invest resources in preparing it to be the one the game will let the palace jump to.
Also, not investing in the capital also puts you behind on your opponent if he does invest in it, since it is your only crime free city, which thus generates your highest amount of income per tile used.
Well, a city can be a rotten location for a palace but still be as a settler factory or military producer. It could for example be located at the edge of the empire and therefore only benefit a limited number of cities.
Anyway, you are right that this limits the ideal palace jump situation more and more, but still I can imagine quite a few occasions.
Nightfa11
11-07-2003, 14:25
Palace Jump: Nice to do sometimes, but not a gamebreaker. UNLESS it's used in combination with a city giveaway to get all your troops to another continent.
RCP: I tried this in a recent game, and it's a very powerful technique. However, it doesn't always work. Now in my recent game with Aggie, I could have used RCP with very good results but I didn't think to try it. I think it needs to be experimented with more.
Palace Jump is IMO a valid move against a human, as is RCP.
Remember that you are playing another human, and as such you have the same tools at your disposal. Neither of these things break the game mechanics at all, they are intended functionality that the game was built with. They are only exploitative towards the AI because the AI can't or won't do them.
Please please please please please can someone address this point (that we are fighting humans, not stupid AI's that must be given a 'fair' footing). It seems that every time an exploit discussion happens in an MP scenario people don't distinguish between what are (IMO) true exploits in SP games, but in MP games are just 'tools of the trade'.
anarres, I'm not talking about it being unfair vs the AI. I'm talking about software bugs. I believe these two items are just that.
Eldakkar
11-07-2003, 15:10
Anarres, I agree with you about the validity of RCP and place jumps.
However if you say that because both humans have the same tools at their disposal, you are also saying that both humans can use the infinite shield mobilization exploit, the army jump nightfa11 was referring to or the wealth/production in upkeep trick.
I do not think these should be used.
Hmm, maybe people are using these things in a way that was not envisaged, but I can promise you that your Palace reappearing when your Capital is lost was intended. If it didn't how would you calcualte distance calculations for corruption and culture flip chances? Also, where would you trade goods to and from with other Civs, and where would build the Spaceship?
The RCP (equal corruption at equal distances) could in no way be accidental. Maybe it was lazy programming (it was easier to take the loweset rank rather than the average of all cities at same distance), and maybe they thought that the consequences would not be huge to anyone that used this feature. At the very least I can say that it is not a "bug". That word is reserved for when your program does not work to specification, and I haven't read anything that says it should be the average rank. [hmm]
But Aggie, consider the implications of 'banning' RCP. If I have 4 cities all distance 4.5 from my capital does that count as RCP? What it they are the best spots to settle? RCP doesn't even look to be very effective on 90% of maps due to the map specifics, banning it seems crazy to me.
quote:Originally posted by Eldakkar
However if you say that because both humans have the same tools at their disposal, you are also saying that both humans can use the infinite shield mobilization exploit, the army jump nightfa11 was referring to or the wealth/production in upkeep trick.
I do not think these should be used.Well, those exploits you mention actually break the game mechanics. They are very obviously "cheats". Exploits consist (in my mind) of 2 very distinct types:
1) "Cheats": Exploits that deliberately break the game mechanics, and are 100% bugs, no interpretation needed. e.g. Infinite reload bug (now fixed), Mobilisation bug. Wealth bug.
2) Other "Exploits": These are things that keep within the intended functionality of the game, although some of them do things that are considered "unfair" because of the AI being unable to take advantage of them. (i.e. OCP, RCP, ICS, Mass Upgrading, Ship Hopping, Palace Pre-Build, Palace Jump, ...list is endless...)
Category (1) is obviosly cheating in any sense, and as such no-one could justify using them against humans or in a competative game.
Category (2) is much more subjective. Many people (me included) will not use many of these features against the AI in an SP game, since the AI is unable to use them too. One HUGE exception is the "Palace Pre-Build" exploit, everyone I know uses this all the time, every game. So, it is obviously an exploit as much as Ship-Hopping, ICS, RCP, Mass Upgrading since the AI can't do it (and never will), and as such is as unfair as any other exploit.
My conclusion: Only if an exploit can be classified as a "cheat", i.e. it deliberately breaks the game mechanics, can it be considered to be bannable. Everything else is (a) VERY subjective, and (b) not enforcable (even Palace Jump could be exploited if you say 'no abandoning the capital - what if you make war on a civ moving nearby and leave it undefended?).
A note on RCP:
The "equal distance = equal (lowest) corruption" factor means that ever opportunity I can I will build cities at equal distances from the capital. Even if just 2 or 3 cities share the same distance, you can still get decent corruption decreases.
Now tell me how you could possibly ban RCP, would you ban me from doing this?
If anyone manages to make a decent attempt at RCP and they don't get fucked from the amazingly bad land placement then they deserve a medal for ingenuity, not a slap on the wrist for being too clever. ;)
[lol] I guess I feel strongly about this....
This ship hopping exploit seems a highly useable exploit in many games: it makes naval invasion much more effective: capacity is often a problem! Did you use it in your Killer PBEM game?
I know you used mass [u](very big mass)</u> upgrade by not hooking up saltpeter in our first game, but that is obviously no exploit at all. [lol]
My point ERIKK is that we need to think of what the word 'exploit' means, and why we use it at all.
In most instances it is used to describe 2 distinct things, as described in my post 3 above this one. Unless it is deliberately breaking the game mechanics it is not an exploit in MP games, IMO.
FWIW ERIKK, the huge numbers of ships required to use Ship Hopping negate it's effectiveness. In the Killer game I could have used my 10 ships to form 2 chains to his island, but that would have meant I coul donly get 3 units to his land every turn. That's not the way to do continental invasion. For a sustained attack I may have done that, but then sinking just 1 of my ships would have negated the chain it was in completely. The most common use for ship hopping is to get a leader across a gap just too big for 1 ship in 1 turn, in this case you would have 1 ship in harbour, and another at the pont of the first ship movement endpoint.
The real discussion is what Aggie is getting at. He considers RCP and the Palace Jump 'bugs'. You *must* have a Palace at all times if you have any cities, it is integral to the game mechanics, and as such you can't get away without the Palace Jump functionality in the game.
RCP is another matter, it seems unintentional (feature, not bug). However, the main problem with RCP is defining it. I am 100% serious whne I say that itis unenforcable. When does 'x' cities at the same distance become an exploit, and when is it jsut good city placement (without an eye to exactly equal distances)? For example, even if you decide that 3 cities is 'OK' to have equal distances, but 4 is 'exploitative', then when I have 3 cities all 4 tiles from my capital I am banned from placing another at exactly 4 tiles away. But what happens now when the AI plants a city in my path and the only viable tile left is exactly 4 tiles away? I haven't set out to 'cheat', but now I can't place my city in the only reasonable spot.
anarres, you have a point here. I still consider OCP and Palace Jump to be a 'feature' and exploit but it is impossible to enforce. It's just that I hate to use these features because I want to play in the spirit of the game. I am forced to play differently because of the fact that Civ Fanatics find loopholes in the gameplay. Sure, a palace should appear when your capital is taken, but I really don't think it was intenended to serve the palace jump purpose.
I for one hope that Firaxis fixes these things. FWIW I never used Ship Hopping and Palace Jump.
I don't think that OCP, ICS can be called exploits at all. Mass Upgrading, Pre-build are a grey area to me.
Cartouche Bee
11-07-2003, 17:02
I think micromanagement is an exploit, since the AI can't do it. That's why in most of my games, even, PBEM I use the governors shortly after the start. I'd rather spend my time on the 'big picture' that clicking all over the place to grab an extra food, shield, commerce this turn or next, whatever....
The Palace reconstruction should cost cash, like in Civ2, this Palace jumping was a step back, like many other steps back just to make changes in the game. Just like alot of changes that will be made to the game, flash in the pan, changes to promote cash flow, RL.
RCP, ummm, we can't use the game mechanics to cut corruption and have to place all our cities at varying distances from the Palace and FP? Who is going to figure all that out?
quote:Originally posted by Cartouche Bee
I think micromanagement is an exploit, since the AI can't do it.
Again: that is NOT the point I am trying to make.
Cartouche Bee
11-07-2003, 17:35
No, that was a point I was trying to make. :D
All this micromanagement that goes on is to take advantage of the poor game mechanics.
CB, does this mean you also attack in a haphazard way to simulate the AI? Does it also mean you either use production like the AI or use governors for that? [lol]
Anyway, we all saw the Korean Death Star. ;)[satan]
Aggie, if you stop using Palace Pre-builds I will consider not using RCP (even though I can guarentee that no map will ever meet RCP requirements). Pre-builds are much more of an exploit than RCP IMO ;)
DrAlimentado
11-07-2003, 18:31
As anarres has said these things are highly subjective (as is his definition of what is a bug or a feature ;)). I personally hate palace-jump, (maybe because I have never used it) but it seems to me to go against the 'logic' of the game. I accept a palace is nessecary to the game mechanics but they could have found a solution... maybe the city it jumps to would have a negative shield deficit of the palace cost until it accumulated the shields to pay it off, whatever - I think the way it is used is an unintended aspect of the game mechanics.
RCP - for me I don't like it because it dosen't make sense. I would prefer it if equally distant cities shared the highest corruption cost, not the average (which in a way is the most logical), and certainly not the lowest! My reasoning for highest over average - to make this kind of number crunching unattractive to the player, not rewarding. Now that I know about it though I will undoutably place cities at the same distance if it's sensible, although I kinda doubt it will take precadence over where a river or bonus tile is. IOW I don't think we'll actually see too many RCP empires as other terrain factors are more important in siting cities, but we'll see. In any event banning it is unenforcable for the reasons anarres states, the only sensible 'ban' would be to say you can't have x number of cities all equidistant where x is a pretty high number. This won't stop 'mini-rings' which are still going to benefit the player. A better solution is for firaxis to change the formula to average or highest, and as we still have mobilisation bugs and such (which are game-breakers) I wouldn't hold my breath.
I have to admit I do micromanage, but I admire the spirit of what CB says in that the game should be about the big picture not the endless MM... hmm, and now I'm rethinking MM cos if a player as good as CB can be successful without it maybe I can discard it too... Of course what would be best here is if the governers did a better job of MM in the first place, then the AI would be doing it and we could trust governers better ourselves.
DrAlimentado
11-07-2003, 18:43
It has been pointed out to me that CB was probably being sarcastic re: MM, dam. But I stand by my comments... I would love it if MM wasn't nessecary because the governers were better at their jobs! Looks like I'm gonna be MM for a while yet though.
Cartouche Bee
11-07-2003, 20:11
I think we should leave it up to Atari to fix the dumb stuff, trying to make rules to circumvent all the things wrong with Civ3 may not be too easy. Although, a bit of discussion is always nice. :)
Indeed CB :D. And I found that this section of the forum needed a bit of life. It worked :D
Lt. Killer M
12-07-2003, 03:23
hey, as far as I am concerned, all is fair in war and love. After all, we ALL can do it :p
Seriously, I cannot access CFC atm, but the way I understand it ring placement is what all humans can do, so is the Palace jump - so who cares?
Shabbaman
15-07-2003, 10:50
That RCP sounds almost too dumb to be true. I think it's a really simple additional conditional value (count 1 of either if value=equal) so it's very likely to be fixed in a new patch (in a year or 2...)
Cartouche Bee
15-07-2003, 16:48
If they fix the RCP problem as it is perceived, everyone will be whining about the new high corruption levels, careful what you wish for.
digger760
31-07-2003, 12:16
how does one disband a city to get the settler, the only option i can see (by right clicking on the city) is to abandon it and i don't get a settler from that.
You build a settler at size 2, providing you have <= 0 food per turn spare it will offer you the option of abandoning it. If you have food spare each turn it will wait at 30 shields until you are size 3 before building it.
Shabbaman
31-07-2003, 13:15
quote:Originally posted by Cartouche Bee
If they fix the RCP problem as it is perceived, everyone will be whining about the new high corruption levels, careful what you wish for.
I assume that RCP wouldn't come up in regular play that often, thus the proposed fix would only affect RCP cities. But you're right, they'd probably screw it up.
Shabba, in any game you will naturally have a few cities at the same distance, in groups of 2 or 3.
I think CB was refering to the added corruption in any game where 2 or more cities are at the same distance.
:( You guys are too clever. I'd prefer to discuss with people with less intelect (I want to win agruments). I tend to agree that RCP isn't an exploit [cry].
RCP is *exploiting* a bug in the program though Aggie...but "my brainpharts reached my keyboard too soon" as I had promised myself not to take part in that conversation :(
Hey Sky I was only joking! [eek]
Of all people here I thought you would realise that... [sad]
[scratch] [confused]
Hu...but I am not referring to any of your post ????? Only to Aggies'
Oh wait a sec, you mean the "brainphart" part ? [lol][lol]
Hehe, I liked it so much see I am now using it myself, no problem mate :D
Well I suppose I should be flattered, although I almost certainly stole it from someone else. :D
vBulletin® v3.7.3, Copyright ©2000-2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.