Cheating: Is it possible?

[Innawerkz]

I have always written declarations of cheating off as simply something to help a bad player or a good player with bad luck cope with a loss, but my game last night seemed a little too peculiar to put aside.

Without getting into great detail of the various 'bad luck events' that happened - my stack of 5 healthy shock-promoted Phalanxes being attacked accross water by an 8 unit mix of CR1 Swordsmen, C1 Axemen & Woodsmen Spearmen and losing all of my units with no losses on his side is one quick example - I'll simply ask:

Is it possible to cheat in Multi-Player?

 

[TrailblazingScot]

I've not found any cheats in Civ4 MP, what some idiots will try though is to load a custom map on you which is essentially a scenario biased in their favour.

It is easy to spot - you get no choice as to which civ you get to pick and you'll get a map/file transfer to your PC.

So, a pretty obvious to spot and ham-fisted attempt to cheat/deceive the other player.

 

[Innawerkz]

I'll just suck it up and chalk that game as a 'statistical oddity'.

I am happy to hear that there are no known cheats.

Thanks, KoC!

 

[CanuckSoldier]

KoC is right there has not been a documented real cheat yet in Civ4 MP, memory trainers cause OOS's and modified files are identified as a *MOD*. Like KoC says some people will attempt cheesy things like customs maps or changing there difficulty level just before launch. But changing the outcome the RNG is not something that has every been proven to happen. I think it's more likely the result of Firaxis not using the best open source RNG they could, but using one they could afford to licence.

CS

 

[TeraHammer]

Ive seen that too, "invincible" units. I dont know. Too peculiar indeed.

 

[Innawerkz]

That was my reason for posting. I would have accepted the defeat of my stack without question if he had lost at least 3 - 4 units in his attack. I would not normally EXPECT to lose an encounter like that, but I play poker... I know anything is possible when the slightest amount of luck is involved.

The other oddities were attacking two identical promoted spearmen with two identical promoted phalanx (combat 1 & shock). I had 86+% odds - twice - and lost both of my units. The second attack didn't even hurt the spearman. It got to the point where my teammates declared some bug/cheat in the game when he saw this guys 5 Horse Archers attack my stack of 3 spearmen with no losses or retreats.

Odd game. Haven't seen it since. I asked what the odds were on his attacks and he wouldn't say. Oh well! Just a game!

 

[Mulholland]

I have never cheated on purpose. But I remember during the last war between me and a remaining player on a Pangaea map at one point I put my research all the way down to 0 to get some cash to upgrade my units. The strange thing was as my gold increased but my research stayed the same even as the research percentage went down to 0%. I was pulling in about 200 gold a turn and still researching techs in four turns. I was going to win anyways due to a tech lead but I still felt dirty.

 

[TeraHammer]

You didnt have a specialist economy, did you?

 

[Mulholland]

I think I may have been running quite a few specialists.. and representation. It was quite a long time ago.

 

[BaaBoom]

I once played one guy that claimed he could spawn several "great persons" by klicking f.ex "moses" and then hitting a "plus" symbol in the city screen view. I have tried to replicate this but failed. This indicates to me that you need some kind of add-on or change to your exe file to be able to do it.

Anyway, you do encounter some really odd things in online games, but on the other hand i think we all noticed the advantage of getting a good spawn for your capital- in my opinion it effects the entire early game.

 

[TeraHammer]

Not really, baaboom.
If you get your 2nd city up in good "capital" land you can you chop 2 workers and a settler in your first city, working one or two good tiles on your land. But I agree, if you can get a great capital up that is a major advantage.

 

[UnnamedPlayer]

yeah. people get their units to move before the other guy can even perform any commands.

one of the problems with simultaneous turns i guess.

 

[CanuckSoldier]

That's not cheating its call a "fast move" I agree that Civ should not really be about reflexes but since the game mechanics allows it, there is not much to do but learn how to use it yourself.

CS

 

[UnnamedPlayer]

it's not a "fast" move when it happens before your turn even begins.

 

[CanuckSoldier]

Well then you either have a slower computer or a slow internet connection, because "fast moves" is nothing but a technique to using the number lock key pad to move a unit just as the timer goes from 1 sec to 0 sec, and moves the unit immediately on the next turn. But if your computer can not process or transmit turn data has fast as someone else then they will always be fast moving on you.

CS

 

[TeraHammer]

Well then you either have a slower computer or a slow internet connection, because "fast moves" is nothing but a technique to using the number lock key pad to move a unit just as the timer goes from 1 sec to 0 sec, and moves the unit immediately on the next turn. But if your computer can not process or transmit turn data has fast as someone else then they will always be fast moving on you.

CS

THANK YOU!

I allways wondered how they did it.

 

[Indiansmoke]

That was my reason for posting. I would have accepted the defeat of my stack without question if he had lost at least 3 - 4 units in his attack. I would not normally EXPECT to lose an encounter like that, but I play poker... I know anything is possible when the slightest amount of luck is involved.

The other oddities were attacking two identical promoted spearmen with two identical promoted phalanx (combat 1 & shock). I had 86+% odds - twice - and lost both of my units. The second attack didn't even hurt the spearman. It got to the point where my teammates declared some bug/cheat in the game when he saw this guys 5 Horse Archers attack my stack of 3 spearmen with no losses or retreats.

Odd game. Haven't seen it since. I asked what the odds were on his attacks and he wouldn't say. Oh well! Just a game!

I have seen this happen in single player against AI a few times. In one example I attacked a city with 40% culture using 5 CRI maces. In the city was a sole Longbowman..result..I lost all 5 maces and the Longbowman had no reduced health!

I guess the game engine gets stuck and you have to press end turn to unstuck.

 

[BeeBot]

Well then you either have a slower computer or a slow internet connection, because "fast moves" is nothing but a technique to using the number lock key pad to move a unit just as the timer goes from 1 sec to 0 sec, and moves the unit immediately on the next turn. But if your computer can not process or transmit turn data has fast as someone else then they will always be fast moving on you.

What I find a little strange is that the person pulling off the fast moves consistently always seems to have a ping several times higher than anyone else in the game... and yet this only seems to help them, rather than slow them down. Sorta like a one-way network delay, kinda.

 

[Ellestar]

I have always written declarations of cheating off as simply something to help a bad player or a good player with bad luck cope with a loss, but my game last night seemed a little too peculiar to put aside.

Without getting into great detail of the various 'bad luck events' that happened - my stack of 5 healthy shock-promoted Phalanxes being attacked accross water by an 8 unit mix of CR1 Swordsmen, C1 Axemen & Woodsmen Spearmen and losing all of my units with no losses on his side is one quick example - I'll simply ask:

Is it possible to cheat in Multi-Player?

If he cheated on this then there should have been an Out Of Synch because you should have recieved a different combat result (it's impossible to tweak your random number or your combat results with someone else's cheat so there will be a difference between his results and your results hence OOS). If there was no OOS then there was no cheating with random numbers.

 

[Zhuge_Liang]

I don't want to specify the name of the player but he cheated! His musket is 18 strength without promotions. I attacked it with a stack of muskets also and no matter how I attack, the health of that units is still full.

Maybe they're modders. They're stupid.