Announcement: Sebed found cheating

[binTravkin]

This has been posted a couple days ago by Buster at CGN:

I have been presented with strong evidence of cheating/rules-violations by Sebed in CGN 28.

Without getting into details there is no doubt that analisys leaves no doubt that Sebed has repeatedly and systematically been using cheats and banned exploits, and were not just talking a couple of times of forgetting stockpile. The cheats are significant enough to the games progress to decisively alter the strength of Sebeds faction.

Sebed is therefore expelled from participating in CGN games. As far as I recall this is the first time I have ever had to do this and I do not do it lightly.

Had it been your ordinary player - I would probably have quietly given a last warning, but on top of this Sebeds behaviour in general has been far from proper with frequent personal attacks on wellmeaning players carried out in a rather snide manner.

Remaing players in games including Sebed will need to decide whether they want to continue the game with a replacement or to simply scrap it. They should understand that whoever takes over Sebeds position is likely taking over an artificially boosted position.

If Sebed so desires we can do the laundry in public. I have no particular problem with this as - as mentioned - in my estimation the evidence is beyond any explaining away.

He is of course also free to just quietly disappear.

I advise all players in games with Sebed (currently Im aware of him taking part in Alpha Omega, Glimpse Of Chiron, Who's Who and Cult Of Worms And Fungus games) to take Busters statement about replacing serious and decide what to do in this matter.

If further data needed, I can post them here.


A link to the Buster's announcement.


the (unofficial) organisator and CMN of CGN tournament,
bT

[Senethro]

Can we get more details please? If it wasn't just "forgetting stockpile", what bug was he exploiting?

[binTravkin]

Do you really think person would get so seriously punished for stockpile?

Did you take a look at the link - it explains all, but for the lazy ones I quote Buster:

The total results of Pod Pops are:

turns 2101 - 2129

15 instabuilds
5 AAs*
2 Ogres MK1
1 cloning (at SEA !!!)
2 Unity rovers
1 Unity foil
9 nut bonuses
5 energy bonuses
1 mineral bonus
8 monoliths
4-6 energy pods (im not sure how much exactly, but the total influx
around 500Ecs)
1 river
1 MW (not sure on this though, the MW might be an incoming one)
1 techpod (IB)
1 sonar pod
4 or 5 fungal blooms** (more on them later)
2 dimensional pods***

additional bonuses (popped in 2-bonus pods)
1 solar robot
1 AA

*3 of the AAs were popped in a stroke. Literally. One probe went
through 3 pods during 2 turns and in the end it looked like the AAs
went back to his territory as a column of gooses if you have ever seen
such.

**See attached file (that's a screenshot of 4 fungal blooms). if you
see explanatory arrows and notice the position of UF I think no more
explanation is needed.

***One probe jumps(dimensionally) in to center of MJ, then
jumps(dimensionally) in EXACTLY best position for
infiltrating/stealing tech from Archaic - far enough to not hit his
units (not be in sight range) close enough to get to target in 2 moves
(4 tiles).

Additionally his mind probe stole EXACTLY IA. Archaic had some
other techs Sebed didn't - IE, Eth Calc and probably some more I
didn't take a look at.

And by looking at the paths of Sebed's units it's obvious that:
1.he knew where every player was.
2.he knew where Unity Wreckage was - one of his probes was literally
taking the shortest path to it through initially unpleasant direction
(if I explored I'd find it unpleasant to go).
3.It appears he knows entire map. The reason I assume it is that he can
track labyrinths that were created to MJ and other players and move
foils exactly not to meet some land barriers.

To be more specific - reload without a warning as some of us have done in SP games.

[Senethro]

Ah, sorry, posted before I followed the link.

In one of the games I was playing with him I noticed he had an unusual number of monoliths near his bases and that he had Industrial Automation before the University. And there was me thinking that it was just due to monolith energy...

Impressive number crunching by the CGN crew.

By the way, would anyone consider 500ecs for Ecological Engineering obnoxious?

[binTravkin]

Nope, it's a good price if the game is quite advanced and if you have the money.

You should use the following formula for calculating if costs are too big:

TooBig = (yourResearchCost / Human Player Count > Price? true : false)

means that if your research cost divided by human player count is bigger than the price requested, then you should have all four for taking it.
In some situations you'd even pay > your research cost if you see the tech as really valuable.

[Hercules]

Hmm Never looked at research cost that way before.

[Archaic]

I simply use

Cost = Whatever I decide it's worth, and too bad if you can't afford my prices

[Net Warrior]

My rule of thumb is 50EC's per tech level, unless the tech is just too valuable to share.

[Senethro]

Repeat after me: There is no such thing as Tech level.

[Fosse]

Wow. Over in GOC, the game Senethro mentioned, Sebed once scolded me on the forums for having a reload message that I didn't explain in the thread!

I'm greatful to the CGN crew for doing an astouding job on this, and I'm sorry that a game that was so interesting as Glimpses of Chiron was the result of a jagoff, isntead of a gifted player.

I raise a glass to Buster, and a finger to Sebed.

[binTravkin]

I raise a glass to Buster

Actually credits go to me and Archaic, but Buster was the one to make a judgement and the offcial announcement.
Yes, I am not being modest..

[Archaic]

Most of the bragging rights belong to you. I barely did any work in getting the data that I did for CGN26. You were the one who really went in-depth on CGN32 and 28 for the data that proved everything beyond a shadow of the doubt.