Do you guys cheat?

[Krill]

Originally posted by Ming


As it should be... Cheating in MP/other people is one thing... but against the AI, I have a hard time considering it as cheating. Unless you are going to post your score in some HOF, or brag that you can win at the highest levels, how you play the game to maximize your fun is really your business. Games are entertainment, and if making some simple changes to your land before commiting 10 hours to a game will enhance your enjoyment. Why not. If your desire is to play it iron man style, go for it. If you want to reset every once in awhile, who cares

That's pretty much the only way that SP games should be played. If you are playing for fun, maximise that, if you are playing in competition, play by the rules.

[Ming]

Originally posted by Krill
That's pretty much the only way that SP games should be played. If you are playing for fun, maximise that, if you are playing in competition, play by the rules.

Yeah... that's what I meant, but in far fewer words

[Tattila the Hun]

I do have the bad habit of attacking with insufficient numbers with ridiculous odds (Hey, he has 7% chance of winning!), and then going, "what the hell did I just do!?", and reloading, and waiting for more troops. Also, if I have a picket screen of naval units out, and a rival civ sails it's transports through it without my boats flinching, I reserve the right to reload, preemptive him, or just place my ground troops into better positions. (I wish I could get a casus belli, no penalties for declaring war and sinking his transports; Ten galleons sailing straight towards my fully claimed continent? Please, it's not rocket science... Maybe have a maritime claim of X squares, and demand them to take a hike or declare war.) Having unit movement shown isn't really convenient, especially if I have high espionage; I don't want to spend half my time watching his troops move about in his home continent.

Oh, and if someone starts to come after me with tanks and DD's, while I'm still at musketmen, I give myself few hundred nukes in WB, and fry him, before quitting... I wish I could queue the launches and then unleash them at the same time, for a Judgment Day effect... And the play with robots!

[Supr49er]

Who doesn't?

Like everyone else, it's highlt situational - regenerating the map, etc.

[Wittlich]

I have never used World Builder; but I have on occasion, utilized the map regeneration option on the first turn if my starting local really sucks - but I don't consider that as a real "cheat" since it is a first-turn option in the options menu...

[Quillan]

I don't go the whole route of normalizing the map, but there are some things I find a little silly that I will fix. Stone should be the most common resource in the world. I'll add some if there's none anywhere close. I've seen all the world's copper on the other continent, and I'll usually add some to the missing area if that happens. There have been games where I've taken 40% of the worlds land area, only to wind up missing a critical resource like coal or oil. Depending on circumstances, I might go to war for it or I might add it. I will sometimes do the "reload to rush a wonder" bit, especially if I intended to rush it but overlooked it, and it's quite likely for me to reload when my 98% chance of victory results in 2-3 consecutive losses in combat.

[Hauptman]

I almost always pop open the world builder at the begining of the game. Decide whether or not to regenerate map. And on the odd occasion, when I have a real neat map (lots of inland seas instead of a round blob landmass) with a bad start, I'll add a resource or two...

I have also given myself a fully promoted chopper when it started to look like somone clicked on "raging barbars" when I wasn't looking. I tell you them barbars gan be a real pain....

[Ming]

Originally posted by Hauptman
I have also given myself a fully promoted chopper when it started to look like somone clicked on "raging barbars" when I wasn't looking. I tell you them barbars gan be a real pain....

[Theben]

Also I'll use worldbuilder in OCC to see if my starting area is viable... altho 90% of the time it isn't.

[eris]

I stay away from World Builder. Looked at it once to see if I wanted to build something and decided I would rather play a game. Opened it once by mistake in mid game, hitting ctrl-w instead of ctrl-s. I was afraid it would prevent the game from registering so I reloaded from last auto-save. Lost a few turns, but there had been no battles or other major luck-based events.

As for re-loading, I have sometimes reloaded for a particularly disastrous fumble of the mouse putting units where they shouldn't have ever been. Nowadays I put up with most of that as simulating leadership incompetence or failure in the communications chain.

What I do though, is save a file just before declaring war. I am still nervous as to whether I am ready or not. So far, I have only needed to go back one time to the save and rethink my strategy. I was taking on two civs and two more got bribed in or something. I had to build up some more and pick a different victim. Then everybody joined the dogpile with me and we were all friends. It was two very interestingly different outcomes.

That probably isn't cheating, but it does make me feel a little more brave about the upcoming bloodshed..

[Virulent]

Originally posted by Garth Vader
If the AI beats me to a wonder I really want sometimes I will reload and do something different to get it.

I'm guilty of doing this.

I also save before declaring war and I will reload if my war turns out to be a huge mistake.

I stay from World Builder however.

[jkp1187]

Originally posted by The Priest
I'm with Ming.

I will 'cheat' (reload) when I have made a mistake - wrong key stroke etc., - or to avoid micromanagement. For example, while healing your scout doesn't notice a bear creeping up on it. Either every turn you need to manually check it (unwanted micromanagement) or you allow yourself to reload if you didn't notice the bear had appeared and the computer didn't tell you.

I confess that I have done this on occasion. And (I'd like to think) a little more infrequently, reload just when I plain ol' missed something that should have been obvious.

But I promise that I feel REAL GUILTY whenever I do it.

[Lord Avalon]

No, nevar!

I never open up Worldbuilder and change mountains into hills, or desert next to rivers into floodplains, or all I have is multiple clams change some into fish and crabs, or move land around to get access to the sea, or add a scout if I pop a stupid map.

[vladopauco]

I don't use worldbuilder or reload since this makes my games go on for to long. I have a bad habit of wanting things to be perfect so if I start "fixing" things I'll end up playing a duel map with one opponent for 50-60 hours just due to reloads etc.

So, I try to live with my bad decisions and mistakes and I actually end up enjoying the game more that way. But, I holehartedly agree with the "what ever floats your boat" approach. If you like it, do it!

[Diadem]

I often play OCC games, and in such games I nearly always use the worldbuilder at the start to check my starting location (and regenerate if I miss resources)

I don't even consider this cheating, it's more like fixing a bug in the map scripts. Even with balanced resources (which I always select for OCC) sometimes you still miss resources. So I gotta check to see if everything is there. If balanced resources were working correctly I wouldn't have to do this.


One other thing I'm guilty of is reloading. I know I shouldn't, but the temptation is just too great, to reload an earlier save when I screwup, or when I loose my favorite unit, or just miss a wonder. I try not to do it, but sometimes I just can't help myself If I do it too much though, it usually leads to loosing all interest in the game. It just doesn't feel like an achievement anymore, after reloading a few times.

No reloading in multiplayer though