The "diplomat trick": why does it exist?

[Wizzington]

Fixed in 1.12.

 

[Wizzington]

How?

Resending diplomat won't give instant opinion boost if you already have >0 from improve relations

 

[Wizzington]

So it's a diplomacy debuff, unless it's compensated. Is it compensated with faster rate or something?

Removing an exploit is not a debuff. Would you consider the removal of the 'cash' console command a nerf to income?

 

[Wizzington]

Wiz said that the AI gets an extra diplomat to compensate that it doesn't send + recall diplomats. Of course, now that balance has been altered because humans were apparently cheating (as the game tells you you're doing when using the console) by playing within the defined rules .

Exploiting and cheating are not literally the same, but they're hardly far apart either. 'Playing within the defined rules of the game' is a completely meaningless phrase if you're just going to define it as 'the game lets you do this'.

 

[Wizzington]

Not if you use ironman, which allegedly blocks cheating (at least some cheating).

But on the flipside, using the exploit definition is necessarily arbitrary. "Ally France and use it to win wars" is a tried-and-tired SP strategy that relies on something a human-controlled France wouldn't do. Exploit? Free money? The utility is greater than the supposed send/recall exploit. The rules let you do it. How do you define send/recall as an "exploit" within your constraints, but not this? You can't, it's necessarily arbitrary.

Boosting relations on arrival is something that could have not existed at all (just give relations at month end), which actually carries a semi-intuitive implication that it was placed in the game for a reason at some point, especially in the light of the AI getting an extra diplomat exactly because it can't handle them as well.

All this said, it's the defining of actions as exploits + pinning them as similar to cheating that bothers me, not the removal of the tedious mechanic. It sounds way too much like a sour-grapes MP player who lost because his opponent did something unexpected that he doesn't like, so wants it banned.

This is a meaningless tone argument. Our design philosophy is that we consider exploits to be undesirable, has always been that we consider them undesirable. They're usually not terribly high priority but over time they get fixed. What does calling them cheating or not matter in the slightest?

 

[Wizzington]

It wasn't only used by hordes, as I used it as multiple other tech groups, particularly (early game) western and nations that border hordes early (recruiting horde units was strictly superior until tech 5 and you have better cavalry available even longer). So no, not "literally only hordes", at all. Second, cherry tapping =/= exploit. Why are devs deliberately removing cherry tapping strategies?

Exploit is defined as "stuff that we changed" right now, because there's no apparently consistent basis for what gets determined as one versus what does not. You never heard of native ships as an exploit...but they still removed it after people used it to get strong positions in the new world early-ish and only after that. There is no logically consistent argument for that change which is why no argument at all was ever given. However, the most probable conclusion is that it was considered "exploitative" for Aztec to stack 20-25 heavies and sink European fleets. Wiz himself said it isn't the realism angle, so presumably it fell under "balance change" or "exploit"...I guess?

Exploit is defined by by me and Johan defining it as an exploit. We have the ability to do that because we make the game design and can make the call on what is and isn't WAD.

 

[Wizzington]

If this was an exploit previously why was the AI given a diplomat to balance against it without it having been changed or addressed until now? You don't balance a game around an exploit, unless it's only an exploit now because he says so.

So, it's an exploit, it is because Wiz says so, an exploit is what he says so and that's how this works... and this is arbitrary. You can all be right, and maybe all be wrong.

AI was not given a diplomat to balance against this. AI was given a diplomat because it only 'ticks' about twice a month so it can't recall and send out diplomats when it needs to do one-off actions. It isn't like we're gonna stop the player from recalling a diplomat mid improve relations and using it for something else, it just won't go any faster by sending and resending.

As for why it wasn't fixed until now... because it wasn't a high priority issue to fix. Most exploits aren't.

 

[Wizzington]

Small independent nations are actually significantly buffed in income and forcelimits in 1.12 - but that has absolutely nothing to do with fixing this exploit.