MP Tricks, Tactics, and Strategies

[Slargos]

Have you been drinking now again Slargos? I have not attacked Jarkko, not even intended to do so. It's your interpretation skill that tricks you

Ah yes. Your subtletry has trickered me into misoverunderestimating you. My bad.

 

[unmerged(6147)]

While I instinctively believe that lag colonising (where you apparently can send many colonists but only lose 1 of your saved up colonists) is bad, very bad - in fact I would never even consider using it - I then reflected upon the matter and then remembered that I frequently use lag diplomats for one special purpose.

And that is when sending gifts. The lag allows you to send multiple gifts at the same time to e.g. a friend who is in war. I don't remember if you also pay only 1 diplomat for all these gifts (usually I can get away with sending three before the gift text is greyed), if so there are multiple benefits from the lag in this instance.

I learned this in one of the first sessions of MP I played, by a perplexed player who told me to do so when I told him I could only send 200d (or whatever amount it was) per month. For him it was something that obviously could be done and was done all the time.

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So, what do you think of this? Is this "gamey", "using an exploit" or even cheating?

Anyhow it is a nice trick for a new MP player who is not yet acquainted with this possibility.

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For me it is simple. If it is forbidden in the rules and you still do it then it is cheating if you know you are breaking the rule. "Gamey" for me equals smart play (I always play "gamey" when I play a game as opposed to when I act in RL) and I thus find that distinction rather meaningless.

I'd be especially interested in what those think (and how they reach their conclusions) that believed lag colonists was a cheat. It appeared they believed it was a cheat because it was something the host could not do (something like that anyhow). Well, that seems to fit the bill in this case as well.

 

[Hive]

I have used that particular form of lag diplomats before, I'll have to admit. Oh how I wish that EU2 just had a "sent x amount of ducats as a gift to x" function...

But I suppose that all useage of exploiting lag is bad, even this one.

 

[unmerged(7276)]

Im not sure all this is what KJ had in mind when he made a thread called tips and tricks

 

[King John]

Most hosts I've played with consider it an advantage to be the host, and this is with crowds that do use lag gifts, lag orders(not lag colonists or lag forts, or lag vassalages because those are recognized as bad exploits), but other more regular forms of manipulating lag. Like Belisarius, he loves to be the host even though he knows by doing so he misses out on these things. And it's understandable, being the host doesn't only save you from lag during war, but it's so much easier to organize things. Like setting your budget, you don't have to hold the cursor there for 10 seconds at times before it actually registers, or organizing armies. It takes seconds to organize an army where it might take almost a minute otherwise without pausing. Generally, it's a lot less stressful to be the host, gamewise, because every order you send is registered immediately.


Does that make it fair, and even? I don't know, it's impossible to tell. But in my games, we generally don't give much attention to it, because it's close enough. We're pretty relaxed about this stuff, for the most part sticking to a philosophy of "if it can be done, it will be done". Not literally, as I've mentioned above there are things that aren't tolerated, but we see these matters to be fair or pretty close to fair, and not worth it to turn into a big issue.

 

[King John]

Im not sure all this is what KJ had in mind when he made a thread called tips and tricks

Not really, but I sort of expected it.

 

[unmerged(10915)]

Well, cant we get back to the core of the topic?

I myself dont have any tricks or anything. I just go by intuition.

 

[King John]

I always go by intuition too, once I've begun fighting, and I think everyone does for the most part.


Here's another one of mine, while we're on the topic of exploits...

Bankrupting the AI through loans

When you're fighting an ai alliance, after you've occupied every province of the ai to prevent them from spending any money on troops, you offer loans to all the members so that they all have roughly the same amount of money. Now wait until all of the seperate peace offers are on your screen, which should all be offering you the entire treasury of the respective ai nations. After all of them are up there, wait until the AI alliance leader offers, which will include the money of the entire alliance. So you can then pause and accept the money from the seperate peace offers, and then accept the alliance peace as well, which can come close to doubling your investment depending on how many ai there are. It's a very easy way to jump start a dead economy, or one that is not yet developed.

You can still take advantage of the ai like this without sending loans, but the profits aren't as high.

Yes I've used it a few times, but no I don't use it anymore. I'm just posting it so the next wise guy won't get away with doing it, and so I get proper credit for my discovery=).

 

[King John]

I moved all the stuff with subject headings onto the first page(except the one about cheating of course, lol).


Ryoken, it's a little late to say, but the seige attrition-retreat tactic is very smart. I've attritioned people that way before, but never extended it to two months.

 

[unmerged(10894)]

I moved all the stuff with subject headings onto the first page(except the one about cheating of course, lol).


Ryoken, it's a little late to say, but the seige attrition-retreat tactic is very smart. I've attritioned people that way before, but never extended it to two months.

It is great, espeically if the opposing side has much less manpower, or are fighting in winter....