{The List-} Cheats

[MattH]

Introduction
When I was young(er) I loved the CIV II cheat menu- got a pesky civ? Drop some tanks and stealth bombers on them. Need more movement? Add it in. Out of cash? Not anymore!

Cheats were totally taken out of vanilla CIV III. Should they make a comeback in cIV? How should they manifest? Discuss amongst yourselves.



To Cheat or not to Cheat?
Consensus: Cheats are needed as scenario editing tools.
Disputed: Cheats are needed to balance multiplayer games.


The Function of Cheats:
Perspective 1: Strict View
Brent and others suggest that cheating should be implemented in the CIV II style, full cheats but no hall-of-fame. "It doesn't hurt anyone".

Perspective 2: Limited Scope
Perspective 2 . 1
No cheats whatsoever! They are a temptation and only serve to ruin the game.
Perspective 2 . 2
Alva:No cheats, but include debug mode.

Perspective 3: All-Encompasing
Add functionality- Reveal and hide fog of war, make permant build changes to the AI, change unit paths, mess with the AI's understanding of the current map. Tassadar says transform cheat mode into a full-blown, in-game scenario editor.

Perspective 4: Multiplayer
Perspective 4 . 1
There is no reason to include MP cheats.
Perspective 4 . 1
A successful implementation would allow players to compensate for poor starting locations, a lack of reasources, and other disadvantages.


Requests:
Kucinich Fix CIV II style cheat bugs.
Sore Loser et. all: Add an Ironman mode similar to the one in SMAC where you're not "allowed" to reload.



Majority Opinion:

• Cheats are a core part of the scenario editing process.
• Do not use "approved saves" (only allowed x turns) or similar save game restrictions to prevent reloading or to allow hall-of-fame points.

[Kuciwalker]

C2 style cheating. It hurts no one, and is useful for scenarios.

[Roman]

Definitely a vote for Civ II style cheating. It is much easier to create scenarios through playing the game like in Civ II than it is in Civ III.

[alva]

Great editor : .

Debug-mode : (here some cheats could be usefull I guess (for testing purposes.

cheat-mode : learn the game.

[Nikolai]

The cheat mode isn't obligatory, but it's nice to have when you either want to make a scenario(as mentioned), or if you just want to test out the game. I remember from Civ2, that when I had won the game, it was quite fun to make LOTS of cheats to the game and see what happened!

[Stefu]

I'm not sure if this should go in here, but I think there should finally be an official mode where you can just do nothing yourself and watch the computer civilizations battle each other. It's great fun! Okay, it's not great fun, but it could be useful for scenario designers.

[alva]

Allready in Civ3.
People should give this game a little more credit instead of shouting/whining Civ2 was so much better.
Granted that much has happened since the original release.

Stefu, what you describe is Debug mode and can be accessed from the editor.

[Sore Loser]

I'm not sure if this belongs here, but I'd like to see an Ironman mode as in SMAC where you're not "allowed" to reload. I follow the temtation argument some of the way, and it's much easier to refrain from reloading when you have to go through bothersome procedures instead of simply doing it. This works for me in NetHack, for example, where I hardly ever reload (I want to experiment with something on occasion and don't always feel like throwing away a high-level character to do so, but rarely), and it increases my gaming experience significantly. You could say that I could then simply refrain from reloading, but that's now how the human psyche works.

The same line of thought can be applied to the discussion about the cheat menu. I'd like the option to turn the cheat menu off when setting up a game, so I won't feel the temptation to sneek peek at the locations so I can see where to found my cities. This should please everyone and is extremely easy to implement.

[MattH]

Tass: I just added 2.1 to piss people off and get all the options up there . The idea of merging the editor and game has been in my head a long time- and it would make play testing (and corrections) much easier. I'd also like a new addition to the menu: undo. Stepping back a move or a turn could be very helpful.

I'd like to see a CIV II style cheat menu, but an option to disable it in the .ini file would be good.

(I'll add everyone's ideas when I have 30 more seconds.)

[DarkCloud]

MattH, could we have a poll on this, then you could tabulate the results and post them above to show the relative popularity of the ideas

[yaroslav]

I don't value the civ2-cheat mode as a way to cheat but as a way of making scens.

So I'm for a way of making scens easily in the good old civ2 style. I don't mind about cheating or not - because I don't use this feature.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Sore Loser
I'm not sure if this belongs here, but I'd like to see an Ironman mode as in SMAC where you're not "allowed" to reload. I follow the temtation argument some of the way, and it's much easier to refrain from reloading when you have to go through bothersome procedures instead of simply doing it. This works for me in NetHack, for example, where I hardly ever reload (I want to experiment with something on occasion and don't always feel like throwing away a high-level character to do so, but rarely), and it increases my gaming experience significantly. You could say that I could then simply refrain from reloading, but that's now how the human psyche works.

The same line of thought can be applied to the discussion about the cheat menu. I'd like the option to turn the cheat menu off when setting up a game, so I won't feel the temptation to sneek peek at the locations so I can see where to found my cities. This should please everyone and is extremely easy to implement.

Only if it doesn't give a score bonus.

[DarkCloud]

Why would you be against an Ironman score bonus, skywalker? I'd say 10% would be a fair bonus

[Kuciwalker]

Except it would be worthless. Anyone who is going for score can still reload, just with slightly more hassle.

[Kuciwalker]

Oh, and if we do have cheats, though, I'd like it not to be buggy. I found that whenever I saved a game and then opened the save, the cheats would be ON (the menu wasn't grayed out, but I wouldn't be flagged as having cheated