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  • #46
    Deity Dude,

    And as far as spirit of the game goes ... if you could objectively define it, should it stop players from doing something they all want and agree to do?
    I concede that if a feature makes a game getter and all players agree to it, it should be used. I also grudgingly admit that it's a bit priggish to call these consenting players "cheaters".

    And ultimately it's pretty irrelevant what comes of this argument ('though I'm certainly enjoying it ). As you noted:
    I think it is more of a pandora's box issue.
    ...making a rule against it would be like telling coaches they couldn't discuss strategy during the 2 minute warning because the break was intended to inform coaches about the clock. How would you enforce it?
    Incremental buying is unenforceable and it's left up to the players to decide if it makes their game more fun. As I stated in my first post, I think the reason I no longer use incremental buying is not so much that it's "cheating", but more because 1) it makes the game against the AI more challenging for me and 2) I play single player, so I'm not put at a disadvantage because of it. Here, for me, it does not meet the criteria of a feature that "makes the game better".

    A parting argument. I think one's view on rules (whether or not they actually come out and say something is cheating) can be determined by how they would have the game work if they could redesign it.



    1) Right now (without the patch) I think you can avoid having a fighter crash ("run out of fuel") by hitting "Wait" at the end of that unit's turn. Would you prefer that:

    a) You shouldn't have to hit "Wait". Your fighter should always be able to hang in the air at the end of your turn.
    You disagree with the rule that fighters need to land at the end of their turn. If you use the Wait trick, it's a form of civil disobedience to make the game work the way you want it to.

    b) The game is fine as it is. The plane crashes if you don't hit wait, but hangs if you do hit wait.
    You think hitting Wait is some clever tactic - like remembering to refuel. It somehow adds some element of management and strategy to the game.

    c) Fighters not ending their turn in a city/airbase/carrier should always crash.
    Whether or not you admit it, you think that Waiting fighters is an unrealistic cheat.



    2) Right now, according to Scouse Gits (SG(2)), you can switch your workers to high-arrow squares, lock a city into celebrating, then switch back to food/shield squares the same turn. After doing this, you get the benefit of both the celebration and the food/shields from working the low arrow squares for the turn. Would you prefer that:

    a) You get the production from squares you work. The game looks at all the possible combinations of worked squares in a city to see which would result in the greatest arrows. This check (not what squares you actually work) determines whether or not a city celebrates.
    You think that being near the arrows is good enough to make the people happy. Players shouldn't have to work them. If you use SG(2)'s trick, it's a form of civil disobedience where you try to get the game to work "correctly" or "realistically".

    b) The game is fine as is.
    You think that switching squares to gain the benefit of both the arrows and the food/shield production is a form of management. The act of temporarily switching to arrowed squares "exposes" your citizens to that trade and makes them happy. If other players don't do this, they're just being lazy or stupid and not taking advantage of the game's "manual exposure" element.

    c) Celebration should be based on the squares you actually work.
    You think temporarily switching to arrows is an unrealistic cheat ('though you might do it in a multi-player game depending on the agreed upon rules).



    3) Right now you can avoid the increased coin per shield cost on units by incremental buying. You think it should work like:

    a) The game has a fixed price for unit shields. Forget this increasing cost junk.
    You think the creators were wrong in changing the price per unit shield based on the number you buy all at once. If you use incremental buying, it's a form of civil disobedience to make the game work the way it should.

    b) The game's fine as it is. In order to reduce rush-buy costs, players should be forced to go through the tedium of switching and buying 5 things they don't really want.
    You think incremental buying is a strategy, some form of micromanagement. Perhaps rapidly changing your production orders reflects greater recruiting efforts or more efficient training. Players should be rewarded for putting this much effort into production management.

    c) The game should base your price per unit shield on the shields you had in your box at the beginning of the turn. This way changing production midturn will never reduce your per shield cost.
    You agree with the increased unit cost per shield and see incremental buying as a sneaky, illogical, unrealistic workaround (a "cheat"). If you use incremental buying, it's to keep pace with other players in a multiplayer game, or to make it easier for yourself against the AI.

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    • #47
      My god, Edward, this was a long post!
      I enjoyed reading it though, and I think it sums up quite clearly the 'to cheat or not to cheat' dilemma.


      (this guy is La Fayette reading a new post written by Edward about caravan rehoming)
      Aux bords mystérieux du monde occidental

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      • #48
        Quote by Edward:

        Right now, according to Scouse Gits (SG(2)), you can switch your workers to high-arrow squares, lock a city into celebrating, then switch back to food/shield squares the same turn. After doing this, you get the benefit of both the celebration and the food/shields from working the low arrow squares for the turn. Would you prefer that

        --------------------------------

        No! Not in the same turn! If you are nearly celebrating in - say Monarchy - you can place your workers on high trade tiles to induce celebration. (Even at the expense of hunger) NEXT TURN your city celebrates. Now with the advantage of double trade arrows the city will celebrate if you place some/all of the workers back on the food/production tiles.

        Edward - I appreciate your point of view to a degree - but - and it is A BIG BUT - if you always use the default settings of the computer to work your cities you are not playing the game. You are in fact playing like the AI

        If the game designers did not intend us the choice of how we command our workers you would be unable to change the working of the city squares. Left to its own devices the default settings of the game will almost always work food. You may have two gold mines in your SSC but the AI will always reject them!

        Do you really want to play the game like that?

        ----------------

        SG(2)
        "Our words are backed by empty wine bottles! - SG(2)
        "One of our Scouse Gits is missing." - -Jrabbit

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        • #49
          Scouse brings up a good point.....even if you have a silk in your city not in use....the dumb ai will put the worker on grass without a road becasuse the ai favors growth over anything else. You must pay attention when your city grows or you will lose out on many trade arrows
          Boston Red Sox are 2004 World Series Champions!

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          • #50
            Originally posted by Scouse Gits

            Now with the advantage of double trade arrows the city will celebrate if you place some/all of the workers back on the food/production tiles.
            SG(2)
            Damn i have been playing this game so wrong,, I thought celebrations had to do with peoples happieness , not how much trade they were making... Please explain more SG .....
            GM of MAFIA #40 ,#41, #43, #45,#47,#49-#51,#53-#58,#61,#68,#70, #71

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            • #51
              Raz - More trade arrows means more wealth going into Science/Gold/Luxuries - depending upon your tax rate. Place all your workers on the high trade tiles and you will see how your citizens become more content!

              ----------------

              SG(2)
              "Our words are backed by empty wine bottles! - SG(2)
              "One of our Scouse Gits is missing." - -Jrabbit

              Comment


              • #52
                thanks SG.. never took much notice in changes in trade arrows have on We love Days... Probalby why i suck at this game, i dont spend enough time working out these fiddly little nuances...

                I will experiment more next week, do you alter the lux tax as well during this time ??
                GM of MAFIA #40 ,#41, #43, #45,#47,#49-#51,#53-#58,#61,#68,#70, #71

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                • #53
                  Very often you can start celebrating at,lets say 40%.You can then immediately reduce it by 10% and still maintain celebrations.This is particularly true of the non representative governments.No where is this mentioned in the manual or any other "official" source.Am I cheating when I do it?Is every undocumented feature against the spirit of the game?

                  This game is quite boring if all you do is press enter.
                  The only thing that matters to me in a MP game is getting a good ally.Nothing else is as important.......Xin Yu

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                  • #54
                    playing with lux tax is mentioned in manual so that comment doesnt count... also adjsuting taxes to keep people happy is mentioned...next you will be saying two computers is ok because it doesnt mention them in manual either....
                    GM of MAFIA #40 ,#41, #43, #45,#47,#49-#51,#53-#58,#61,#68,#70, #71

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                    • #55
                      My god, Edward, this was a long post!
                      Yes, I'm trying to take the title away from East Street Trader.

                      Scouse Gits (SG2),

                      I'm sorry I misinterpreted you. Your restating of city celebration makes sense and doesn't seem to be cheating to me (in fact, it's pretty much impossible to avoid).

                      I agree that it's much better to analyze and change worked squares (rather than let the computer choose). I hope you didn't see my condemnation of the (incorrectly) perceived "celebrate without hunger" loophole as a general condemnation of changing worked squares. I think my first post may have also been misleading as to my style of play. In the early game, I do check my worked squares every turn. However, I like to have a lot of cities. Come mid to late game, it's too tedious for my lazy mind to check every city's worked squares. When I have a lot of cities, I only look at worked squares just after a city has finished building something. It's a very good idea to check city squares every turn but, as with other good ideas (exercise, healthy eating), my id often overrides my super-ego.

                      Smash,

                      Continuing to celebrate after going from 40% to 30% luxuries is not cheating. The game is designed to have you celebrate when the number of happy people exceed the number of content people (or is it equal to?). In this case you haven't tricked the program into getting "stuck" at 40% luxuries so as to get an undeserved continuation of celebration. Those cities would have celebrated if you went directly to 30% and never hit 40%.

                      The documentation is terrible (and could never predict all methods of play anyway), so using undocumented features is not, in and of itself, against the spirit of the game. I do, however, object to some things (like waiting fighters and incremental buying) which are (to me) obviously circumventing an intended rule (and doing so with no logical or realistic basis).

                      Comment


                      • #56
                        Originally posted by Edward
                        Smash,

                        Continuing to celebrate after going from 40% to 30% luxuries is not cheating. The game is designed to have you celebrate when the number of happy people exceed the number of content people (or is it equal to?). In this case you haven't tricked the program into getting "stuck" at 40% luxuries so as to get an undeserved continuation of celebration. Those cities would have celebrated if you went directly to 30% and never hit 40%.
                        I thought the point was that if not in Rep/Demo the city wouldn't celebrate if going straight to 30% since it would still only be getting single arrows on squares, whereas going to 40% first to start celebration gives double arrows allowing continued celebration after dropping the lux rate back down. This can make a huge difference under fundie/communism (monarchy's corruption makes it slightly less effective).
                        "One day your life is going to flash before your eyes, make sure it is worth watching."

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                        • #57
                          Ah, the old "intent of the designers" argument. Actually, I think we can divine the intent of the designer in this case, by looking at the designer's next game: SMAC. SMAC made two interesting changes in rushbuying. First, you can only rushbuy one time per city per turn. So you can do one step of rushbuilding - the equivalent of changing from phalanx to warrior, rushing the warrior, and changing back to phalanx. But you can't rush the phalanx on the same turn; you have to wait until the next turn. The second innovation is that you can specify an amount to spend on rushbuying. This lets you do a "partial" rushbuild, leaving enough shields unbought so your unit will be finished by the city's production next turn. I hope Civ 3 follows a similar path (although it would be nice to specify a number of shields to buy instead of having to calculate how much it would cost to buy those shields).

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                          • #58
                            Ah! I'm sorry Smash and EOL. Now I think I see your point.

                            You're in a non-representative government. You crank up the luxury rate so as to celebrate. Next turn you're legally celebrating. Now we slightly lower the luxury rate. If we hadn't already been celebrating (and thereby getting extra arrows) this new rate would not be enough to push us over into celebration. But because we're already celebrating, were getting bonus arrows. With these bonus arrows, we can celebrate at this lower luxury rate. Very clever! Sort of like giving your happiness a jump start and thereafter it's easier to maintain. Happiness begets happiness. I have no idea where I stand on this issue, but it's very clever indeed!

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                            • #59
                              Or alternately in Scouse Git's example, bump up the arrows produced and still celebrate when you switch back to food/shield squares.

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                              • #60
                                Back to the original topic.

                                If your city is producing 20 or more shields and you are in the middle of building a city improvement but want to rush it, first check and see if there is a another city improvement available that costs 20 shields less. If so, switch to that cheaper improvement and rushbuy it. Then switch back to the original improvement you wanted to build and use your city's shield capacity to finish it off. This saves 40 gold.

                                In the late game, when rushbuying units, the cheapest unit available might be a diplomat, costing 210 shields to rush from scratch. Could be it's cheaper to rush a barracks from scratch for only 160 shields, suffer the 50% penalty to shift to units before continuing to rush the military unit you want.

                                Barracks are also a cheaper way to start off a wonder you want to rush in just one turn, too.

                                However, rushbuying from scratch is a last resort. Starting any build by disbanding any unit in the city is always the cheaper way to go.

                                Simliar tricks help when using caravans and wonders to build spaceship parts. See Paul's OOC guide for a great examples of this.

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