A couple of thoughts

Xin Yu · February 5, 2003, 22:10

Stealing shields:
Suppose you have several cities close to one another. If you have all units stationed in these cities hosted by the first of which (in establishing sequence), maybe you can save the maintainance shields for them by re-host units while processing cities. Here's a demonstration. You have 3 cities A B C, in which A is your first city. All of your units in cities B and C are hosted by A. You rush build non-military units or buildings in B and C so that at the beginning of the next turn you'll be sent to city screens of B and C. While in city screens, you re-host units inside cities to B and C, respectively. Since B and C are processed before A, you save the maintainance shields for those units. You then move units in B and C back to A and re-host them before moving back, so that you can save again the next turn.

Force selling:
In certain scenarios you want to sell city improvements quickly to get cash, like in RedFront. If you use the 'go to home city' trick you may be able to force the city to sell an improvement. Let's say in RedFront you have set up a loop of units, each stationed in the next city in sequence. Now when you process a city before your force selling city, say Minsk, you can use the loop to go to all your cities and use up all your cash. Then when Minsk is processed, since you have a negative cash flow, you are forced to sell a city improvement. The good thing is that forced selling dose not set up 'improvement sold' flag for the city, and you can sell another improvement the same turn. The bad thing is that you can't choose which improvement to sell for the forced selling.

DrSpike · February 6, 2003, 05:34

How delightfully devious.

rah · February 6, 2003, 08:55

Only Xin would think this one up.
Yes, I can see this one working, but would be horrified if people started doing this in MP games.

RAH

DrSpike · February 6, 2003, 09:36

2 isn't practical, but would 1 be viable in MP? If so delete this thread before anyone irresponsible sees it.

Scouse Gits · February 6, 2003, 10:06

Quote:

Originally posted by DrSpike

How delightfully devious.

Complete concurrance

SG[1]

DrSpike · February 6, 2003, 10:13

Quote:

Originally posted by DrSpike
2 isn't practical, but would 1 be viable in MP? If so delete this thread before anyone irresponsible sees it.

Too late.

Expect the SG's "shield saving" program this evening.

Scouse Gits · February 6, 2003, 10:38

Quote:

Originally posted by DrSpike
Too late.

Expect the SG's "shield saving" program this evening.

Yep! Already copied and pasted into my civ folder.

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

SG(2)

War4ever · February 6, 2003, 17:15

Xin you have too much free time......

well done as usual

TimTheEnchanter · February 6, 2003, 17:53

I'm not sure I see much value in the first suggestion. If you're rushbuying an improvement in B and C the shield production in those cities will just be wasted anyway. I can only see it being useful in two cases: (1) you only do a partial rush of the improvement and those extra sheilds are necessary to put you over the edge on completing it, or (2) if B and C don't produce enough shields to actually support those units.

Self doubt disclaimer: I'm not one to ususally be questioning you guys. I probably overlooked something.

rah · February 6, 2003, 18:08

Yes, you're not quite understanding it. If you don't complete the rush buy, it won't offer you the opportunity to stop during city cycling to change the host city on the units.

Bloody Monk · February 6, 2003, 18:10

Echoing DrSpike and SG[1], I am amazed by the delightful deviousness of these ploys.

Reminds me of a thread from 2-3 years ago.... Wouldn't this be a cheat??

Monk

Ming · February 6, 2003, 18:46

OH... and...

Just more typical brilliant ideas from Xin. They just keep coming years after the game has come out. Keep it up.

And yes... if people start doing this in MP games, the turns will take even longer.

rah · February 6, 2003, 19:10

To keep this up turn after turn could double the length of a turn. Probably even more in the early midgame.

Bloody Monk · February 6, 2003, 19:36

Imagine Jeff Goldblum in the movie 'Jurasic Park' saying ~" Just because this can be done, did anyone think to ask themselves if it should be done."

Kinda subverts the basic structure of the game. Would be a lot faster to just use cheat mode...IMHO.

Still cool from the standpoint of "tearing down the engine" to see how it works.

Monk

DrSpike · February 6, 2003, 20:18

Yeah in terms of practical evaluation for gameplay this has a negative score IMO. But you have to admire the sheer slipperiness of a mind that could come up with it.

rah · February 6, 2003, 20:23

Yep, the issue is already being debated on how it will be listed in "RAH RULES".

Not that I expect much debate

CHEAT

But the similar trick of building the wonder the same turn you develop the tech, using the same methodolgy, might actually foster some debate.

Bloody Monk · February 6, 2003, 20:41

Quote:

Originally posted by rah
Yep, the issue is already being debated on how it will be listed in "RAH RULES".

Not that I expect much debate

CHEAT

But the similar trick of building the wonder the same turn you develop the tech, using the same methodolgy, might actually foster some debate.

The method the game uses to update each turn can be exploited, variously. Building CfC or SETI in a newish dirthole near the back end of the city list, for example. All the subsequent cities benefit from the 'new' Happy face or Science boost. This is superior sequencing and great logistics. Fiddling around with keypad arrows is cheesy by comparison.

Monk (being rather free with his two cents)

rah · February 6, 2003, 20:52

Those don't bother me as much because of the one turn nature of the benefit. And I don't think we can start dictating where you can build things.

Bloody Monk · February 6, 2003, 21:20

Quote:

Originally posted by rah
Those don't bother me as much because of the one turn nature of the benefit. And I don't think we can start dictating where you can build things.

Maybe I was not clear. I was trying to point out the difference between a well chosen exploit (clearly OK) and (just my opinion) a cheese loaded cheat.

Nothing about dictating where one can build. That the arrow keys are enabled at all seems to be a backwardly compatible toss to folk who still don't have a numeric keypad; IIRC that's how it's mentioned in the manual.

Monk

War4ever · February 6, 2003, 23:14

Well for MP, i think we can agree on one thing, the shorter the game turns the better ...this won't wash with our group....

i think i saw Xins' picture in the dictionary beside "genius"

Xin Yu · February 7, 2003, 00:32

uh, did anybody actually tried this? I just THOUGHT about them but never actually tried

War4ever · February 7, 2003, 01:35

NO, your word is legendary, no need to test

Scouse Gits · February 7, 2003, 04:57

Quote:

Originally posted by DrSpike
Too late.

Expect the SG's "shield saving" program this evening.

Are you calling us 'irresponsible'?

SG[1]

rah · February 7, 2003, 08:58

Quote:

Originally posted by Xin Yu
uh, did anybody actually tried this? I just THOUGHT about them but never actually tried

Knowing that the Wonder building trick on the same turn you get the tech works, convinced me that this similar type trick will work also.

DrSpike · February 7, 2003, 09:07

Quote:

Originally posted by rah
Those don't bother me as much because of the one turn nature of the benefit. And I don't think we can start dictating where you can build things.

Hehe, imagine explaining this to Rah rules newbies. Yes, you can build wonder x, but only in the cities we say! If you wanna play you have to abide by the group rules.

War4ever · February 7, 2003, 17:23

well that is pretty much how it is now, with rah rules

TimTheEnchanter · February 7, 2003, 18:17

Quote:

Originally posted by rah
Yes, you're not quite understanding it. If you don't complete the rush buy, it won't offer you the opportunity to stop during city cycling to change the host city on the units.

Yes, I understand that you must complete the item to get the Zoom to City option that makes this possible. I see the cleverness of the technique, I was just pointing out that I thought it would only be useful in certain cases - not as a general strategy. My point about "partial rush build" is this: If you rush the entire purchase of the improvement/non-combat units in B and C, then the shields produced by cities B/C are unused in production and you may as well rehome the units to B and C before the turn starts (Unless B&C would be in sheild shortage by supporting the units). It seems like it's only of value if you rush part of the item (say, for example, 20 shields toward a diplomat) and let city B/C complete the build with it's own shields, AND the shields that would have been spent supporting the units put you over the 10 shields needed to complete the Dip. If the B or C could complete the 10 shields and still support the units, it's again not helping. That's all I was trying to say.

Xin Yu · February 8, 2003, 13:25

There is no need to rush build in both B and C if you have a unit hosted by C but stationed in B. Just rush build in B is enough since you can get to C from there.

Elephant · February 10, 2003, 17:50

I gather you are talking about exploiting how the game processes cities from the bottom (most recent built) of the list to the top, is that right? Then when a city screen comes up you can link to a lower city by using the unit's click list?