Time for a poll. (The subject is abuse)

[lch]

Kuritza said:
You dont get it. Its not shock immunity combined with wrathful skies. Its AQ combined with a mage scripted to cast WS and retreat. See? Now there's just a very hard to kill SC on the battlefield, and no way to end Wrathful Skies.
Now if it was AQ herself who has cast the spell, she'd get lots of fatique and probably die. Had the mage stayed, well, there's a fat chance you'd get him too. But with AQ and a retreating mage its a win-win, unless your enemy gets a lucky soulslay or something. Too cheap.

Okay, now that's more or less complete bull.

First, Wrathful Skies isn't really powerful. It hits random squares on the battlefield. For it to have a "good" effect, the enemy army has to be quite large and consist of not too powerful units. Best when you can easily hold them at bay, e.g. in a castle storming when you can hold the entrance with blockers. In short, an enemy army that is subject to suffer non-trivial losses from WS is one that any SC would eat for breakfast, anyway.

Second, the air queen hardly needs a supporting mage that retreats from the battlefield. Give her an air booster and a couple of gems and she can cast it without breaking a sweat. A5, 2 gems, that means 3 extra gems for reducing fatigue off a 200 fatigue spell. But even without extra gems: If you build SCs like I do, then you'll make sure that their reinvigoration is higher than their encumberance so that they can fight until the end of time instead of getting overwhelmed due to fatigue at some point. Since the AQs have zero base encumberance that's quite easy to do. So, if the AQ can cast Wrathful Skies itself without the need for a retreating support mage, where is the problem? That a good, fully decked out SC is hard to beat in time? That's nothing new.

[quantum_mechani]

kasnavada said:
you are exploiting the game mechanics. That is the definition of cheating.

Exploiting just means taking advantage of... and taking advantage of the game mechanics is what you are doing every time you attempt any strategy. Defining cheating as *not using* the game mechanics might be better (i.e., hacking to add gems from nowhere).

[kasnavada]

Exploiting :
1. The act of utilizing something for any purpose. In this case, exploit is a synonym for use.
2. The act of utilizing something in an unjust, cruel or selfish manner for one's own advantage.

I used exploit with its second meaning, and in that case it means cheating. Sorry if it wasn't clear enough. I would have used "used" if I meant just using the game mechanics.

EDIT :
Defining cheating as "not using the game mechanics" is wrong in my opinion. Because a bug often is a game mechanic that can currently be used.

[lch]

silhouette said:
Well, don't forget it may happen via collusion of more than one opponent as well. For example, if the leader of an MP game puts up the Forge global, and nobody is in a position to Dispel it, I would completely try to make an alliance of the other players who would each send a dozen items. It's a way to deny the one player use of forging, and it seems like a useful and valid tactic to me. And it is sort of self-balancing: if it's a one on one situation, you would have to commit X% of your lab/forging to deny the opponent the same percent of his capability.

Biggest waste of gems and mage time I ever heard of. I'm not saying that this isn't possible, just that it's impractical. You waste gems and mage time to donate magic items to your enemy, however useless those items might be. And you'd have to keep this up for the subsequent turns, too. So, let's see... Lowest gem count for forging an item is 5 gems. Magic lab can hold what, 50 items? So you'd need to send up to 250 gems worth of magic items, per turn, to your enemy. If I'd be that enemy, I'd die from laughter. Gem generating globals, dwarven hammers, clams, Forge of the ancient all have just one goal: To save/generate more gems than your enemies can. If you want to sacrifice as many gems as that for such a dubious plan, then your enemy doesn't have to do anything because you're playing into his hands by digging your own grave instead of, uh, the crazy idea of saving those gems that go into his free items, to override his enchantment or alchemize them to astral gems and dispel it?

[DonCorazon]

Hadrian_II said:
I think this discussion cant reach a conclusion, as there are innate difference between minmaxers and players that have a more roleplaying perspective.

As on one side sailing out of besieged castles, so the sieger does not notice it, or sending your enemy useless trinkets, so that he stops forging makes perfect sense to minmaxers because they get a benefit from this action, even if it defies common sense and is at best a very cheesy solution. While the rp fraction considers this cheating.

Well said Hadrian. I completely agree. I am on the role paying side. Game (for me) is about having fun, trying new strategies, discovering items/spells/sites. Ideally if all players in a game have this mentality, the game also can have a nice competitive feel where everyone is in the race. However, it can be shock if you are playing this way but then you face a minmaxer with some nigh unstoppable maneuver. Nothing necessarily wrong with that, in the sense as one person said, everyone has access to the same game. I can see how over time, once a player has done all the exploring, they can evolve to min max. I am still in the innocent, rosy-eyed RP phase.

[Foodstamp]

So let me get this straight. You guys are roleplayers because you don't play to win, and people who play to win are not roleplayers?

[DonCorazon]

No, that is not what I said.

Maybe this will make it easier for you to understand -
I am still learning the game and I like to try new things to see what they do even though they may not be the best way to win. I'd rather play with people doing the same so we all have a decent chance of winning.

Once I have tried more things I probably will be more focused on strategies proven to win.

[Foodstamp]

Where does roleplaying play into all of this?

[quantum_mechani]

kasnavada said:
EDIT :
Defining cheating as "not using the game mechanics" is wrong in my opinion. Because a bug often is a game mechanic that can currently be used.

I think we have pretty much reached the very root of the issue. I (and I think many of the other people in this thread), would not call making use of a bug 'cheating', per se. I would draw a firm line between someone using some external method to alter the game files (i.e., hacking), and someone simply using the interface in possibly unintended ways. The latter can certainly be undesirable behavior in some cases, but it really is a whole different issue from cheating.

[HoneyBadger]

Hacking is a wrong that goes beyond the responsibility of the Devs to make right. Exploiting a known bug only occurs because the bug is there to be exploited in the first place. That's not to say that the Devs should be blamed, they aren't gods-they just create them and Dominions already has an amazingly (expecially considering that it's apparently such a near-infinite hydra of a beast) tight code. It's definitely the lesser of two evils though. I'd compare hacking to a mortal sin, whereas exploitation is simply invoking a social gaffe.