I can see the need for some specialty All-X worlds in a civilization, but perhaps there should be some kind of benefit (maybe an approval bonus?) if you build a world as a balanced, full-service mix of improvements.

About the only All-X strategy I haven't seen much mention of is All Morale (Las Vegas Vacation Worlds); of course most morale improvements are somewhat in disrepute these days.

this isn't necessarily an exploit; it can also be viewed as a strategy.

the all factor/lab approach can increase total planetary output, but you make a number of sacrificies for it to work, the first and foremost being flexibility, and the close second being spending cash. it takes a lot of cash to make this strategy work, and a lot of experience -- and to be sure, it doesn't always work. like an airplane, it takes a certain amount of momentum before the strategy can take off. and nothing short of redesigning the game's economy (and with it, the AI built to utilize that economy) will "fix" it.

i doubt the devs will be all that eager to change it. i highly doubt it'll happen at all, but if it does, it'll probably be in GalCiv 2.0, no in TotA. but nonetheless, i don't think the devs (or most seasoned players, for that matter) view this facet of the game as an exploit.

Brad had something about what he would do in GC3...

So I doubt he's going to change it now. The simplest thing to do is just change the way the focus buttons work, or get rid of them entirely. Since social production gets shifted to military once you're not building any ground projects, I don't think getting rid of them would be painfull at all.

When the game first came out, this wasn't the case, and because of that you really needed the focus buttons. To me using industry to drive research, or using labs to build ships is just crazy. I put it into the exploit column. It is just too counter to common sense.

Maybe there should be some diminshing marginal returns past a certain point on a planet?

Would make economic sense.

I also agree on the focus buttons being removed- I don't think the AI uses them either- but I"m unsure.

Thank you Brad.

I understand people wanting things fixed that are game breaking or hurt the game overall, but leave other people's playing styles alone. Just because they figured out some method which utilizes in-game mechanics that also happens to be effective, you want it removed? Are you upset that other players are better than you? Let me call you a whaaambulance, there's way too much whine in your system.

amen brotha!



have you ever successfully tried the strategy? what you believe is a totally different issue from the facts of playing on the higher difficulty settings. the reason it takes more money is because you're essentially deciding to either mega-power your research or your industry. in the all factory model, you need a LOT of factories to keep your research up with the joneses - lots of factories at 100% gives you production bonuses, but you must pay for them still. it takes a lot of cash. same thing with all labs, but there you must also decide between focusing on social or military spending, meaning you can't do both at once. to put some numbers on it, in a balanced game i usually put about 1/3-1/2 of my tiles towards economy structures. in these games, it's more like 2/3-3/4, and i still end up with less spending cash.



not true, see above. you still must fine-tune what you build, but in these strategies it's an issue of balancing between two building types rather than three (excluding farms and morale buildings).



have you ever seen a real lab? or a real factory for that issue? real test labs can be massive, even in our time. and if anything, scientists make better engineers than factory workers, just less efficient (probably because they're better paid and think too much about what they're doing). factory labor too, in these days, is highly complex and requires following detailed instructions. jumping over to lab work, which mostly involves following detailed instructions, would mostly be a matter of a bit of retraining. lab workers aren't the ones coming up with grand new ideas--they're the ones carrying out the menial tasks of performing tests and cataloging results ad naseum. this is why i didn't go into the hard sciences.

and going back to your original point, battleships aren't built in labs, and they're not built in factories either. they're built in shipyards (in this game, 'starports'). presumably the people actually building them are building parts in factories, not whole ships. most engineering labs have all the facilities needed to fabricate parts, purify metals and so on. most modern industrial techniques are first attempted in labs.

so to echo Naota Reign's sentiments, would you like some cheese with that whine?



for one, i think you should reference at least 3 or 4 of the "many times" they've shut down exploits. there are other exploitative aspects of gameplay they don't shut down--mostly the ones that involve crazy amounts of micromanagement. i think, and i think they think, if a player is willing to go to such lengths to discover and implement strategies like this, s/he deserves them.

and it takes exploitative gameplay to win on masochistic and higher, frankly. the AI bonuses are just too overwhelming, and rightly so. humans are always capable of exploiting (as in, utilizing) game mechanics in a way a set of algorithms can't. i notice the only nay-sayer with MV medels here, gallagher118, like me averages suicidal. i've won on maso as well, just non MV (i only recently bothered playing MV). what about you all? have you managed a win above tough?

In the tech trade for planets strategy you don't need to build a single ship so when you do all research then you don't need to decide between social and military because you always do social.

A lot of game designers have used the if you don't like it don't exploit it and then they invariably fix it in the next patch. Balanced games are more fun games. The two most important features in a game are the User Interface and Game Balance.

First strike combat system.
Bundles of diplomacy related stuff.
Engines.

These were all *major* changes to the game mechanics to either shut down exploits or help the AI compete, at least 2 of them were very good changes IMO. I'm sure there have been *many* more minor changes.

If I don't like it, don't use it...that's all very well, but where's the fun in deliberately handicapping yourself? It's not like these strategies are *that* much harder or time consuming, so why would I bother with a balanced approach when I know it's so suboptimal?
As a knock-on effect, an entire branch of the tech tree becomes much less important, which is a shame.
It's an unfair advantage to the human player since the AI is not equipped to handle the strategy.
And finally (probably least importantly!), it just doesn't make any logical sense!

Bit pointless discussing it as far as GC2 though since my mind is firmly made up and, it would appear, so is the devs.

Who cares about this line of reasoning. It's a game.

A game where the idea of factories was production.
A game where labs were supposed to supply research.

A game that has lost it's way with too much complexity really. The focus buttons simply don't need to be there.

oh i wasn't accusing you of whining. and to be certain, i do agree that it's a poorly thought-out game mechanic. it's unintuitive and unrealistic: if i've got the money to fund my mega-labs and mega-factories all at 100%, i feel a little irritated by an artificial game mechanic that prevents me from doing it. heck, in a truly accurate reflection of life i could fund them 175% and get 150% the production, or 250% and get 150% (over-time). of course, it might not just be labor; the money might also represent the physical materials needed, but abstracting everything into money is a poor way to do it (it leaves me feeling cheated).

what is disagree with is the premise of this forum: that a strategy resulting from an established game mechanic, however odd it might be, is an "exploit." any human-player strategy in this game is exploitative: we've got brains. and the players who thought up the all-lab/factory strategy didn't do it by virtue of beding devious (not in a bad way anyway). they arrived at is by understanding every nuance of the game, and by micromanaging every single turn. they'd still be among the best players even if the slider system was overhauled: they've got the patience and the attention to accomplish the wins on suicidal. and if you actually read their accounts of gameplay, you'll see that it's not some static strategy that brings them a win. they're dynamic players who know huge numbers of strategies and tricks, and will use any of them if and when the situation fits.

I highly dislike such replies (which are alarmingly common), because there is always the implied third part. "If it bothers you, don't do it, and shut up." Which rather bad thing to imply.

I don't do it, but it does bother me. Pursuing or not pursuing this strategy has absolutely no connection with finding it bothersome. Game is an objective entity, and ignoring some parts of it will not make them go away. (Complaining here, on the other hand, might.) You can argue that the strategy is valid or intended, that it does not disbalance the game but that's an entirely different argument from what you've just said.


It's not about other players. It's about playing in full force without holding back and intentionally avoiding some "bad" strategies. What kind of game chess would be if there was some shortcut to winning, which would allow to bypass 80% of the game's complexity?


If using labs to build starship and buildings is not an exploit, than what is? I would say that all strategies that make game entities to behave contrary to the common sense behavior are exploits.


"It takes exploitative strategy to beat the chess computer, which has 2 bishops instead of rooks." That's kind of like what you're saying right now.

It's always possible to make the game difficult by giving AI additional resources. In any game. However, it's not a replacement for a sensible game mechanics and good AI.

the only problem with that is simply that if Brad really wanted you to just shut up, he could have easily locked the forum. silince is a more powerful means to control than open dialogue.



this seems to presume that this strategy is easy, and not in itself a part of the game's complexity. you say you don't use it, but you don't mention if you've ever tried it. i will claim this: anyone saying the all lab/factory strategy is an easy way to victory on the harder levels hasn't ever tried it. the complaints about it being unrealistic are quite valid; it's as unrealistic as the artificial sliders, but it's a different issue than what's presented in this thread: that this tactic is exploitative because it gives the human player an unfair advantage. brains give human player unfair advantages (and in some cases, disadvantages). and it takes plenty of brains to make this strategy work.

in the all labs strategy, you end up wasting fair chunks of your research capacity on end-of-the-line techs; in the all factory version, there's nothing you can do to squeak out a tech a week earlier if it's on the cusp. this is the sort of thing i mean when i say that you lose flexibility. a maso+ player using a more conventional strategy is likely to fine-tune the sliders and individual planets' foci on every single turn; it's a means to avoid wasted production points. using an all-l/f approach undermines this entirely.

don't get me wrong; i wouldn't mind more interesting facets of the game that complicated either of these stragegies; mini "dark ages" and "materials shortages" to do to industry/research what economic recessions do to tax income; and corresponding bonuses. i think limiting game play is a poor way to honor "the game's complexity," whereas adding random events to make the game less predictable for any strategy is a fine way to do it.



see my reply above, #11. it's valid on the level of realism - and personally i'd rather have a game design that doesn't limit my options for victory, rather than one wherein the only strategy involved is the order of what i build (Civ).



that's a bit of a straw man; for one, what would constitute 'exploitative' chess strategy?

the fact is you can't expect a Deep Blue out of a $50 video game. if you're that concerned about having AI that's equally as smart as you, i'd suggest getting really drunk when you play, or a partial lobotomy, or donate a few million bucks to StarDock for even better AI. reasonable game mechanics are, again a separate issue entirely; and arbitrarily saying "good AI" is another cop-out. the AI is good. it's not deserving of a Nobel prize in science, no. but it's also affordable, and can be run on a large number of computers on the market.

and also to be clear: i didn't say it takes this sepcific strategy to win on the higher levels. in fact, if all you can do is attempt one controversial strategy while there's a bandwagon behind it, i'm pretty certain you won't win on the higher levels. it takes many strategies, and the experience and discretion to know when and how to use them well.

if there isn't some MV scoring envy behind this (not on your or anyone's particular part), then it's a critique of an awkward game mechanic. that's fine. but to try and hammer home how it needs to be changed fails to account for the fact that GC2 is already more than a year old. it has an expansion, another one on the way, and talk about more to come? well, might as well campaign for universal conversion to the DVORAK keyboard, since QWERTY is so unintuitive and flawed (in other words, it's an issue of historical intertia: this is how the game is, there's too much else built up around this mechanic, and so this is how it will stay - at least until GC3).

All labs is easy if you use tech trade for planets. All you do is research techs and trade them to the AI for research treaties, cash, and planets. There's more to it than that but it's very hard to lose. Of course, if focus was nerfed, I wouldn't use focus at all and just use all research and get by economically some other way than by stock markets.

And in all factories if focus was nerfed I'd rely on research treaties.

There'll always be specialization and gains from trade. Focus just makes it a whole lot easier.