RickFGS
Deity
GPS..
A little peak on the cold war going on this game
, Milan feeling the pressure...
A little peak on the cold war going on this game
, Milan feeling the pressure...
the Great Italian Wars - PBEM for 6 players
- Thread starter Glasnost
- Start date
Bengal Tiger
Emperor
GPS to I. Larkin.
I don't have any illusions about how likely it is that I win this game.
I don't have any illusions about how likely it is that I win this game.
Glasnost and I. Larkin have asked me to take a look at this game as an "impartial arbitrator". On their request I have now analyzed the save files from 50 AD to 110 AD. (I stopped then, as the picture was quite clear.) Here only a few examples of my results.
The following table shows some of RickFGS's income statistics in these turns.
Turn | Treasury coming into turn | gpt | Treasury available for turn
50 AD | 396 | -261 | 135
70 AD | 495 | -261 | 234
90 AD | 545 | -349 | 196
110 AD | 610 | -383 | 248
The first thing we can see, is that RickFGS is running a large gpt deficit, caused by high research and high unit upkeep cost. Despite of that, the gold balance at the beginning of each turn is always higher than the one at the end of the previous turn!
The second very strange thing is that even during each turn he apparently spends more money than he actually has. For example in 50 AD he has 135 gold available. I see that at the beginning of this turn he has 19 warriors and 16 Medieval Infantry. At the beginning of 70 AD he has 11 warriors and 24 MI. As no MI was produced in 70 AD, he must have upgraded 8 warriors in the previous turn 50 AD. With Leonardo this would cost 8 x 45 = 360 gold.
So in 50 AD despite having only 135 gold in the bank account, he spent 360 gold for warrior upgrades, how should that be possible?? And then the following turn his bank account is back to +495g...
And this goes on for turn after turn.
The next thing that is very strange: production. RickFGS is running Feudalism here, so he can't cash-rush, he can only pop-rush. I noticed that at the beginning of every turn more units get finished, than what can be seen in the previous turn. Example: at the end of 50 AD 2 Longbows and 2 Warriors would finish by normal shield-production. Then when I opened the 70 AD save, I get popups for 6 Longbows, 3 Trebs, 1 Musket, 2 Settlers and a Caravel (total: 13 units).
I took a detailed look at these 13 cities, here only a few examples:
In 50 AD Naples had an empty shield-box and was producing 12 spt. In 70 AD it produced a musket. So 60 shields must have been pop-rushed there, that would mean 2 pop-points for the first 20s and 2 more for the remaining 40s. Consequently the population should go down from size 12 to size 8. But in 70 AD Naples was still size 12!
Pinifarina is size 5, had 2 shields in the box and was producing 2 spt in 50 AD. In 70 AD it was finishing a Trebuchet and was still size 5! With the required pop-rush for the Treb it should have gone down to size 3.
And so on. As far as can see, only 2 of these 13 cities can have finished their project by "normal shield production". In the remaining 11 cities something very "strange" happened between 50 AD and 70 AD.
I verified that the number of workers was constant in these two turns (12 workers), and no workers got produced in that time, so he cannot have joined workers back into these cities to bring them back to the original size.
I have been playing Civilization since 1992 (starting with Civ1), but I have no explanation how something like the above can be achieved. The only explanation for me would be: cheating. In addition to "refilling" his bank account, RickFGS must also have found a way to artificially fill the shield-boxes of his cities (or to restore the population after a pop-rush).
If another independent expert would like to take a look and verify these results, please ask Glasnost for the Admin password.
In the next days I will now also analyze some save files from the Japan Multiplayer Scenario PBEM and from HOF V3 - "From Here to Eternity" I had been participating in both these games and was fighting against "insane" numbers of units on Ricks side, about which I was really amazed, how he manged to produce them, considering the fact that in F11 I was always ahead of him.
Lanzelot
The following table shows some of RickFGS's income statistics in these turns.
50 AD | 396 | -261 | 135
70 AD | 495 | -261 | 234
90 AD | 545 | -349 | 196
110 AD | 610 | -383 | 248
The first thing we can see, is that RickFGS is running a large gpt deficit, caused by high research and high unit upkeep cost. Despite of that, the gold balance at the beginning of each turn is always higher than the one at the end of the previous turn!
The second very strange thing is that even during each turn he apparently spends more money than he actually has. For example in 50 AD he has 135 gold available. I see that at the beginning of this turn he has 19 warriors and 16 Medieval Infantry. At the beginning of 70 AD he has 11 warriors and 24 MI. As no MI was produced in 70 AD, he must have upgraded 8 warriors in the previous turn 50 AD. With Leonardo this would cost 8 x 45 = 360 gold.
So in 50 AD despite having only 135 gold in the bank account, he spent 360 gold for warrior upgrades, how should that be possible?? And then the following turn his bank account is back to +495g...
And this goes on for turn after turn.
The next thing that is very strange: production. RickFGS is running Feudalism here, so he can't cash-rush, he can only pop-rush. I noticed that at the beginning of every turn more units get finished, than what can be seen in the previous turn. Example: at the end of 50 AD 2 Longbows and 2 Warriors would finish by normal shield-production. Then when I opened the 70 AD save, I get popups for 6 Longbows, 3 Trebs, 1 Musket, 2 Settlers and a Caravel (total: 13 units).
I took a detailed look at these 13 cities, here only a few examples:
In 50 AD Naples had an empty shield-box and was producing 12 spt. In 70 AD it produced a musket. So 60 shields must have been pop-rushed there, that would mean 2 pop-points for the first 20s and 2 more for the remaining 40s. Consequently the population should go down from size 12 to size 8. But in 70 AD Naples was still size 12!
Pinifarina is size 5, had 2 shields in the box and was producing 2 spt in 50 AD. In 70 AD it was finishing a Trebuchet and was still size 5! With the required pop-rush for the Treb it should have gone down to size 3.
And so on. As far as can see, only 2 of these 13 cities can have finished their project by "normal shield production". In the remaining 11 cities something very "strange" happened between 50 AD and 70 AD.
I verified that the number of workers was constant in these two turns (12 workers), and no workers got produced in that time, so he cannot have joined workers back into these cities to bring them back to the original size.
I have been playing Civilization since 1992 (starting with Civ1), but I have no explanation how something like the above can be achieved. The only explanation for me would be: cheating. In addition to "refilling" his bank account, RickFGS must also have found a way to artificially fill the shield-boxes of his cities (or to restore the population after a pop-rush).
If another independent expert would like to take a look and verify these results, please ask Glasnost for the Admin password.
In the next days I will now also analyze some save files from the Japan Multiplayer Scenario PBEM and from HOF V3 - "From Here to Eternity" I had been participating in both these games and was fighting against "insane" numbers of units on Ricks side, about which I was really amazed, how he manged to produce them, considering the fact that in F11 I was always ahead of him.
Lanzelot
Well I can add to this, in the AoI multi game that Rick started it was the same thing but on a much larger scale. Thousands of extra shields where being produced each turn to make impossible amounts of military units being produced. He also had plenty of gold to throw around and the icing on the cake was the back to back techs researched. Age of Imperialism mod. has a four turn minimum for techs so there is no way that should be possible. His only explanation was pre-turn manipulation and has never confessed up to the truth about it.
So you see this is not new it is in line with the games that are played by him.
My 2-Cents
Jureil
So you see this is not new it is in line with the games that are played by him.
My 2-Cents
Jureil
Bengal Tiger
Emperor
What a shame. I still had fun though, even though I was pretty obviously "next" to fall.
Bengal Tiger
Emperor
Nope, I'm happy to yield peacefully.
I. Larkin
Deity
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2003
- Messages
- 4,413
Thanks for good game design, Glasnost. Actually my "win" were based on research cooperation with Rick, however, at around 10 AD I start to suspect my partner...
Are there any software that can detect this kind of save manipulation without manual inspection?
I would expect that AlanH and Ainwood have excellent tools that are used for checking the GOTM submissions. But I guess these will not be made public, because it could show potential cheaters, how to circumvent the checks?! 
(Or even be used for cheating...?!)
(Or even be used for cheating...?!)
Bowsling
Deity
Wow. I kind of wish this had been done when I first asked about it (in November of 2012 when I became suspicious while exploring his territory).
Regardless, we shouldn't let all this drama distract ourselves from giving Ivan the congratulations he deserves!
It was a very well played game on your part to achieve what you did from Sicily! 
Regardless, we shouldn't let all this drama distract ourselves from giving Ivan the congratulations he deserves!
It was a very well played game on your part to achieve what you did from Sicily! 
