Cheat mode???

[cavebear]

MWIA - I've just forwarded the original email to you at your hotmail address. Open it and see if Cheat Mode is on.

[Bob_Smurf42]

Originally posted by War4ever
lets not accuse anyone of cheating just yet

I wasn't accusung anyone, just saying that someone had to activate cheat mode, and now that it is on, a president could do whatever(inconspicuous) cheating he wanted(reveal map comes to mind) w/o anyone knowing. I wasn't saying MWIA is a cheat, but that there is the possibilite of a future prez cheating.

[cavebear]

Bob - I don't view your post as any sort of accusation, just something surprising that needed to be discussed to figure out the cause of the computer message.

OK, I just gave up and opened the file from the original email from atomant. Opening it and immediately hitting f9 shows "Cheat Mode" on my screen and I didn't even make any game move.

It seems to be imbedded in the game from the start. It's going to be annoying to have that "Cheat Mode" message in all the screenshots and records, but what should we do?

If atomant can get it removed by re-doing some of the map-editing, do we want to start over? I personally dislike the idea of having that d*mn "Cheat" flag open the whole game, but maybe that is just me.

I think we could fairly replicate most of our decisions to make a new start honest enough, and MWIA could go through his moves pretty quickly.

So, first, can atomant get the "Cheat Mode" message out of his map, and second, do we want to redo the first turns?

I think we should re-start if it will get that out of our game..

[cavebear]

Originally posted by atomant
for the record, i used the civ map editor to make the map, the starting place was ramdomly selected, cave bear did not have anything to do with the startup location.

It occurs to me that if you would just open the file from the email you sent me and let us know if F9 shows the cheat message, it would answer a lot of concerns...

[Bob_Smurf42]

Just got the e-mail from cavebear-the origianal sent from cavebear to MWIA-here's what it says-

So, I would rather not have the cheat flag open whole game, if not for the annoyance, also for the possibility of future cheating. MWIA could replicate his earlier decisions easily if atomant could edit the starting positions to what they ended up being.

[cavebear]

OK, we have confirmation that the "Cheat Mode" came with the map. What to do?

Atomant, can you provide a map without the "Cheat Mode" flag up? We have to know if a restart is even an option. I love what I've seen of the map so far, but we can't have that cheat message in our game.

As I see it, we can't proceed until we hear from atomant. Or we could start a new game in the regular way. This one seems spoiled. And btw, we should now keep our current adminstration till the end of May. Just for convenience at any re-start.

[BruceTheStupid]

I agree with much of the above, but to put the counter-argument, are we bring ultra-purist over the Cheat Mode message? I know there is a risk of a president (or presumably a minister) using the cheat mode, but so many turns have gone by that there will be significant differences (from huts and Barbarians) to where we are now.

Some possible alternatives?

1) Ask atomant to create a scenario using his custom map, putting in the units as they are now. Victory conditions to be set to the equivalent of military conquest. (I'm not a scenario expert, but this seems an appropriate solution.).

2) Appoint a "Minister For Truth And Justice" - someone who prepared to forego involvement in this game to view the map and monitor moves made by the president to look for signs of sustained runs of "lucky" moves, or ignoring opionions polled. Maybe the very existence of someone watching over this game might be sufficient deterrant.

[H Tower]

why not just have MWIA save the game as a scenario right now, and then start that? it would work just as well. of course, any cheater could do the same thing to cover up his tracks and we'd never know. The scenario flag would always be toggled.

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by cavebear
OK, we have confirmation that the "Cheat Mode" came with the map. What to do?

As I see it, we can't proceed until we hear from atomant. Or we could start a new game in the regular way. This one seems spoiled. And btw, we should now keep our current adminstration till the end of May. Just for convenience at any re-start.

I don't see what the problem is. If we get a president that wants to cheat it is very simple to do so whether the cheat mode flag is set or not - eg save before revealing the map.

Let's get on with the game and not delay the elections any further.

RJM at Sleepers

[atomant]

Okay, I have my laptop with me and can do both if someone can email me the save game todate. Of course I am still in munich so it will take some time to do. My own preference is to save the game as a scenario and go from there as I am unsure when I will next check email. usually everry three days at the moment. So I vote for saving as a scen, then contiuing on with the game.

[atomant]

BTW. Dachau is an eye opener and a half.

[Zedd]

I think saving the game as a scenaio would be sufficient. If we are electing presidents that we can't trust then we have bigger problems than this little "cheat mode" flag.

[shade]

hmm all this nagging about a single wrong byte(or is only a bit) in a savefile...why not just switch it back...I have some info lying around somewhere about how the save is structured...this should make it possible to switch that bit back.

Shade

[BruceTheStupid]

Originally posted by shade
I have some info lying around somewhere about how the save is structured...this should make it possible to switch that bit back.

Shade

Is it worth it just to remove the 2 offending words? As rjmatsleepers says, anyone who really wants to cheat could do so anyway, so it's not going to prevent it.

[atawa]

Just let MWIA save it as .scn, nobody can check anyway after a turn is played if its a save from a scenrio or a regular game.

If we cant trust our choosen president we might as well quit this game all togehter.