How to suggest changes and get the developers to think about it

Bumped for bumpage's sake.

~SDC~

the 'tech spam' exploit...

Problem: when a player discovers a new tech, he is able to immediately trade it to all AI players for cash and other goodies. This windfall then allows faster research for the player so that the cycle can be repeated. Not only does this provide a disproportionate return for a tech investment, it keeps the AI from catching up to the player. As far as I'm aware, this problem has existed in 4X games since Civ1.

Why this is bad: it is not strategy, it is simply an exploit of the turn-based mechanism of the game. Because it is "my" turn, I can trade to Player A, and then immediately trade to Players B,C,D and E before Player A can initiate a similar trade to offset his losses on the deal. This would not be possible outside of the turn-based mechanism.

A Solution: limit the players to finalizing one trade per turn. Of course, you could still 'haggle' with every AI to see which will give you the best deal, but you can only consummate one trade per turn.

How this would improve the game: Obviously, the tech spam exploit is eliminated -- that's good. But it also adds a new strategic element in deciding who to trade with. Should I trade with Player A who can give me a better deal? Or should I take a lesser deal with Player B who really needs the help or is less of a threat? Or should I trade with Player C who is not in a diplomatic position to trade with anyone else, thus preserving my 'trade monopoly' on this good for another turn?

Why this is more aesthetic: it's actually more realistic if you think about it. It's a simple matter to call up all your friends on the phone and discuss what kind of deal you'd like to make. But actually *consummating* a deal takes time and effort; you can't do this with everyone simultaneously. Just think about the logistics of exchanging trade goods, starships or scientific knowledge with an alien culture living in a distant star system. Restricting the player (and AI) to just one official deal per month (turn) is not unrealistic at all.

I understand that tech spamming is a very popular exploit, but it definitely makes the game imbalanced to the player's favor.

p.s. I think that GalCiv is a great game. Please do not take my criticisms as reflecting anything but a desire to improve a great game.

"Galatic Forum: How to suggest changes and get the developers to think about it"

Offer money to the developers? Techs? Altarian dancing girls? LOL

I agree that it could place the Computer AI in a weak position for the rest of the game but i would like to supply a different solution, although i don't know if its possible:

Configure the AI to see the problem with this kind of trade. Add a script so that the computer is AWARE that you have traded the technology to another and that they may get a better deal from them (read somewhere that even if its your turn, the computer still calculates options)
The way i see it, its realistic to think that you would choose to trade this technology to ALL part simutainiously (dahm bad spelling). You would just take the extra time to see that noone could "backstab" you this way.

Frien,
that's a great idea! When you first trade the tech, you essentially have a monopoly and should get top dollar for it.

But as soon as you trade it to someone else, the perceived value of the tech goes down because it is no longer a monopoly. By the time 4 of the 6 races have the good, it's practically a commodity. They would *expect* a bargain basement deal for it because there is a line of other players ready to deal it if you won't. LOL

This is a much more elegant solution, although it is not mutually exclusive with my suggestion. However, I definitely like your idea better!

Who's to say the AI players are not doing exactly the same with their new technologies?
And why is it not feasable to sell your tech to a number of races in one turn. After all wouldn't you have a huge team of negotiaters trying to sell your stuff, over more than just one phone line.

~SDC~

AFAIK the "tech spamming" problem has already been mostly resolved by Brad in v1.02+ ( at least on higher intelligences ). The AI will now value techs much lower, so while you can still sell techs to all the AIs in one turn, you will not be able to sustain your entire empire off the revenues, nor will you be able to cripple the AI economies. also, since the tribute bug has been fixed, the AI will end up in the "red" much faster, making it impossible to continuously sell them techs.

cheers

h

If you wanted to avoid the tedium of shopping the same tech to all five races, a cool solution could be a "tech auction"

Combining the auction with the "monopoly-to-commodity" slope notion might work. To the extent that you are working the phones with all five simultaneously, one another culture gets the tech, they will start working the phones with the other four, likely undercutting your price.

Horatio,
thanks for the comment. I will experiment some more with this when I download 1.03. I was in about "round 3" the tech spam in 1.02 until the game crashed on the diplomacy screen.

All I know is they were all out of cash and I was drowning in it -- thus the desire to see if the exploit can be addressed.

oops, one more thing.

I would like to add that in 1.02 the AI was definitely valuing techs lower, as Horatio mentioned (and thus my original complaint about trading for Defense Theory!)

However, this really didn't solve the problem. It simply compelled me to do the tech spam in order to keep up. This is not a solution to the problem, IMO.

When all races are evaluating a new tech equally, there is a real incentive to sell it to everyone right away if you know you're going to sell it to one. But a restriction on the number of deals per turn or some sort of "monopoly-to-commodity" scale for diminishing value could make a big difference.

The poorest civ could then follow a strategy of being the "last guy in line" and getting all of his techs cheaply, but just a little later. This would allow him to focus more on production and less on research and could help minimize the disparity between the strongest and weakest civs.

Hmm, the tech auction is a neat idea. I also find shopping around the same tech tedious, though each civ does value techs differently.

Perhaps you could have an agent (perhaps unlocked after the discovery of a certain tech?) that would go and 'negotiate' with each civ for you?

I only suggest this because clearly the amount that the civs will accept is already set ... it's not as if your actually running the negotiations changes anything.

So:

Turn A -- click on 'Negotiator' button, select the techs you want traded and to what civs. Click 'Go'

Turn B -- "Sir, CivA has offered 300 b.c. in a lump sum or 40 b.c. for 10 months Is either of these acceptable? --click Yes or No-- CivB has offered 200 ..., etc."

By doing this, you give up two things: Immediate resolution (the negotiator should take a turn to get back to you) and the ability to set in detail the number of months you want in a payment.

But in return, you'd get rid of the tedium of shopping the same tech(s) to 5 civs. Well, just an idea. At least Brad gave us the on-the-fly text color change!!!

Oh, and the report from your agent chould be all on one window so you can answer to all civs at once:

CivA Offer X --click yes/no- or offer Y -- click yes/no

Civ B..

Civ C..

Civ D..

Civ E..

Otherwise, cycling through and answering for each civ independently would itself become tedious.

Oh, and a default of 'automatically accept lump paymet / installment offers' with then a simply summary report of what you got would even further streamline this.

Javascout's initial message here is important and might deserve stickiness without the rest of the thread.

In terms of the rest of the thread, there is a cool aspect to auctions. Let's say the Arceans are willing to pay 200 for something and the culture with the next highest bid is only willing to pay 150, the tech would be sold for 160 to the Arceans, whereas if you went to each of the five cultures individually and worked your tail off, you could actually get 200 from the Arceans.

It might be interesting to participate in the auction from the other side too, for example, the Yor put some tech/ship/planet up for auction and the Human gets to bid on it along with the other four cultures.