New victory condition exploit

[Dinkelman]

I am playing a tall turtle game on captain (hard) difficulty. Normally my empire is pretty far down the list on score, but I have vassals etc. Anyway, I set up a monthly huge transaction of strategic resources that would activate once the price reached lower that 15 per unit. Rare gasses reached the point first, I sold some alloys to afford the 30k purchase of 2000 gasses, and that month the transaction went through. What I noticed was that my economic power had skyrocketed. My rival was now pathetic compared to me so the rivalry ended. I looked at the scores, and my was highest on the list including the FEs. My economic score was above 21k when normally it's just 1.6k. The next month it went back. If I were to pull something like this on exactly the end day, I could steal the victory. Don't know if this matters or anything, but I thought it was interesting.

Edit: the economy score gets the increase the month after the transaction, not the same, in case you try reproducing and don't notice right away.

 

[anamiac]

Really? You're saying that the economic score for victory counts trade income as being the same as production income? That's terrible.

 

[Siri]

This does sounds suboptimal.

 

[Pyoro]

Now that's the sort of oversight I can understand happening when doing huge patches.

 

[Delthor]

You should file a bug in the bug report section. Quick trades like this shouldn't affect your economy like this.

 

[Snoipah]

I don't think this is a bug, but it's certainly. . . not ideal. This is along the lines of "well it's in the game so it's not cheating" lots of esport players say in regards to using questionable strategies.

It definitely needs to be changed though.

captain (hard) difficulty

There is no such thing as hard, only degrees of easy.

 

[TehJumpingJawa]

I wonder if this is responsible for the occasional erratic AI diplomacy, where they repeatedly make then break treaties between themselves.

 

[Siri]

This is along the lines of "well it's in the game so it's not cheating" lots of esport players say in regards to using questionable strategies.

Yes, people with poor morals will always try to justify them. It's how the world works.

 

[Less2]

I wonder if this is responsible for the occasional erratic AI diplomacy, where they repeatedly make then break treaties between themselves.

It definitely would seem to explain why rivals seems completely erratic to keep.

 

[Dinkelman]

There is no such thing as hard, only degrees of easy.

It used to be called hard. I think other empires get +50% in resource bonuses.

 

[durbal]

Stuff like this has been around forever in Paradox games to trigger achievements. I remember you could (can?) get the 'Rags and Riches' achievement in EU4 by doing something like swapping nation just as you get a big income spike from something like a gold fleet or treasury cash from a peace deal.

 

[Eye Urn]

Only matters in Multi-player, and then only if there's an actual prize for winning. "Winning" is still a rather abstract concept, and you still mostly will set your own goals (such as achievements), with the score showing a rough display of how you're doing compared to everyone else. While obviously this isn't optimal to see economic power modified by using the Galactic Market once in several years, there's definitely a good reason why the amount of trading you do on the market will effect what the game sees your strength as economically.