CHEATS (ver 2.0) Hosted by Ming - Page 2

Ming · June 29, 1999, 16:12

Thanks Yin for answering the question that I didn't feel qualified to answer due to my lack of knowledge on the game. Civ I know, the rest I need help on...
Which leads into the point for this post (besides a gentle bump to the top of the list again)
Almost everything discussed so far has had to do with civ. What about cheats in CTP and AC. I haven't played with these games enough to know them. Some of you must be more familiar with them, because I refuse to believe that they don't exist.
So, if you know of any, please enlighten me.
Just call me Ming the cheat slayer...

Theben · June 29, 1999, 17:58

There were a host of cheats in SMAC v. 1.0 but amazingly enough they got on top of most of them in 2 patches. Aside from the IRON MAN rules, there are problems similar to civ- bombers over ground units, missiles that hang in the air. The only two I can think of is 1) when you create a very expensive unit in the workshop, and select it in a city near a a unity pod (goody hut) sometimes the result of getting the pod is that the item in production is completed next turn (doesn't work for SP's). If you get it (unlikely, but there's no risk) you wait until next turn to disband it to get half the production for what you want. This can be combined with social engineering. FE:

Unit cost=300, SE green, power 300+(300*20%)=360. Next turn disband, get 180 production. Change power(+20% to production) to wealth(-10% to production). Turn after change green (+0%) to planned (-10%). Early secret projects(wonders) cost 200, 300, 400. Subject to SE, a 300 cost would drop to 240. Player gets 180 production free towards 240 shield SP and 80 energy (to change SE).

2) Manipulating the SE choices themselves. When you switch an expensive build from regular costs to lower costs it may not really be cheating, but it sure feels like it.

Ming · July 4, 1999, 01:36

That's good to get some comments on SMAC... Anybody got some more. Anybody have anything on CTP... or did nobody buy it? HA HA HA

I think it's important to learn more about cheats in SMAC and CTP, since they are newer games... Theoretically, these are improvements (more HA HA HA) on civ. So many of the same features may be included... So keep those cheats coming!

TCO · July 4, 1999, 04:28

one more free info cheat. intentionally using the zoc feature to show where ai units are. sometimes I can intentionally move a unit that i know is constrained by zoc becuase of a displayed unit. the game will then display all the previously hidden units which affect my zoc. since i never moved the unit and know that it won't move. i'm getting free info.

rah · July 7, 1999, 08:50

This may not be considered a cheat, but....it has to do with info.(and it's time to move the thread up) It should be easy to program the game so you can't duplicate City Names. I have seen this used to confuse other players.(Xin is the master of this one) It also can really screw up go to commands (like it needs more screwing up).
RAH

Ming · July 15, 1999, 11:18

Good thought on allowing only one city to have a specific name. I know Xin has used that tactic on me in the past... and it's totally confusing, like it was meant to be.

jpk · July 15, 1999, 13:18

Paratroopers can be used as scouts. If you run the cursor over the landscape you can tell whether there are units at a given location.

Perhaps a cure would be that if a certain location has a unit the paratrooper attacks from the air and, if successful, stays at that location.

I will let you to decide if this is a cheat.

Thank you, Ming, for the good work.

Xin Yu · July 17, 1999, 16:02

A cheat to get one NONE unit per turn: change the home city during the lag time when your turn comes, the unit will be NONE.

Ming · July 19, 1999, 09:30

jpk... thanks for that one. It's even better than using nukes and cruise missiles to scout...

And Xin... could you explain a little better how that one works... Maybe because I usually don't have lag time problems I don't see how you can do this.
(and next time... you host... HA HA HA!)

Xin Yu · July 20, 1999, 17:19

OK, let's say I am the Zulus, which moves after Roman. I open a city's window when it's Roman's turn and select a unit which is not supported by it. Then I wait till the title bar shows "Zulu moves" and immediately click on "support by this city". The unit will become NONE.

Theben · July 23, 1999, 16:14

Another for SMAC social engineering: when you "switch" SE's just before entering diplomacy w/ another faction the diplomatic reaction will be affected by the new choice, so if you switch to a SE favored by the faction you're more likely to have good relations in the interaction. Note that SE's may be changed back before the turn is up for no penalties whatsoever, and may be changed multiple times in a turn.

Solution: Disallow multiple switches in a turn (in a category). Do not refund the cost of changing SE's. Possibly cause the civ to suffer the negative effects of both SE's for a turn or 2 until the new one has taken hold. And permit the AI to recognize your change-"We are pleased your society has embraced [SE]. We hope you will continue to do so, and do not return to your [old SE, with demeaning comments]. We will monitor you closely." or something similar.

Iceman88888888 · August 2, 1999, 03:24

You know the reseting thing... Like if you tell the spy to nuke the city you just reload. Well in Sid meirs Colonization You couldnt do this. It just said "The ruins lye empty" or something... Maybe they can repeat this

smilo · August 2, 1999, 17:32

Ming,
You can addd the 1 city food caravan trick I believe.

Theben · August 3, 1999, 01:25

I can't believe I forgot this one. In Civ1 & 2 if you attacked from the sea no pop point was lost from a city, if you attacked from the land the pop was lost. If using air units it gave you an unfair choice. I bring this up because it's still in SMAC. The pop point is only lost when the last unit falls in the city, but it is still dependent on the sea/land tile.

mzilikazi · August 3, 1999, 10:27

Cheat or feature - not sure, but it's not in the manual...
Engineer on board transport terraforming sea into land... I'd like to see it as a feature, but I don't think this is an appropriate way to do it. Also I have haerd that if you have an engineer on a transport and build road then rails, you get trade boost from the sea square, but haven't verified this.

Ming · August 3, 1999, 11:24

When it comes to building roads on the ocean, I think those were things you could do in civI but not civII.

But when it comes to terraforming ocean to land with a settler on a boat... HUH!
Never heard of that one before. Are you sure you can do that?

Any additional info would be appreciated.
Thanks

Francis · August 3, 1999, 13:17

I have heard that you can activate an engineer on a transport and transform the sea into land, but this has never worked for me. I believe it must be a bug from an early version that has been fixed.

mzilikazi · August 4, 1999, 05:13

You could be right... I am sure I've done it in the past, and have read of others doing it (have a look on page 4 of the short tips section of Civ2 strategy on Apolyton - which, incidentally, is unintentionally hilarious, quite possibly the funniest thing I've read all year... no offence meant)

I tried it again last night, but it didn't work. Maybe it was an older version, before I loaded up FW etc.

Nonetheless, I believe this kind of terraforming should be in the game somehow - though this probably isn't the thread for it.

August 5, 1999, 13:17

Ming, I sent you an e-mail.

------------------
"And his word shall carry
death eternal to those who
stand against righteousness."

Bird · August 6, 1999, 15:10

For what it's worth, I just noticed on the ToT forum that John Possidente (he's one of the development people) doesn't consider incremental buying a cheat, nor does he consider the bomber/unit stack a cheat.

Theben · August 9, 1999, 19:51

Hopefully the Firaxis people will have more say than him. The bomber thing isn't a cheat per se, but it isn't realistic either.

Ming · August 9, 1999, 20:11

While I agree with your opinion... My job is to point out these things to the designers.

It is their job to determine if it fits into the game. I hope some didn't realize what an advantage this can be, and decide not to do it in the next version.

Ming · August 16, 1999, 08:35

New summaries are due at the end of August.
If anybody has any last comments or thoughts, now is the time to bring them up.
It seems lately, the MP community is really concerned about cheating... for good reason.
Nothing worse than trying to play a game for fun, and having somebody cheat. We've heard of programs that allow to you to hack in make changes, and people who modify the game between sessions.
What do people think. Is there a way to stop this? Maybe a feature that is incorporated in the game that automatically saves, and the host machine automatically checks the other players save files to see if there are any differences, and then alerts you if there is a problem. Any other thoughts or solutions that we can pass on to make civIII a lot safer from hacking?

DaveV · August 18, 1999, 16:41

Ming,

Regarding MP cheating: I think it's a case where you can never stop someone with enough time and talent from hacking the game, but it should be relatively easy to make it a lot more difficult.

How about this: allow each player to turn on a "mirror save" button. Each time the host saves the game (including autosave), the save file gets sent down the pipe to each of the other players who want it. Then they can compare files when the game starts back up (maybe need a "verify save file" option here). If the host's connection mysteriously drops out, you go back to the last autosave. If you are really paranoid, it would be nice to have an option that saved every autosave file as a unique name. Then you could back and do a post mortem if you think you got hosed.

DaveV · August 18, 1999, 16:46

Ming,

Regarding MP cheating: I think it's a case where you can never stop someone with enough time and talent from hacking the game, but it should be relatively easy to make it a lot more difficult.

How about this: allow each player to turn on a "mirror save" button. Each time the host saves the game (including autosave), the save file gets sent down the pipe to each of the other players who want it. Then they can compare files when the game starts back up (maybe need a "verify save file" option here). If the host's connection mysteriously drops out, you go back to the last autosave. If you are really paranoid, it would be nice to have an option that saved every autosave file as a unique name. Then you could go back and do a post mortem if you think you got hosed.

DaveV · August 18, 1999, 16:49

(triple post!)
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by DaveV (edited August 18, 1999).]</font>

DaveV · August 18, 1999, 16:52

(triple post!)
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by DaveV (edited August 18, 1999).]</font>

Bird · August 19, 1999, 18:01

Ming: Even if this group is unable to come up with the means to prevent MP cheating (Lord knows I don't have a clue about this kind of stuff), at least we need to emphasize that it happens and that it is a big concern. As best we can, we can explain the known ways of cheating and at least hope the programmers can figure out workable solutions. That's certainly not to say the above suggestions, and those seen elsewhere, aren't good or won't work.

Ming · August 19, 1999, 22:08

I agree.. some of the suggestions to stop it are good ones. And again, any that we can point out will give the designers a chance to think about them.

But nobody can stop the slick cheating programs. I would settle for a way to know that cheating is occuring.

Keep those suggestions going. Again, my next (and who knows, maybe last) summary is due at the end of the month.
Lets try to use these last few days to expand on any other ways to catch/stop cheating.

Thanks to all that have contributed to this thread. I've learned a lot, and I hope the designers do to.
Now, let's finish the job.

Bird · August 20, 1999, 17:39

Mention the host tech advantage in MP games. I don't know whether that's endemic to Civ II and MP only, but it should be avoided if the Firaxis code is similar.