Trade Agreement - yet competition continues

[Owen]

Originally posted by 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.

Sorry BiB, I'm completely with Daniel on this one.

No-one denies that TAs are bugged:

quote
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by BiB
The TA system is bugged.
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(Daniel A)
Yes we all know that BiB. However my definition consisted of several criteria of which being a bug was only one

(Sorry if the quoting looks strange).

To fully ensure we are not arguing about different things, I will describe the bug as follows: Trade agreements do not fully work as advertised. The player can sometimes remove merchants of countries with whom he has a trade agreement. The ai may also do the same to the human player. Please say if you don't believe this second part to be the case.

The discussion is whether taking out lots of trade agreements is exploiting this bug or not.

Something else we all agree on is that trade agreements en masse are relatively easy to generate and can provide huge amounts of cash to player nations. The human player is better at this than the ai for several reasons. 1. The human usually has a better knowledge of the map and so can see more CoTs and more nations. 2. The human has considerably better trade tech and so has higher trade efficiency. The trade tech advantage can also be used to drive other nations into TAs. 3. The ai does not carry out mass TAs itself systematically, though several nations, such as Venice, Malacca and Novgorod do sign many TAs.

Mass TAs are what you describe as "this great way to use TAs to great effect," and I believe we are all agreed that this is not how trade agreements were intended by the game designers. However, your statement is that this process takes advantage of the TA bug, not that using the in-game design of TAs is itself an exploit, which is another issue entirely.

So the issue boils down to two things 1. Does having any trade agreement at all exploit this bug? 2. Does taking out trade agreements with the whole of the known world exploit this bug.

Dealing with number 1 quickly, as it is trivial:
If I only intend to take out a TA to make sure I maintain good relations, then the bug is not in my favour as relations will decrease when I don't want them to. Alternatively, if I take out a trade agreement with a nearby country who is regularly competing me out of my CoT, then the bug is not in my favour as they most likely have better or equal trade tech, and so they can compete me out as well. I can think of no other reason for a small number of trade agreements, and this is not the point you are arguing in any case.

Number 2, I have TAs with everybody:
In this case I'm going to carry out a thought experiment.

Control case: I have trade agreements with every nation, but TAs still don't work properly. Even if the other countries mostly go after each other, they may occasionally catch me and I will not be always able to maintain 5 merchants in each CoT despite the TAs. I will of course sometimes be able to kick out other merchants who I shouldn't be able to touch, but they can do the same to me.

Second case, the bug does not exist, and TAs work as advertised. Firstly I can ensure that I maintain 5 merchants in every CoT I know of with no additional cost. However, since the AI does not use this tactic, I can rapidly reach and maintain 6 merchants in every CoT by taking advantage of ai nations using their merchants to remove others from a monopoly. No-one can remove me from a monopoly as they will have a TA with me, and TAs now work.

Comparison of the two cases shows that the use of mass trade agreements would be even more powerful without the bug. Therefore they do not exploit this bug.

I will not argue whether mass trade agreements are an exploit because I know the (firm) positions of Daniel A and BiB on this one, neither of which I quite agree with. See Cat Lord's thread in the bug forum if you want to find out what I think should be done about Trade Agreements.

Why did I write all of this? Maybe I'm bored at work.

In the next post, which will be shorter and punchier and easier to read, I'll make a guess at what's happening. I'd be interested to know if I'm right.

 

[Owen]

So on a shorter note, is this what's happening in the bug?

1. Player or ai decides to send merchant. They can because either there is a merchant in the CoT who they don't have a trade agreement with, or there is a space in the CoT at the time of the merchant being sent (necessary if you have a TA with the known world). The success or failure of the merchant is stored in memory and hence the save file.

2. A month later the merchant arrives. If successful, it fills a space if there is one. If there isn't, it competes out a merchant of another country. If, by now, all the other merchants are from countries that the sender has a TA with, then one of them just has to go.

Note: I am ignoring the separate bug where you can sometimes only send a limited number of merchants even when you have the merchants to send and there is space in the CoT or non-TA merchants to compete out. I assume this is unrelated but don't know.

See I can keep a post under 1000 characters if I try...

 

[Castellon]

Originally posted by Eddie Teach
This is a much more conservative definition of an exploit than Bib normally uses, but I digress.

It was not BiB's Definition, BiB was using Daniel A's Definition.

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.

We are discussing the second part though!

 

[BiB]

Inderdeed, the bug u reason on is another matter altogether ...

 

[unmerged(9994)]

What do you mean by 2d part? There were several statements there that had two or more parts, and there was not a single thesis for my thread.

There was an argument earlier that trade agreements were a win/win situation. I figure that that is still apropos in a discussion of whether the tactic is an exploit, even if it does not deal directly with the issue of the bug in game mechanics.

 

[unmerged(9994)]

Originally posted by BiB
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.

Which brings up both the question if using the tactic is using the bug for effect, and if the tactic works in your favor. Perhaps most of us have already decided the tactic is helpful to the human player, but the issue is still an integral part of this argument.

 

[Castellon]

Originally posted by Eddie Teach
What do you mean by 2d part? There were several statements there that had two or more parts, and there was not a single thesis for my thread.

There was an argument earlier that trade agreements were a win/win situation. I figure that that is still apropos in a discussion of whether the tactic is an exploit, even if it does not deal directly with the issue of the bug in game mechanics.

What we were discussing was about TAs with every nation. Not just a few TAs.

 

[BiB]

Originally posted by Castellon


What we were discussing was about TAs with every nation. Not just a few TAs.

On top of that TAs that can be obtained and retained in virtual every situation, no matter how silly, to the detriment of the ai not the player, ...

 

[unmerged(9994)]

Originally posted by Castellon


What we were discussing was about TAs with every nation. Not just a few TAs.

Well that scenario was put there for comparison, i.e. having trade agreements with a couple countries helps both human and AI participant, while having trade agreements with everyone only helps the human.

 

[Nikolai II]

Originally posted by Eddie Teach


Well that scenario was put there for comparison, i.e. having trade agreements with a couple countries helps both human and AI participant, while having trade agreements with everyone only helps the human.

And TA:s with everyone is what Daniel A advocates.

 

[unmerged(6147)]

Originally posted by Castellon


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

Yes so do I, but what is the relevance of that on this topic?

You did neither have 100.000 men armies in Europe around the year 1550 nor have a TA with everyone. I fail to understand your point.

Mine however, is very easy to understand
- the game is filled with antihistoric dimensions. Regarding all of these different things you enumerate above I guess although I am not sure what you mean by "historical rule"; as an example of "tactic" you can point at a large all cavalry army in England in the 15th century or the preknowledge of the map which makes you send explorers in the right directions; as an example of general principles you could e.g. say that a governor did not reduce inflation in those days by 1% (if that is a "principle"), as to outcome the game itself is an excercise in alternative history but on that point we agrre if I understand you correctly.

- this means that if you claim that you should not use a game feature because it is unhistorical

- it leads to the conclusion that there exists very very many hindrances to your freedom of play

************************************************
So many that I doubt anyone are presently applying the principle of playing historical, although I do not doubt that there are several who try to do something in that direction
************************************************

It would be very unhappy if it became a general attitude that anything unhistorical (except the outcome) would be to exploit the game; for the simple reason that it would remove much of the joy in the game

 

[unmerged(6147)]

Hi folks!

I am back again. During the weekend I could not post anything. The forum denied me that. Had to do with a change of emailadress I inserted into my profile. You then get a return email that I did not read at first. It contained a link I had to click on to enable the new address!

Item 1. What are we discussing? Well BiB and I are discussing whether the present buginess of TA makes it an exploit to use them. We are _not_ discussing whether massive TA is a bug in itself.

Item 2. OK BiB, I give up, I will never be able to have you explain your position. It is fantastic that you either fail to understand what I ask from you or that you have the discourtesy of just refusing to do it.

The reason I wanted you to do it was, as I have stated, that I was unsure of the complete bug situation. Humble as I am, until I am sure of something, I said to myself that I wanted to hear my opponent's position to see if there was anything I was unaware of. You have deprived me of that information. I will now discuss this question as if I knew all about the bug.

But first let me say thank you to you Owen who showed it was not impossible to describe how YOU believed the bug was.

In all of my GCs I go for massive TA and I play a lot. If I may guess you BiB have never had a TA with every nation in the world so in fact you know nothing from personal experience but I do, a lot. Indeed I was the one who provided Andrew T with a save file back in March (I believe it was) that presented the problem clearly. Andrew thanked me for that but strangely the bug is still not corrected. Appears to be simple to solve once you have a save file.

As I see it the bug is indeed as you describe Owen. I can sometimes compete away a foreign merchant although we have TA and sometimes I get kicked away myself. The former reveals itself to the player in this way: Sometimes the Send Merchant button is greyed as it should be, sometimes it is not although I have a TA with every one.

So does this work to my favour? Note BiB that you have claimed it works "enormously" in the favour of the player although you have never specified how.

I assume that firstly the chance that you have an opportunity to send a merchant where you shouldn't have must exist more often than that the same situation exists for the AI. Otherwise it does not seem to be at all in favour of the player. But of this we do not know anything at all. Already at this point the defence could let the case rest.

But let us for once assume that it indeed is happening more often for the player than it is for the AI. Let us assume that it happens enormously more often As I see it I am very kind to you here BiB, trying to the utmost to save your position

Does this mean the bug works in the favour of the player? Well it means I have to spend money sending merchants, money I would not need to spend if the bug was not there. While the AI would still pay for his merchants, and compete out merchants from nations with whom it has no TA. Thus, in this respect the bug does not work in my favour, it works against it.

But, you may say, perhaps this buginess means you can reach 5/6 merchants in almost every COT, and that you could not do if the bug did not exist!

Well, exactly this was the situation in my first GC where I used the massive TA strategy. When I was not yet alert to the fact they were bugged. I believed they worked and thus I had to “sneak” in my TA's.

Assume we have a COT with four competitors one of which is you. Then you make a TA with say 3 of them. After that you send a merchant, wait until he is in and you have your 6th slot. Then you TA with the 4th. Now you are safe as long as no new nations occur and or perhaps very unlucky you get kicked out by a merchant on it’s way from this fourth nation (I don’t know if that really can happen), I just try to be as honest as possible in my analysis of the situation.

In practice this tactic is used

1. Relatively early in the game in less well known COTs with few and stable nations, like Zapotecas and Benin
2. In the end when you go in for the last TA's with European/Asian nations

Perhaps this sneak tactic will not succeed in every case but in most you will. Which is exactly the same situation I am in now with the bugged TA's.

***************************************************
In toto: if the TA feature was working as it should I would still be able to get 5/6 merchants in every COT and I would get it for LESS money.
***************************************************

This is my main point and one that I have been ready to present for something like one month now (when our first "debate" on this matter “started"). However, you have never, although I constantly asked for it, presented how you believe them to be bugged and therefore we have never reached this stage of the debate and therefore I have to assume that you perceive the bug as I do.

It will be very interesting to see how you will be able to defend your position that the bug works in the favour of the player, not to speak of proving it works “enormously” in favour of him. But I be generous and release you from that latter plight. Let us say it was an unlucky choice of wording you made while being exalted.

 

[Castellon]

Unfortuanately once again you misunderstand what I am saying.

It would be very unhappy if it became a general attitude that anything unhistorical (except the outcome) would be to exploit the game; for the simple reason that it would remove much of the joy in the game

As for this part why do you care!
Just because I think something is an exploit it does not stop you from using it and thinking what ever you like about wether it is an exploit. For that matter it does not stop me using it even if I consider it an exploit.

 

[BiB]

Originally posted by BiB
Inderdeed, the bug u reason on is another matter altogether ...

And again.

 

[unmerged(6147)]

Originally posted by Castellon
Unfortuanately once again you misunderstand what I am saying.

Nikolai II wrote

On the other hand I'm beginning to lean towards considering mass embargoes an exploit as well, seeing the $$$ I'm raking in in my current (WC) game.


Castellon wrote in response
Just ”beginning” to.


Cat Lord wrote:
”I don't think mass-TA nor mass-TE are an exploit. Especially when you know that breaking trade agreement afterward cost you stab. And TE gives CB. ….”

Castellon wrote in response

”Hmm! think about why you do it then.
Is it historical at all…”
A DP switch takes 10 years and a stability hit to make a minor change.
Yet you start off nuetral then go to the extreme of having a trade agreement with every nation then the other extreme of refusing trade with everyone.
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.

I cannot understand this in another way than that you claim claim mass TA/TE being an exploit because it is unhistorical. An attitude which I have been arguing against.

If someone misunderstands you I believe it is advisable to say how.

Originally posted by Castellon

As for this part why do you care!
Just because I think something is an exploit it does not stop you from using it and thinking what ever you like about wether it is an exploit. For that matter it does not stop me using it even if I consider it an exploit.

Exactly because of the reason I mentioned. If your view became dominant I believe the enjoyment of the game would diminish and I believe this wonderful game does not deserve that.

If you were to coin the expression a little bit different than "exploit" it would be better.

But someone else once put this much better than I am able to. See this thread

Endless Trade agreements

and read TotalLoss' "speech" on this subject near bottom of the first page.

 

[BiB]

Endless TAs are an exploit just like the manufactory holiday was. People found a way to abuse sommink in the game and make it work unlike it was supposed to, to their great advantage. Some people chose to actively abuse that bug to their advantage and thus were exploiting the game. I don't agree with ur historicity reasoning but the thing is that it shouldn't even enter this discussion. Endless TAs are sommink in the game that isn't working as designed and needs fixing (aka a bug), abusing it works to ur advantage (been dubbed superior tactics) and u can quite easily not do it. That makes doing it exploiting the game. Nothing more, nothing less. Then again, even after it got fixed there were still people who claimed the manufactory holiday wasn't an exploit ...

 

[unmerged(6147)]

Originally posted by BiB


And again.

Is this all you can come up with?

It is very clear what the two of us has been discussing for some posts back. It is whether the definition I suggested of what an exploit is fits the current bugged TA situation, and it has boiled down to the question: does the buginess of TA work in the favour of the player or not? You have stated it does, several times, and I do not agree on that (and also believe that to be an exploit the degree of favour must be more than slight).

Presupposing my definition of what the bug consists of is correct I have with great detail shown that my position in the discussion is the correct one.

Considering all that has taken place between the two of us during the last month in discussions about TA and correct behaviour, including you giving me a pink card, I believe it now behooves you to

a) claim the bug is not as I have described it

or

b) point at some error in my line of logic/facts

or

c) throw in the towel

But if I may guess you have never ever admitted of being wrong in your whole life, it does not appear to be your style.

 

[Owen]

Originally posted by BiB
Endless TAs are an exploit just like the manufactory holiday was. People found a way to abuse sommink in the game and make it work unlike it was supposed to, to their great advantage. Some people chose to actively abuse that bug to their advantage and thus were exploiting the game. I don't agree with ur historicity reasoning but the thing is that it shouldn't even enter this discussion. Endless TAs are sommink in the game that isn't working as designed and needs fixing (aka a bug), abusing it works to ur advantage (been dubbed superior tactics) and u can quite easily not do it. That makes doing it exploiting the game. Nothing more, nothing less. Then again, even after it got fixed there were still people who claimed the manufactory holiday wasn't an exploit ...

Aha. I think we might have the crux of the problem.

BiB's view of Trade Agreements is that they should not be used because they are bugged. However, this thread began with a discussion of the bug that enables the human and AI to sometimes compete out people with whom they have trade agreements, and I was sure that BiB believed this favoured the human player and so using it was an exploit.

It now transpires that we have been discussing an entirely different bug, where TAs should be time limited and/or should be cancelled by certain game events. These are both things I agree with, particularly the latter.

Apologies for my confusion, which I hope you realise was entirely understandable.

My new question is therefore this: Were trade agreements always supposed to work in this way, or were they only supposed to work in this way when Paradox realised the way in which they were originally designed could be used in an ahistoric way by the knowledgeable player?

Owen

 

[unmerged(6147)]

Originally posted by BiB
Endless TAs are an exploit just like the manufactory holiday was. People found a way to abuse sommink in the game and make it work unlike it was supposed to, to their great advantage. Some people chose to actively abuse that bug to their advantage and thus were exploiting the game. I don't agree with ur historicity reasoning but the thing is that it shouldn't even enter this discussion. Endless TAs are sommink in the game that isn't working as designed and needs fixing (aka a bug), abusing it works to ur advantage (been dubbed superior tactics) and u can quite easily not do it. That makes doing it exploiting the game. Nothing more, nothing less. Then again, even after it got fixed there were still people who claimed the manufactory holiday wasn't an exploit ...

This post of yours was written and inserted while I was writing the post displayed after it. Therefore the exchange of views may appear a little distorted.

In this post you appear to claim that the TA buginess you are referring to is not the one I described. For the first time we can now see that you believe it is (also) bugged because you are able to make massive TA. It is in a way funny that you have not explained this clearly until now. But mostly it is sad. If this is what you have meant all the time why haven't you said so when I again and again have asked you to explain what you think is buggy. And don't respond with "I have done that time and again". Give us a link so we can see where you have stated it. I have never understood this was your position.

As I understand you your logic is:

"It was not intended that you should be able to make TA with the whole world and since you can do it it is therefore a bug.

If this is true then the intention of Paradox must have been to insert some kind of cap to the number of TA you could make and that Johan or someone else blundered. I have never heard anything about that before. It would have been easy to fix during any patch since the fact you can make massive TA has been well-known for quite a while and hence, until you have explained how you know this to be true, I assume this is not what you mean.

But perhaps what you try to say is that Paradox did not understand that this massive TA could happen and now that they see what has happened they say: oh, even in our wildest dreams we didn't realise that this was possible. The players have found a hole in the system. This is a BUG!

But how could they? If you give the players a possibility to TA or TE another country of course they could do it with every nation in the game. It takes a chimpanzee to understand this and I refuse to believe Paradox workers are at that level, on the contrary would be my guess.

But what may have happened is that now when they see this tactic so widely used and so succesful they reconsider the problem and say: hey, although we of course understood it was theoretically possible to make a TA with everyone we didn't think players really would adopt this tactic and it is just too good, makes the game too easy, we must stop this, we must change the system and insert a cap!

Well, that is not fixing a bug, it is developing the system. A distinction which is made all around the world on a daily basis in the computer programming industry.

I believe this covers the possibilities both of interpreting your position and structuring the differences between bugs and changes.

 

[BiB]

Originally posted by Daniel A
"Item 1. What are we discussing? Well BiB and I are discussing whether the present buginess of TA makes it an exploit to use them. We are _not_ discussing whether massive TA is a bug in itself. "

Well, that's just wrong.

U keep arguing against a point that isn't mine but that u suppose to be mine. I know that's considerably easier but, well, it misses the point.

All I've been arguing is that the endless TAs tactic is an exploit. Well, thanx to the definition of what constitutes an exploit given by u that has been remarkably easy to accomplish.

Now, I can understand Owen could have misunderstood our discussion here as being about the first post in this thread (to be fair the thread was hijacked along the way), but u? We've had this discussion about whether endless TAs are an exploit or not dozens of times before and seeing u refer to old threads (actually called "Endless Trade Agreements") and points over and over again in this thread I figured it was fair to assume we were again. I wouldn't have posted in this thread if it were all about the initial post. I posted because it became the old endless TA debate again. Which has been my point all along and I thought urs too, well, untill this thread seemingly as ur on about sommink else entirely now.

Also as an addendum when I dubbed the endless TA tactic as "superior tactics" I was quoting u. So unless u have changed ur mind dramatically they are more than a "slight" advantage which u now claim they are? All u have shown to great detail is that u have trouble refuting my quite easily summed up claim, which hasn't changed an ounce really apart from being nicely helped along with ur own definition of what constitutes an exploit, no matter what angle u try to corner ur point in.

In response to Owen, I compared to the manufactory holiday as comparable earlier. Well, that wasn't an issue or bug at first either because noone knew. It was deemed to work right (while it wasn't) till someone came up with a well thought out technique (quite clever really) that uncovered the bug. Still it had been there all along. Now, Daniel A, if it was him who found it, I can't remember, just that he defends it al all points, pointed out the bug with TAs with the endless TA technique. Still it has been there all along but now that it has been uncovered it can be fixed.

Just like there are other features that now prove to not work correctly and are broken. For example being able to get cores of ur nation that u not control from a nation because u have 100% against a one province nation taht is allied with it is also a bug that was there all along, a feature gone wrong, but only became uncovered when someone posted he had found that technique. Still it is a bug and using it to ur advantage is exploiting the game. Just like endless TAs is. And other things and I'm xure more things will be found like that.