Trade Agreement - yet competition continues

[Castellon]

Like I said I am not telling you not to do it. Just that I consider it an exploit. If you do not, and want to try and justify it to yourself go ahead and do that as well. I will not change your mind for you!
I am not sitting on a high horse declaring you cannot use exploits, I use them myself when I consider it more fun to do so. But I am honest with myself.
Most of the time.

 

[unmerged(6147)]

Originally posted by Castellon
Is it historical at all.
The TA and embargo were not designed to be used en mass.
I am not saying not to use them if you like, just don't lie to yourself and say it is not an exploit.

Castellon!

The "historical argument" is is one of the least attractive theoretical foundations for claiming something is an exploit. This game is full of antihistorical dimensions. If you claim that anything not historical is an exploit I believe the concept of exploit looses its meaning.

You know where there is land - to send explorers/conquistadors to those place where you know they will find something worthful is clearly unhistorical.

To invest in infra to get Steampower in the 17th century is unhistorical.

To have armies of 100.000 in the 16th century, or even in the 17th century (don't think they existed before the War of the Spanish Succession) is not historical.

I could keep on giving 100's of examples, as could you.

I also believe there are exploits in this game but do not prefer to base them on the theoretical foundation that they are unhistorical. Were I not allowed to play unhistorically I would have to play exactly as my country behaved in reality and that would indeed be a dull game! The main criterion I have found reasonable so far is

1. It is an exploit if you intentionally use a current bug which works in your favour and which you conveniently could avoid

 

[BiB]

The TA system is bugged.

 

[unmerged(6147)]

Originally posted by BiB
The TA system is bugged.

Yes we all know that BiB. However my definition consisted of several criteria of which being a bug was only one

 

[BiB]

It also works in ur favour and u can avoid it.

 

[Castellon]

Originally posted by Daniel A


Castellon!

The "historical argument" is is one of the least attractive theoretical foundations for claiming something is an exploit. This game is full of antihistorical dimensions. If you claim that anything not historical is an exploit I believe the concept of exploit looses its meaning.

You know where there is land - to send explorers/conquistadors to those place where you know they will find something worthful is clearly unhistorical.

To invest in infra to get Steampower in the 17th century is unhistorical.

To have armies of 100.000 in the 16th century, or even in the 17th century (don't think they existed before the War of the Spanish Succession) is not historical.

I could keep on giving 100's of examples, as could you.

I also believe there are exploits in this game but do not prefer to base them on the theoretical foundation that they are unhistorical. Were I not allowed to play unhistorically I would have to play exactly as my country behaved in reality and that would indeed be a dull game! The main criterion I have found reasonable so far is

1. It is an exploit if you intentionally use a current bug which works in your favour and which you conveniently could avoid

I think I would make a distinction between Historical rules/tactics/general principles, and Historical outcomes.

 

[unmerged(9994)]

I think it is a bit exploitive to TA everybody if that allows you a quarter of the world's trade without effort. I tend to just TA COT owners and depend on having a better trade rating to keep my merchants. Before someone claims this is also an exploit, let me point out that some AI countries pursue this strategy too(notably Novgorod). One shouldn't be able to control 1/4 of the known world's trade unless he's either enormous or has really clever traders.

 

[Castellon]

Originally posted by Eddie Teach
I think it is a bit exploitive to TA everybody if that allows you a quarter of the world's trade without effort. I tend to just TA COT owners and depend on having a better trade rating to keep my merchants. Before someone claims this is also an exploit, let me point out that some AI countries pursue this strategy too(notably Novgorod). One shouldn't be able to control 1/4 of the known world's trade unless he's either enormous or has really clever traders.

No exploit as far as I am concerned, sounds like a reasonable approach.

 

[Cat Lord]

Re: WC and trade embargoes

Originally posted by Owen
Perhaps the mercantile/free trade slider should give absolute limits on proportions of countries given trade agreements or embargoes.

Now, that's a hell of an interesting suggestion, but I don't think it will be ever developped, as it does sounds like just "bug fixing"...

OTOH, BiB said TA were buggy

Cat

 

[unmerged(9994)]

That's a good idea. Mercantilist nations can be allowed to embargo more, and free trade nations to make more agreements.

 

[Castellon]

Originally posted by Eddie Teach
That's a good idea. Mercantilist nations can be allowed to embargo more, and free trade nations to make more agreements.

Yes this sounds like a good solution to the problem.

 

[unmerged(6147)]

Originally posted by BiB
It also works in ur favour and u can avoid it.

Perhaps this time you will become more specific We have never reached the inner kernel of this question since previously you always just said something "If you don't understand why, I ain't going to tell you". Since man should never give up hope of his brother I now ask you: how does it work in your favour and if it does: is it much/little in your favour (in a previous "discussion" you claimed it was enormous).

When you present your _arguments_ clearly and understandable instead of just presenting your _conclusions_ it will be a good time for continuing the debate. Of course I could reply

"it does not"

but that would be to use your way of "discussing" and that is something I try to avoid in life.

As I have said earlier. I am prepared to listen to your arguments. Maybe you are right and I am wrong. However, we have never come that far since you always have declined to present how you reached your conclusion.

Perhaps you will delete this post as you deleted the previous one where we were in a similar position. But perhaps a few readers has time to read it and then something good comes out of this post after all.

Be assured: every time you make this kind of frugal post in response to me on this matter I will be there telling you how I believe you should write, i.e. you should _argue_ rather than just presenting your conclusions. I will never give up the fight for having intellectually honest discussions between equals, rather than having conclusions presented as truths thrown by one participant right in the face of the other.

I suggest that if you are not ready to defend your position in an open and honest debate you refrain from posting.

 

[BiB]

I already explained quite a bit about this in previous threads concerning this and u know I did. Still, I'll try again, this time focusing on the matters presented in this thread

"1. It is an exploit if you intentionally use a current bug which works in your favour and which you conveniently could avoid" - Daniel A

For starters, it is currently bugged. It isn't working as designed and it needs fixing. Now the fact u can't help telling about this great way to use TAs to great effect means it's quite working in ur favour, I would think. On top of that, it can easily be avoided by the player.

So, u do know it is bugged, u intentionally use the bug to ur favour and chose to not take advantage of the conveniency with which it can be avoided. According to ur own definition that makes it an exploit.

 

[Cat Lord]

Originally posted by BiB
For starters, it is currently bugged. It isn't working as designed and it needs fixing.

For what it worths, I have open a new thread in the Bug forum with Owen's suggestion to resolve it.

Cat

 

[unmerged(6147)]

Originally posted by BiB
I already explained quite a bit about this in previous threads concerning this and u know I did. Still, I'll try again, this time focusing on the matters presented in this thread

"1. It is an exploit if you intentionally use a current bug which works in your favour and which you conveniently could avoid" - Daniel A

For starters, it is currently bugged. It isn't working as designed and it needs fixing. Now the fact u can't help telling about this great way to use TAs to great effect means it's quite working in ur favour, I would think. On top of that, it can easily be avoided by the player.

So, u do know it is bugged, u intentionally use the bug to ur favour and chose to not take advantage of the conveniency with which it can be avoided. According to ur own definition that makes it an exploit.

Bib! I am sorry to say you failed in this attempt to explain your line of reasoning (an attempt which is similar to one I saw made by you earlier, perhaps it was in a private PM or in any of those threads were this has been up to discussion).

To be able to judge whether TA is bugged and if that bug works in your favour we must know two things

1. How it was intended to work
2. How it in reality works

You have specified neither. You just "say" it is bugged and needs fixing.

When you have specified that we can go on with the discussion and analyse

1. If the bug works in favour of the player (it may be that it is not the bug initself that works in your favour but instead the fact that you do massive TA, but that is another question outside the one we are presently discussing)

2. If the degree it works in the favour of the player is enough for us claiming it is an exploit to use it. Although I wasn't specific about this I think that if the degree is very small it would be sad not to use a nice feature of the game just because of that. Hence I would not call it an exploit, it's merely unlucky for the fairness of the game. It's a little bit similar to the current BB mechanism which is a little bugged, instead of decreasing 1 BB point every 8 years it decreases 1p every 6th year. Well, that does not inhibit us from breaking the BB-wall of 35p, we still do it and we do not call it an exploit. Or say that the RM mechanism was bugged so that a RM lasted 21 years instead of 20 years. Well, I wouldn't say it was an exploit to RM someone else, just because of that. Anyhow, since you have claimed that TA "are bugged to work enormously in ur favour" ( see
http://www.europa-universalis.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=46669&perpage=25&pagenumber=2
)
this should not be a problem.

I believe it is also relevant to know how Paradox look upon the problem today. Perhaps it doesn't work as intended but perhaps, presupposing they had personnel available to fix "all" bugs", they say something like "Hey, it doesn't work as intended but it seems to work OK. We won't want to alter it.".
I don't claim this is neither the truth nor even probable, I claim it is possible and to be able to claim something is bugged you need to know this also. But a closer inspection of the buginess may reveal facts that make it obvious it is a bug and then we can disregard this possibility.

I am eagerly awaiting a response. This close to really discuss the problem we have never come before.

 

[BiB]

Everything u should need is in this thread already so I will just refer u to it, not to mention earlier threads I stated my case, quite well IMO. It wasn't that hard once u provided that definition, so thanx for that If u really want to think TAs aren't bugged, be my guest but I don't think many will agree, esp considering there are various outstanding bugs concerning them.

 

[Cat Lord]

Originally posted by BiB
there are various outstanding bugs concerning them.

I did not find them in the list of known bug on the bug forum...

Cat

 

[Castellon]

Originally posted by Cat Lord
I did not find them in the list of known bug on the bug forum...

Cat

I assume Bugzilla has a few more than the public bug list.

 

[BiB]

Originally posted by Cat Lord
I did not find them in the list of known bug on the bug forum...

Cat

What Castellon said. The game would be pretty good if the only bugs in the game were in that forum

 

[unmerged(9994)]

This is a much more conservative definition of an exploit than Bib normally uses, but I digress.

I don't know that Trade Agreements are bugged, or if so, how they are bugged and whether that benefits the player. I don't believe they are always a win/win situation.

If you simply TA Novgorod and France the three of you can easily sit and take up all the available slots and fight off the little guys, providing benefits to both parties.

If you TA everybody and their dog, that is not the case. Many countries will not have any trade presence at all, and the ones that do are still competing against each other. This makes it easier for the human player, but doesn't affect the AI players much.