Tournament Cheating: Solution from Firaxis???

November 29, 2001, 18:57

I'd like to see Firaxis come up with a patch that introduces a 'Tournament' function for the game.

It would work like this:

The game would have to be loaded as a 'Tournament Game'(as implemented by Firaxis)

The file can be created by anyone desiring to start a tournament, but would have a specific serial # assigned to it by the game upon it's creation. The serial # would be reported by the game, but it would not be possible to edit the serial # (some sort of encryption)

This file would have characteristics(and hopefully encrypted) that would indentify it as a 'Tournamnet Game' only

Being a 'Tounament Game' the file can only be written to by the games auto-save feature (specifically written for 'Tounament Games' only), which for tournaments would happen only every, say, 25 turns or only prior to victory conditions being met or losing (don't know the best amount here if there is any) in accordance with the rules for 'Tournament Games'

Of course there would have to be some sort of encryption??? To prevent editing of any sort of this 'Tournament Game' file of course.

This being completed after Firaxis FIRST removes any in-game bugs or cheats that currently exist. Then and only THEN will I participate in any sort of "Tournament" concerning the play of Civ 3.

Now obviously I'm not a programmer, but I do feel it is possible to create a system that is not unlike what I've described here. Maybe there are programmers on this board that can implemnt these functions into the game or can at least help me to better explain a system as such to Firaxis so that they can try to save some face with the Apolyton communtity at large for their prior transgressions.

War4ever · November 29, 2001, 21:02

don't get your hopes up....cheating as always will be moderated by the players

Travathian · November 29, 2001, 22:26

I guess you wont be playing in any tournaments in your lifetime.

Even with encryption you can still use and abuse the AI or other anomlies in the game which are essentially cheating. No number of patches will fix this.

Maybe you shouldn't set your hopes so high, especially given the fact that even bigger gaming companies (Blizzard, Id, Westwood, Sierra) all have problems with people cheating with their games. They can patch and repatch, but the fact of the matter, someone, somewhere will find a way to cheat. I'd be happy with some patches just to fix the gameplay, and not even waste time on a 'tournament' function.

War4ever · November 29, 2001, 23:01

hear hear..someone else with realistic expectations

Simpson II · November 30, 2001, 11:13

Sorry, but against anyone who knows a bit about programming in c++ this would not offer any real protection. Encryption is pretty useless when you hand the person a copy of the keys and the algorithm, and they would have to be embedded in the game.

Look at the microsoft reader - it used the best encryption technology anyone could come up with to protect books distributed electronically, with huge amounts of money potentially coming from it's success. IIRC the protection was cracked inside a day. Firaxis would be unlikely to have the resources to produce anything remotely so secure.

xane · November 30, 2001, 11:20

You don't need any sort of fancy encryption or security of the data file.

Tournaments should produce a "logfile" of all events that can then be independently checked by replaying the scenario in another legitimate copy of the game, any actions appearing outside of the rules would be obvious and picked up by the replay mechanism.

For example, if a unit is mysteriously upgraded but the bank is not debited, you'd know about it. Everything can be balanced and crosschecked.

Anyone playing in a tournament is likely to keep save-and-reloading to get the best results from random events, programming could certainly cut this down by "forcing" certain events to happen by readjusting the random seed, but as this could effectively be done anyway without programming it is not a problem.

MarshalN · November 30, 2001, 11:35

Problem with the log file is the same as the encryption --- the player who cheats has it in his hands to change it all he wants before he sends it away.

xane · November 30, 2001, 12:29

No, you are incorrect, it is not the same.

The logfile would be replayed by a separate legitimate copy of the game, any inconsistancies would be noticed. Whilst you can edit the logfile it is not possible to put in anything that could not have been done using legitimate methods using the game itself.

November 30, 2001, 17:22

Quote:

Originally posted by xane
No, you are incorrect, it is not the same.

The logfile would be replayed by a separate legitimate copy of the game, any inconsistancies would be noticed. Whilst you can edit the logfile it is not possible to put in anything that could not have been done using legitimate methods using the game itself.

True, you have a good point/idea. Can anyone from Firaxis get on board here?