27-04-2004 03:11									#1
	Licence to print money Increase the size of your Attachments

If you offer a civ X gold per turn but i) you have no gold ii) are running a deficit and iii) have no army costs or improvements costs the recipient civ still gets the gold.

There is a potential huge exploit here, primarily present in the early game. Player A can gift massive amounts of gold but not actually having to pay anything, whilst player B would start to roll in the dough.

I asked about this at CGN and miccofl said when this happened "it gave a pop-up [a declare war prompt] when you push the button to end the turn, it prompts you to go back and make changes. It won't say why you are declaring war but if you will not have the funds [...] you agreed to make payment with then you will get the pop-up. Confused the hell out of me the first time it happened."

I played a hot seat game the other day to test it out. No pop-ups appeared, the gold was not 'given' but was still 'received' between the two human players. Cash used for science and luxuries still went towards them. I presume the feature described by miccofl no longer exists in v1.15 Conquests.

Anyone here know what the dillio is on this issue? I've found in my own testing that this licence for co-operative civs to print money can be very lucrative indeed. Of course most people will accept this as cheating and agree not to use it, but I wanted to raise the question - how well known an issue is this?.

	27-04-2004 03:16									#2
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It sounds like part of the gold bug that was patched. Were a gpt deal paid the civ twice and deducted it once.

	27-04-2004 03:26									#3
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Patched in which version?

The problem does not come in being making the deal, or making a deal that pays twice. It comes from the payments 'to other civs' exceeding your national income.

	27-04-2004 03:29									#4
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Screen shot of what I mean attached.

Research funds are going in, the money is being received by other civs - but the mismatch of income and expenses is not leading to a negative bank account.

Attachment: money.jpg
This has been downloaded 292 time(s).

	27-04-2004 03:34									#5
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LOL! Ironic that you have to be broke to cash in your license to print money.

	27-04-2004 03:43									#6
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Good one!

Fortunately, it seems you can't offer more than 4gpt each time if you don't have a surplus (I tried to offer 10000 gpt and when the other player got the deal, it was showing as 4 gpt).

Also note that the player with the deficit doesn't get his units disbanded because as long as he is under the free support limit, it's not the units that are causing the deficit.

	27-04-2004 03:58									#7
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Conquests

	27-04-2004 04:41									#8
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quote: Originally posted by alexman Good one! Fortunately, it seems you can't offer more than 4gpt each time if you don't have a surplus (I tried to offer 10000 gpt and when the other player got the deal, it was showing as 4 gpt).

You can repeat the action each turn though, so you could conceivably be offering up to 80gpt as minimum.

	27-04-2004 04:44									#9
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opuch - all very sad

wonder what will be found next

	27-04-2004 10:27									#10
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quote: Originally posted by Dauphin You can repeat the action each turn though, so you could conceivably be offering up to 80gpt as minimum.

How does this work, precisely?

	27-04-2004 15:44									#11
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Each turn you go to the diplomacy screen, offer 4gpt and accept. As deals last 20 turns the maximum concurrent 4gpt deals you can have is 20. 20*4=80gpt. You can multiply by another 2 to 160 if you repeat the deal with another civ.


As problems go its not that major, just don't use it.

	28-04-2004 00:28									#12
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quote: Originally posted by Sir Ralph Conquests

Unfortunately (or fortunately?), this is not C3C-specific.
It happens the same in PTW.

	28-04-2004 01:27									#13
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quote: Originally posted by alexman Unfortunately (or fortunately?)

Makes no difference for me, at the moment.

	28-04-2004 02:06									#14
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Well, fortunately, in that it isn't another bug CAUSED by Conquests, unlike the army problem (or lack there of).

	28-04-2004 14:18									#15
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Funny that this wasn't caught before. Damn accountants.

I always assumed units were disbanded, or if under the limit a building was sold.

	28-04-2004 15:25									#16
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The point is there are no units to disband or improvements to sell.


And I have to admit I was thinking "if only they used double entry book-keeping as a basis for programming then this wouldn't be a problem - Every debit has an equal and opposite credit".

	28-04-2004 15:35									#17
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Ah ok, so it does work the way I thought. It's tricky to exploit properly........maybe an extreme settler flood ICS.

	28-04-2004 16:35									#18
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Units do not get disbanded, as long as you are under the free support limit.

	28-04-2004 16:48									#19
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Yeah I realise that........I'm just trying to think how best to exploit this, if one were that way inclined.

	28-04-2004 17:46									#20
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quote: Originally posted by Dauphin Each turn you go to the diplomacy screen, offer 4gpt and accept. As deals last 20 turns the maximum concurrent 4gpt deals you can have is 20. 20*4=80gpt. You can multiply by another 2 to 160 if you repeat the deal with another civ.

Of course!
* MrWhereItsAt slaps his head

Does this work the same way in PBEM/Hotseat as well? There are some small difference IIRC in these types of play. I can't see it being of much use to anyone in an SP game, unless you were preparing for a huge war on a civ, dished out all the gold you could, and then demanded it all back off them as reparations after a successful attack - assuming they couldn't spend it ( Despots or Fascists) and had no other civ to spend it on.

	29-04-2004 01:37									#21
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I've not tried in any PBEMs but it definitely works in hotseat, which is how I confirmed the cash was being received in human-human deals and not just AI-human deals.

This method could easily be used in an early game tech trade, even without the other player knowing if needs be. You could offer any per turn amounts you wanted to compensate for different tech values and you get the tech without losing the per turn amount.

e.g say you wanted alphabet but can only offer pottery, (value difference 80 gold (for sake of argument). You offer pottery and 3gpt - apparently a trade in your opponents favour, except of course that 3gpt isn't coming out of your pocket. You end the deal up by alphabet, them by 60gold and pottery - i.e you end the trade up relatively 20 gold.

	29-04-2004 02:30									#22
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If you research the early Enron tech you can double the fruits of your abuse.

	29-04-2004 04:20									#23
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Research off-balance sheet accounting?

I'm guessing you mean pyramid building and free granaries.

	29-04-2004 06:00									#24
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But seriously, how long can you go on exploiting this until it starts to seriously detract from your development?

	29-04-2004 16:14									#25
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Well for quite a while if you are able to do a nice settler flood for the game in question. On a large map spit settlers and warriors, keeping the unit count below the limit.

	01-05-2004 17:45									#26
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quote: Originally posted by Aqualung71 But seriously, how long can you go on exploiting this until it starts to seriously detract from your development?

Unfortunately in AP it's even more abusable, you can be over unit support and maintain your army size, provided you can crank out at least one warrior a turn. In Quickciv, it's downright broken.

	05-05-2004 03:10									#27
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AP?

	05-05-2004 04:14									#28
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accelerated production?

	05-05-2004 16:38									#29
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Um... right, sure thought THAT acronym was universal. Glad I didn't mention how active-MP was often QC these days....

	05-05-2004 20:09									#30
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I don't play accelerate production so didn't think of AP as its abbreviation.