Trick or Cheat?

[Keygen]

quote: Originally posted by Franses on 05-15-2001 10:11 AM I understand your suggestion Mobius but I do not think it is waterproof. For example, even a moderator can not "see" whether a player has attacked a city just to see if he could win and if not, replayed the turn. There are more examples like this. Therefore, I prefer to trust the people I play with. If I get the impression that they cheat, I just won't play with them anymore. If I am sure they cheat, I will post it here on Apolyton for everyone to see. If I do not notice it and they do it anyway? Well, let the guy/girl be happy then. To me these people just did not grow up yet. Having said that, I think it would be a good thing to have all the cheats published as Keygen suggests. I mean, if this is common practice when playing over the Internet, someone who is new to PBEM may not know that such behaviour is not appreciated here. I remember that when I started here I had no idea what was and was not "accepted". Even now I am not sure about all the "unwritten rules". Clearly cheating like this rush buy trick is obvious to me but e.g. I do not know whether people exchange private mails to influence eachother or prepare an attack on a common enemy. Except for teamgames I do not do it but perhaps others do and regard it as normal (which I would not debate but would like to know so I can make use of it to).

Franses, diplomacy of any kind can't be considered as cheat. It is true that making a secret alliance and sneak attack with your "ally" another player would be kind unfair but it is part of the human interaction. It's something like the official diplomatic option in the single player mode where you can demand from someone (controlled by AI) to attack someone else (also controlled by AI). It is legal!

[faded glory]

Wow ICE, you can use this shorten production length? I just used it get a quick settler for the cost of 800$ ! But now i see the true danger in this.....Action must be taken!

Franses, About a year ago I made a 'retreat' mod. When 2/3 of the units were lost, the remaining would withdraw to the nearest city that was your's. However it was unreliable and resulted in alot of strange TGA and SLIC errors.


Quinn, I have no earthly explanation for the people who get 5 - 10 times stronger than everyone else on the PG. I thought that proclaiming others to be Cheater's would be a good 'excuse' for my poor performance ....

And yes, what to do about those false accusation
[This message has been edited by Saddam (edited May 15, 2001).]

[blackice]

So if I get this right Fuzzy you don't have to use granaries? You can switcharoo with anything? limiting gold is time effective sooner or later you have gold. I see the resync thing and would agree, but it also happens with autosave and just saving games also with bad connections.

Hummm If that is the case I may just start playing CTP2.
[This message has been edited by blackice (edited May 15, 2001).]

[Solver]

It'll be fun when you rush tanks for 300 gold.

------------------
Solver the "Running Beer" - http://www.aok.20m.com

[Fuzzball]

quote: Originally posted by blackice on 05-15-2001 01:08 PM So if I get this right Fuzzy you don't have to use granaries? You can switcharoo with anything? Hummm If that is the case I may just start playing CTP2.

I'm sorry to say that it is true Blackice.....Don't leave us dude
But yes, you can use the switcheroo to reduce the building cost/ production time of anything at all. All you need is the cheaper item at the top of the queue, and the item you wish to build put on top after rush buying, or put second and have the first item in the queue removed. I don't really blame anyone for using it anymore. I've known about it for way too long. I used to spend alot of time sharing alot of this info with newbies in the multiplayer lobbies, so they weren't disadvantaged. I guess I just assumed all the Pbem'ers here already knew about it. Still, it's just another Activision bug to me. One that can be fixed by altering production costs. So don't despair too much people's. There is a feasible solution to this.
[This message has been edited by Fuzzball (edited May 15, 2001).]

[faded glory]

Trust me this bug is small in the scheme of things. There are many stupid things PBEM people do. People here complain about making negative gold toward the end the game. There is a very good reason for this. It's because people insist on building useless hospital's and theatres .


anyway, not to change the subject
[This message has been edited by Saddam (edited May 15, 2001).]

[berXpert]

Blackice: "I mean if you win exploting a bug which gives you an edge over other players is it a true test of skill?"

Others playeres know this trick in the games I playing, and some are using it and some not even they know how. I won't stop doing this in my current games due 2 reasons:

1. I allready spend all my money mainly buying stuff like markets, graneries and banks. So I have no more money to do it. I need to get some savings before. As I mentioned before I don't play for war so in general I don't use it for units, mainly use my money to rush buy buildings that is not part of the trick. I have only the units that the Mod gave me and an maybe 1 or 2 extra phalanx, that's all (you can confirm that cheating my turn I think)

2. As I said before the use of all those money is part of the cheat, and a lot of times is used mainly to quick building a Wonder (before turn 20) that gives you an extra advantage that is not a "true test of skill" as you said. In that games where I'm involved there are 2 or 3 wonders allready finished (not by me sure) that is not just in the same way that all of you are thinking this trick is.

Maybe if it's set as a rule to the next games, not now

I vote to let this and all the known tricks as they are: part of the each one strategy. But limit the amount of money set in the next accelerated starts to 0. So no body can rush buy a wonder or start building settlers like a cracy in the first 10 or 20 turns.


[This message has been edited by berXpert (edited May 15, 2001).]

[quinns]

quote: Originally posted by Saddam on 05-15-2001 01:18 PM Trust me this bug is small in the scheme of things. There are many stupid things PBEM people do. People here complain about making negative gold toward the end the game. There is a very good reason for this. It's because people insist on building useless hospital's and theatres . anyway, not to change the subject [This message has been edited by Saddam (edited May 15, 2001).]

Maybe that's true Saddam, but I doubt it. The only way to measure if this is a small bug or not, is to pit two players, with precisely the same ability, against each other in a match. Let one player use this bug, while not allowing the other player to use it. I would wager a large sum of money that the player who uses this "switcheroo bug" would win EVERY time.

[blackice]

Odd comment Saddam? In the game I have at 127% which I may add is a goal for me to achievie over 200% civ. score, 225% to be exact in the orginal Civilization game is an achievement I did without exploiting bugs in either game. I could not have done this without a hospital and my gold is over 110,000. Also we are not stupid Also to the people who complain about newbies calling them cheats when they lose so bad to them in their first game, if you use these bugs to do it you are but the zit on a flies ass. Further more why don't more people expose these bugs to the general population, hummm like to win eh? So get ready for generation 2 I have now made it a point to post this on every cheat site on the www. heh I guess some of them will now have to become better gamers eh!
To my knowledge I have yet to see this bug advertised on the www. cheat sites anyone?

Fuzzy this explains why I have lost to a few inferior players in CTP GL games, rather a piss off sure they have higher rankings but I have proven to myself they are not the best gamers. I have played these same people under assumed names and no resyncs and have kicked but in fun games.

If it can not be found in the saved game files or a fix that has to be applied can not be found, CTP2 it is. On the rare occassion in the past I have gone to a cheat site to find a cheat on a game I can not beat. That is it, the game has become a non-challenge no fun. I rarely if at all play the game anymore. This would be no different sorry but fun is the name of the game, exploiting bugs to win is well no fun. Nor is it braging rights! Yet so far I have been able to counter this bug with good strategy that I feel is better in the end run. And well I love this game heh So for those who care add this and terrain imbalances to the list of reasons for not wanting to be rated. Fun is better Terrain is huge btw last weekend I played online and stopped a player from building on anything but bad terrain we watched the end game movie in 65 turns, yup 65 turns the game was over he lost. Terrain imbalances are huge deciding factors. The true way to test ones abilities against another is on an equal surface here we have that oportunity yet we do not do it. I always wondered why? but that is a different can of worms, saved for a new topic I am working on and a new PBEM game.

And berxpert I will decide over the next few days to pull out of the games I am in with you.It depends on the ruling we get here. As you have read I thought it was for settlers and slavers only odd enough I have been unsuccessful buying other things. Also why spend all your money when I play tested it, it's more effective to rush buy for smaller gp to get more out of it?
Just because you buy buildings does not mean when you are attacked you do not use it. Further the mere fact you have used it has caused a great imbalance in those games. You can now produce more troops and have been given ranking points for being ahead in the 10th turn. That may seem harsh but add terrain differances to the factors and that could give you a huge lead. And yes Quinns you are probably right. Remember if it is voted out as far as using it you will have to honorably stop using it.


[This message has been edited by blackice (edited May 15, 2001).]

[berXpert]

Come on, Blackice said he had a strategy to Kill all this cheating stuff, let him talk about it so the balanced will be granted again.

Let's go play and have fun

BTW this cheat is functional if you have enough money to rush buy, if all are poor, then this can't work. If you have not money and you are attacked, how you can use this to save your a$$?

And for you Blackice (or any one involved) I'm quiting now from ALL the games I'm involved if this make you happy, maybe you never have cheated, or used an extraordinary strategy to win but as other said (I don't really know if it's true) you are one of the best players on Earth so you must be rigth.

I won't post a message to quinns to "unrateme from all the games", I simply going to let me die, so all those players who were damaged for my higher rate will be beneficiated again and no more work for quinns.

If blackice let me play I going to start the Killer Game with Zobo, and I won't use this or other tricks. Anyway when Keygen post all the known cheats maybe I can post other "tricks" so you can vote for them too
[This message has been edited by berXpert (edited May 15, 2001).]

[quinns]

Uggh!! I didn't want this to turn into a name calling contest.

We are just trying to get a concensus on what to do with this bug, so we can continue to have "fun"! Without a decent agreement amongst us, some players will quit (as already seems is starting) and it won't be FUN anymore.

[Rick Elkins]

My two cents:

Thanks to Quinns for publicizing this bug. I hope that others who know of any different bugs will expose them, too.

And yes, I think they should be banned from PBEM games.

[quinns]

Well, you're welcome Rick! Thanks for the post!

[Keygen]

quote: Originally posted by Saddam on 05-15-2001 01:18 PM Trust me this bug is small in the scheme of things

Is it really that small?
Imagine having 5-6 cities building phalanxes and all the ancient wonders behind them in building queue, let them for a couple turns and then do the cheat. For about 800-1000 gold you would have 5-6 ancient wonders in 2 turns !

Not that small after all .

[Fuzzball]

quote: Originally posted by Keygen on 05-15-2001 04:18 PM Is it really that small? Imagine having 5-6 cities building phalanxes and all the ancient wonders behind them in building queue, let them for a couple turns and then do the cheat. For about 800-1000 gold you would have 5-6 ancient wonders in 2 turns ! Not that small after all .

No worries there Keygen. The switcheroo only works to reduce building production times by the same amount of turns as the item that was rush bought. It won't work well to buy something that takes two turns to build and change it to something that takes 20 turns to build. The result would be that you would blow a whole lot of cash and only reduce the production time by 2 turns.