azzaman333
meh
Unless you can provide evidence suggesting otherwise, yes, it was luck.
Game paused - The verdict.
- Thread starter Rik Meleet
- Start date
slaze
Deity
All I got for evidence are the "impossible" results and maybe the plako declare (still don't get that one), but nothing's holding up in court
azzaman333
meh
Unlikely results aren't proof of cheating, nor is an accidental war declaration.
slaze
Deity
Nope, proof won't exist in this leaky game, and so all that's left is speculation. I would like to think that how unlikely the results are would start to head in the direction of proof, but let's not leave that up to me.
azzaman333
meh
It doesn't matter how unlikely the results are. It's not proof of any tinkering...
slaze
Deity
If this were Casino then you might get fired for letting three machines hit the jackpot in twenty minutes. But that's in the billions, we're just talking about 10 to the 6th
slaze
Deity
I just went ingame and saved a file to my computer. I was able to open it without an admin code.
Every time you enter a pitboss game, a save is created on your computer. You just have to know where to look. Besides that, there is the save from menu or ctrl-s, and no way to track that.
There is a technique for loading a saved pitboss game without the admin pw. I believe it has to be sequential turns and during your own turn in order for it to work. There was a discussion about this during the setup phase because teams wanted to be able to go back to previous turns and grab screenshots for comparisons.
Let's apply a little math to this. Suppose there are 10 battles and you need to find the correct order to get optimum results. There are 3,628,800 possible orders of those 10 battles. To successfully find the correct sequence, you'd need to load and try 151,200 battle orders per hour, or 2,520 battle orders per minute. On my system it takes a minute to get out of a save and get back in. Clearly it is impossible to find the perfect move order within the time limit, and that's for a relatively short battle sequence.
Brute force obviously won't work -- so what about trial and error? Suppose out of 10 battles on the 1st iteration, there are 3 losses in positions 3, 6, and 9. To avoid a loss at step 3, one has to try up to 648 different combinations of moves 1-3. Even then, if a winning 1-3 is found it might have changed the results of #4 and #5, which then take up to 30 attempts -- if you don't have to backtrack looking for another order of 1-3 which allow a win on #4/5. Repeat for repairs to the sequence 1-8 to make #9 work, etc. Suffice it to say that even being lucky on finding alternatives the number of combinations of permutations will run into the 1000's quickly. On my system, being able to manage an average of 30-60 attempts per hour, 1000 attempts would take between 16.5 and 33 hours.
Sounds like a good Mythbusters spot. Myth: you can get perfect battle results in a turn-based strategy game if you're willing to try enough move orders. Answer: busted, for battles having more than (let's guess 6) battles in the sequence in games with a time limit of 24 hours, because for sequences longer than that you won't have any time left to eat drink or sleep.
slaze
Deity
Let's slow down here. It's not random luck to figure out the correct sequence. A bit of human thinking can whittle it down some. Clearly stronger troops would be used earlier in the battle - Despite the factorial availibily of options, no right-minded human would attempt all those options. Use a riflemen here and then these options are available to you. For the turn in question the odds of that result were more like 1 in midway thru 10 to the 5th. Taking in consideration all our defensive battles (three extra) was my 10 to the 6th quote. Most of the battle were not that unlikely to win, it was just the cumulative affect of winning all those battles that was so unlikely, thus there were many, many options available to them in their factorial number of outcomes.
Regardless, it seems we need to find a way to prevent this from happening in the future (loading the goddamm save and exploring such options) and again,
IS THERE A WAY OF KNOWING IF THIS HAS HAPPENED IN THE PAST?
Regardless, it seems we need to find a way to prevent this from happening in the future (loading the goddamm save and exploring such options) and again,
IS THERE A WAY OF KNOWING IF THIS HAS HAPPENED IN THE PAST?
I think the answer is: no!
Nobody can say, what I (or someone) do at my comp.
In case of cheating, there is allways asuspicion in my mind. But in normal SP i 've so many bad or good luck results, and the forum is full of posts "the AI cheats", so I can never be sure about it in MP. If the battle sequence is reasonable then I swallow my annoyance, if not I lose the fun in the game. Additional there is the mistake in the official/ingame odds.
slaze
Deity
Can it be detected that a game was saved from a pitboss application to another computer? If this can be answered yes (and proven this did not occur) then my point is shattered
We've been challenging whether it was reasonable. Our position is no. Statitically, outcomes have deviated too far from expected bell curve results.
We've been challenging whether it was reasonable. Our position is no. Statitically, outcomes have deviated too far from expected bell curve results.
azzaman333
meh
I can't continue to debate this in a reasonable manner, so I'm going to spend my time on more productive things.
Indiansmoke
Deity
First let me say I am sorry as I feel responsible for reviving this...it was not my intension to accuse anyone and I don't think I did, all I wanted to know is whether it is posible to detect if someone took a save from the pitboss game (for future personnal use in my pitboss games)....quite naive of me as I forgot about the autosave.
I totally agree that this is a matter of faith on opponent's sportsmanship and you take it or leave it.
Sancta had some extraordinarry luck, not only against Cav but against Kazakstan as well earlier in the game, winning consecutive very low odds...however this is just luck and it is within the game. They were taking the piss out of their luck however with ironic posts and that escalated feelings abit.
Personnaly I don't think they cheated and I know they played a dam good game so you can say luck favors the good.
The rest is just pointless and ugly.
I totally agree that this is a matter of faith on opponent's sportsmanship and you take it or leave it.
Sancta had some extraordinarry luck, not only against Cav but against Kazakstan as well earlier in the game, winning consecutive very low odds...however this is just luck and it is within the game. They were taking the piss out of their luck however with ironic posts and that escalated feelings abit.
Personnaly I don't think they cheated and I know they played a dam good game so you can say luck favors the good.
The rest is just pointless and ugly.
damnrunner
Deity
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2005
- Messages
- 2,004
No, current technology does not have this capability. Plus, the game itself creates a save when you log in, and it's impossible to do anything about that autosave.
I believe it is possible to create a mod for a hypothetical next game that would close most if not all of the holes that have been discussed. If asked, I can explain what needs to be done to someone who has the right setup to actually mod it -- perhaps the BUG/BUFFY team would take it on.
But first let's see if this game lives on.
The best is like in ISDG, with new rng after reload.
Then you can take every save for experiments and can look for the best sequence of battles with the odds. The only problem is, if you must reload for game-reason you get another chance. But there is never the reproach of cheating if you win with low percentage.
Then you can take every save for experiments and can look for the best sequence of battles with the odds. The only problem is, if you must reload for game-reason you get another chance. But there is never the reproach of cheating if you win with low percentage.
da_Vinci
Gypsy Prince
I have heard about this controversy and am suprised that it still has such legs. Maybe I can help stick a fork in it ...
First of all, the results were not "impossible", since they occured. One could say they were improbable, if we were in fact dealing with independent random events (which we are not, see below). But for the moment, supose we were dealing with an independent random system.
Hopefully, someone has pointed out what independence of events means: the probability of a 10th coin flip being heads after 9 heads in a row is still 50% even though the probability when you start of getting 10 heads in a row is 1 in 2^10.
Also, it is important to understand what we can and cannot conclude using frequentist statistical inference. In reserach, when we say a result (usually expressed as difference between an observed result and an expected result or control result) is "statistically significant", we mean that the probability of observing that difference in our study, if the truth in nature is that there is no difference, is below some ARBITRARY threshold (usually 5%) ... and based on that, we are willing to ASSUME that the difference is not due to random error in our sampling (or in our radomization for randomized trials). We don't PROVE it is not due to chance (random factors). Sometimes our assumption that results are not due to chance are wrong, despite "statistical significance".
But of course, (as I understand RNG's) we are not dealing with random, independent events. We are dealing with a hopefully unpredictable (by players) deterministic system. So a lot of this statistical talk really does not apply here. My sense is that given a particular seed, the algorithim may generate sequences which will potentially contain segments that highly favor the attacker at times, and highly favor the defender at times. So a long string of success at low or even odds is not the "luck" of individual "rolls", but perhaps more the luck of attacking in a RNG segment favorable to the attacker.
In which case, maybe the particular combat order would only make marginal differences to the outcomes? So instead of winning 100% after siege, one wins 80% with various other combat orders? It might well be that similarly "improbable" results would occur in this scenario regardless of attack sequence? That seems to make basing accusations on the alleged improbability of outcomes pretty dangerous: any innocent attack in that situation would generate an improbable result subject to accusation by that criterion. Is that were we want to be?
This comment I don't get. Are you saying you want to be able to pre-play the position before you play the real game turn ???
dV
In many Pbem-DGs we (at GWT) make (with WB) a similar environment game (not only for battles), set the same units and test it (10 or 20 times). So you can look for the best sequence, because there is in my opinon in most times a favor for the attacker independent of the offical (ingame) chance. With new random seed you can break the battle at any time and discuss the the next moves.
In my opinion: one problem is the reproach and that we are unknown together. If you play cards and you have the idea the other cheats I (you) have possibilities to clear the sitruation, here we have only the hope that the other is fair and this is only a game for fun. But you get the idea of cheats more often, when there is a fix chance to win some turns without combat and then one decided to attack with a good reason (perhaps because the supply is near) and win. Then for the defender there is automatically the question: why now?
In my opinion: one problem is the reproach and that we are unknown together. If you play cards and you have the idea the other cheats I (you) have possibilities to clear the sitruation, here we have only the hope that the other is fair and this is only a game for fun. But you get the idea of cheats more often, when there is a fix chance to win some turns without combat and then one decided to attack with a good reason (perhaps because the supply is near) and win. Then for the defender there is automatically the question: why now?
General_W
Councilor & Merlot Noble
how did it come to this?sad, sad, sad.
donsig
Low level intermediary
It was just luck, I guess.
