Cheating in PBEMs

[conmcb25]

Originally posted by Field Marshal Klesh
I know, relax. I dont bite

Glad of that, too many wounds from the wife already!

I just wanted you to know where I stood and hopefully everyone else stands, as far as Im concerned no one is accusing you of deliberately cheating, let the debate continue.....

[MagyarCrusader]

I don't see what the discussion is about.

You are allowed to load up a game, play as yourself and save the game when your turn is over. If you do ANYTHING else, it is cheating.

OK then, I guess I've cheated before... But what about if you're someone like me who is clumsy with a keyboard and will sometimes accidently move an important unit in the wrong direction? This isn't a real time game, but I shouldn't be allowed to reload a previous save and play the turn again without hitting the wrong button?
Also, if reloading saved games is not allowed how can I be assured others don't do this? I myself have never seen pathetically useless attacks carried out on my cities like I'd be certain to do at times if reloading save games is not allowed. In many scenarios, you have no diplomats or spies to enter cities and get a look at garrisoned units, so you might end up needlessly wasting your entire army trying to take one city. Although I don't read through many PBEM threads, I have never seen anyone report "my troops led a failed attack resulting in complete humiliation and annihilation of 75% of my troops." Has anyone seen this happen? Most players (Xin Yu excluded) are not strategical geniuses so I'd expect to see this quite often, but I don't.

[techumseh]

Originally posted by Darius871
Also, another reason for not having some sort of citizen's militia checking files is that this would require telling a lot of people how to remove passwords for them to do their checks. You have to admit it's dangerous to proliferate that power.

Well, what does everyone think of asking all players at the start of the game to send their password to the auditor (or "referee" - sorry ANZAC, I hate "sheriff" ). Then we don't have to reveal the hidden knowledge of the illuminati.

[klesh]

Hey! PBEM SherifF was my gawdawefull term!

-FMK.

[Case]

Originally posted by Field Marshal Klesh
Case, did/do you have a problem with that style of play?

Yes and no

I was pretty sure that you were doing it - all your offencives were sucessful, and I think that you strongly hinted at it in one post. The fact that I didn't get all excited at the time is a good indication that I wasn't too concerned.

My problem with it is that it defeats the point of preparing defences, and eliminates any hope of being able to surprise your enemies. You were able to tailor your forces to sucessfully overwelm even my best defended cities, and your monitoring of my troop movements between cities meant that I couldn't try to bluff you out of attacking my weak centre. As such, I had no real hope of ever being able to cripple your forces through defending my cities with lots of units, and that meant that my whole strategy was doomed to failure.

That said, the fundamental reason you kicked my arse is that you simply out-generaled me. Your campaign was supurbly handled, and was sucessful in outmanuvering my limited forces.

So, basically, I guess that my message is: don't do it again

[klesh]

Originally posted by Case
So, basically, I guess that my message is: don't do it again

Okay.

[Darius871]

For God's sake man you didn't have to put yourself on the list, at least for a debatable issue like this. All I meant was that we shouldn't do it from now on, not that anyone that has (apparently a lot more people than I had imagined) is a cheater.

[Darius871]

Has anyone seen this happen?

Well I never prepare an offensive until I know it has enough troops of the right strengh to pull it off, but yes this has happened to me and I've seen it happen to others. Many a time I've been thrown back from the gates of a major city, and there's only one unit left in it before all of my offensive units are exhausted. I could have redone the turn and retried the attack (or postponed the attack altogether) but I didn't.

[The ANZAC]

Well, I think that we can't ban replaying turns.

Here's why: there is no way to tell specifically. There's no evidence that it happens from the save. So then people can be wrongly accused of it if they have big successes. Also, what if in retrospect I want to go back and fix a unit that I accidentally move incorrectly or some production order I want to fix? These are the reasons why you can't properly ban it.

[Darius871]

If someone has combat results that are less likely than 25% in every single turn, IMHO a checker should be able to confidently say he is reloading.

If you move a unit off a railroad or something like that, I have no problem with you reloading the game. What we're talking about here is doing "reconnaisance" by kamikazeing units and then reloading the turn. In effect doing this is ethically identical to revealing the map.

[The ANZAC]

But you can't technically prove it all the time. And that could lead to some inconsistant accusations that can't necessarily be backed up.

[Darius871]

There's a certain point where it gets so ridiculous that they can't deny it.

[The ANZAC]

But what if they are just incredibly lucky?

[Darius871]

Yeah I guess.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by MagyarCrusader Has anyone seen this happen?

Some examples:

"An assault on Irkutsk has met massive failure, and the Kwangtung Army has withdrawn to mass better forces. The struggle for Siberia will certainly be a long and bloody one."

"Yet again our forces have been pushed back from the very gates of Corellia. "

Also the attacks I made on you in the old and new Second Reich games had huge casualties. Not necessarily 75%, but about half. I don't even know if I'll take Czernowitz but if I don't, I don't, and I won't reload it.

Also I'll note that at CFC games of the month, reloading is banned. Even though it can't be reliably enforced, it still could be a matter of course to have a ban in place.