Consensus on Cheating?

[Guynemer]

Re: losing facilities if you exploit a submissive...

I can't say if this happens to the AI or not. But it DOES happen to human players if, for instance, a hostile AI demands an amount of credits that you don't have but agree to pay them anyway. Your energy will go to negative whatever, and then you will lose one base facility (or perhaps more than one... it's only happened once to me, so I couldn't say for certain).

Guynemer

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"My nation is the world, and my religion is to do good." --Thomas Paine

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Helium,

Don't know if this is considered cheating or not but cooperative trading of base with Planetary transit has some pretty nasty unbalancing implications especialy if one faction is alien and the other human. Consider trading the base back and forth and allowing a breeder city to exist in no man's land. The base gets takenover and produces a free pod. Truce and trade Planetary transit to player with pod. Instant 3 population city with no mineral expediture for said player. Repeat process for player 2. Net effect both parties get free colony pods.

Cooperative trading of any base with Appropriate SP could be considered a cheat.

[Helium Pond]

Ogie,

Thanks for the input, but I just found out you can't trade cities with humans in multiplayer games! Am I wrong? I couldn't find that option anywhere on the diplomacy screen. If true, this renders the whole concept of "cooperative trading" moot.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Helium,

Color me redfaced. I honestly don't know as I am a tried and true SP. However, the concept I assume could still hold true by cooperatively allowing take over of bases. Thereby spawing multiple pods for recolonization of size 3 cities. I would have to think though a good maxim is never underestimate the deviousness of two cooperative humans vs. the inept and predictable AI.

[Hunkpapa]

The probe teaming allies in my opinion is NOT a cheat.

The US govt. is constantly running covert operations in allied and enemy countries. They don't ask for permission.

The player should not be notified if you succesfully probed them. That is the whole point of a COVERT operation. If you get caught, then pay the price.

[Vi Vicdi]

I think we ought to make the Israelis pay through the nose for catching their spy.

We can't very well execute spies from allied countries, but we can't let it go with a slap on the wrist, either, or we'll have "friendly" spies running out our ears.

The only thing to do is impose a huge fine. Likewise if one of our spies gets caught by an ally we should be able to "buy him back".

Everyone either seems to want this guy sent home with a slap on the wrist or in a box. What ever happened to good old fashioned payola?

[Helium Pond]

Hunkpapa, I think you didn't understand the bug. You say "if you get caught, then pay the price." The problem is, in hotseat play, if you get caught, *you*, not the player you probed, get the warning message. They never know.

Some people think it's fine to allow this. But whatever anyone thinks, it's obviously not the intent of the game designers.

[YT]

HP: I agree with your infinite drops rule, but one I think you need to add to the list is drops when not in a base. I don't personally consider that a cheat, I think it should be a standard rule. BUT, if other people consider it a cheat, it needs to be on the list, at least as an item to be agreed on before hand.

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Yours Truly

[Vi Vicdi]

In all my time playing I have never been prevented from initiating a jump. Dropping certain places, like enemy airbases, are strictly forbidden, but I've never heard of any restriction on where you can begin a jump.

Why would it be illegal or "cheating" to initiate jump from anywhere you want? Is there some obscure reference to this in the manual? Why should we have to follow a rule that was never actually put into the game?

(Or is this another case of your interface preference determining which rules you get?)

[JAMiAM]

The requirement for a unit to be in an airbase, or a base, in order to begin an airdrop is clearly specified in the manual, page 91. It is reiterated in the Datalinks entry, under "drop pods".

It is a bug, that the action choice is not deactivated in the right click menu options, when a unit is outside a base, or airbase.

That's why it is considered a cheat.

Of course, if the players wish to adopt a "house rule" allowing such actions, it should be discussed, and agreed upon, beforehand.
[This message has been edited by JAMiAM (edited April 21, 2000).]

[Ned]

The game allows crawlers to add minerals to SP's and prototypes. But I also understand that if one disbands a crawler in a city, its full mineral value is added to whatever is being produced. This would permit rush building of very expensive military units at a very low cost. This must be a bug.

As well, the game clearly contemplates using crawlers to add minerals to SP's - just as caravan added to Wonders in Civ. However, I don't believe the designers ever contemplated first upgrading the crawlers to some fantastic mineral count at little more than one e/c per mineral when an SP costs 4 e/c per mineral. Once you get the hang of it, you can normally complete even the most expensive SP's in the first move they can be built using only 2 or 3 upgraded crawlers. This is wrong! It should be fixed.

[BustaMike]

YT, I didn't know disbanding things outside of cities still gave minerals. I'll have to check that.

However, I'm sure that disbanding a crawler outside of a city is a bad idea. When you disband a unit it gives half of its mineral cost to the base. If you press "O" with a crawler in a base you have the option of helping to build a SP or prototype. This causes the crawler to give it's full mineral cost towards the project and is not the same as disbanding. With a standard crawler, pressing "O" in a base would give 30 minerals but disbanding it would only give 15. It's obvious which one is better.

[YT]

I was not aware (or had forgotten) that disbanding only gave half the mineral value. Thanks for the correction. I'll double check the outside of city thing too.

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Yours Truly

[Ned]

BustaMike, YT, et al. But, if minerals to complete an SP cost 4 energy credits per, and if prototype minerals cost 3 per, building the SP with minerals that cost only 1 e/c per would seem to be a massive cheat. Don't you agree?

[YT]

Squash
[This message has been edited by YT (edited April 25, 2000).]