Is this an exploit?

[asleepathewheel]

Is this an exploit?

I'm sure this has been discussed before, but I can't remember it, humor me or ignore me, whatever.

Is it an exploit to use the 512 city limit to your advantage? Razing cities and placing new ones in your homeland in order to prevent the AI from rebuilding?

I would tend to think: Yes.

Counter: If you or the AI razes a city, they immediately build a settler and send it to an open area, thus taking advantage of the same situation. Granted, I doubt they are purposely doing this, thinking "if we raze this city, we can build a new one and they can't rebuild" and instead is really thinking first "raze Hammy's city" then thinks "hey, there are 511 cities, I can build a new one now"

This is the situation:

256x map, pangea

2 supercontinents, 2 spaces inbetween at one point
I have conquered one, and probably have around 200 cities, most are worthless corrupted slumlands. The West features 4 civs, soon to be 1 (1 has one city, the others are failing). There is one massive civ there, the Chinese.

I have about 400 MA's, 150 MI's.
Mao has about 200MI's and ~50MA's and an assortment of others

It would be brutal for me to take him on head on, as I would have to ferry units across the 2 tile channel. I control probably 30 cities on his island, taken from other civs.

I've thought about this creatively (overstatment) and am thinking that after the other civs are dead, we will go to war (after all, the world is at stake). I'm thinking that I could build a lot of settlers, then 1. abandon all of my coastal cities on the island, building new cities on my continent (there is a lot of open jungle)
then 2. use my ROP to attack and burn all of his coastal cities, building more cities on my homeland. I would also abandon most cities on the island, other than those with luxuries that I would garrison with a ton of units.

Thus, he is effectively neutered, he can't retaliate as he has no ports to build transports. He would build a ton of units, but the couldn't do anything. Also, the continent is covered in rail and is so large that he would never be able to place enough spotters (as if the AI could think of that anyway) to spot a landing. I would then rush forward, burn as many cities as possible, planting more on my continent, preventing their rebuilding. Thus whittling down his empire to nothing.

I know this is terribly inefficient, but it seems like something to do rather than continuously battling over the same cities, gaining, then losing. This way, once I take a city, its gone.

Granted, this probably is cheating, as there would be no way the AI could counter or even exploit this for himself..

They could raze a city then place it on the coast, but would they think of that?

Is this wrong of me? Should I just send wave after wave of MA's and RA's at him? Killing untold thousands of good Iriquois men needlessly?

Thanks.

[Jaybe]

I was going to give a stock "In SP it is an exploit only if you feel uncomfortable with it," ...

but upon reading your post I can only say:
If you think you would enjoy that (ahem) technique more than "the fun" of battling it out, go for it.

BTW, how long has this game taken you to play?

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Jaybe
I was going to give a stock "In SP it is an exploit only if you feel uncomfortable with it," ...

but upon reading your post I can only say:
If you think you would enjoy that (ahem) technique more than "the fun" of battling it out, go for it.

BTW, how long has this game taken you to play?

1. how dare you ahem my "technique"

2. The game's taken quite a while, not sure in hours, been working on it a week (20 hrs?). Usually turns don't take that long for me, but this one is taking about 2-3 minutes per turn. Its about 1800ad right now, so if I wanted, I could stretch it out quite a bit longer.

I'm aware this wouldnt' be that rewarding, but I think it would be fun to try it once, and then never again. It's on Monarch, so a "real" victory isn't that meaningful to me.

[Jaybe]

Gizordnik! As you may have seen on an occaisonal post of mine, a standard map game may take me a month or more at 20-30 hours per week. NO Automation or governors permitted.

... at Regent.

At any rate, ENJOY!

[Hurricane]

Originally posted by asleepathewheel
I have about 400 MA's, 150 MI's.
Mao has about 200MI's and ~50MA's and an assortment of others

I think this is the cheat! 400 MA's against his 50! You should build in the same proportions MA's and MI's as the AI. In other words, you should have 450 MI's and 100 MA's!