A little better quality control on this month's GOTM

[Creepster]

It is my understanding that the saves are not counted. You can save as often as you like and it does not change the counter. If you were to save every turn for the entire game and play all the way to the end iron man style with no loading of saved games then the counter would read 0.

What is counted is the number of times a game is loaded (reloaded) from a saved game. In the case of 74 reloads by 370 BC, the game was loaded from a saved game 74 times. It was probably saved quite a bit more than that. Only the reloads were counted.

Col, I agree with you on the saving. It is something I do an awful lot of after years of practice and getting burned with a PC lockup or power failure, etc. Towards the end of the game when I am milking I save almost every turn.

 

[Serg]

Because Preserve Random Seed is ON in most GOTMs replaying the battle gets the same result.

 

[Creepster]

Serg, the battle results are the same if you only replay the same turn. If you go back 2 turns or reload and choose not to attack the turn you lost last time, by waiting one turn you get a whole new set of results and it is very possible to win. The same can be done with goodie huts. If you don't like the results reload, wait a turn and try again. Repeat as necesary to get what you want.

I think very few people do this, but it is very easy to do.

 

[col]

In GOTM 12 I've probably reloaded about 100 times!

That is I've saved my game and reloaded each save once and carried on later.

Reloading one save 10 times is unacceptable.

Its NOt the counter of how many times I've reloaded the game that matters, its how many times THAT save was reloaded.

If I understand, the counter being discussed tells how many times the GAME has been reloaded. I dont think this is useful information unless it exceeds the number of turns so far.

 

[col]

You can also change he outcomes by doing them in a different order either by attacking in a different order or moving in a different order.

 

[Serg]

I don't know exactly how many times I'm reloading while play the GOTM. 20-50 times I mean. Sometimes I do 1/2 units movements of the turn and begin thinking what to do further. If I havn't inspiration I quit the game and return some hours later (if have got time).

 

[Green Light]

Originally posted by col
If someone has 74 separate saves in a short game, its Ok. I save every few turns in the early game and every turn later on.

If someone has reloaded a single save 10 times, this is NOT acceptable. It strongly suggests reloading to get a different result.

Thats true, I think you must be allowed to save as much as you want. BUT reloading the same save more than once suggests that you are trying to manipulate the results by excessive reloading and that shoud not be allowed.

I think more important is to be able to provide more then the last savegame. For example, if you can provide 3000bc 2000bc 1000bc 500bc and 10 AD saves when asked to, if someone finds your game sucpicious, those usually show lot more reliably if someone has done exessive reloading in the start.

 

[Serg]

If the .SAV file contains all units movement history the GOTM Police could extract this info and check. If not contain the saves at 3000,2000,1500,1000,500BC and some other points may be helpful. But it is a big value archive. Do the moderators agree with this?

 

[Green Light]

Originally posted by Serg
If the .SAV file contains all units movement history the GOTM Police could extract this info and check. If not contain the saves at 3000,2000,1500,1000,500BC and some other points may be helpful. But it is a big value archive. Do the moderators agree with this?

I dont think any gotm players hard disks get full if they store for example the mentioned saves.
Send only the final save and maybe 10 ad save when submitting, but it would be mandatory to keep these additional saves to yourself, incase moderators wish to see what you have been doing in the past and ask you to submit the whole save stack.

 

[Cruise]

You cant check how many times 1 save has been loaded. (You load a file, you don't change it). But when loading and then saving it will remember you started off a load.

 

[Karasu]

Col, I enjoy your posts a lot- straight to the point!

I agree with you: it is essential to understand if monitoring the number of saves-reloads is really effective.
If there is no way of checking the number of loads from the same saved game, we are only left with the total number of loads -which is of questionable value to spot potential cheaters.

As a side note, it might well be useless even to confirm that one has not cheated: if you check a savegame and only find 3 reloads in 400 turns, well, who tells you that those lonely saves were not made to change the outcome of a battle?

However, let's assume there is a way to obtain this information: I agree that several saves of the SAME game is suspicious (very suspiscious), but as Serg does, there may be legitimate reasons to reload twenty times the same turn.

So, we (ehm... I mean, the moderators...) would have to ask the "suspect" what happened in her game to make her reload so many times. Which means, back to the "honour" system...

 

[Cruise]

Originally posted by Karasu

As a side note, it might well be useless even to confirm that one has not cheated: if you check a savegame and only find 3 reloads in 400 turns, well, who tells you that those lonely saves were not made to change the outcome of a battle?

It basically all comes down to common sense and not remote possibilities. If someone had 3 loads in a 400 turn game it's less likely he reloaded for battle outcome than someone with a 108 turn victory and 74 loads. Especially if that particular game looks weird with taking many cities with a few units.
There has also a game been found with 567 loads. Don't know what type of game it was, but as of yet it's the record. I doubt anyone would have 19 playing sessions every day of the month.

 

[Cartouche Bee]

There could be lots of reasons why people reload. They could be suffering with Windows ME, taking screen shots, playing multiple games or what ever. The past is the past but in the future if reloads are to be inspected then you expose it to everyone, make a rule and move ahead.

 

[Karasu]

I am afraid there will never be an "automatic cheater detector"...

Which means that the moderators and the "GOTM Police" will anyway have to do some (possibly a lot) of extra work to find them out. And I think they are already doing a lot -to be honest, more than I could do...

Of course, in this sense the loads-counter might be a useful tool in that it provides more information on a game.
But then, it may be more useful to keep a (possibly large) number of saves ready for inspection, as Green Light last said: I think this is an effort any player could be reasonably asked to make, certainly more than submitting to strange saving criteria that could hardly be checked anyway.

This way, If I submit a suspicious game and you want to check it, I have the additional saves to send and my participation to the forum to explain what happened. Failing these, you will mark me as a cheater and ban me from this place. Fair enough.

Checking, say, highest scores and/or fastest games and/or any strange submission would guarantee that the GOTM results are sufficiently "clean": all average players (or less-then-average.. ahem... like me ) would be sure that you can really be that good and set a hones target for our improvement, and the comparison between the best would be unbiased.

Other than that, I think it is not worth the effort. The game is based on having fun and being honest, as it should be. If someone cheats like hell, submits a low-ranking game and gets unnoticed, well, who cares. He's not making any major damage: just let him have fun his own mediocre way.

There would be a damage if people had to waste their time screening hundreds of save files for him, discussing over his cheats and spreading a spirit of suspicion over the entire GOTM.

 

[Serg]

GOTM Moderators!
Please, list the savegame rules before the GOTM13.
May be it will be needed to discuss.

 

[Karasu]

Originally posted by EEKthedog
It basically all comes down to common sense and not remote possibilities...

You're absolutely right, EEK. My point in the end is we should stick to common sense: your experience (mine too, but yours is certainly greater ) will tell you a game does not 'look' right, more and better than any tool.

This is why I am always a bit skeptical of new rules and new tools, even though it is tempting to try and solve problems that way...

 

[Cartouche Bee]

Originally posted by cracker


Alain's rejected game provides no indication of support for the massive reload paranoia that I see in some of these discussions. That game was indicative of a number of other altered play features to gain position advantages that would be impossible under normal game conditions. 2 factor move units cannot attack, heal, and move the equivalent of 12 unroaded squares all in just a two turn sequence.

There are indications that under certain conditions that reload will allow a unit to heal the next turn when it was actually not entitled to. (That is a game flaw.)

I did not notice the 12 squares in 2 turns maneuvers that you speak of, could you provide a clue? I would assume any of these types of maneuvers were accomplished by separate stacks of units or single units.

There has not been a single game that has been precluded from the results based on the 'load count'. We let many games by based on actual possibility based on the rules as they stand.

Some may say that alain's game was possible without prior map knowledge, but I doubt that they have looked at the game objectively with fair play according to the spirit of the rules in mind.

How many people did not submit games because they cherish their integrity based on their interpretation of the rules?

If someone want's to play alain's result out (even with knowledge of the map) and provide the saves to back it it up, please do. [Except Aeson! ]

 

[Phillip_martin]

CB their are many of us who play with good intentions. I did not submit a game last month after a crash prior to moving to another game and overwrote my autosaves. DOH! It was late at night!

The majority of participants use the GOTM to have fun and compare their games against others ie. winning isn't everything.

My concern is that a few players have spoilt the casual nature of the GOTM resulting in a air of suspision and doubt.

Please make all rules clear and simple.

 

[Bamspeedy]

It would be pretty hard to duplicate Alain's game. He in fact had to have gotten a settler from a hut. The 2nd city was built exactly 20 turns after the capital was built. For some reason he spent 2 turns moving the settler at the start of the game before building his capital (grabbing a goody hut and getting a tech when I tried it). 20 turns sounds right, because 20 turns is the fastest he could produce that first settler with no bonus resource. However, he needed 21 turns because the settler coming from the capital would take a minimum of 1 full turn to go to it's destination (it had to go 4 tiles, so even if he had roads in place the city wouldn't be created the same turn the settler was complete). So, if he did get a settler from a hut, he had to move it at least 2 tiles if he got it from the closest hut (which coincidently got him access to horses without having to expand it's borders). Some cities I can see him getting through peace treaties (after he had captured their capital), and then just re-declaring war (breaking the treaty of course, but who cares about reputation in an early conquest), but capturing two capitals in the same turn so early in the game is highly improbable, IMO.
It looks like his attacking 'armies' consisted of 1 or 2 units each. And sent 1 unit at each city.
-

Let's say I forgot to save at 10 A.D. and didn't remember until 30 A.D. If I save the game at 30 A.D., go to the autosave, load up the 10 A.D. and save it (without continuing from that save), then go back to my 30 A.D. save and continue will that be suspicious because I had 2 or 3 're-loads' in a short time period? Does the counter even know at what times you load from a save?

 

[Phillip_martin]

Originally posted by Bamspeedy
Let's say I forgot to save at 10 A.D. and didn't remember until 30 A.D. If I save the game at 30 A.D., go to the autosave, load up the 10 A.D. and save it (without continuing from that save), then go back to my 30 A.D. save and continue will that be suspicious because I had 2 or 3 're-loads' in a short time period? Does the counter even know at what times you load from a save?

Sounds like my normal GOTM routine.