Trading commanders, exploit or not?

[Jarkko]

@Micah: No, it is not too much to ask.

But as people, maybe even some good players, see things differently, and you apparently have no desire to define *what* exactly you consider cheating, then it might be very difficult for others to know. To me it seems you are on a crusade against perfectly valid and reasonable tactics which work exactly as designed, and I find it very hard "the mature community" would accept those ideas without some blinking of eyes. Snarl as much as you want along your nose about cheaters, but it is a guarantee everybody won't be thinking similarily to you about some unwritten and undefined code.

And yet, if you have such good players who think as you do, then more power to you! I for one am not very good at this game, and I intend to use sneakers and remote summons in the future too, even if some good players would go pale of the thought. There are after all already games where the diplomatic agreements are binding (which I consider weird), and there are no-diplomacy games too (and they are even more weird to me) out there, so one more sneaker-and-remote-summons-are-cheating group (whome I would consider weird ) won't topple the "mature community", or so I hope at the very least

[Micah]

@Jarkko - "you are on a crusade against perfectly valid and reasonable tactics which work exactly as designed" Please provide me a dev quote on that. Until then I'm calling BS on you attributing the ****ty AI gem use to intended design.

You also say you're not a very good player, and yet you insist on knowing which tactics are "reasonable" without a solid grasp on late game play at high levels of competition. Yes, I'm an elitist jerk, thanks for asking. =)

What I consider cheating is breaking the house rules that are set up in a game. I'm currently arguing in favor of certain rules being adopted on a widespread basis because they make for a better game, in my not at all humble opinion. Again, the hand-wringing comes out in force in your response. I'm not saying people that use these tactics in current games are dirty cheaters, I'm saying that *going forward* the game is better off if they are removed via house rule. No need to refer to an unwritten and undefined code, just a simple post by the admin. The whole point of this thread was to start a discussion so house rules can be made more explicit and easy to implement, since the current system of just leaving it unspecified has led to some nasty situations.

Maybe I didn't make it clear enough that I wasn't trying to accuse anyone of cheating for stuff that's in a gray area or undefined in a game. Of course people will be angling for whatever advantages they can find if they're playing competitively, and I do it myself. I'm not trying to insult anyone for playing as hard as they can, but I do think I'm in a good position to point out what feels to me like flaws in the game engine, since I've got a pretty good understanding of the game, and a lot of play experience in terms of what makes for a good game.

Just for a guideline, here are some rough guidelines in terms of what feels legitimate to me vs what feels like an exploit/tactic that is detrimental to the enjoyment of the game:
I feel like tactics that interfere with other players' units and orders without actually interacting meaningfully with them (retreating vs fighting a battle, or dying to artillery without doing a single point of damage to bleed gems) are problematic.
Tactics which break the economy (by getting something for nearly nothing or getting something which will pay for itself before long) in an open-ended fashion are problematic.

Hm, that covers most of it actually. Breaking other people's units without actually fighting them, and breaking the economy. Might be something else I'm forgetting, but those are the big ones. There is some rhyme and reason to my crusade.

[Jarkko]

Originally Posted by Micah

Maybe I didn't make it clear enough that I wasn't trying to accuse anyone of cheating for stuff that's in a gray area or undefined in a game.

But you are, in that very sentence. You claim some perfectly valid tactics (but not *which* tactics or game elements) to be "gray area". My mindreading capabilities are quite poor, and I will make a wild guess most people reading this thread have about same amount of PSI powers as I do.

You can't just assume people know what you think are cheats or exploits if you are unwilling to tell what you think cheats and exploits. Othewise you are just a person who basically reserves himself the right to after a lost game the right to say "Yeah, well, the others were cheating."

I feel like tactics that interfere with other players' units and orders without actually interacting meaningfully with them (retreating vs fighting a battle, or dying to artillery without doing a single point of damage to bleed gems) are problematic.

So if you cause my troops/commanders to die/rout while I am buffing up, and thus I was never able to do a single point of damage, then I am cheating? But if I had a single slinger up front doing 1 point of damage on one of your screening units I was not cheating?

You provide some general handwaving at "gray area" tactics; that is really insulting the intelligence of the people who read your posts, because nobody can know what you think, even though you make it sound like these things are obvious to everybody and no listing are needed. So please, could you provide a list of the tactics *you* consider cheating? I for one would be very interested in that, because so far I have got (the apparently very wrong) impression you don't like sneaking troops or remote attack spells.

[Illuminated One]

I do not think that using a decoy army to force the enemy to use gems is an exploit. It is used in reality (canvas tanks anyone?). In fact I'd love it if the illusion spells just worked for that purpose.
What doesn't make sense is archer (especially when set to guard rear commander) and mage decoys (well, the latter do to some extend, but it can get ridiculous).
Blocking an army is an exploit imo, but in that sense also cutting of retreat routes is when the thing that cut of the retreat is not significantly stronger than the disorganized fleeing army.

[Zeldor]

Jarkko:

We are not advicating punishing people for doings things like that now. All we want is to CREATE a list of house rules, so game admin has a CHOICE to include them in a game. Of course it may be impossible to make sure they are not abused, but now most people consider copying Bogus orders as a cheat that is not allowed - and you need to look at turn file to spot it. Dominions multiplayer is played mostly by mature players, people that can respect things like house rules. We cannot count on devs to fix problems like that, surely not in dom3. And limiting some things make game more interesting and gives you more fun, freeing you from doing stupid strats that are necessary otherwise.

[Jarkko]

Zeldor, I understand very well the intention (or so I believe) of the discussion. What I do not understand is that people should be aware of what others *think* are cheating. Say the game admin writes that "Breaking other people's units without actually fighting them, and breaking the economy" are cheating -> that would be a masive can of worms, wouldn't it? I bet there are in any MP game dozens of battles where one side doesn't make a single casualty before they are broken, and apparently the losers should be thus considered cheaters if such a home-rule was in effect?

Also, I wonder who decided it is a stupid and un-fun strategy to use sneakers or remote summoning spells, and why the devs even *should* consider changing those? Orders of Bogus&Co I understand, and I would go as far as claim that any charmed/seduced commanders should lose their scripted orders and that would be nice to fixed in a patch. However, in this thread the discussion hasn't been about Bogus orders, but about perfectly valid tactics all of the sudden being declared "grey area" and even cheating or exploiting. *That* is simply something I have a very hard time to stomach.

Now if you set up a game where no sneakers and remote summons are allowed, then that would be ok to me. But to somehow try to forcefeed to the community the opinions of a couple people as the absolute moral truth is a bit little too thick, isn't it?

[Dimaz]

Jarkko, please, try to hear what others are trying to tell before judging. Consider following scenario: you are going to storm a castle of another player in late game with all 9th in research. There are some 20-30 mages inside and tons of summons and whatnot. You have something on the same lines. You have a good battle plan involving playing on other player's race weaknesses: for example, he's vulnerable to cold, or fire, or whatever. He has the same against you. Now, you both need gems to realise your plan. You surely want to cast antimagic, some Army of, perhaps Mass regen etc. He too.
Now, castle storming goes after the magic phase. So he casts 3-5*GR on this castle. Your troops are perfectly capable of destroying all the horses in 10 turns without any magic at all. Still, your mages start casting all scripted spells and after that there are several possibilities: if you gave them just enough gems for their script (usual practice to stop AI from crazy things) you storm the castle without gems and lose. If you gave them many gems, they start doing crazy things and spend all their gems and storm and lose. If you gave them really many gems so they still have them after GRs are killed and the things they were doing were not crazy enough to kill them or your army, you finally have some chance to actually storm the castle, not taking into account that the opponent will be able to use much more gems in the battle.
And you have absolutely no way to do anythinng about it.
Have you experienced it, Jarkko?

[Jarkko]

Originally Posted by Dimaz

Have you experienced it, Jarkko?

Zeldor, it appears I have played this game and Dom2 slightly bit longer than you have, so don't you go and think that I am a noob

But to answer your question: Yes, yes I have. Many times. And I don't see where the problem is. Which is exactly why I don't understand your eagerness to claim something cheating when it clearly and obviously simply is not.

If you don't know how to plan your strategies against your opponents, then maybe you should play some easier game, like Tetris for example?

[Illuminated One]

Did anyone think about the possibility of having to attack Hinnom with Marverni? You have enough armor for 2 of your druids, the rest and all your communion slaves go unarmored.
Now you know or suppose that Hinnom has Earthquake scripted twice.
Do you
a) Cast Ghostrider (or do whatever) to make sure your mages are not hit by the earthquakes
b) Send in your mages to find swift dead

Now this is a perfectly viable game situation that should crop up in such or another form in many games.

I have never seen the other thing crop up, but I can believe it happens in lategame madness. But as I said before if you blame the brokenness of late game on things that work perfectly fine during the normal game (which is what interests normal and especially noob players - the real bordercase is the lategame) you will only reduce the normal game without making anyone content with late game. Next ban thread ETA ...

[Tollund]

I've experienced what you described and it's a perfectly acceptable tactic. He fixed you to expend resources in his attack by putting a fairly significant chunk of his own resources into play.