What is abusive ?
 

Just to know what is the general opinion about these exploitive (or at least gamey) tactics...

Personnally as rules against any of these things aren't really enforceable I consider all the following valid behaviors, and will occasionally use some in MP as most players do. But I guess some players consider some of these things as pure treachery...

- using archer decoys (groups of one or two expandable units in front of the army) to pull the arrows of the first squads in "fire:closest" --> I think there are three good limitations to this, 1/ you need to sacrify troops and if the ennemy don't use archers or use them with intelligence, the sacrifice is for nothing, 2/ the ennemy may avoid decoys, using fire:none (not 100% efficient but usually targets a big squad), or fire:archers, fire:cavalry, etc..., 3/ for big battles you'll need lots of commanders squad slots as one decoy isn't sufficient (especially if the ennemy use several little archers groups) - so against experimented players (who usually use themselves decoys and many little archers groups) I think it can't give an unfair advantage (but countering this tactic force players to do more micro-gestion in MP, so decoys are harmful for the general game experience)

- using diversion magic attacks to waste ennemy gems (ie : some call of the winds/wild on a province you are going to attack) ; it may work or not as the tactical AI is programmed not to use gems if the fight is too easy (but the AI seems to weight more the number of units than the quality) ; also if the ennemy hasn't scripted gems spells it's you wasting your gems ; so another exploitive but not really game breaking tactic in most cases ; but it may be ultra powerful if it allow you to win against an ennemy main army using powerful battle enchants, so it's maybe the worst AI weaknesses exploitation tactic when it works

- using 2 items of the same kind on an unit with 3 misc slots... as 2 similar items don't work in adjacent slots it was originally an exploit of some missing lines in the code, but my impression is : 3 slots pretenders and heroes were made with a possible use of this exploit in mind (or it would have been fixed since dom2, instead of adding more 3 slots pretenders in dom3)

There are probably far more borderline things, I just remind these 3 for having seen them used (or used them myself I'm not an angel) in MP games.

Re: What is abusive ?
 

Here is a few worse examples:

4) Charming Bogus and company and stealing their funky attack commanders scripts.

5) Using combinations of "mists of deception" + some battle enchantment damageing spell (like wratful skies) and then retreating the caster mage. Basically there is no way to kill the mist, so the enemy army has to endure 50 rounds of mass lightning bolts....pure evil in my opinion.

Re: What is abusive ?
 

I remember having charmed Bogus sometimes but didn't think about copying his orders, I think having one commander with special orders may be a just reward for charming Bogus (not that easy considering there is also an archer with "fire:mage" iirc), but it for sure starts to be a big exploit if you copy the special orders.

Didn't know the last one, it looks really terrible (and I would consider it a clear/bannable exploit as nothing in Mist of Deception description says it makes other spells work without a mage). It's stange that they have allowed MoD to work without the caster staying there.

edit : just realised that Wrathfull Skies works with a retreating mage, unlike fire stom... Hum.. it may probably allow some other exploits (or very borderline uses) as well, perhaps they should change all battle dammage spells so they work only with the caster alive and there* (if it's already coded for fire storm it shouldn't be hard to do).

re-edit : * iirc fire storm caster is considered dead if he retreats, but I may be wrong, manual says "lasts untill the battle ends or the mage die"

Re: What is abusive ?
 

1) Jeez, what the heck am I going to do with my diseased units if I can't use them as archer decoys? I thought that's why diseased units take a year to die, so you have time to march the dying and wounded to the front lines.

2) The AI is pretty good at not wasting gems too much. I did like it one time when I assassinated a Prince Of Death with a Disease Demon, and the Prince of Death obeyed his script to cast Darkness. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif And sometimes even scouts have a reason to attack/retreat: if you're at war with a glamour nation, that's the only way to see what's hiding in the provinces.

5) This one's on the bug shortlist now. I think if it's shortlisted as a bug then it's abusive to use the tactic (eg. sneaking non-stealth units out of castles, etc.)

Re: What is abusive ?
 

ganging up against the weaker instead of the stronger?
(perfectly legal but lame)

Re: What is abusive ?
 

I think there is a little difference between sending diseased to the frontline (and one normal sized front squad) and using optimized archers decoys (1 or 2 units per decoy squad, many decoy squads in a checkers disposition, one empty space between them, two between them and the first big squads etc...).

Anyway, it's not really an exploit, just an annoyance forcing other players to use as much microgestion to counter it.

Re: What is abusive ?
 

I've always hated 'cheap' stuff that causes lots of micromanagement issues for your opponent. Raiding them is fine, but stuff like 1-3 guys in a unit as archer decoys is pretty easy for a human to counter, as long as they micro. So if you use it all you're doing is forcing them to micro. Assassins can also fall into this category - they are essentially effective in that they annoy your opponent and waste his turn taking time. I wouldn't relish playing people who use annoyance tactics all the time and I probably wouldn't have much fun when I had to.

Re: What is abusive ?
 

The archer decoys give you the turn you need to get your buffs up, so its important, it might sound gamey but that your forces charge into enemy archers before they got their arrow fend sound equally strange to me.

Re: What is abusive ?
 

soon this thread has earned a place in the strategy index http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: What is abusive ?
 

Yes, I dislike the decoys, but either won't do the suicidal move of not using some against say a Man's archers heavy army. They may be a need to keep nations balanced sometimes (or to make low prot troops not totally worthless).

Re: What is abusive ?
 

Really, archer decoys aren't even beginning to exploit the combat "AI". There are some many, much worse, things that can be done, that archer decoys, well know, really aren't that bad.

For example:
Send in a few fliers and every unit guarding your archers comes unglued and rushes the fliers. Especially if they are "mounted fliers" so even "Attack Calvary" or "Fire Calvary" will have all your guys shooting your own archers, or fleeing their positions.

There are many others, the experienced players just don't want to give up their tricks. So like me, you are just going to "get to experience" these problems.

Re: What is abusive ?
 

You can use light infantry without resorting to archer decoy tactics. Just put them behind your shielded infantry units. I have no problem with people placing units around, I just think it's retarded when they're putting 'groups' of 1,2 or 3 random dudes scattered around. I know I won't do it and if they want to that's their bag, I can't be bothered to micro against stuff like that so they'll probably have an advantage. Yay for them. I hope my opponents don't do things like that, but I can't blame them for doing it. It won't work for [censored] against someone equally willing to micro though.

Re: What is abusive ?
 

The archer decoy, um, "exploit" was a much worse problem in Dom2, which had a different morale and targeting system. I don't see a problem with any of the issues Twan brought up. People use decoys, cannon fodder, and feint attacks in real war all the time. And Lord_Bob, I'd much rather have my infantry taking out fliers that are harassing my archers than let the archers deal with it with their daggers. Fliers have a hard enough time already in tactical combat; don't take away their best use.

Taking advantage of a real bug is not cool in my opinion, however.

Re: What is abusive ?
 

Is this still a problem under 3.10?

I cast darkness and my mages morale broke, so he legged it, the darkness ended straight away, as soon as he left the battlefield.

So if you retreat the casting mage under 3.10, the battlefield spell ends. Problem solved?

Re: What is abusive ?
 

If the game allows it, its not abusive; otherwise the Devs would code it out.

Re: What is abusive ?
 

That confuses intention with execution.

At the very least, exploiting acknowledged but not yet squished bugs must be considered abusive.

At a second level, exploiting things like the Bogus copy command should be considered abusive because it is an undesired side effect to a desired feature that may just be too cumbersome to track down and rewrite. (Unless of course we hear from the devs that charming Bogus is supposed to net you a combat trainer who introduces new secret strategies in addition to his own bad self...)

Re: What is abusive ?
 

It also ignores bugs they haven't been able to track down.

And any house rules for a particular game should be honored, even if the game doesn't/can't enforce them.
I think the default, if informal, house rule for games on this forum includes "don't exploit bugs on the bug list"

There are also metagame abuse issues that can't be addressed by the mechanics. Host setting up a map to favor himself. Secret pre-game deals. Playing 2 position in a game. etc, etc.

Re: What is abusive ?
 

amen

Re: What is abusive ?
 

Well, any discussion of abusive behavior must consider not just the very nebulous definition of "unintended" (unintended by who? The devs aren't an infalable authority, they're just some smart guys who threw together a bunch of stuff they thought would be cool. House rules, mods, etc. come up because ultimately it's the players in the game who should decide what type of game they want to play) but also its impact on the game. For example I consider grabbing the Bogus scripts to be no different than, say, capturing a unique artifact from a powerful indie commander. Its hard to do, requires luck, and is not generally overpowering. It's not exactly a secret at this point, but in theory this is something you need to be a bit clever to leverage and just adds one more interesting facet to the game. As I've posted elsewhere, the whole point of strategy is to use cleverness to make sure you're *not* in a fair fight so it's a bit ridiculous to complain that somebody used a tactic that wasn't fair. That being said, you have to also acknowledge that we're all just playing this game for fun so doing stuff that just breaks the game or is only effective because it annoys your opponent to death is a dickish thing to do regardless of what the explicitly stated house rules are.

Re: What is abusive ?
 

I was objecting to the claim in an earlier post, "It's there, therefore the dev's intended it." That seems transparently false, given the obvious possibilities of difficult to trace bugs and unexpected behaviors.

This leaves open the grey areas, instead of stamping them out, which is what I think you're saying as well.

Re: What is abusive ?
 

The Devs have patched this game several times. If they considered anything game-breaking or abusive, they can easy just take stuff out and not even worry about fixing it.

Heck, if you don't like Bogus's commands, you can just make a mod and change his unit so he doesn't have them. I could mod that in and I don't even program well.

There are a number of things that affect a game materially, but are left to randomness, and are not fair by any definition:

-finding a site that makes great mages like enchantresses or Wizards

-getting a starting province with very weak neighbors

-getting a starting province with lots of neighbors when you a resource hungry nation, or having a high resource province next to your capital.

-having the chance to attack an indie with a powerful non-craftable artifact like the Hammer of Cyclops

-getting amazons at all

-getting a crazy good event(3000 gold, or things like the time I got a Dwarven Hammer and a Ring of Sorcery as events).

-finding a bloodcost reduction site as a blood nation, or a conjuration site as a conjuration nation(like Bandar Log or Marignon).


Heck, I once seduced an indie commander Illusionist with Air 6 on turn 7. AIR 6!!!! For Free!!!

Considering how easy it is to mod things out, people have no right to talk about unfairness. If you don't like, something, take it out and see how many people want to play with you. For example, in Perpetuality the consensus was that Arcane Nexus would be too powerful in a 60 person game. It was modded out and we played our game.

The great problem with this discussion is that people often say in the middle of a war "and that tactic you used was abusive, so you have to stop or you are a cheater", and that often materially affects the war.

How about some of the other really mean stuff?

-Putting Lycanthropes Amulets and Slave Collars on junk commanders just so they get killed and get picked up by mage commanders.

-Destroying your own castles and pillaging own provinces rather than let someone take it.

-Pretending to be an ally and then attacking.

-Wishing away key artifacts or unique commanders before key battles.

-Casting spells that destroy the game (Burden of Time, Wishes for "Armageddon", Utterdark, Neiflewinter, Astral Corrpution)


At the end of the day, you just have to play the game as written. I have seen too many games end in acrimony and bad feelings just because someone decided that a particular tactic was unfair. Personally, I play for fun, and policing my peers is not fun.

Re: What is abusive ?
 

Are you actually comparing having a 450 gold, 1000 year old mage in a fantasy world strap a slave collar on his neck because "it seemed like a good idea at the time" with a military tactic that has been used repeatedly throughout earth's history?

Cursed items, good and bad, should have a 100% no pick up rate.

Re: What is abusive ?
 

K - "Heck, if you don't like Bogus's commands, you can just make a mod and change his unit so he doesn't have them. I could mod that in and I don't even program well."

Show me, because I have no idea how you'd do that.

Re: What is abusive ?
 

Some players consider any casting of Astral Nexus abusive.

Clams/hoarding behavior is sometimes considered abusive.

Re: What is abusive ?
 

Well, there is a large amount of fantasy literature where cursed items actually try to get people to pick them up or use them. Obviously the One Ring, but also Stormbringer, a book in one of the Harry Potter novels, etc.

Most of these abusive tactics pretty much pale in comparison to the strategy of ganging up on a weaker/equivalent nation through NAPs and secret alliances. (Which I've done in the past, but I have now come to see the error of my ways http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ).

Re: What is abusive ?
 

Well, now I know never to play in an MP game with K.

To my mind it is pretty obvious which mentioned "exploits" are just a bit of cunning which is valid in the context of the game (e.g. wishing away items at a crucial time - how is that an exploit?) and which are clearly just nasty abuse of imperfections in the code (e.g. the Mists of Deception exploit before it was fixed). I expect everyone will now disagree with me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

In any case, I find K's suggestion that the game is exactly as it was meant to be by the devs blatantly ridiculous. Also suggesting every possible exploit should be modded out is a bit silly to my mind. Apologies, K, for being rude. Clearly we just disagree on this point, which is fine - I'm not trying to be personally unpleasant.

I can see that there are many things which play within the rules as they were intended but can be annoying, e.g. clam hoarding or Utterdark. They're a case for house rules I think. If no house rules have been made, feel free to use them - they are part of the vanilla game.

To me perhaps the best measure of what is an exploit and what is reasonable is considering "Is this reasonable and realistic (in the context of the game)" - sort of a RP point of view. If you can imagine your tactics working in "real life" or rather "dominions life" - good! If it's blatantly taking advantage of flaws in the coding then it's just not a fun thing to do, and being as the whole point of the game is to have fun, don't do it.

Re: What is abusive ?
 

I think you got the wrong impression from his post. He did not personally use any bug/abusive tactics in any of the games I've played in with him.

Hordes of screaming monkey demons/undead, yes http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. Bug abuse, no.

You're missing out if you don't play with him, he's one of the best opponents I've had.

Re: What is abusive ?
 

My suggestion is that any "exploitative tactics" should be listed as banned EXPLICITLY before a game is started. A general "banned if it's a bug or exploit" will not do.

Everyone has a different perspective. We come from different cultures. Each of us are exposed to different fantasy/mythology sets. Each of us have read a unique set of books and have thus derived a different "set" of RP point of view.

While a very few set of actions can be generally agreed upon as exploits, there are many others that can go both ways.

In my games, I have only seen 2 that are generally regarded as exploits:

1. Stealing Bogus Scripts
2. Mist of Deceptions + Battlefield damage enchantment, then retreating. In this case, it was allowed that the mage can retreat as their very last order. (This I believe has more to do with enforcement. There is no way to tell if the AI retreated or the last script was to retreat)

Re: What is abusive ?
 

Yes, I think you're probably right. Apologies K, for an uncharacteristically grumpy post on my part. I guess I'm tired. I didn't really agree with what you said, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't happily play with you.

Re: What is abusive ?
 

I tried to do it this way:

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
#selectmonster 647
#clear
#copystats 578
#copyspr 578
#descr "A witch turned Bogus and Co into Bog Beasts!"
#end
#selectmonster 648
... etc for the rest of the Company
#end
</pre><hr />

But I still ended up with a bunch of Bog Beasts with special commands, after charming them. Fadmargast the Bog Beast still wants to "Attack commanders" and Fang the Bog Beast would very much like to "Fire Magic Users".

Maybe the easiest way is to mod them to be mindless. I don't think Mindless units can be charmed. You could also crank up their MR.

Probably you could also mod them into underwater units, so they would insta-die when they appear without fish amulets.

Re: What is abusive ?
 

I use every dirty trick in the book above and beyond. =P

You think regular archer decoying is bad .. whoo boy, don't play a game with me if I have two hours to script =).

Re: What is abusive ?
 

I have to admit, this subject has made me very hesitant to wade into the multi-player arena here.

I'm one of those who feels that as long as it's in the game, and not proscribed ahead of time, then go for it. Of course I know there are exceptions (you find a bug in the code mid-stream), but as a rule I just play and take my lumps.

But when I read the multiplayer forum, I see people lobbing accusations of "cheating" for very innocuous things - someone breaks a non-agression pact, or some tricky tactic.
This makes me very nervous about joining games. I'm quite happy to get smashed under by the pros, but I don't want to have to keep abreast of everyone's take on game etiquette.

-jeff

P.S. I think many people here would do well to play the board game "diplomacy" a few times. It builds character. :-)

Re: What is abusive ?
 

Heh, haven't been online long? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif You can't do much online without running into somebody calling you a dirty name, certainly don't let that stop you from trying MP. Play a fun game, be a good sport (by your own definition), and don't worry about it if somebody else gets aggravated at you. So long as you use a thimbleful of common sense and adhere to anything explicitly stated most people in this community are pretty tolerant, for the few that are loudly not there's a nice "ignore user" function of this forum.

Re: What is abusive ?
 

I agree with Jaif that there is a lot of bickering in this forum about MP tactics. I have never played MP in this game or any other and this is the first forum that I have participated in for any substantial period of time. (As an aside, I'm 56 and have been playing computer games since a week after electricity was invented.)

So I have a general question. Is this type of disagreement common in the forums of MP games?

I do like these threads because I do get a lot of cool tactics from them. Many, if not all of them, would never occur to me. So keep them up and keep the disputes cordial.

Re: What is abusive ?
 

I have a question regarding the bogus commands trick/exploit/whatever.
If someone uses it against you, can you charm their troops that have the commands pasted to them and steal their commands for yourself?

Re: What is abusive ?
 

Yes

Re: What is abusive ?
 

Everyone is willing to tolerate the abuse of game mechanic quirks to some degree (the extent of which, I think, depends mostly on whether you are the absuer or are being abused), but an "anything goes" approach is unsatisfactory to me for a couple of reasons, which I will try to explain.

1. Not everything does go. By asserting that everything is permissible you sidestep having to make difficult and arbitrary judgements on what is or is not fair, but those judgements still take place. There are levels to which nobody (I hope) would stoop in order to win a dominions game... Running a political style smear campaign to besmirch another player's name or framing them for cheating, for example. Recognizing no rules does not mean that they do not exist- it just opens up a huge potential for misunderstanding when two people disagree on the informal rules while playing. Formal rules are better because they leave far less room for ugly personal disputes and misunderstandings in-game.

2. Exploiting game mechanics is only worthwhile if the gain is significant. If the gain is significant, and if the environment is competitive, then you cannot compete without exploiting the game mechanics. As more and more exploits are discovered, they become more central to the game and your experience playing the game will change. Some exploits are easy and take only moments. I consider these benign. Unfortunately some, as Kissblade boasts, can take hours of micromanagement each turn to perfect. Personally, I'd rather play Dominions than try to work out the optimal feng shui for my archer decoys for two hours every turn, but sometimes that's the reality of it. And it's another reason why I think any hypothetical fairness rules shouldn't be "anything goes". Some exploits are an education in tedium to do well.

3. Exploiting game mechanics reduce strategy. When exploiting the mechanics becomes as important as the other aspects of skill in a game, the other aspects become proportionately less important. You may have chosen foolish scales or made a couple of strategic blunders, but if you've got the perfect archer decoy formations then the extra volleys your un-targeted main archer group might just let you win anyway. And if so, then congratulations! Your micromanagement and extra time investment in exploiting the game mechanics just let you overcome superior strategy! This is, in many ways, the worst problem with game loopholes- playing becomes as much about exploits as anything else, and suddenly you're not playing the same game anymore.

These are just my rambling thoughts on this issue, which I cannot help but take very seriously. A slew of similar exploits split and drove a major part of the fan-base away from one of my other favorite games, Kohan:Ahriman's Gift, in the not-too-distant past. I'd hate to see Dominions travel that same dark road and share that game's same grim fate.

Re: What is abusive ?
 

Now, I don't see that as "uber", it does become insane around turn 70+, but really, by turn 70 vast amounts of unreal things are in play. Are clams uber compared with Tartinians for example? If you have Alt-9 for the wish, what are the chances you have Conj-9 for the Tartinians?

Re: What is abusive ?
 

Here is where people really just aren't thinking. Yes, KissBlade is undoubtly doing some sort of wierd AI manipulation, but, and this is a big but, it doesn't Wreck The Game. Tolerance for exploits that Wreck The Game are far worse. For example, people tolerate the stupid "Slave Collar" trick only because most people have the decency to not go crazy with it. 5 blood and B1 is not hard to come by. You can, if you want, raise ARMIES of scouts with these collars. 20-30 scouts, easy. What is that, 100 blood, 400 gold, and 20 mage turns? That's easy. And then they dump it on your main army and wipe out half your mages. Heh, heh. Extremely abused, it would wreck the game. The only reason it hasn't is people understand how ridiciliously cheap it is, so they limit their use of it.

Or the "Vengance of the Dead" retreat bug, that allows any idiot who wants to kill an early SC to do so. Fortunately, not all races can cast it, so you don't have sleeping, defensive pretenders rendered useless. Cause that's what it does.

Re: What is abusive ?
 

"Vengeance of the Dead" hurts SC pretenders, not defensive ones. I think it's okay to cast it once at an SC pretender, but if he survives it's unfair to recast it. I think the doubling of the kill count for killing units you already killed once doesn't make sense.

Re: What is abusive ?
 

Potatoman, nicely done. Well written and based on admirable logic, ethics and reasoning.

I don't think that this game will be torn apart by MP exploit users because almost everyone on the forums is friendly, helpful and considerate. I'll acknowledge that there are people who live vicariously through their gaming success but I don't believe that they dominate this game. I attribute that to the fact that the game is a bit too profound for most of those players.

Re: What is abusive ?
 

SC pretenders have high MR, so you need several castings of Vengeance to work, which costs many gems and high path mages available to cast it.

Unkillable SCs are even more unfair than using Vengeance of the Dead multiple times.