AI relocating workers; Hotseat mode

[SlowThinker]

relocating workers
Do you have any experience with relocating workers by AI? I thought only production may be changed .

I play Seeds of Greatness scenario. Civs are Hittites (white civ), Babylonians, Assyrians, Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, Minoans (purple civ).
I play Babylonians and I noticed the AI relocated workers (to maximize food) in one of my cities. It happened during Minoan turn : Greek save is OK, Minoan isn't.
Then Assyrian leader (germanos) experienced this problem too, but now it was caused by Babylonian turn.

Germanos reports similar problems in Imperialism 1870 PBEM.

We do some testing: It looks if anybody presses F11 (demographics window) then cities of foreign civs may relocate workers.

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hotseat mode
So why hotseat mode is not used for PBEM games?

advantages of hotseat mode:
1. no problems with AI changing production
2. no problems with AI changing workers
3. normal speed of Settlers (see Accelerated orders (in Multiplayer/Internet mode) )
4. no problems with unintentional clicking on status window and invoking end of turn

Point 4 is very dangerous because AI will manage civs of other humans: units of opponent's may be revealed to you etc.

disavantages of hotseat mode:
1. For online diplomacy exchanges you must load a .hot game in MP mode, then accomplish diplomacy, save and load a .net game in hotseat mode. So it is more complicated.
(Also diplomacy can be managed by Yaroslav's tool (version 3 will include also unit giving). )
2. You cannot use password. But passwords only prevent drunk people from opening foreign civs. [Blah blah blah. Password removal is easy. Seth Green is the secret lovechild of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. The sasquatches are the first wave of the coming alien invasion. Futurama is the best tv show ever.]

[Darius871]

Re: AI relocating workers; Hotseat mode

Originally posted by SlowThinker
"What's staying?" - St. Leo

[Password removal is not worth trying unless you are a Mensa member.]

Then again, I remember from CFC you think publicly posting methods of cheating is A-OK, so I guess that's staying.

[SlowThinker]

publishing cheats

Hm, the case is opened
I remember from that one year old debate at Civfanatics that some people disagreed and some agreed that cheats should be published. Unfortunately it looks that debate is wipped. I found one page onmy disk so I attach it.

Also I post a copy of summary of my reasons for publishing cheats. It would be good if somebody can post reasons against.

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1. Fighting with windmills. Anybody can cheat if he decides.
Case posted it is supposed anybody knows about editing rules.txt (because of massive debate due to Willemvanoranje confession); also anybody can do the save/load loop: so what do you want to hide? Do you think there is a difference if people can cheat by 2 ways or 10 ways?

2. Fighting with windmills. People will be able to find cheats and tricks anyway.
The people that would want to cheat and put an effort to find some tricks would be succesfull in most cases. I found the way how to get the password off by a logical procedure when I wanted to see the initial scenario file in one of PBEM threads.

3. The mistrust atmosphere
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by W.i.n.t.e.r
...mistrust would grow exponentially!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You will say:
A) There are some ways how to cheat, we know them, but we won't reveal them to you because you could eventually try.
B) Cheating is very easy, you can do it this way, but we trust you.
Which sentence brings mistrust? A) or B)?

4. The mistrust atmosphere(2) and capabilities to break obstacles
Imagine two situations:
A) You live in a world where banks deposit banknotes in open shelves. Anybody could steal money easily. There is a trusting atmosphere.
B) You live in a normal world: banks protect money by very sofisticated systems. But you contrived to reveal a loophole there (by an accident or because you struggled for it).
In which situation would you tend to steal easier?

5. The atmosphere of inequal oportunities
Some players will find the un-password trick (or any other tricks) by accident, some players will find it because they want to find it, some players know it from some debate. Do you want to prefer them over other players? They have the right to decide to be honest, others don't?
You also try to push cheaters into an elite group. Don't you think there is an extra reason to cheat if you feel to be "elected"?

6. Detecting the cheating
I think that passwords protect cheaters: If games would be open for everyone (now they are open only for cheaters - be sure most of them know all that tricks) then people (a game watcher or game participant after the game ends) could unmask some blatant cheating when studying savefiles.

[Darius871]

Sigh... hopefully this thread'll just die.

[SlowThinker]

Why, Darius?

[EZRhino]

It is simpler and less painfull to just deny the tools to cheaters, rather than to tell them exactly how to cheat and then catch them.

I think that this method is very irresponsible

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by EZRhino
It is simpler and less painfull to just deny the tools to cheaters, rather than to tell them exactly how to cheat and then catch them.
I think that this method is very irresponsible

Pls read point 1 of my reasons.
How do you want to deny people from save/reload procedure? A cheater needn't to care about any other tool.
(A hypothetical cheater... I suppose most people perceive that cheating would deprive them from all game entertainment: thrill from anticipation, sense of responsibility for own decisions etc. But some people may not perceive that and I think it should be stressed rather than editing my posts and inserting false information there).

[Darius871]

Originally posted by SlowThinker How do you want to deny people from save/reload procedure?

Irrelevant since the community overwhelmingly decided that reloading isn't cheating. In one game someone admitted to reloading 50+ times, and we had little choice but to tolerate it.

[SlowThinker]

It means attacker wins every combat in such games! You could simply give every unit attack 50 and defense 1 in rules.txt and reloading of combats wouldn't be needed...

Hm, I don't think cheating (map revealing} might cause big harm to so strange games...

Anyway there is 5 other good reasons for publishing cheats that are left.

[SlowThinker]

reloading

I found that poll and I switched here: Saving and reloading turns

[Darius871]

Originally posted by SlowThinker
It means attacker wins every combat in such games! You could simply give every unit attack 50 and defense 1 in rules.txt and reloading of combats wouldn't be needed...

That's what I and several other people said, but the community voted for it. What can you do?

Originally posted by SlowThinker
Hm, I don't think cheating (map revealing} might cause big harm to so strange games...

That's another argument we used; reloading for 'reconnaissance' brings the same result as revealing the map, so should be considered morally equivalent. This, also, was lost on them.

Originally posted by SlowThinker
Anyway there is 5 other good reasons for publishing cheats that are left.

I'm not interested in having this debate; frankly I don't care anymore. This isn't a democracy; the mods positions here and at CFC stand no matter how many letters we type.

Btw, you seem to be posting a lot of threads about PBEM conduct for someone in only one game. If you click here there's numerous open slots available; we can always use another player.

[Darius871]

Re: publishing cheats

Since I'm bored, I'll actually go through your points, not that it'll do much good:

Originally posted by SlowThinker
1. Fighting with windmills. Anybody can cheat if he decides.

...which would be preferable to someone with NO intention of cheating stumbling across an easy way to, and deciding it's a good idea.

Originally posted by SlowThinker
Case posted it is supposed anybody knows about editing rules.txt (because of massive debate due to Willemvanoranje confession)

Actually, the VAST majority of players here have probably never heard of Willemvanoranje.

Originally posted by SlowThinker
also anybody can do the save/load loop

...which is not considered cheating, for the moment at least.

Originally posted by SlowThinker
so what do you want to hide?

How to remove passwords for one, and you almost blew that out of the water until Leo's edit.

Originally posted by SlowThinker
Do you think there is a difference if people can cheat by 2 ways or 10 ways?

ABSOLUTELY.

Originally posted by SlowThinker
2. Fighting with windmills. People will be able to find cheats and tricks anyway.

Ask any of the people here; most would only be able to think of one or two ways. Most players come here thinking about playing some Civ2 and having fun, but when methods of cheating are publicly posted it could light a spark in some of them. Why take the risk?

Originally posted by SlowThinker
The people that would want to cheat and put an effort to find some tricks would be succesfull in most cases.

...denying the possibility that said 'people' might not be able to figure it out. Example: when people forget their passwords or when a player's being replaced, they go to Henrik, Case, or I to get it removed. If it's so easy to figure out, then howcome most people just assume password removal requires some sort of hardcore hex editing? Most potential cheaters also assume this, but now they'll know how simple it is (if they find this thread).

Originally posted by SlowThinker
3. The mistrust atmosphere
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by W.i.n.t.e.r
...mistrust would grow exponentially!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You will say:
A) There are some ways how to cheat, we know them, but we won't reveal them to you because you could eventually try.
B) Cheating is very easy, you can do it this way, but we trust you.
Which sentence brings mistrust? A) or B)?

Which sentence will result in more games ruined by cheating (a dozen of which I've been a part of)? Secure and long-lasting games >>>> a 'trusting atmosphere'.

Originally posted by SlowThinker
4. The mistrust atmosphere(2) and capabilities to break obstacles
Imagine two situations:
A) You live in a world where banks deposit banknotes in open shelves. Anybody could steal money easily. There is a trusting atmosphere.
B) You live in a normal world: banks protect money by very sofisticated systems. But you contrived to reveal a loophole there (by an accident or because you struggled for it).
In which situation would you tend to steal easier?

Um, situation A. You just proved my point, unless you think fun games ruined by cheating are a worthwhile sacrifice for a trusting atmosphere. Is that the case?

Originally posted by SlowThinker
5. The atmosphere of inequal oportunities
Some players will find the un-password trick (or any other tricks) by accident, some players will find it because they want to find it, some players know it from some debate. Do you want to prefer them over other players? They have the right to decide to be honest, others don't?

I don't think people that stumble upon the method are more 'deserving' of the knowledge. I only think that the fewer people who know it (whoever they are), the better.

Originally posted by SlowThinker
6. Detecting the cheating
I think that passwords protect cheaters: If games would be open for everyone (now they are open only for cheaters - be sure most of them know all that tricks) then people (a game watcher or game participant after the game ends) could unmask some blatant cheating when studying savefiles.

Those people who regularly check savegames already know how to remove passwords, so passwords are no barrier to detection. Now I'm sure you're going to say 'well what if someone who doesn't know how to remove passwords wants to check a game?' Answer: they send a PM, IM, or email to Case, Darius871, Henrik, Choke, and/or conmcb25. This is NOT to maintain an 'elite', this is merely to make sure that as few people have the knowledge as possible.

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by Darius
This isn't a democracy; the mods positions here and at CFC stand no matter how many letters we type.

These two forums may not be democracy but I could make ways of cheating public by other means. But I appreciate there may be flaws in my set of reasons. This is why I want to speak about it.

Thank you for detailed answers, I will smash your arguments, just wait until I will be bored...

[germanos]

Any news on the apparent Demographics-relocation relation?

Have you been able to look at the imp1870 game?

[Darius871]

Originally posted by SlowThinker

These two forums may not be democracy but I could make ways of cheating public by other means.

Which are?

Originally posted by SlowThinker
But I appreciate there may be flaws in my set of reasons.

Sorry, but I didn't even read them as reasons. Basically it was a list of reasons 'why posting cheats would make no difference', not reasons why to post them in the first place. The only reason you gave for that was that players would know what to look out for, but this is already shot down by the fact that the 5-6 people who are available to do checks already know what to look for. Do you have a second reason to post the methods other than amusing yourself?