How did Firaxis do at fixing the cheats in Ming's list?

[TCO]

I want to get MGE. Enough of living vicariously as Makeo's confidant and encourager-to-be-evil...

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by GP
I want to get MGE. Enough of living vicariously as Makeo's confidant and encourager-to-be-evil...

He needs your help in his current duel with me then - ask him about it

[TCO]

Ever finish that last one, where he was beating you? He said that one was one of the best games ever. He doesn't like the current trend to avoid war.

[Alexander's Horse]

Nope we never finished it - but it was a hum dinger.

[notyoueither]

A most excellent list. And my humble answers to as many of them as I know anything about.

CHEATS
-Summarized by Thread Master: Ming-
ming@Apolyon.net

1. FREE INFORMATION

Much of the fun of the game is in the discovery. But little did you know that you
provide us with tons of ways to cheat and get information we shouldn't have:

1.1) If you are looking for other civilizations, you can use the city menu and click on a unit. It tells you the nearest city, even if you haven't found the city yet. It helps you find or hunt down other civilizations.

- Gone. Cities not displayed anywhere associated with units.

1.2) Clicking on the map where you haven't explored and looking at the number after
the coordinates tells you if the place is ocean or land…very important when moving
ships that can be lost at sea.

- Gone. Clicking on black shows you... black.

1.3) Double-click a square that you have already explored. If you don't see the terrain information, then you know somebody has built a city there.

- Now you see the city. No need to search.

1.4) Any city that has built a wonder may be located using the "Find City" command. You get an exact location, even if you haven't discovered the city yet.

- No information on the city is given. Beyond size and citizen mood (on the 5 best summary).

In multiplayer, there are a few real good sources for "free" information:

1.5) The start-up screen when you select civilizations while continuing a saved game:
This gives you the number of cities and number of units for all civilizations. Now, you probably did this to allow somebody new to pick the better of the AI-controlled
civilizations. Why not set it up so that if a civilization has been passworded, the
information doesn't show for them?

- Unknown. Doesn't exist yet.

1.6) The chat screen provides titles for the players you are sending messages to. If
you learn the different titles for each race, you can reasonably track what government
they are in, or when they are between governments.

- Unknown. Doesn't exist yet. However, the military advisor is now a very reliable guide to government type of known civs. The clowns in the foreign office need some brushing up come some patch or other.

1.7) If somebody investigates a city with a spy or diplomat, all players in the game
that have that city on his or her map can see what's in it, too.

- Unknown. Doesn't exist yet. However, very unlikely the way espionage works now.


2. THE CHEAT MENU AND GAME SECURITY

- Comment on most of 2 is premature at this point.

- However, the way the game shapes up now, the seed is preserved when reloaded (option). So at least that's gone if the game uses that option.


3. FREE MOVEMENT

While airports and railroads already provide almost unlimited movement; there are many
design flaws that allow big abuses of the system.

- Whoaaa. You don't know nothin about unlimited yet! The topic of rails and MP has been discussed and freted about a great deal here-abouts.

3.1) In multiplayer, you can give a unit to a player after you have moved it. The other
player can also move it on his turn. This can double the distance it can move in a single turn. It's a great way to sneak a spy through good defenses to bribe a city. And
it even gets worse. If you move a unit, give it to a player, and he gives it back during
your turn, you can move it again. This can be repeated as many times as you like, giving a unit unlimited movement. Some have suggested that all you need to do is make it so a unit can only move once during any given year, or make it so a unit can't be moved during the year after it was given to somebody.

- Unknown. Doesn't exist yet. However, you cannot give units away at this point.

3.2) The Free Trade Route Trick is also a good cheat. If you give a caravan or freight
to somebody, they can set up an immediate trade route with you. By doing this, there
is no need to ever have to move a caravan over land or sea…just give it to a player,
and on his turn, the trade route is established. Instant money. You can be on an island and move caravans to any point on the globe as long as you have established contact
or built one of the two embassy wonders. Some have suggested that when you give somebody a caravan or freight, it moves to whatever city is considered its home. Yes,
this is also free movement, but is the lesser of two evils.

- No caravans.

3.3) The 'I Can Walk On Water Trick' is also a good way to increase movement. If you give somebody a ship, any units on it appear on the nearest shore. You can move your ship just past the halfway mark of any large body of water, and give the ship away. Your units remain under your control, and appear on the other side of the ocean, ready to attack or move. (One additional comment: If you give a boat to somebody else who happens to be in a stack, the rest of the ships disappear. This must be a flaw.)

- You cannot give units away.

3.4) Ship Chaining is also a good one. By using a chain of ships, you can move units
from one ship to another and move them very large distances in one turn. As long as you have your ships in the right place, it's amazing what you can do. We understand the need to allow the transfer of troops from one ship to another, but there must be someway to limit just how many ships they can be transferred to. Some people don’t consider this a cheat. If this was meant to be the case, fine.

- Still there. However, now it's a bit more fun. Heh. The Marines get up from one transport and 'walk' over to the next transport in the next square! Always knew those bastards were tough. How the tanks manage it, I have not yet found a justification for (but I'm workin on it).

3.5) Another concern by some is the ability to move a unit into a city using its last
movement point, then putting it to sleep so that it can board a ship on the same turn.
Combine this with ship chaining, and things get out of hand. Some have suggested that
a unit's disposition shouldn't be allowed to be changed by a city menu after its movement points have been used.

- Fixed. Unable to board after last movement used. But not really relevant with railroads.


4. COMMAND MENU CONSISTENCY

This section is only really meant to ask you to be consistent. If there are multiple ways
to give a unit a command (command menu or city screen), make sure that both allow the same thing.

4.1) Changing the home city of a caravan or freight is a classic example. In the rules, it says you can't do this. On the command menu, that option can't be selected. In the
city menu, you can. Now, the latest patch fixes this for multiplayer games, but not for
regular games against the AI.

- I have not discovered anything like this.

4.2) The free fortify option is another example. If you select a unit in the city menu and fortify it, it is not fortified until the next turn. If you fortify a unit in a city by using the command menu, it instantly becomes fortified.

- No longer possible. Or always the case? Fortification requires movement point expenditure now (1 I believe). You may be able to get it to display as fortified under some circumstances, but it won't get the bonus until the following turn (unless it had a full MP left when you fortified it).


5. COMBAT CHEATS

5.1) The old "unattackable stack" trick is a real cheat. Put a bomber over a stack of
units, and no ground units can hit it. Is this really what the designer intended?

- No longer valid. Air units do not defend squares. They are destroyed when an enemy enters their square (once all the defending ground units are dead that is).

5.2) The "ZOC Avoidance Trick". By using spies or diplomats, you can move your
military units through zones of control. We actually can't agree on whether this is a
cheat or not. But the real question is, was this what the designers intended?

- No more ZOC

5.3) By using multiple engineers, you can change a square from fortification to air base and then back again all during the same turn. This gives you the advantages of both,
which goes against what is written in the manual.

- It will be interesting to see what happens once air bases become available. I believe a version of this may survive unless the designers are careful.

- Mike: Destroy air units if the air base is pillaged by the owner? Or will air bases and forts coexist? Can't see why not. Improvements stack up now, but will a fort/air base/radar be possible?


6. LAG TIME CHEATS IN MP

- Most of 6 cannot be answered yet.

- There are some possible new ones. Players could trade workers to end up with free, but less efficient slaves. You can buy slaves now from the AI. Presumably, you could trade worker for worker as well (with the AI).

- Other possible exploits would include: the 'fake' war, where two players stage a war in no-mans land, killing each others Warriors or Archers so as to generate Elite units and Great Leaders. Two militaristic civs could really go to town with this one.

- Apparently, when a city changes hands the accumulated unhappiness due to pop rushing and drafting (and war weariness?) are decreased. Conquer. Give. Receive back. Give. Receive back. Near 0 unhappiness. Not tested yet, since MP is not yet here, but... Best solution would be to set draft and rush unhappiness to zero when a city is conquered (vive le liberation) and eliminate reductions when cities are 'gifted' or traded for in any other way through diplomacy.

- Soren: if you leave the 50% reduction in place, allies may simply arrange 'conquests' until unhappiness is near 0, thus cheating the honest players.


7. MP CHEATING IN GENERAL
Cheating in MP has caused the most problems, and has almost destroyed the entire concept.
Granted, a hacker can always find some way to cheat, but the Gold Edition just makes it too easy. As pointed out in section 2.1, you can load the game between sessions and look at the map. But that’s not all you can do! You can also use the scenario editor to do WHATEVER you want. You can then save it as a scenario, and load it the next time the game is played. The other players have no clue that you have loaded a scenario instead of the real game file. One suggestion to combat this type and similar forms of cheating would be to use the AutoSave, and have you machine automatically check back with the host at the
beginning of a turn and look for major differences in the files. This could be also done automatically when people begin a saved session. Something has to be done to combat this type of cheating. Many people have given up on MP because of the massive possible cheating. It takes the fun out of the game.

- There is no cheat menu as of this point in time. The designers may guard any cheat mode similar to the 'multi' switch with their lives, simply to preserve the MP experience. Although, that will deprive scenario designers. The solution they find to this conundrum may require some creativity.


8. OTHER CHEATS
Here are some more things that may or may not be considered flaws. Nobody really knows if some of these were intentional or not.

8.1) Airbases provide additional shields and food when built within a city radius. They
also provide instant railroads. In addition, you can build a line of them, and keep enemy
air units and nukes away from specific locations. This can't be intentional, could it?

- No airbases, yet. Very unlikely on the city benefit side. Almost definite on the free road and rail road side; that's how cities and colonies work too. But maybe not, I don't think forts work that way. Nix on the anti air and anti missile front, no longer applicable.

8.2) Some people use nukes and cruise missiles to explore or patrol. The thought of a missile coming home defenses logic. Some have suggested that missiles should be
treated like paratroopers. You pick a target, and the missile goes there. But then again, having a paratrooper in a city allows you free scouting too. If you click on the unit and start a paratroop drop, you can move the arrow around and can tell whether there are units in a given location. You don’t know what they are, but you know something is there, even though you can’t see it.

- Hmmm. Haven't tried the airbourne trick. Haven't heard of it. ICBMs and TacNukes now just go to where they are pointed and blow the hell out of the area.

8.3) The way food caravans make the food box full can be used in a strange way. You can send multiple food caravans from city A to city B, and it will only cost you one food subtraction for the trade route. The first caravan fills the box, and the second adds a population. This can be repeated endlessly to build cities up to the max population without any concern to the availability of food in the city radius. All this for the cost of ONE food trade route. You can also send a food caravan to the city that built it to fill its food box, and then a second to increase its population.

- No caravans

8.4) Rush-buying military units has caused a lot of discussion. From Civilization I to
Civilization II, they changed the building process to create three categories: units, city improvements, and wonders. This was done to stop many of the cheat building tricks we were using in Civilization I. But if you want to rush buy a military unit, it is cheaper to buy it in stages. If you want a diplomat, buy a warrior, change to a horse and buy it, and then change to a diplomat and buy that all in the same turn. This is cheaper than just buying a diplomat straight up. Interestingly enough, you can only use this
trick on units. It doesn't make a difference to do this with city improvements or wonders. Since this difference exists, many consider it cheating. Whether it is or not isn't the issue. If this were intentional, we just ask that you include information on it in the manual so we know.

- Can still be done, I believe. Although I believe it now works with buildings too.

8.5) The "Repeated Commodity" has also caused discussion. Usually when you build a freight or caravan, you pick a commodity. After that, that commodity can't be built anymore. But rare cities have the ability to allow you to produce the same commodity over and over again. Is this a flaw?

- Commodities are no longer tied to cities. They seem to be very finite (frustratingly so in some cases).

8.6) The turbo settler/engineer is another one. If you command a settler/engineer to do something and then stop it before the action is complete, you can move the settler to another spot and continue the same task there. Any time spent in the previous square working on the improvement is transferred to the new square. This can be effective when attacking a city. You can move a “charged up settler/engineer” right up next to a city, and if you have even 1/3 movement left, you can create a fortress on that turn to protect your other units. Bug or feature?

- Gone, gone, gone. Doesn't even save the time worked in it's current square. DO NOT interupt your workers.

8.7) Another problem is that more than one city can have the same name. This should be a simple fix. People can name all their cities the same, to confuse people. And, it is also used by a player to hide a city. You just name it the same as a nearby enemy city, and it makes it harder to find if you are using the old closest city to unit trick to scout. And last but not least, it makes the goto commands even worse.

- Not possible. Generates an error trap. 'City of that name already exists, pick a new one Bozo'. Or something like that.

8.8) One real big problem in MP is the Host Tech Advantage. It seems like about half the time, the host gets many free sciences, while nobody else ever seems to. This gives the host a big advantage. We have had to reset many MP games until we have one where the host starts with no sciences. And this depends on the host being honest on whether he got free sciences or not. Maybe this was built in to insure that the host survived. And if it was, WHAT WERE THEY THINKING! All most players want is an even playing field.

- Impossible to say until some time in December. October if we're lucky. February if we're naughty.

[Sava]

My god, that's a lot of bugs. I don't know whether or not to be surprised that Firaxis gave us such a crap product. I wonder if its too late to return my copy of Civ 3...

[Arrian]

3. FREE MOVEMENT

While airports and railroads already provide almost unlimited movement; there are many
design flaws that allow big abuses of the system.

- Whoaaa. You don't know nothin about unlimited yet! The topic of rails and MP has been discussed and freted about a great deal here-abouts.

However, in case you didn't know, CivIII rails work differently than CivII rails in that you DO NOT get any movement bonus from either roads or railroads when traversing enemy territory. This was done to prevent the 'ole build a few howitzers and take over the world thing.

-Arrian

[Ming]

Originally posted by Sava
My god, that's a lot of bugs. I don't know whether or not to be surprised that Firaxis gave us such a crap product. I wonder if its too late to return my copy of Civ 3...

These were the problems with "CIV II"... not Civ III.

And even with these little problems, Civ II is still a solid game. Especially the MP version

[TCO]

Good response, NYE.

Seems like they did ok, although many of the fixes occirred because the game concept was eliminated. (Caravans, MP)

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

GP,

I know this isn't the thread and that you've likely made up your mind as to CIV2 or CIV3 purchase.

Despite not having MP, it kinna sounds like you should have a look see at CIV3 to see if it offers what your looking for. If your a casual gamer CIV3 maybe the ticket. It addresses anumber of things ala the cheats above (unfortunately in a dismissive manner). "You don't like all the probs with spies and caravans fine we'll simply remove them and come up with a menu driven approach to fix trade/wonder building/food caravaning and espionage instead". Not that its a necessarily bad way of approaching it unless you have fallen in love with those elements from CIV2.

To my way of thinking CIV3 is great for the casual gamer, later on as time, preferences, life cirumstances allow perhaps other games suit.

OTOH if you want MP right now, CIV3 is not your ticket.

Og

[Stuie]

Originally posted by notyoueither
3.4) Ship Chaining is also a good one. By using a chain of ships, you can move units
from one ship to another and move them very large distances in one turn.

- Still there. However, now it's a bit more fun. Heh. The Marines get up from one transport and 'walk' over to the next transport in the next square! Always knew those bastards were tough. How the tanks manage it, I have not yet found a justification for (but I'm workin on it).

BUT it does cost a movement point to go from one to the other. In Civ2 you could park the ships in one square, un-sentry the units, then sentry them in the other vessel, thus requiring no movement points. I don't think that is possible in Civ3. The number of ship transfers is limited to the units movement points.

[notyoueither]

Actually, I believe you can do just that also in Civ3 also. Loading/Unloading in the same square does not consume any movement, but the water wings for tanks is more fun.

[Stuie]

That's definitely a problem then, except that I haven't been taking advantage of it. Of course, my ships' movement pionts are all modded to the point that such cheap exploits aren't worth the time it takes to swap the unit between boats.

[Arrian]

Though it's not a solution for MP, I advocate the "just don't use it" for exploits such as ship chaining.

-Arrian

[rah]

Yes from reading the list, you can't really grade them on how well they did. Most features don't exist, and No MP yet. I willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they read it and fixed what was still relevant. AND HOPE since most of the really good ones were MP related that they make sure most of them can't me done in the future.

RAH