What's your "favorite" exploit.

[Jamski]

Which one do you love, and hate to give it up when playing against real people?

And if you don't know - don't ask. Its better not to be tempted.

-Jam

[CEO Aaron]

Stockpile bug. Even now I never use build queues just so I can collect my free credits after building base facilities.

[Frankychan]

I voted other.

[Googlie]

Option 12 (rehome units to a pactmate) is no longer possible with crossfire v 2.0 (except thru the scenario editor)

Quoted from the Readme.txt
You can no longer have a pact brother support one of your factions units

And I voted for the stockpile energy bug - altho it was a tossup between that and crawler upgrading

[CEO Aaron]

I wouldn't actually describe upgrading crawlers as an exploit. Unless you're doing something with your crawlers I don't know about.

[Googlie]

Upgrading crawlers to rushbuild an SP - the AI doesn't do it (and the firaxis programmers prolly didn't think that far ahead when they set the "full mineral value" recipe for rush building) So it's generally considerd a "bug" rather than a "feature", I believe.

[Cosmic]

Sorry for my ignorance, but someone can explain to me the mechanism of this stockpile bug? thanks!

[Blake]

I use Upgrade'n'move alot, usually for formers tho. (the idea of manually upgrading 100+ formers, reseting their tasks... makes me weak at the knees). I do occasionally upgrade rovers/artillery to SAM to get rid of aircraft too.
I use probe -> rover, a little. Usually only in mid-game when I've traded past mobility. (ie I dont use it for fast impact rovers or anything like that)
I don't (actively) use any of the others, I don't even use Upgrade crawlers in challenge games.

Others I can think of (that I do use) are:
1-turn Incremental Rushbuy: you first buy something cheap to completion, then switch to what you want and buy that. Best used in captured bases, buying a scout patrol then drone-control or perimeter defense. (if industry < 10, or base in riots, you need to buy a rec commons first instead)
Self Destruct: How this works at fusion reactor/fusion laser+ seems like a total exploit, it just deals FAR too much damage to stacks.

A rather huge exploit not mentioned is:
SE Quickies for increasing cash-in values.

[CEO Aaron]

Cosmic: The stockpile bug is quite simple in operation. After a base completes a facility and its queue is empty, the orders default to stockpile energy. The bug is that stockpiled energy is collected at the _start_ of your turn, not the end of it, so you collect a number of energy credits equal to your mineral production every time you complete a base facility. You can even fudge this operation in your favor by building units one at a time and inserting stockpile into your build queue after each unit is complete, effectively gifting yourself with free energy.

Since the AI _does_ benefit from free energy after completing facilities, I don't feel too bad about collecting it myself, nor would I hold collecting it against another human opponent. I just consider it a hidden benefit of making base improvements instead of units. However, stacking your build queue with stockpile orders is something the AI will never do, and therefore I don't do it either, nor do I condone it.

Goog: The AI doesn't use crawlers at all, so holding the upgrade trick against it isn't really valid. Before fusion, rush buying crawlers is superior to upgrading anyway, and by the time you have fusion, there's plenty of places to use those EC's to hose the AI, so I still don't see any exploit in using upgrades to make EC's into projects.

[Googlie]

Stockpile bug:

When building a unit, the turn that the unit completes gives you that unit plus the stockpile energy value for that base as if it were stockpiling energy, plus it then applies any leftover minerals after the unit completion towards your next build in that base.

So to exploit the bug, put stockpile energy at the top of the queue, and get the credit as well as the completion and carryover. Sophisticated exploiters rush build the unit to within 1 turn (ie the "hurry cost" minus 2 x the minerals produced by that base if just 1 row remaining) so that upon the turn completing the game engine takes your partially completed unit, adds the minerals value for the new year's base production, thus completing the unit, and then gives you the stockpile energy number appropriate for that base

Note that it doesn't work with facilities being built, just units

edit after CEO Aaron's post: AFAIK after completing a base there is no energy stockpiled. That's why it's smart to pay 20 ec's more to completely finish a facility - it gives ten minerals towards the next facility (but not unit), with no energy stockpiled. Otherwise there would be energy additions (there aren't)

[Dis]

reloading

the others I don't use.

and I have never even heard of most of those!

[Mead]

Jamski

I am intrigued with your poll. Can you clarify what you mean by:

Instant Elite Units on Patrol

Farm+Mine/Solar on Volcano

Rename Undiscovered Landmark Tiles (I think I know the intended result but am not sure, are you really that devious?)

And most interestingly
SE Quickies for Diplomacy?


Mead

[Blake]

Instant Elite Units on Patrol
Um, sometimes when you put native life forms on patrol, they turn into demon boils... I don't know the specifics.

Farm+Mine/Solar on Volcano
Using automate former orders, can also be used to build roads through fungus before cent.emp, and probably some other stuff.

Rename Undiscovered Landmark Tiles (I think I know the intended result but am not sure, are you really that devious?)
Locating landmarks which you can't see yet. You can also (try to) create landmarks in the fog of war to determine how close enemies are (for example, to decide which direction to expand in and which to fortify)

And most interestingly
SE Quickies for Diplomacy?
Changing from Wealth to Power to chat to santiago, changing to knowledge to chat to Zak, changing back to Wealth for the benefits. Them AI faction leaders are dimwitted . I actually sometimes use this to encourage the AI to surrender, but otherwise I don't.

[Enigma_Nova]

Information is the basis of all warfare.
So, my exploit tastes lie in the information-gathering area.

Rename undiscovered landmark squares:
You can locate a landmark on the map this way. It's useful for finding the Jungle or the Nexus, since it's pretty bl00dy easy to see where the Crater and Mount Planet are.
If I'm playing first, I like to place landmarks nearby my base - and delete any legitimate landmarks I find,
so it's not that useful.

Unit move to undiscovered territory:
If you get a unit, and ask it to move (click-drag) over an undiscovered area, the name of the square you ask the unit to move to is shown.
This is usually co-ordinates, but can be used to find a base.
(That's why I always rename all my bases to (23, 42)).

Resign from old save:
"Do you want to WIMP OUT of this multiplayer game?"
No, I'd just like to see where the land/ocean is, and where all the bases lie, thanks.

Click on bases in the F4 screen:
You can click on a base in this screen for someone you have infiltrated. You can see their vital base stats.

Communications to players:
Commlinks are known to all human players at the start of the game.
If you own a tech, you can check whether the other party has that tech, by offering to trade.
Also, by right-clicking the faction in the commlink menu, you can find out how much population (votes, or votes/2 for Lal) they have.

------

Those are my favourites. I like to know as much as I can when confronting my opponents.

[Illuminatus]

Voted other. ICS tactic with specialists is a huge exploit. Second major exploit are crawlers.