Cheating in multiplayer

Civ 5 - BNW

Is it possible to cheat in multiplayer? If yes, can something be done to, A) stop it; or, B) if not stop it, detect it?

I remember a while ago, someone wrote something in the chat that appeared in red, it looked like some sort of command. I should've taken a note, but instead I left.

There are 113 views, so far, for this thread, and yet no answers. What's the matter? Did someone cut your tongue off? This is a legit question, I searched the forums for an answer but instead of finding what I was looking for, I found goofy posts where people were trying to find ways to cheat in single games. That's not what I want to know, so those of you who know the answer, go ahead and answer. That's why you're part of a community: to take and give.

likely because no one has anything to say, there are no known cheats for Civ5. Yes there are some exploits for game mechanics, but that is not a "cheat" as in hacking the code, using trainers etc..

CS

Hey Canuck, good to see you again, I remember you from Civ3. We played a few games together. How's the ladder?

The exploit bug has been fixed so that's been deal with. So no more annoyance of, "hey he/her just sent me a trade embassy, let's take all of his/her stuff!"

Across the games where this exploit hasn't been used I don't think I've seen an issue, with trainers or not.

Here is a form of "cheating" - the host kicks you when you are beating them. Another form of "cheating" - the host sees you build a wonder (whether hard building or you use an engineer) and they use an engineer to finish same-turn, because host wins all wonder races vs humans.

Silverfuturist said:

Here is a form of "cheating" - the host kicks you when you are beating them. Another form of "cheating" - the host sees you build a wonder (whether hard building or you use an engineer) and they use an engineer to finish same-turn, because host wins all wonder races vs humans.

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You call that cheating? Please, I got kicked by the host when I took their worker!

They should consider a vote on kicking the person, not what the host feels like. Like 6 players in a game, you need four players to agree in the kicking.

consider being picky with games and not playing with dumb hosts might be quite some help ..

I much rather have 1 good game per week as 10 crappy ones at least

Yes... I think i'm the only one (Along with FilthyRobot and hopefully the NQ group) know about it... it isn't a huge cheat really but it gives ungodly power at the beginning of the game. You can't spawn in stuff or give your self stuff but... I was testing it out in a public and it has a show map (unhides map and leaves in black fog stuff not the clouds including wonders and ruins) it bugs the game out requiring a reload after about 5-10 turns (because the happyness wonders give) but basically you find every ruin around you and walk to it and can get a Uluru cap (I did in that game)

I am NOT giving out how I did it or what I used. Let's just say Marbozir uses it in civ 5 also. And leave it at that.

I still have in the hall of fame a game lost at 21. turn. It was in G&K, the guy made in quick mode at 12. turn Stonehenge, and at 21. turn we all lose on this 6player map, cause the cheater guy pushed in the middle of the turn something and I just saw, he won with culture victory, so the answer is, you can cheat in multiplayer, what others wrote, thats only bugging.
The main problem is, game is a crap since last patch in mp (((( I am checking every day this site, hoping for new patch to be arrived...

Erm, there is one last multiplayer bug which is cheaty, and possible to avoid but it takes a lot of effort.

In hotseat when you end your turn you can see a frame of the next player's screen, as well as hear any sound effect including tech research triggered at start of turn. To avoid this, close your eyes when ending the turn and turn off your volume. Still frustrating to work around.

Sadly cheating in civ 5 is easy. i have encountered a few cheaters in my civ 5 Public games. The worst way to cheat in civ 5 is to use a mp stable mod. And no i will not tell anyone how to do it. but i met 3 or 4 players that used it to cheat.
One time someone even forgot to disable his mod that he used to play With his friends so he had to restart the game. Arvius stream. quite a while ago.

However cheating in civ 5 is easy to detect and there is a huge civ 5 no quitter community that you can join. there are a lot of players that play there.

I've never tried it, but I'd assume it's pretty easy to cheat, especially if you are host, just by changing the xml files.

I.e. if I'm going to play, say, Ethopia, I could just change the xml files so the Steele has +10 production.

I don't know if that would only work if the host did it, or would also work if a non-host changed their own files.

tpac said:

I've never tried it, but I'd assume it's pretty easy to cheat, especially if you are host, just by changing the xml files.

I.e. if I'm going to play, say, Ethopia, I could just change the xml files so the Steele has +10 production.

I don't know if that would only work if the host did it, or would also work if a non-host changed their own files.

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It's significantly more complicated than just changing the XML files in your install. Have a go - just editing those files has no effect at all.

You basically have to trick the game into thinking your modified files are part of an official DLC.

Also, if you do this and other players do not, you'll get resyncs constantly throughout the game.

Gort said:

It's significantly more complicated than just changing the XML files in your install. Have a go - just editing those files has no effect at all.

You basically have to trick the game into thinking your modified files are part of an official DLC.

Also, if you do this and other players do not, you'll get resyncs constantly throughout the game.

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Doing single player is very easy. To tweak the Stele if you have BNW, you'd just edit "CIV5Buildings_Inherited_Expansion2" in Contents/Home/Assets/DLC/Expansion2/Gameplay/XML/Buildings before you start a new game. Change the YIELD_FAITH to 5 for the BUILDING_STELE row under Building_YieldChanges and all Steles now have +5 faith. Add a YIELD_PRODUCTION row for it, and the STELE has production.

I've never tried it (and don't plan to) for multiplayer. I was imagining if the host played Ethiopia and did the above before starting a game, he'd have a super-Stele. However, it might just end in massive resyncs, as you noted.

Silverfuturist said:

The host sees you build a wonder (whether hard building or you use an engineer) and they use an engineer to finish same-turn, because host wins all wonder races vs humans.

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Now that was an interesting fact to know. I'll relay this to my friends and suggest they host games instead of me.

i remember 1 player that did an obvious happiness cheat. He changed his difficulty setting to show something different in lobby then what he played with ingame.
it would show up as emperor to the other players, while his real diffculty was settler level.
And sadly that did not cause resyncs.
it was easily detectable when i did a reload. that civ ended up with 0 approval% during the reload. compared to 100% when he was ingame.
Normally when you do a reload the AI gets higher production and approval rateings not far lower!

An other popular cheat is to add more bonus tiles at the beginning of the game. This does cause a turn 0 resync. Europe map sometimes bug out like this even if none use a mod, but other maps do not.

A third popular cheat is to have the lobby show you random a civ while you accually do pick. You just have it show random no matter what you pick. And this is only dedected if 2 or more players use the cheat and pick the same civ.

a 4th cheat can only be done as host, but gives the host a preview of the map and lets you pick the spot you want to play.

a 5th cheat is map hack. map hacks do not cause resyncs. Also they are a pain to detect in civ games. but saveing all turns in auto saves can help you there.

Someone belineing a far superior spot 8 tiles away while sending his warrior in the fastest possible way in another direction for a faith cs. takeing a couple of ruins on the way. And then continueing to beline the ruins and ignore most of the map.

Other then that there are programmers that have succsessfully made mp stable mods that did not cause resyncs. a british player managed to do a massive culture cheat in vanilla. i guess he grew bored of the game.

so to answer your question yes civ 5 bnw does have very few anti cheat cheaks. That is part of the reason why civ mp can be a bit unstable as packets are lost.

civ 4 was superior in the anti cheating department.

Thanks for the replies guys; and thanks for the very informative post, Knut. I suppose the best way to combat cheats is to play with players you trust.

However, it would still be good to educate us on how to detect cheats. As I understand it, some cheats are detectable in the autosave. It would be good to tell us what to look after. This is also a good way to combat cheating.

By the way ondly the host can do cheats that effect any thing on the map and they normaly cause a resync for all players (somme skripts are so perfect that they don't)
What any player can do is chosing what u get out of ruins (easy)
And be able to se the entire map (hard but possible with out resync)

If u change any xml files as host u wil cause the game to resync every turn sincethe other players don't have the same files (i tested it with a guy i know)

The most used cheat in online game play how ever is not a tool it ia just seting the money manualy in one of the first turnes to 5k and the buy units (setlers) and other things before other players finde the host
this causes ondly one resync when the money is cheated and one resync is normal in a civ earlygame

Yes, I have seen people get a religion on turn 2, I have seen a guy have all social policies filled out on turn 2. This game is not hard to cheat or exploit in. The trick is finding good players who arn't garbage scumbags.

There's also being Babylon or Attila... Yeah, that's pretty much cheating too. lol