The Consumer Good Exploit - Part II

[Vulture]

Ok...

Try again here... Talk freely about it here. But as soon as I see someone flame again, it may result in a ban.
I want a purely rational discussion here about possible exploits. Exploiting ain't a crime, but is not really liked among MP players. Even then, this should not result in flaming.

I hope you all understand this. The free-for-all status of this forum ends *NOW*


Thanks for your attention
Vulture
HOI Moderator

 

[unmerged(14249)]

Originally posted by Omni in Australian thread
jgbaxter - While I am in war, I can take 10 dissent down in 2 weeks. I did not have my cg set to 0, but half way. When dissent went up, I took it down, off and on. The fact that it was the same on all saves shows that it was an ongoing strategy, the same with ANY save you check that I played in. There is no such thing as a consumer goods exploit, never has been, never will be.

Clearly, you are doing something unusual with the CG level. But the facts of the mattter seem confusing. If the CG level is set to 50% then why does the save always show it to be zero? If dissent goes up, how do you bring it down again without setting CG to higher than 100%? Are you operating some kind of stop-go economic policy or what? How is it supposed to be better than just leaving the CG level alone?

And is there a formula somewhere which says what is supposed to happen for a given level of CG? I wouldn't expect dissent to rise indefinitely if CG is below need. I'd expect it to plateau at some level depending on the level of the shortfall. But the dissent rise/fall reported by the mouse-over always seems to be constant, depending upon the CG level. Is the relationship documented?

Andrew

 

[unmerged(9612)]

CG reduction

hmmmmm... I'd certainly like to know how one can reduce 10 percent dissent in 2 weeks

With the SU for example prior to war with Germany, the best you can do if you are at war with some minor for example (which is an instant 10 percent dissent if you dow) and set ALL your IC on CG prod you can reduce dissent by 0.1 per day , i.e. 1 percent in 10 days i.e, it take 100 days to reduce by 10 percent.

Personnally I think that producing less than the required number of CG is quite fishy and qualifies as an "exploit" .... This can hardly be called a "strategy"...

There seems to be a way that either CG needs can be minimized without a major ill effect or production can be maximized, but this is clearly exploiting a loophole in the programming. Since normally it takes more IC to reduce dissent than afforded by the IC gain provided by rising dissent due to less CG being produced it would normally make no sense to increase available IC at the cost of increasing dissent (since to reduce that same dissent you would need to pay many more ICs). The only circustamce when its worth doing so is when you know you have an event coming that will reduce dissent automatically (e.g. Anschluss)... and then that approach is debatable too...

It would be good if the mechanics are explained in detail to Paradox so they can fix it

 

[unmerged(19946)]

ministers

Cant certain ministerial leaders also reduce dissent ?

I am not convinced that the reduction of cg as described is a big exploit. Imagine the real life situation where, for example, Britain is hit by sea lion, it would not take a leap of the imagination for the government to pile everything into home defence for three months to get as much into the front line as possible.

The downside of this is that it would cost so much to recover from the dissent that it wouldnt be worth it except as a last resort. Omni seems to be doing it as a first resort. I would like to ask Omni
1)if there is a cap on dissent when permutated with certain ministers/cg levels
2)if the cost of reducing dissent is as great as we all think it is
3)are there any methods of reducing dissent that we have missed
4)is it true that you can guarantee to reduce dissent by 10% in two weeks. How?

 

[unmerged(19411)]

As UK I had 411 or so IC. My demands were about 60, or less. It was actually falling by about -0.23. It took more than 2 weeks, I just said that to give an idea of how fast it goes down.

 

[jdrou]

Re: ministers

Originally posted by EternalOptimist
Cant certain ministerial leaders also reduce dissent ?

No. Ministers with, for example, "-3% Dissent" actually reduce CG needs by 3%.

 

[unmerged(19946)]

more like 40+ weeks

0.23 % for a 10% reduction will take just over 40 days - that is certainly fast. Most people would be mighty happy with a 0.023 reduction taking over a year.

So why do you do it this way ?

by my reckoning
a cost of 351 extra ics over 40 days = 14040 ic/day

a benefit of 30 ic into 14040 = 468 days of low cg or untill dissent hits 10 %

therefore if dissent hits 10% before a year and a half - you lose out big time.

Unless there is something else that I am unaware of.

 

[jgbaxter]

Omni, were you just planning on telling me or the world?

 

[unmerged(19411)]

Just you, don't want other to start doing it too, will ruin everyone's games.

 

[unmerged(13894)]

Actually, IMO it's a good idea for everyone to know about all exploits, then they can be allowed or disallowed before game starts, hopefully preventing unpleasantness

 

[unmerged(8114)]

Hm, taking a dissent hit for underproducing CG makes no sense, under no circumstances (unless you are in peace-time, and you know that war will break out *very* soon, or there is an event coming). Not only do you lose a lot of IC in the end (and this extremely quickly), you also have reduced combat effectivness.

So either this is a rather useless strategy or there is something more to it.

 

[unmerged(12746)]

Originally posted by Isebrand
Hm, taking a dissent hit for underproducing CG makes no sense, under no circumstances (unless you are in peace-time, and you know that war will break out *very* soon, or there is an event coming). Not only do you lose a lot of IC in the end (and this extremely quickly), you also have reduced combat effectivness.

So either this is a rather useless strategy or there is something more to it.

I agree with Isebrand on this one (dont get used to it) It has to be timed with events. If your the U.S. you have the elections which reduce your dissent by 5% (In CORE anyway not sure about vanilla) so in 36 on 1/1 you can rack up a 5% dissent at least and remove it with one event later on. That early in the game the U.S. has low tech anyway so I can understand its application.

But long term if you go over the 5% under my example the lost IC's dont equal out. Unless its in unit production and after the units are produced you shift the IC's back to CG, this certainly would be a *way* to get more production faster, a unit today is worth more then a unit tomorrow because you can deploy it right away.

 

[unmerged(19946)]

Why does he do it then ?

We all agree that this is a costly and pointless strategy, Omni has confirmed that 'There is no such thing as a consumer goods exploit, never has been, never will be.' so why does he do it , In every game , and in the same manner , and still do so well ?

Is it worth the cost to get units and techs quicker ? I am going into heavy experimental mode this weekend to see what transpires.

 

[jgbaxter]

http://www.europa-universalis.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=116532