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Innoble 
Wordsmith
Joined: 06 Dec 2011
Status: Offline
Points: 141
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 Topic: Getting diplo points
Posted: 03 Jan 2012 at 09:57 |
So if rank is meaningless, an exploit like this shouldn't be fixed? Isn't it meaningless *because* exploits exist? If the exploits would be fixed, it would cease being meaninless, or at least have a bit more meaning. The diplo points having an economic cost attached would give it more meaning. Right now they barely do if you use the exploit I mentioned.
If It was expensive to do diplo attacks, people wouldn't waste their diplo's on bad targets (like themselves or their allies). They would make more of an effort to find targets that actually gain them something by stealing. Now with the 1 diplo attack method, there is no reason to, if you want points.
EDIT: not to mention the possible server lag this exploit causes. How does the server like it if dozens of people start to send diplo units 1 by 1...
Edited by Innoble - 03 Jan 2012 at 10:00
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Nokigon
Postmaster General
Player Council - Historian
Joined: 07 Nov 2010
Status: Offline
Points: 1452
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Posted: 03 Jan 2012 at 09:47 |
You three seem to be missing the really important thing, although I think Creat brushed over this. THE RANKING SCORE IS MEANINGLESS. It has no bearing on the game. If you really want to send your thieves at an inactive village a million times to get yourself to No.1, then as Creat said you've really just wasted your time (plus your social life) getting to a spot that has no real meaning except for bragging rights- and if you have gotten to No.1 through an 'exploit', then there is no real right for you to have said bragging rights. My two pence.
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Innoble
Wordsmith
Joined: 06 Dec 2011
Status: Offline
Points: 141
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Posted: 03 Jan 2012 at 07:49 |
Right, I am fairly new, only started end of july (27th I think). So been around for less than half a year. I'll make a post in the attack thread after I bring my daughter to school
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Rill
Postmaster General
Player Council - Geographer
Joined: 17 Jun 2011
Location: California
Status: Offline
Points: 6903
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Posted: 03 Jan 2012 at 01:39 |
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I don't think Innoble was around for the NPC tournament.
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Createure
Postmaster General
Joined: 07 Apr 2010
Location: uk
Status: Offline
Points: 1191
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Posted: 03 Jan 2012 at 01:10 |
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Well I guess my point was that I see attack as pretty similar to diplo which is the topic of the thread - and since most people have no problem with grinding attack I don't mind people grinding diplo.
You say I do not fully appreciate the intricacies of NPC hunting - I say I don't see your name in the top 10 ranking from the NPC hunting tournament.
Perhaps you are right, though, who am I to judge? This one really is all just my own personal bias and speculation, so I'll get outta your hair now. ^^
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Innoble
Wordsmith
Joined: 06 Dec 2011
Status: Offline
Points: 141
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Posted: 03 Jan 2012 at 01:01 |
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It's not that simple and while your method has some of the traits of an efficient way to get attack score, it misses some key points, but I don't really want to start a discussion about attacking in this thread. If you want, open a thread that is about that. But you made it clear you're not interested.
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Createure
Postmaster General
Joined: 07 Apr 2010
Location: uk
Status: Offline
Points: 1191
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Posted: 03 Jan 2012 at 00:52 |
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You're talking about this mystical ability to kill NPCs effciently when really there is none.
It is simple: Use T2 cav commander (max charge/heroism) + 64 T2 cavs - have 5 of these armies per city and spam them out to any NPCs on plains that are in small groups (smaller than gathering) and perferencing weak NPCs like wild dogs/wolves.
Essentially there is nothing more to it than that... if you want to take down bigger groups you can combine the armies, so 5 commanders with 320 troops split evenly into 5 divisions.
If you are trying to tell me that players who bother doing this several times a day to gain score are particularly skillful compared to players who are not bothered about rank then I disagree with you.
Really I think the only real record of particular skill in NPC hunting is displayed in the results of the Second Tourny - but even that I consider to have been more of a grind than of real skill.
Not that I begrudge people who want to farm attack scores, that is up to them, but equally I am not bothered with people farming diplo score in an equally tedious manner - that is their choice.
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Innoble
Wordsmith
Joined: 06 Dec 2011
Status: Offline
Points: 141
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Posted: 02 Jan 2012 at 23:06 |
 Rill wrote:
Even if scores in trade, diplomacy and magic were not so easy to manipulate, it's worthwhile to note that Illy as a game is much less obsessed with score and rank than are most strategy games. People in Illy often have different goals that have little to do with score.
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I totally agree. However, I still think we should try to remove any chances for possible abuse wherever we can though. That way the rank can mean more than it does now. Even in this great game there are many who like climbing some kind of ladder, even if there are less players like that than in other games. This diplo defense thing is a pretty big abuse and can easily make your score go up 20 times as fast for the same investment. It lessens the fun for me knowing that this way is the easiest way to gain diplo rank. I would like it much better if you had to send larger number of thieves/agents and actually beat the defense with a possible, serious loss (as opposed to losing 1 unit for 30 points!). The one who is at the top of the ranks will be the one who can most easily click 1000 times a day to send 1 agent each.
It really is not hard to fix. Just set diplo defense scores to 0 and its fixed.... why would there have to be a diplo defense score anyway, you can't lose diplo units when defending. Not like you do when defending against an army.
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Innoble
Wordsmith
Joined: 06 Dec 2011
Status: Offline
Points: 141
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Posted: 02 Jan 2012 at 22:44 |
Createure wrote:
There is nothing skillful about raising attack score by grinding NPCs - mostly everyone knows the most efficient ways to kill NPCs - there's nothing special about you there, just most people are really not bothered with doing so for the sake of some points which aren't going to save your skin in a real fight or help you win a tournament.
Each to their own I guess. Good luck with that.
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You'd be surprised about this. Very few people actually understand the most efficient way to kill NPCs. I haven't talked to any yet anyway. Maybe some guys in the top 20 do, probably Boromir. I think most of them just ram their armies into a seemingly easy to kill NPC camp on a seemingly right sort of terrain. It works most of the time, even if they lose 2-4 times more troops than they have to.
I wrote an excel attack calculator that is 100% accurate on predicting casualties on plains (and close on most other terrain). From that calculator I noticed a lot of things about attacking noone seems to know, even the high ranked players... Some guys in my alliance who are serious about attacking (NPCs) use it.
Maybe if i have time I will write a good guide about attacking.
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Rill
Postmaster General
Player Council - Geographer
Joined: 17 Jun 2011
Location: California
Status: Offline
Points: 6903
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Posted: 02 Jan 2012 at 21:52 |
Thieving from yourself is allowed and of course can be used to inflate diplo score. There is of course also the risk that the mission will fail and you will lose all your thieves. (Even if the town is undefended -- see the current suggestions thread for more on that.)
Even if scores in trade, diplomacy and magic were not so easy to manipulate, it's worthwhile to note that Illy as a game is much less obsessed with score and rank than are most strategy games. People in Illy often have different goals that have little to do with score. I think this might be independent of the fact that scores are so easily manipulated, but it's hard to know.
Disclaimer: I achieved my current diplo score of 10 points by scouting myself. I was mostly curious about how it worked and did not intend to artificially inflate my score. My 15 scouts checked out my smaller town with 3 scouts and not only were they captured, they gave up my name under interrogation.
Needless to say, I've changed the training program at my consulate.
Edited by Rill - 02 Jan 2012 at 21:55
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Getting diplo points