Moderator Game News

[Kody]

I've been thinking about the problem.

Did you know Enigma is staying up all night so he can be around when the most other players are around, and sleeping when there's no other players. I sometimes delay my sleep because I'm interested in read just one more post.

He's actively changing his sleep patterns because he loves this place so much. I'm not sure what will happen if we really do spill on the beans. Perhaps what we should do is tell the data angels that Enigma is not allowed to do anything that has random effects. No moving units into fungus, no probe actions, no military actions against other players or against mindworms, and no pod popping.

[Kody]

Because a whole hearted resistance means checking over each of his PBEMs carefully. Then kicking him out of each and every one where he's obviously cheated. Telling everyone how much cheating he's doing and having to live with his eternal hatred.

I'm not prepared to do that.

[HongHu]

I don't understand. Are you saying we just let him do whatever and should not try to retify the problem? What is half hearted resistance? Why couldn't we do a whole hearted resistance?

[Kody]

What would it achieve?

If we do decide to do something about Enigma it cannot be a half measure. A half measure is dangerous as he will just learn how to get around it so next time he won't get caught. He's already learnt many of the things that will stop him from getting caught from my conversation with him. Half hearted resistance only will make him stronger.

I'm not willing to kick him out of all his PBEMs yet, also he's extracted a promise from me.

[HongHu]

Sorry didn't get time to do too much Kody.

I briefly browsed through some posts. Noticed that you said that Enigma cheated in the Bear Baits pbem. Shouldn't you let everybody that's in the game know about this as you are the game mod? I didn't think that he needed any more advantages than he already has?

[Kody]

It seems that Enigma is still cheating.

http://www.apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?postid=3119373#post3119373

GO TURN!
It's already here. I'm waiting for Makahlua to come online.

I should warn you that:
if a probe pops a pod and has some movement points remaining, it can run away from worms.
If it pops the pod with its last movement point, it will be eaten by worms.

Evidence of exploring ahead. He's obviously opened the turn noticed that the probe can move and pop a pod and made that comment to ensure Makahlua doesn't do so.

Makahlua then finds a pod, when she does the turn.

http://www.apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?postid=3120018#post3120018

Seems also what I've said previously is coming true. He's making sure that he's the one popping the pods.

I think you need to wait and see, he might change what he's doing.

Things like an insistence to pop the pods rather than Malk doing so, and not getting any bad results etc.

Grr I can't believe he's broken his promise to me so fast. My talk with him only made him more careful about his cheating, didn't stop him at all.

Edit: Actually thinking back, he didn't break his promise to me. He was a damn lawyer when he picked his words, I just wanted to think he was changing.

If we come across 50 or more ECs in a pod, what should we do?

Let see if he pops ECs he's thinking of in the next pod.

[Kody]

My suggestion is we need to change the passwords just as a safety precaution.

Drogue your thoughts on this?

[Kody]

MY year 2102 (Morgans)

MarkG,

Thank you for fixing the problem.

I'll let you know if anything else comes up.

Kody

fixed

due to the mess that the vbulletin permission system is, an exact number of 37 users (not all plus members, some dg-mods and others) had access to the acdg team forums

let me know if there is any other issue

[HongHu]

Thanks MWIA for pointing this out. Since we all have access to all the private forums we wouldn't be able to discover this ourselves.

[Kody]

MY year 2102 (Data Angel Turn)

PM sent to MarkG

Dear MarkG

Someone who wasn't authorised to access the ACDGIII private forums was able to enter and post.

From what can be gathered it appears to be a problem for any apolyton plus members. As it does not appear to happen with someone on a normal account or someone without an account, it can be concluded that it may be something to do with the apolyton-plus showthread script being different.

The characteristics of the bug seem to be similar as the old private forum bug that plagued the ACDGII forums. Only this time the person doesn't need to first click "join" for the team, before being able to access without authorisation.

Furthermore, the bug reportably only works with the ACDG forums, and is not a problem with the civ forums.

It would be appreciated if this bug could be fixed, and when it is fixed notification given to either myself or Drogue so the passwords which were available in the private forums can be changed.

Thanks for your time.

Kody

[MrWhereItsAt]

Re: Um.... large bug.

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
However I know that xxxxxCENSOREDxxxx so if someone has done this xxxxx then there would be no stopping them through this loophole.

I just realised that if someone is using it already they could see this! PM me if you want to know what this bit was.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Um.... large bug.

Hello. I am not a mod for this game or in any team ATM, and with this posting I am sadly unlikely to ever be suitable for a team (mod is different matter, but that hardly matters now). However I am posting in this thread. I have not managed to find any of you on IRC since I found this bug out. It is major, and we need to get it fixed.

I frequently use the 'View Last Posts' button on the main Poly forums. When I last did it, I found to my surprise the private faction forums' last posts showed up. I clicked on one to be sure, but it took me straight to the post! Thus anyone in any team can gain access to private team forums by doing this. Once in they can 'next thread' or 'previous thread' to see anything they want, edit posts or even post (as I am doing now).

I am PMing Mark about this as well, and we once had a similar problem with the start-up of the Civ3 PtW Democracy game, with separate team forums attached to a main public game forum. That was solved (in fact I was the one to notice and report this then as well!), and hopefully this can be solved quickly. I am posting this because I wanted you all to know about this in case there is a suspicion of cheating at some point - this may be/have been the cause. If no-one else has noticed this it could possibly be fixed before anyone notices, although that cannot be certain.

Hopefully if anyone is getting anything using this without telling anyone they will no longer be able to when the bug is fixed. However I know xxxxxCENSOREDxxxx so if someone has done this XXXXX then there would be no stopping them through this loophole.

We should probably keep this secret until it is fixed.

Your servant,

WIA.

[Kody]

I think you need to wait and see, he might change what he's doing.

Things like an insistence to pop the pods rather than Malk doing so, and not getting any bad results etc.

[Drogue]

Re: Game Strategy Observations

Originally posted by Kody
Enigma seems to be following his lucky pod pop and associated habits strategy. His first set of pod pops was one in 200 chance maybe higher, even the restart pop are very lucky. It will probably win him the game. I can tell because he doesn't bother to deeply considering long term plans or possible problems. Rather he seems certain that he'll be able to deal with any issues long before they pop up and is fairly confident that pod pops won't cause any problems. Nobody thinks like that unless they've got more information than they should or they're not paying attention. I had a long chat with him, hopefully he'll listen to me. I'll should be able to tell if he changes his ways within a few turns of him doing so. So far it seems he's just gone deeper into hiding as I made him aware that is was so balant what he was doing.

You think he was replaying turns, or somesuch? What's you're thinking on this.

[Drogue]

Many thanks Will check all turns played tonight.