Incremental Buying...

[rah]

Matt, I agree with you on that one. It does require a lot of resources to set up right and I don't consider it a cheat either. I don't ever remember asking if it was allowed before a game either. Wonder why. It's no different then a caravan that moves across a rail network into a port, sleeps, gets shipped to another coast, then continues moving to another port, sleeps, etc.

I guess we're going to have to ask everyone before we start the next game, whether they've read the rules.
Are all superior tactics cheats, since they're all not specifically listed in the rules but common place in these threads? The next time I try the super iron clad strategy, I don't want to be accused of cheating by people that have never read about it here.

RAH
Thank god the group I usually play with is knowledgable.


<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by rah (edited April 11, 2000).]</font>

[The Mad Monk]

Well, if they want to stop incremental buying while keeping the cost non-linear, there is a solution:

Lock prodution on an item when it's bought.

That's how it works in MoO2...

BTW, I use incremental buying all the time; if I don't, its usually because I'm bored with it at the moment and can't be bothered.

[Carolus Rex]

I thought rush buying units in steps was common knowledge?!

Nice little trick and not a cheat, IMHO. It also adds some (maybe small) element of tactics when choosing techs as someone above pointed out.

But...

I agree that it's tedious and takes the fun out of the game. Remember the days when you played civ happily unaware of all such little tricks, completely absorbed by the game? Now, all I can think of is rush buying units etc...

Another drawback is that I do it during my own turn, which slows down the game. Why? Because if I'm in the middle of rush buying a settler, I don't want to end up with an archer when my turn comes and I haven't had time to change back to a settler.

Carolus

<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Carolus Rex (edited April 11, 2000).]</font>

[Jedi518]

yea i think incremental buying stuff really is stupid....sometimes i forget to do it and now i wonder if the game really could have made a difference....

[rah]

Heck, i'll use it to save money on wonders, by buying up to a lesser wonder then using caravans and a few diplo disbands to get in it range for the city to produce it on the next turn so I don't have to waste the shield production in the city that turn. At 4 bucks a shield it can save you 60 to 80 dollars, which can be real important early in an mp game. Paying attention reaps benefits.

Yeah it's to bad we can't just play carefree like we used to against the ai. We could, because the ai sucked. The people I play against don't. That's what put the challange back into the game. AND THE FUN BACK INTO IT. Face it, this game was headed to the recycle big prior to MP, It was way to easy to beat after you learned it. OCC helped for a couple of months, but MP saved it.

RAH

[rah]

If you go way back in the documentation, They made a point of saying that you needed certain techs to optimize it. I.E. On building a settler, You can't buy that third rack of ten without writing (diplo) or another tech (warrior code) that allows you to build a unit that costs 30 shields, So the unintended argument seems to disappear in smoke.

The biggest complaint that I seem to hear here is that people weren't aware of it. Now they are. Problem solved.

But if people want to agree not to use it, I guess it's no different then people agreeing not to bribe cities. I personally have no intention of stopping it, so if that limits the number of opponents in the future, so be it.

RAH

[Matthew]

And let me take this opportunity to say yet again that they who say that ship chaining is a cheat are out of their minds. If I spend more shields on ships than MC, JSB, and Leo`s cost combined, I have expended vast resources, and am going to make the very most of it. One is hardly getting over by doing this. To ship chain much, and do it effectively, especially on larger worlds, costs dearly. It`s just a price that I am often very willing to pay.

[Rasputin00]

well back to the manual it is then to find where it says buying units incrementally will save money, as everyone says its there , it must be, I know I havent read it for ages so will spend this weekend brushing up on civ2 101....

[rah]

let us know which one you find it in. If i get a chance, i'll try to dig out the old nes manuals and check it there. It has been awhile.

RAH

[mindseye]

I strongly disagree with those who argue that incremental buying is legitimate just because "you can do it" or because it appears the programmers may have known about it. It's not mentioned in the manual, and it certainly makes no sense at all from a game theory viewpoint. If it was intended, as iadkins forcibly argues, it simply would have been factored into rush-buying. How can you believe such a cumbersome, undocumented practice was intended?

Further, just because the designers knew about it (debatable) does not mean it was intended. I'm sure there were many problems the design team knew about, but didn't have the time or resources to fix - or simply flat-out forgot in a sea of dealing with other details. I have been involved with application development, take my word that this happens.

The real question here is "What is cheating?"

For those of you who believe that tactics like ship-chaining are not cheating just because "you can do it" or it's expensive, I'd say that's a poor way to decide if something's a cheat. How about saving a game just prior to tipping a hut and then re-loading if the results were not favorable? Does the fact that "you can do it" mean that it's not "cheating"?

Well, it may not be cheating, but it's certainly not in the spirit of the game which, in my opinion, is a much better measure of legitimacy. For me, using such corner-cutting tactics diminishes the gaming experience, reducing it to an exercise in exploiting programming weaknesses. Exploiting loopholes in the code may not be cheating per se, but it certainly isn't in the spirit of the game which for me means "less fun".

It really comes down to the reasons why you are playing Civ2. Some people love to search out and exploit loopholes in the code, for them it is fun. If you enjoy that, then go for it!

But if you play Civ2 to immerse yourself in the challenge of the imaginary realm the designers were attempting to create, then you probably don't want to indulge in practices like incremental buying, ship-chaining, or saving/re-loading, which make absolutely no sense in the context of the game. And if you are playing with others, as Empress suggests, you should establish whether exploiting code loopholes is allowable or not.

- mindseye

[KhanMan]

Mindseye-For one, the save/reload cheat is irrelevant in mp-play, because no one who repeatedly reloads a game of mp with a lot of players is going to get a second match.

Second, ship chaining is not a cheat because it does not alter the ships' movement values, it merely transports units from one ship to another. Would you say that units can only be put on ships in ports?

Also, how about linking all of your cities with railroad? In effect, that increases the movement points of your units by a huge amount, yet who would say that building railroads is a cheat?

How about Wonders? If you build Lighthouse, your ships can move faster...must have been a flaw in the code, let's outlaw the Lighthouse Wonder.

How about mountain cities? A few misguided folk here say that building a city on a mountain is cheating, merely because it is hard to take.

All of these give a player an advantage, but, in my view, none are cheats.

The point is, if you want to set a house rule for a game (prohibitting whatever), then you MUST say so at the beginning of the game. Waiting until later, and accusing a player of cheating (without having agreed that something is a cheat) is a bad policiy. Deity, myself, and many others have stories about misunderstandings regarding cheats and house rules.

-KhanMan of the Sayen

[iadkins]

See P59 of the PC Civ2 manual.
Rushbuying is as I said.
NO mention of saving money if you incrementally rush buy.

The other thing to remember is that the game was designed so that there is a PENALTY for disbanding units. So why the heck would there be an ADVANTAGE for multiple disbanding of units, which is what incremental rush buying is?

Come on you guys, you are having yourself on!

I would like to suggest that we strictly follow the letter of the manual and not promote borderline practices or the exploitation of bugs. Because, if we all DON'T do it we are square again
It's absurd to say at the beginning of every game what bugs we can and can't use!
DON"T USE ANY OF THEM!

Let's have a level playing field and play in the spirit of the game as mindseye said .

------------------
*THE DEITY*
#8388924

[OzzyKP]

Not to slight my fellow tribe member, but i agree completely with mindseye and iadkins/diety/whoever you are. There are many things that can be done, but the question is whether or not they should be done. I've had this discussion with Eyes several times, there are things he does that he doesn't consider cheats, and probably aren't, but i certianly don't consider honest playing.

For example, it is possible to disband units after they are bought by your opponent, while this is possible to do, it clearly is against the intents of the programmers and how they intended the game to be played. It is possible to disband the units in a city that is about to be bought, but it is something that i refuse to do on princible.

I think chivalry is more than an invention in the tech tree, it is a way of thinking and of playing that should be applied to this game at all possible oppurtunities. Fair play and honesty should be cherished qualities in this game and elsewhere. If the host starts with two settlers or some tech he should admit it upfront and restart. These are things that honest players i know do.

I applaud everyone who strives to play with the utmost honesty and chivalry, that is how it should be.

------------------
Metalhead Greater Sayen, and all 'round nice guy

[mindseye]

Khanman,

Save/Re-load
Okay, okay this does not apply to MP, I was speaking in generalities here. It was an example of something you literally can do (in SP anyway), but isn't "legitimate", i.e. it doesn't seem to be in the spirit of the game. I suggest these two criteria: (1) was it clearly intended as acceptable practice by the designers? and (2) does it make any sense at all within the context of the game? Saving/Re-loading until the right thing pops out of a hut fails on both counts.

Ship-Chaining
As I said, I would not call this cheating per se, it is possible without altering the code or anything. However, I don't think it's "legitmate" because it fails both criteria. The designers did not intend it to work that way, and it doesn't make any sense within the context of the game. Think: what is going on here? If a Caravel can travel, say a maximum 30 miles per turn, does that mean that ten Caravels could move a Legion 300 miles in the same amount of time? Of course not, besides all of the unrealistic changing of ships at sea, this would mean each of the Caravels was moving ten times faster than normal! You are simply exploiting a loophole in the code. It's not cheating, but to me it's, for lack of a better term, unsporting.

Unlimited Rail Travel
Actually, this does fit both criteria, so it's okay. It was clearly intended by the designers to work that way, and it does make sense (albeit a bit abstract) within the context of the game. If you could travel, say 1,000 miles by rail in the time period of one turn, linking up ten cities over a 1,000-mile distance and shooting a unit all the way to to other end makes perfect sense. Personally, I wish there was a limit to the amount of rail travel per turn, maybe 15 spaces or something. However, since it clearly was intended to work that way by the designers - (it's in the manual, the AI does it, etc), I don't think there's any question as to whether or not it's legitimate.

Mountain Cities, Wonders
Nope, not cheating, use of both are legitimate. They were both clearly intended by the designers, and both make sense within the context of the game. It is not difficult to imagine a mountain city that would be difficult to take (e.g. Machu Piccu). The Wonders are a little more abstract, but make sense as the designers intended within the world of Civ2. For instance, the Lighthouse represents a civilization putting a huge amount of work into navigation, the payoff of which is ships which can travel farther, and so on. Fits both criteria, so legit.

Incremental buying
Fails both criteria, for me, it's not a legitimate practice.

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</font>The point is, if you want to set a house rule for a game (prohibitting whatever), then you MUST say so at the beginning of the game. Waiting until later, and accusing a player of cheating (without having agreed that something is a cheat) is a bad policiy.
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We agree! If there is any question at all whether something is a legitimate practice, it should be agreed upon in advance. If everyone agrees that ship-chaining is ok, then it's perfectly acceptable.

Sorry, for the length of my posts, but I think this is a very important issue. Also, I think it's a sign of how special Civ2 and its community is that so many would passionately discuss such a topic!

- mindseye

[rah]

Check out Mings cheat/loopholes thread. There are almost too many to count. There has been agreement on some percentage of them that they are definite cheats and shouldn't be used. (and most people including myself don't) There is no way a group the size that posts here are going to come to agreement on all of them. Different folks for different strokes.

KNOW WHO YOU"RE PLAYING WITH and these issues don't arise or are at least discussed.

iadkins, you have to go to earlier manuals.

Izzy, I don't want to hear that I have no chivalry just because I don't agree with YOUR opinion. That's gets us nowhere, and is plain insulting.

And you're all right, discussing the designer's intent is futile and speculative at best.

And lastly, for all those that feel ship chaining is a cheat. If you have ever moved a caravan into a city, using it's last movement point and put it to sleep and then used a ship to move it. You're doing the same damn thing and I don't want to hear about it. Stop whining.

Just because I disagree doesn't make me wrong, (or right) Just as long as I agree with the people I play with.

RAH