Questions questions

[blackice]

Ok how does one know how many shots it would take to wipe out the troops in a city? Like can you know for sure if the city is empty? Any help?
I was playing a player the other day and he knew how many shots it took exactly. He would fire his guns until the last troop was destroyed then land a troop in the city to take it over. He did not over shoot or under shoot the last shot wiped out the last troop and he moved in. he did this 5 for 5 when i asked how he knew he did not respond so i am asking anyone for help. Oh ps when i did ask him about it his ability to guess 2, 4 , 5, whatever number of troops that were in the cities seemed to suffer as he no longer was able to do it again and lost a few troops guessing. also i asked for a saved game file for viewing he refused and got upset hummmm.

Any suggestions is there a trick i am missing?



[This message has been edited by blackice (edited December 06, 2000).]

[TheBirdMan]

You shouldn't know. That's that simple.

If you knew whether all defenders were killed or not, there would never be any challenge in the attack.

This is not supposed to be Ludo or Chess, where you exactly know what will happend.

Sorry.

Edit: Your opponent might use a facility, that we do not use in PBEM games.
[This message has been edited by TheBirdMan (edited December 06, 2000).]

[quinns]

Cut the guy a break BirdMan.

Chess? Do you know exactly everything that is going to happen in a chess match? You must be an excellent chess player that should consider playing Garry Kasporov, (or the new Champ, whoever he is), for the world championship!

The fact is, if someone else is using "common" knowledge techniques to get an advantage, that knowledge shouldn't be ignored, (as in "you shouldn't know"). That "common knowledge" is all Blackice is asking about.

Go ahead and run the test I mentioned, Blackice. Get any "fair" advantage you can to beat the person who is not sharing his knowledge of the game. But I would suggest to get to his cities first and put him on his heels so that you don't have to worry about this "guessing" game.

quinns

[blackice]

Hey thanks for the replys people and merry christmas

Well i will try that suggestion. And i agree it seems fishy that he knew exactly how many shots vs troops.
What the heck is a facility?
Yes he came out of no where building the edisons lab before either of the other players even had gun powder

Off to learn more thanks again

Blackice

[This message has been edited by blackice (edited December 06, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by blackice (edited December 06, 2000).]

[quinns]

I don't know. But you can test it by setting up a scenario and placing a number of units in a city and then placing opposing cannons right outside the city, and start bombarding.

If you don't know how to set up a scenario, they have detailed instructions on the "read-me" files that come with the 1.2 patch.

Barring that, you can create a 3 human player Hot-Seat game, (where you play all three players), and just hit next a bunch of times until you get one player with cannons. March the cannons to the test city and start blasting. Save the game before you blast and try different numbers of units in the city while testing.

This should answer your questions. Good luck!

quinns

[TheBirdMan]

The "common knowlegde" that I refer to is cheating.

Just playing the next turns (gives you knowlegde of the other players as if they were your civ - or more simple just replaying the turn.

That's why I wrote as I wrote. I think his opponents are doing something I wouldn't do (Ohhh glad to be in Denmark, laywers can't do anything about my "statements" )

Edit: It was not Blackice I was - what are you calling it? "efter" = after????.


[This message has been edited by TheBirdMan (edited December 08, 2000).]

[quinns]

Hi Birdman,

I think Blackice was playing an internet game, not a pbem game. So I don't know how his opponent could cheat in an internet game, (though, I'm sure some geek could figure out a way). I just don't understand how anyone can get satifaction from winning a game by cheating. It's beyond me.

Quinns

[TheBirdMan]

"They" did in AOE (I played a lot of online 2 years ago on the Zone). I was then ranked between 600 and 700 and couldn't get higher.

And that was ok - until I read, that xx and yy was cheating using a "facility" in the game, that should not have been there (that closed by a patch, but then it was too late - and new cheats were found).

And then I simply stopped playing the game..... you could not tell if anyone was cheating.

[King Thor]

That sucks so bad!

You know, a couple years back me and a friend of mine were playing 2 vs 2 on AOE and we thrashed the opponents (apparently they were rookies).

They left the game saying "nice game cheaters". It took some of the thrill of victory away because now the person who lost to you thought you had cheated just because you played much better than him.

My friend and me were confused we were like "wait. how can we have cheated? There is no cheat to AOE!" .. But they were gone. I never found out there were cheats for AOE online until now. (since you just mentioned it). I just thought those 2 were sore loosers!

You know something like this could also happen in PBEM. ie. if one player seems to play really well and seems to get his strategy super well, people will wonder if he is cheating. Its quite possible he is. But also possible he isn't. This cheating business just sucks..


What about those bloody video drivers for looking through walls in 3d Shooters??!! Bloody Hell!!

[TheBirdMan]

The cheat was in fact simple.

Start to build something, then disband it before it was finished. Continued use of the cancelbutton several times before the "building" actually disappear gave you half your "investments" each time you cancelled the building.

All "income" was depending how quich you could press the button before the building was gone.

1 time = what the game was supposed to give (half).

2 times = what you had invested (normal cheat).

3 and more = + 50% for every time you was able to press the button before the building was "gone". The cheat start with all buildings made of wood. But it spread to other later.

[quinns]

Alright Blackice! Good luck in your testing, and Merry Christmas to you, also!

quinns

[quinns]

You know, I don't think it is so much, how one cheats, or the ease of how one cheats, it is the WILL of the cheater to cheat. Anyone has the ABILITY to cheat, but to actually seek out a way to cheat, and then do it, takes a pretty messed up individual. Maybe they are frustrated individuals who really desire to be "code breakers" for some country's Intelligence Agency. I've seen them before, they will spend days upon days playing with some computer code to see if they can make it do something it wasn't designed to do. Then, when they do, they get a big grin on their face. Yes, I think that's the mentality. They wish to be recognized as "The World's Great Computer Code Breakers". I guess it takes all kinds to make the world go around. Maybe they practice their skills in the gaming world because it's a relatively safe venue. Personally, I wish they would just get a life, or join the FBI Cyber Division and put their skills to some good use by trying to stop the bad guys!

[This message has been edited by quinns (edited December 10, 2000).]

[Stavros]

Lol....

Thinking about it, that is one of the things I like about CTP PBEM.... Any idiot can cheat if he wants to.... Its no challenge... It's not cool, and if you do it you're just a bad sport.... end of story.

If it were harder, the geeks might get a kick out of doing it...

[quinns]

Good point, Stavros. Maybe that's why it seems that the average age of CTP PBEM is about 25 instead of 12, (it is puzzling how the advertisers to the Apolyton Forum haven't picked up on this yet). It's kind of refreshing, really, to see a "game" bulletin board where every other word is not !@#$ this or !@#$ that.

[TheBirdMan]

Quinns - you know very well that is only us two, that keep the average age up (well and Franses of course, he is our "oldest".)

Edit: And your right about the ..... and the .... (I don't want to see younger CTP players learning too much ).

If I was not used to "guess" abbv. from my normal work, I couldn't read what my oldest child writes on the chat. She would not even get a 5 out of 13 (and that's bad) if she wrote the the same way in her school.
[This message has been edited by TheBirdMan (edited December 09, 2000).]