Suggestions for not exploiting/abusing the game; Attention Firaxis

[jed]

First of all, I think Soren Johnson et.al. did a fantastic job on Civ 3. The AI is *significantly* better than it was in Civ 2 or SMAC, where you could win at Deity/Transcend pretty much any way you wanted. It's interesting to read about the ways people have found to exploit the AI or loopholes in the game, but I refuse to use them. I prefer to play the game as the designers clearly intended, building a balanced empire and using military force, and peaceful building as appropriate. I like to have the feeling that I am playing against intelligent opponents even in a SP game, so I don't want to take advantage of the relatively minor remaining weaknesses in the AI. So here is a list of the restrictions I propose for my future games, and an explanation of why I am going to use them. With these restrictions it will be difficult to win even on Regent or Monarch, let alone Deity, but I much prefer an elegant win on a lower level to a grubby win on a higher level.

Of course you can play any way you want, but personally, I would hope that Firaxis will close these loopholes in future patches, in view of multiplayer issues. In the meantime, restricting yourself from exploiting the AI is nearly as good as a patch.

1. No rush building in despotism or communism unless you already have 20 shields.

Explanation: The rush-pop in despotism or communism seems overpowered. Lots of threads are popping up talking about how powerful the despot rush is. The food/shield tradeoff is just too good. This restriction is also "realistic," because no despot would be able to whip his corrupt and wasteful and unhappy population to such feats of productivity in any case. You can still rush things, but just don't expect to have tons of little population factories.

2. No trading gold/turn items for one-shot items with the AI. Only one-shots for one-shots, and continuing benefits for continuing benefits.

Explanation: Most of the weakness of the diplomatic AI will be cured with this self-imposed rule. Many exploits will become impossible: e.g. buying techs (a one-shot) with huge per/gold payments, then turning around and declaring war. An important side benefit is that you won't be able to use the cheesy science broker tactic. Other humans wouldn't all agree to buy the same tech from you even if each one got a reasonable deal, because they'd know that you got the best deal by far. The reason this rule would solve the problem is that the AI seems to like to pay for tech with large per/turn payments. I wonder whether the AI violates this rule in its internal trading. Probably, but in any case, it seems like a rule that humans would largely stick to if trading with each other.

3. No trading away your cities, unless you're trying to surrender to an AI (or trading back a city full of aliens to its original owners.)

Explanation: Avoids cheesy exploits where you sell a city for techs, then reinvade. First of all, it's really unrealistic that any leader would sell away his city like that, secondly, humans wouldn't fall for this trick, so don't do it to the AI.

4. No rushing forest planting with more than one worker.

Explanation: It's not clear whether IFE is an exploit, but it seems to be one. It's more realistic that forest planting can't be rushed, and who wants to play that way anyways.
The Civ3 designers clearly wanted to streamline the game, so IFE doesn't fit in.

5. Diplomatic victory disabled. (EDIT: To be clear, I don't think Firaxis should change this in a patch--I just mean I won't use it personally.)

Explanation: This might be controversial, but I just find diplomatic victory too wierd. You're playing a game, and then your opponents vote that you're the winner because they like you?? I thought they were trying to win! It also eliminates stupid diplomatic victories where you give them all your cities, etc. What a bunch of saps. You give them stuff, and they vote you the winner. Who wants to win that way? By the way, I seriously wonder if the AI is more aggressive with diplomatic victory disabled, because it doesn't have to worry about its reputation. Anybody have any info on that? Personally, I find the AI too peace-loving.

6. No small gold gifts.

Explanation: If you were playing with other humans, and kept giving them little gold gifts, they wouldn't think you were a nice guy, they'd think you were a dolt. I think it's fine to give big gifts like tech to the AI if you want them to think more favorably. There are plenty of good strategic reasons for that. But the little gold gifts are ridiculous.

7. No asking for 99999999 gold.

Explanation: self-explanatory.

All these things are easy to do oneself, but also pretty easy for Firaxis to fix as well. If they get implemented they'll make any future MP game much more interesting, rather than being a despotic rush-fest and AI exploitation contest. Any more suggestions?

[Fitz]

Originally posted by jed
1. No rush building in despotism or communism unless you already have 20 shields.

Explanation: The rush-pop in despotism or communism seems overpowered. Lots of threads are popping up talking about how powerful the despot rush is. The food/shield tradeoff is just too good. This restriction is also "realistic," because no despot would be able to whip his corrupt and wasteful and unhappy population to such feats of productivity in any case. You can still rush things, but just don't expect to have tons of little population factories.

Personally, I like Vel's fix more, and possibly a way to make the drones stick, with a caveat of my own:

1) Diminishing returns. Initial rush returns 40 shields. -10 shields per rush after that. Once you get to zero, no more rushes at that city. When the unhappy "point" from the rush goes away (20 turns?) you get those 10 shields back.

2) Reintroduce super-drones ala SMAX. In Alpha Centari, certain unhappiness had the capability to create double effect unhappy citizens, that required 2 "happy points" to negate instead of one. If despotic rushes could create double strength unhappy citizens, it would be a start towards cutting down the power of the rush.

5. Diplomatic victory disabled.

Explanation: This might be controversial, but I just find diplomatic victory too wierd. You're playing a game, and then your opponents vote that you're the winner because they like you?? I thought they were trying to win! It also eliminates stupid diplomatic victories where you give them all your cities, etc. What a bunch of saps. You give them stuff, and they vote you the winner. Who wants to win that way? By the way, I seriously wonder if the AI is more aggressive with diplomatic victory disabled, because it doesn't have to worry about its reputation. Anybody have any info on that? Personally, I find the AI too peace-loving.

If you are finding the AI peaceloving, you're probably buying them off with small gifts and trading them nice trades (on their end). Or else you're dominating the game and they are running scared of you.

I disagree about it being wierd. If everone submits to your rule, who cares if they are doing it because you forced them to or not. I haven't tried to keep the AI constantly happy yet, but if it takes a sufficient portion of your resources to do so, then I think it is a valid way of winning. After all, you are sacrificing resources that could be used for a military victory, or posibly even defending yourself.

Now, if it is too easy to placate the AI (or easy to buy votes from), then that's where the problem, not the fact that a diplomatic victory is included.

[jed]

Fitz: about #1, maybe Vel's fix is better in principle, I won't argue about the details (except 40 shields for the first pop? that's way too much). The point is that I can't implement his fix with the current game. From Vel's thread, I just saw that you can use the editor to decrease the shields per pop point and unhappiness turns per whip. I would try something like 10 and 30 instead of 20 and 20. That might work. But my solution is trivial for anybody to implement.

[jed]

Fitz, about point #5, I should have made it clear that I think diplomatic victory should of course continue to be included in the game for those who enjoy it--I just personally will turn it off for the reasons stated. It obviously does no harm in MP because it will never be used anyways.

[War4ever]

the IFE is not a bug...forest planting is a part of the game...its documented stuff....i do agree that its being exploited more so than suggested in the manual....but they also say that using MORE than one worker speeds up any worker function....

that is the key phrase......its not a cheat if its documented....just because you use five workers to cut the forest down and another five to replant the same turn isn't firaxis's problem

[jed]

Originally posted by War4ever
the IFE is not a bug...forest planting is a part of the game...its documented stuff....i do agree that its being exploited more so than suggested in the manual....but they also say that using MORE than one worker speeds up any worker function....

that is the key phrase......its not a cheat if its documented....just because you use five workers to cut the forest down and another five to replant the same turn isn't firaxis's problem

I didn't say it was a bug. But it's arguably an exploitation of the game system if you get a big production payoff by having 5 workers plant and then 5 workers chop each turn. It's not completely clear to me that IFE is that great a tactic, but if it is as powerful as its proponents say, it should probably be eliminated as an important possibility, by the very simple expediant of not allowing the speed-up of forest planting. Otherwise MP games would be determined by who could better micromanage his horde of IFE workers, which IMO would be ridiculous. In the meantime, I'm just saying I'm not going to use it in my SP games regardless. I won't speed up forest planting by having more than one worker do it at a time. As always, others should feel free to play however they want.

[War4ever]

however .....with corruption being so brutal..IFE is all you can do to build at a normal pace....

but one shield or ten...it makes no difference when you sacrificing citizens...... not literally but for the most part....i don't build things...i rush through money or population..... its probably the most efficient way to conduct business in civ

[absimiliard]

I prefer complex games with many options and strategies to simple games with few ways to play them.

Your style works, be happy. Please do not restrict the options for the rest of us. Much of what you describe is strategy, not exploit nor bug. It feels to me as if you want to dumb the game down.

So I think I disagree with you. Though I might be convinced that some modification of pop-rushing is desirable.

But I'm pretty sure you would cripple the AI, since I'm certain that's how it gets it production done.

[jed]

Originally posted by War4ever
however .....with corruption being so brutal..IFE is all you can do to build at a normal pace....

but one shield or ten...it makes no difference when you sacrificing citizens...... not literally but for the most part....i don't build things...i rush through money or population..... its probably the most efficient way to conduct business in civ

Well, I'm one of those who really like the "brutal" corruption. I really hope they don't tone it down or at least make it an option to keep it "brutal." First of all, I really don't find it so hard to deal with. I get plenty of (say 15) good producing cities even with non-commercial civs, especially once the Forbidden Palace is built. I'll have a few outliers that hit the corruption wall, but they'll be there for resources--it's no big deal. I think lots of people are getting a handle on the corruption now. What I like about "brutal" corruption is it keeps you from building a huge micromanagement-nightmare empire. IMO, it's great game design when the best strategy is also the one that is the most fun to play. It annoys me if the best way to win the game is to run an empire of 30+ cities. Anything above 20 and I start to bog down. That's why I personally haven't bothered with huge maps, although I must admit I'm curious.

[Aeson]

First of all, making it so that more workers planting forest takes less time won't effect IFE all that much. Instead of having 5 workers plant trees on the same spot, it will be 5 workers planting trees in 5 different spots. The payoffs will be longer in coming, but will keep the same # of shields per turn coming into the players Civ. In multiplayer I don't know that IFE will be all that powerful, as first you have to build/capture enough workers to make it viable, and if you're building all those workers, your military will suffer (you build the workers, someone else will capture them). If you are gaining them in military fashion, that means you're winning anyways.

Also, IFE is a complete waste when compared to despotic pop rushing, so anyone IFE'ing will be run over by someone just pop rushing. A quick comparison, if one person has 5 workers providing 10 shields a turn through IFE, how does that compare against someone with 0 workers providing 20 shields a turn by pop rushing? Give the pop rusher those 5 workers, and that translates into a 200 shield population bonus even. I really don't think IFE is an exploit, though I would never use it except in very restricted cases (surrounded by tundra perhaps). The other thing about IFE is that you would have to defend those workers as well, leaving your cities less defended, or your offensive force without as many units. A pop rusher who takes 50 undefended workers with a few Horsemen or Chariots just netted themselves 1000 sheilds!

The per turn for per turn and one time for one time trades I completely agree with. Paying for anything on a per turn basis and then not having to pay could also be countered by some sort of "trust" counter. You start out without enough trust to be able to offer per turn agreements, but as you honor your peace treaties, ROP's, and other agreements, you gradually gain the trust of AI civs. Of course breaking any treaty or agreement lowers that trust, and consistantly doing it will cause the AI to not deal with you at all. Backstabbing one AI would lead to lower trust with all the others, but not as much as with the one you backstabbed. The same for any increases of trust.

Selling cities should be based on distance to the capitol of the AI that you sell to. Also, size of the city, status of the improvements in the city should be factors determining the value. Offering city of pop one with no improvements on the other side of the world should only be deserving of a lowering of that Civ's opinion of you. If a city IS sold, all units of yours would be moved out of the city radius. If you retake a city that you gifted to the AI, it should cause them to never deal with you again (huge breach of trust). The biggest problem with the AI, on all accounts, is its willingness to deal with obviously honorless Civs.

[jed]

Originally posted by absimiliard
I prefer complex games with many options and strategies to simple games with few ways to play them.

Your style works, be happy. Please do not restrict the options for the rest of us. Much of what you describe is strategy, not exploit nor bug. It feels to me as if you want to dumb the game down.

So I think I disagree with you. Though I might be convinced that some modification of pop-rushing is desirable.

But I'm pretty sure you would cripple the AI, since I'm certain that's how it gets it production done.

Actually, I also prefer complex games with many options and strategies. I am concerned that in Civ3, it will be clear that optimal strategy is the Despot Rush. It will make for a very ugly MP game more akin to an RTS game than to a civilization building game with all its complexity. You will also be forced to exploit the AI's diplomatic foolishness to keep up. I really don't see how the game is more "simple" when you can't win with cheesy exploits but have to win with a balanced empire. I'm not sure what you classify as strategy rather than exploits--the rush-popping, the diplomatic exploitation, the IFE, the little gifts? Maybe the little gifts can be considered strategy, but IMO, these are all abuses of a slightly imperfect game system or an AI that is close, but not quite human-quality. They can all be easily fixed, and geez there's plenty of tough strategy left to figuring out how to win without exploits. I would argue there's much more strategy to be explored when one eliminates exploits.

(I do wonder myself about one thing that has been "dumbed down" from Civ2/SMAC. Why are the scientists/taxmen so lame?)

Now of course, none of this really matters very much for SP--everybody can play like they want. But for MP to shine, these things do need to be fixed.

By the way, I doubt very much the AI is using very much or any pop-rushing to keep up. I personally don't have any trouble expanding as fast as it does in the early game on regent level, where it doesn't get production bonuses. I'm not doing anything very sophisticated and I'm not pop-rushing, so I presume its expansion is using normal methods. If the human pop-rushes, he can easily out-produce the AI early on.

In fact, I was very frustrated with Civ 2 and SMAC (where there was a cheat mode so you could see what the AI was doing) with how stupidly slowly the AI expanded in the early game. Soren Johnson said somewhere that it was the AI's most noticeable weakness in the earlier games.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by jed


What I like about "brutal" corruption is it keeps you from building a huge micromanagement-nightmare empire. IMO, it's great game design when the best strategy is also the one that is the most fun to play. It annoys me if the best way to win the game is to run an empire of 30+ cities. Anything above 20 and I start to bog down. That's why I personally haven't bothered with huge maps, although I must admit I'm curious.

I agree with you that curruption shouldn't be toned down much. The problem is that the "best" strategy is the exact opposite of what you seem to think it is. Because food isn't effected by corruption (it should be), pop rushing is still 100% productive even if you have 50+ cities spread across the globe, the more the merrier. Going through every city every turn to see who's just reached pop two and needs to be whiped isnt a lot of fun IMO. I only do it when I'm looking for a good score (tournements). A good way to tone it down would be that excess food would also be effected by corruption. Obviously people aren't going to "steal" food and starve, but they won't produce more than they need to live their corrupt little lives

[jed]

Originally posted by Aeson


I agree with you that curruption shouldn't be toned down much. The problem is that the "best" strategy is the exact opposite of what you seem to think it is. Because food isn't effected by corruption (it should be), pop rushing is still 100% productive even if you have 50+ cities spread across the globe, the more the merrier. Going through every city every turn to see who's just reached pop two and needs to be whiped isnt a lot of fun IMO. I only do it when I'm looking for a good score (tournements). A good way to tone it down would be that excess food would also be effected by corruption. Obviously people aren't going to "steal" food and starve, but they won't produce more than they need to live their corrupt little lives

I agree with you 100%. I only mean that a smallish empire strategy is best if you implement something like my anti-pop-rush self control rule #1 listed at the top (no pop-rushing unless you already have 20 shields). Otherwise, pop-rushing is the best strategy for precisely the reasons that you state. That's a problem with the game design, and IMO it needs to be fixed for MP (and for tournaments). In the meantime, I refuse to exploit it for SP, and won't participate in meaningless tournaments. By the way, your anti-pop-rush solution (like others) sounds fine. The only problem is that I can't implement it myself, while my solution is trivial to implement voluntarily.

[Gamer at heart]

Jed, I think you bring some very interesting points in this tread. But I also think you are a little too restrictive in the mesures you apply to counter the so-called exploits.

Example, the don't sell cities thing: I totally agree with you 'bout the taking 'em back right after, but why do it? Simply sell cities in realistic situations when you know you won't exploit it.

About the trade thing, I have 2 comments. First, I find it a good thing that the tech leader can be financed in his research by the AI. It's fair because it actually encourages new research. Indeed, since the deal only lasts for so long, you have to keep selling your techs in order to maintain your income. But by selling them you also bring the other civs closer to your tech level, and thus increase the chance of losing the lead. Such a lead is quite hard to keep at the higher levels, so if you find you are always too far ahead technologically, just go up a level or two ! The second point is about the "giving huge cash per turn and declaring war right after" thing. I think I heard Soren say that the AI deals with some kind of confidence level, dependant on how often you break your word and what kind of treaty you broke before. This is why a rival civ will almost never attack you if they have turns remaining in a good/turn agreement.

Still, all of that remains in the ethical departement, and if some players feel all right abusing the AI's flaws, what can you or me do about it? I enjoy playing a game I'm proud of, and don't really care if others don't...

glad to know there ARE other people like me tho!!

GaH

[Blaupanzer]

Jed, I agree with all your points with one minor caveat.

I think the player should have more ways to counteract corruption than just the courthouse, Forbidden Palace, and WLT_Ds.

The pop rush (as opposed to the draft) and the more workers make trees go faster are both silly as options, not easily associated with real-world events. The old despots and new dictators probably got away with sacrificing foreign workers/slaves for some notable events. Still, most historical examples are of several hundreds of individuals rather than whole population points. Secondly, if pop-rush is to be permitted, then each action should make corruption worse for that city for the 20 turns. Sort of the reverse of the WLT_D. Compound that enough and you get a city with NEGATIVE production and income. This preserves the choice but reduces the incentive, a trick Sid used in previous games. Truth is, that in real life, working workers to death resulted in lots of dead workers, but not much increased output.

[MarshalN]

I think I completely disagree on the parts about diplomacy/trading. I think pop rushing is overpowered and I think the proper solution should be something like -- the shields from pop rushing is subject to equal corruption (or a portion of) that the city is getting. The rationale for corruption is that the local government is taking money into their own pocket.... so think of this as the governor making the citizens building his own palace instead of the temple you want.

About the trade part.... there are a few problems with your suggestion IMHO. First of all, the AI does have a confidence level, and if you have broken your word on the per turn trading more than two or three times, you will NEVER ever be able to trade on a per turn basis with the AI. So I think they should keep this here -- afterall, some sort of diplomatic backstab should be allowed, and the AI is smart enough so they won't fall for it again.

Also, I don't think paying the AI small sums of gold is wrong/flawed. Think of this as a tribute that you pay them regularly to keep them happy. It might not amount to much, but that's that. Human PLAYERS in the game might think you're a dolt, but in history, many more powerful kingdoms/empires have accepted tribute in return for peace and friendly relationship with smaller kingdoms. It's definitely something that should be allowed. Those were humans too who thought those silk robes these barbarians brought over were great gifts and just left them alone.

[Osprey]

What I seem to be hearing from most people is that they agree that pop rushing is not a good thing. On the other hand, there should be some way to rush build things. Perhaps, in an upcoming patch, they should do away with pop rushing all together and come up with some sort of multi-function unit (like the old camels) that, as one of their functions, could add to the production box. Of course, it would have to be available in the early game and be worth the cost of producing. Maybe even give the worker units this ability. Thoughts?
The Osprey

[gamma]

Originally posted by Osprey
What I seem to be hearing from most people is that they agree that pop rushing is not a good thing. On the other hand, there should be some way to rush build things. Perhaps, in an upcoming patch, they should do away with pop rushing all together and come up with some sort of multi-function unit (like the old camels) that, as one of their functions, could add to the production box. Of course, it would have to be available in the early game and be worth the cost of producing. Maybe even give the worker units this ability. Thoughts?
The Osprey

Allow a town to work on its neighbor's project. Philly helps Atlanta build a temple, etc.

Do this at a penalty, though. Philly can't devote all of its shields to Atlanta, because of the cost of moving stuff around, feeding the workers, etc. So only, say, a fourth of the shields actually make it to Atlanta. Furthermore, there's a delay, based on how far Philly is from Atlanta, whether there's roads or rails, etc.

The kicker to all this is that this is already possible, sorta. Have Philly build an archer. Send the archer to Atlanta. Now disband the archer. The shield cost of the archer is divided by 4, and that many shields go toward Atlanta's temple-building project. This almost solves the corruption problem, in fact; you can build anything you want in 200 towns, so long as your core cities can churn out units to disband elsewhere. Production is a constant 25%, with no waste. Works in any government, even anarchy (though of course the thing won't actually complete until anarchy is over).

The downside is that you can't hurry wonders this way. I'm inclined to say Civ3 ought to go ahead and allow this. If you like, make the disbanding yield only 1/8 shields for wonders and the normal 1/4 for everything else. The problem here is that you could then stockpile units to effectively rush-build a wonder. One solution would be to disallow disbanding units from helping along wonder production, as it is now, but allow a city to work on "help city X" as its production. A little pop-up lets you choose which city you want to help with its production. Then 1/8 of that city's shields are automatically given to the target city.

[jed]

Thanks for everybody's comments. I find the arguments that the diplomatic AI is not as poor as I make out reasonably convincing, so I admit my 1 for 1 rules, city selling rules, and gold gift rules may be not really necessary or excessively restrictive. Perhaps the better guideline is simply to try to play in a way that would honestly make sense if you were playing against other human players or other real-life human leaders, and not try to beat the game by taking advantage of the fact that they are AI's.

There is still one thing that bothers me though about the science broker strategy. When I sell my tech to AI #1, it doesn't seem right to me that I can then continue and sell it to AI's #2, #3, #4, #5, up to #7 or #15 or whatever on the same turn. Each AI is buying the tech at a reasonable price for it, but I am getting the best part of the deal by far. For example, if the tech is really "worth" 200 gold to every player, and each AI pays me 150, each one gets a good deal, but I've gotten the best deal by far.

The reason that this scenario isn't realistic or fair is that in a real game (or in real life) later opponents would look to buy the tech from the other opponents that already have it, rather than all buying it from me.

So here is another possible self-imposed rule to get rid of this problem, which I do view as an exploit of a problem in the diplomatic AI:

If you sell a tech to an AI, wait at least one turn before selling again to another AI.

This gives the other AI's a chance to buy from the first AI, and makes tech selling a more risky proposition. I've tested this, and in fact, you can usually *still* do pretty well at tech selling, but it is weakened, and certainly is psychologically more risky.

[smellymummy]

1. No rush building in despotism or communism unless you already have 20 shields.

I disagree. It takes time to build pop, unless you have major food, and we know that not ALL cities are like this. Besides doing this all the time reduces overall happiness and reduces total pop, which will affect your score. Okay you can restore happiness and pop but that still takes time. And using pop to rush build only goes so far. After a few rushes, your city is way down in pop and you then have to wait all over again - this directly affects your commerce/science too btw. And compared to how the AI produces at higher levels, it's a good tool to conteract the AI's unit pumping cities.

Maybe despot should have a minimum shield limit, but not with communism. Restricting this however would make the longevity GW pretty useless.

2. No trading gold/turn items for one-shot items with the AI. Only one-shots for one-shots, and continuing benefits for continuing benefits.

Again I disagree. Breaking treaties reflects on your rep, and the AI will notice. If you play with betrayal, you'll get betrayed back. True, science can go up real quick using smart trading, but it's not like it's ONLY the player going up, it's every civ due to all the trading. Also true is how stupid the AI is at lower levels, and how they will all pay big bucks for an advance. Harder levels you can see a definite drop in the offering price after the advance is known to 2 and + other AI civs.

The first few games I used this to make money but then soon realized that once you fall behind in research, your cash flow goes way down. Same thing if other civs don't want to trade with you. I think leading in science, all alone, is much better IMO.

3. No trading away your cities, unless you're trying to surrender to an AI (or trading back a city full of aliens to its original owners.)

Again disagree. I've done trading of cities and I've seen the AI being able to keep the cities. Selling a city in your territory is also okay, because like above, if you decide to attack right away your rep suffers. Also it doesnt take too long for the AI (production bonus remember) to produce units and culture improv quick enough to hang on to a city. Obviously if your culture is overwhelming, eventually the city might come back - but not always.

If I was playing MP, I would buy a city, just not any (and the AI won't buy any for insane amounts either unless its a good city) city. The trick can work both ways - for you or against you.

4. No rushing forest planting with more than one worker.

I personally don't do this... hitting the same hotkey over and over again just is no fun for me, considering I already have to do this with tons of other units already. I agree that it needs to be throttled down though. Plant one forest one turn, chop it down, one turn (with enough workers), but not multiple times in one turn, no way.

5. Diplomatic victory disabled. (EDIT: To be clear, I don't think Firaxis should change this in a patch--I just mean I won't use it personally.)

for SP it should stay in, but firaxis could improve on it... it's so bland as it is. For MP, well frankly, I don't see how anyone would start an MP game with that setting enabled - the vote would end up in a deadlock all the time, of course unless theres a player or more who willingly abdicate.

The AI is not peace loving though. On easier levels yes, but the higher you go it changes. I've been beaten by the AI at UN victory. I'm sure it will happen to others too.

6. No small gold gifts.

You need to define small.. personally I don't think the AI cares much for small gifts of cash. I've tried it often, and at best I've seen is one grade of mood going up. In MP, well I wouldnt mind getting cash. I'll probably refuse small gifts unless I'm really strapped. Think about it though, if you need to protect yourself, pay the other player who needs the cash, that way they (the other player you're paying) won't attack you - they need the cash afterall.

7. No asking for 99999999 gold.

That one is a no brainer

BTW, I mention levels of diff. The highest I've played is only monarch, and that's very hard. I play without exploiting the AI, and I love loading my galleons with city conquering armies, and trading them off afterwards.

[wisecat]

[QUOTE]2. No trading gold/turn items for one-shot items with the AI. Only one-shots for one-shots, and continuing benefits for continuing benefits. [QUOTE]

Personally I do not agree with this one. History knows many examples when blueprints/technologies were either sold or given free to allies. For example USSR gave many its allies blueprints/technology for production of many weapons - Kalashnikovs, planes etc. Even Chinese nuclear program was kick-started with USSR assistance. Thus it will be unrealistic to deny trading/giving techs. How else could you assist your allies without direct military involvment? Also I would advocate possibility to sell/give units - remember land-lease programs during WW2, how Americans supplied England and USSR with every possible strategic item - from aluminium and tinned meat to tanks and fighters?

[wisecat]

Now about not selling cities.
There are many historical examples in Europe when wars were ended after cities being surrendered during negotiations, not captured.
Also remember Alaska, sold to USA by Russian, and New York, sold to the States by Holland, etc.,etc.
So I believe it IS realistic and NOT cheating to sell cities - especially far-away, burdensome colonies which you can not protect and get no profit from them

[Travathian]

Ah, but Russia didn't turn around and invade Alaska the next year did they? That's the point that was made.

[Sze]

Great topic, I was just about to start something similar myself. There are 'gray' areas to a lot of these strategies. Jed is advocating playing a 'white' game and I agree with him on every point.

Black: Outright cheating. For example, returning to a previous saved game and fighting battles in a different order to acheive more favorable results. Using the editor to give yourself an advantage.

Dark Gray: Using expoits that are clearly not supposed to be available. Like #7 on jed's list.

Light Gray: Using strategies that go against the intent of the developers, but yet are perfectly legitimate within the rules of the game. Most of jed's points address these strategies (extreme pop-rushing, forest rushing, etc...). I'm sure most of the pro-players will disagree with me. It is possible to play this game as if you're role-playing a leader instead of trying to win at all costs and maximize your score.

White: Playing the way the developers intended you to play.

One of the problems I have is that the game structure actually encourages some of these gray strategies. So it's like they're sending a mixed message. I'm sure they want us to play the right way, but yet you almost have to delve into the gray areas to keep up with the AI. For example with the current corruption model, your fringe cities can't produce anything without some sort of rushing.
The intent of rushing all along (i.e. since Civ I) was to build something in CASE OF EMERGENCY, not as a means to convert food or commerce into shields. Paying gold to rush things I consider a 'white' strategy in that it makes sense within the context of the game. It's something I do, but mostly for cities that can't make their own city improvements due to corruption.

[Dog of Justice]

I've commented elsewhere that simply reducing the number of shields per population unit should do the trick. 10 per population unit, and the first one doesn't generate any extra. (The "extra" part actually seems to be result of an oddly-coded integer division. To see this, note that the first population unit gives you up to 39, not 40, shields at present.) The alternative would be to apply corruption to the food surplus, but I suspect that isn't as great of an idea.

Two side issues. (i) How important is the following unhappiness interval? The hard pop-rushers don't really care about it, so I don't think there's a problem with reducing the length from 20 turns to 10, as gratuitous compensation for the reduced output of forced labor. (ii) Perhaps Communism pop-rushing can be more efficient, since it doesn't arrive until late game? 20 shields per pop point isn't broken in the late game, especially if corruption is more sensible; it's just broken in the early game.

[Just My 2 Cents]

Jed, while you make some good points and many here have made some interesting counterpoints, I have to agree with absimiliard. Just my 2 cents, blah blah blah...

I find the game fairly easy on Monarch level. I can usually win, but I'm not the shiznit. My friends find the game hard on warlord level and I've taught them every trick in the book but they're still newbies. The point is if you want to change the game because it's too easy to exploit the AI and you couldn't do it to a human, don't sweat it. When MP is released 90% of the players will have to change their strategies anyway, myself included.

But we both have our opinions, yours is just as valuable/useless as mine, my thoughts on this are Firaxis please fix corruption, air superiority, bombard and the other little bugs that are blemishing an otherwise amazing game.

[Risky]

This is all sensible. I had a bad tendency towards micromanaging in previous games (Civ2, SMAC, others) but I've taken to automating all the workers mid way through the game as you seem to need so many of them. Have given it up, I feel a lot better and have even started to get used to their pointless 'churning of improvements between forest/irrigate/mine.

I suppose my attiude to some of these matter is down to having played a llot of SMAC where there was an eliment of leader role-play. So if I'm playing a democracy/cuture/science type game I'm not inclined to raze whole continents of cities and gratuitiously invade after selling. I however you want to play at being a monster, that would be the correct approach.

I new topic would be how one treats the practice of sticking a unit inside the opponents teritory so he gets the blame for starting war. I have used this so far, but it seems a bit unfair on them when you are really the agressor. Any suggestions for a 'best practice' on this.

(Really this needs to be patched to differentiate between 'defensive' millitary action (attacking units on you own teritory that refuse to move) and offensive actions (where you attack outside your teritory). I don't know if we will see this however as it would require more war statuses).

[Kc7mxo]

Why do people care how other people play? I'm confused by this. If someone wants to sell the ai's all their tech, why do you CARE? all your complaints are about things that . . . don't have to happen. if you don't want to do this, don't.

but why do you care if other people do?

There is still one thing that bothers me though about the science broker strategy. When I sell my tech to AI #1, it doesn't seem right to me that I can then continue and sell it to AI's #2, #3, #4, #5, up to #7 or #15 or whatever on the same turn. Each AI is buying the tech at a reasonable price for it, but I am getting the best part of the deal by far. For example, if the tech is really "worth" 200 gold to every player, and each AI pays me 150, each one gets a good deal, but I've gotten the best deal by far.

what? thats kinda the point isn't it? does microsoft only sell their products to one person at a time so netscape doesn't go out of business? whatever.

if they are all getting a good deal, and you are getting a good deal, then EVERYONE is happy, and there is no logical reason for the ai to not trade.

And how exactly will you know (supposing mp is ever released) that i just traded nationilism to everyone else on my turn? there isn't any diplomatic report that i've found that could give you this information.

[Osprey]

I never really used the pop-rushing techinique much before I read this thread and other pop-rush strategy articles so I decided to try it out. Maybe it was just my circumstances but I believe the resulting population drop and the unhappiness that results from pop-rushing is a good enough balance in itself to keep one from wanting to employ this strategy to a great degree. Both of those things contributed to my civ getting brutally beaten by a surprise attack by the Greeks who immediately formed a military alliance with India, both of whom were my border neighbors. I simply didn't have the resources I needed to produce enough units to fight them off. This was a direct result of low population cities and too many entertainers amongst what population was there. I say if you want to pop-rush, do it at your own risk. The computer seems to do it.
The Osprey

[MarshalN]

Jed, I think you really underestimate the AI (I dont' know if difficulty has anything to do with this). The AI actually knows how many people have the tech you're trying to sell them, and they will be willing to pay more only if you're the only guy they can buy it from. If 4 or 5 other civs already know that tech, they're willing to pay usually a very small amount, whatever the tech is. You can't just sell it to all the civs for the equal amount like you think you can. I've tried this in the game before.... by the time I get to the 4th civ that I'm trying to sell my tech to, the price has dropped significantly.

Besides, if I developed the tech myself and nobody has it, and I want to sell it to everyone for a good price -- what's wrong with that? Afterall, I developed it.