What's the deal with Cheaters?

[Libertarian]

I used a five iron. The aerodynamics of the ball were indeed altered, as half its casing had burned away. It relates to the topic at hand because my playing partner, who routinely cheated, derided me for not dropping a new ball nearby and playing on without a stroke penalty. Naturally, I would never play him for money, since I couldn't guarantee keeping my eye on him the entire time.

In my opinion, a man who cheats himself cheats the most important person in the world.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Salvor
IMHO, there's a big difference between cheating and modding. Most of what I've heard described on this thread (like flying triremes) falls under the category of modding. There's no moral or ethical dilemma regarding modding. It's not done to boast, or pretend you're better at something, it's just a way to add fun and extend the playable lifespan of a game. Modding is good.

I agree. A lot of people feel that since I'm making changes in the editor that I do so in order to make it easier to win. Frankly I could care less about my final score, that's not my motivation at all. I have an empire to run damn it! In many ways, I've actually made it harder for myself. Whenever I mod, I do so with a challenge in mind. I don't want the AI to be a push over, I want it to make me work for my victory.

But I don't necessarily agree with the game designers ideas, especially in a game like Civ. So I change the rules to fit with my sense of history, of running an empire, and the role of a particular unit etc. Plus the designers idea of fun might be my idea of annoying, i.e Settler Diarrhoea, so by modding I get more enjoyment out of the game.

If I wanted to cheat, I'd just give my Explorer a hidden nationality, and he could sabotage all my opponent's resources with impunity. But I hold back since that would make it to easy. BTW doing that means the AI will never attack the Explorer, even if you are at war. He can wander anywhere at will and pillage everything. I could strip the AI's land clean, and it would never lift a finger against the unit.

[Steve Clark]

Than that would be House Rules or Challenges. Seems like there are different level of 'changing'...

Cheating (like reloading or give yourself 1000000 in gold)
House Rules (like only build 12 cities)
Modding (like creating a new government for the regular game)
Scenario-building (creating a new game where everything could be customized)

[godinex]

Viva le cheaters!

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Libertarian
In my opinion, a man who cheats himself cheats the most important person in the world.

Isn't to count yourself the most important person in the world the definition of an egoist?

[Libertarian]

I suppose it will suffice as a lay definition. Your point is...?

[Harovan]

Nothing offensive, just that being an egoist has some negative touch here. That is why I wonder why you admit it so freely. May be different across the ocean.

[Salvor]

Not to split hairs, and I have absolutely no intention of putting words in Lib's mouth, but when I read that the impression I got was one of self-respect, not egoism.

If you have so little respect for yourself that you can cheat yourself and feel proud of it, then what does that say about the way you are likely to treat others?

[Harovan]

Explanation accepted. By the way, I don't cheat.

[Salvor]

Sorry if I sounded accusatory. I meant "you" in a general sense, not any single person in particular.

[August Borms]

I love cheating, it makes things less annoying and harder for me.

[Captain]

There are only two reasons I ever use a cheat mode or some cheat code.

1) when I'm sure I'm going to win and I just don't want to bother with the tedium of mop-up (mostly in Starcraft when I didn't want to crawl through their huge empty base destroying stuff). In Civ games they didn't really have this particular code and you'd still have to play your turns out so I just retired at that point. I'd only call this cheating if there was some chance of losing - otherwise I'd just call this "forcing closure" on what's already been decided.

2) just for fun to see what would happen if I did something that ordinarily wouldn't happen (like testing bombers against spearmen - though I hear that's not uncommon in Civ 3 ). I don't really consider this cheating though since it's just goofing off.

[FNBrown]

As stated earlier, Mods aren't cheats...

I've added a few things like upgrades for otherwise obsolete units and so forth through the editor, just so I don't have a bunch of swordsmen lurking around in the 20th century.

Of course, the AI can use this as well. I added an attack and defense value to the scout unit so that mine didn't get whacked so often by barbarians, and had the English AI use them as a very mobile early attack unit against me. I actually got a kick out of that...

[steelehc]

Ever play SimCity without cheating? It's really freaking hard. Try to make a city that borders on real life. Without cheating. Impossible, unless your city is Bum****, ZZ. The same thing holds in Civ, although to a much lesser extent. Sometimes its fun to try to re-create an actual civilization, country, nation, state, whatever. It is very hard to do that, and I don't want a challenge, I want to rule the USSR, or France, or whatever. I "cheat" when I do things like this. I think that is perfectly acceptable.

Steele

[Encomium]

I WANT A CHEAT MODE

Civ II had a Cheat Mode.

I used it for many reasons besides "Cheating".

I could quickly check to be sure the terrain at 4,000 BC was fair and I was not stuck on some tundra.

I could replay scenarios and switch sides to see how much better I could do as the other civ.

I could run a game several thousand years, check the situation, and then resume play near the Medieval Age.

I could play out a tedius game that seemed to go nowhere.

I could see how well the AI could manage a situation/invasion I was planning.

There were lots of things I could do in Civ II - but not in Civ III.

I can't even make scenarios in Civ III.


BTW, improving Firaxis' crummy mod is not "cheating" since the values apply to all.