Detecting people replaying GOTM

[humbe]

Hi..

I've never played GOTM before, but sounded fun so thought I'd try it..

However, in my usual games I often skip back once I realized I did something stupid to try out what would happen if I did something else. This is very nice as it allows you to learn by trial and error.

I do however read that you're not allowed to do that, and that's ok.. But I also read you could detect it and would ban if you detected it to happen. I don't really see how you detect it. Sounds tough.. So just thought I'd hear if the following is a problem:

By default, the autosave saves your turn every 4th turn. If your game crashes, can you use latest autosave and continue a GOTM game? Or do you have to alter autosaving to happen each and every turn? Or isn't that good enough either because you might have seen what happened during your turn?

Another rule thing. GOTM page says I'm required to use HOF mod version 3.13.001. I'm not used to using any mods at all. If I save my game and come back later to continue, will the mod be automatically loaded when I load the game?.. If I forget to enter the load mod screen and load that mod before all game loads I do, my game won't be accepted if I want to upload it?

 

[humbe]

Hmm.. Tried out the mod thingy. Seems savegame requires the same mods to be loaded, and asks me if I want to load mod if I attempt it.. Civ crashed when I did it, but at least I know I won't accidently continue without mod.

 

[joespec]

Hey Humbe,
The mod does all the detecting so you can't go back and replay things.
Even if you just go back to a much older save to just test something out, but don't continue that game, it's against the rules I believe, as you might find out something you wouldn't know in your normal course of playing.

Anyway, one of the things that makes GOTM fun (for me anyway) is that you can't replay mistakes. I tend to play like you do, and could otherwise never get myself to play all the way through without reloading.

Feel free to play that way outside GOTM but with GOTM there are no mulligans It makes the game a whole lot harder and more unpredictable.

have fun.

 

[Thrallia]

Hi..

I've never played GOTM before, but sounded fun so thought I'd try it..

Welcome to the GOTM!

However, in my usual games I often skip back once I realized I did something stupid to try out what would happen if I did something else. This is very nice as it allows you to learn by trial and error.

I do however read that you're not allowed to do that, and that's ok.. But I also read you could detect it and would ban if you detected it to happen. I don't really see how you detect it. Sounds tough.. So just thought I'd hear if the following is a problem:

By default, the autosave saves your turn every 4th turn. If your game crashes, can you use latest autosave and continue a GOTM game? Or do you have to alter autosaving to happen each and every turn? Or isn't that good enough either because you might have seen what happened during your turn?

The HOF mod that we require incorporates a lot of security into your saved game so we can pretty much see everything you do in a game.
If you were to ahve a crash and need to load from the most recent autosave, then you should send a message to one of the GOTM staff(Ainwood, AlanH, Thrallia, DynamicSpirit for Civ4 are the best to send it to) and then continue from your latest autosave. We do recommend that you change your autosave interval in the Civilization4.ini file from 4 turns to 1 turn, so that you never need to go back more than 1 turn. You also should replay any moves/decisions you made as precisely as possible, to avoid changing the outcomes too much.

At that point, we take your message into account while checking your game, and if everything checks out, you'll be accepted.

Another rule thing. GOTM page says I'm required to use HOF mod version 3.13.001. I'm not used to using any mods at all. If I save my game and come back later to continue, will the mod be automatically loaded when I load the game?.. If I forget to enter the load mod screen and load that mod before all game loads I do, my game won't be accepted if I want to upload it?

The HOF mod will load automatically when you attempt to load any saved game that uses it. If you dont' have the mod loaded, it will ask if you want to load the mod. If you don't have it, or say don't load mod, the saved game will either crash or not load.

Hmm.. Tried out the mod thingy. Seems savegame requires the same mods to be loaded, and asks me if I want to load mod if I attempt it.. Civ crashed when I did it, but at least I know I won't accidently continue without mod.

What was the error message that you were given when it crashed? Or did it just crash? If it just crashed, try starting a random game while using the HOF 3.13.001 mod, then try loading the GOTM save afterward. Sometimes it requires some settings to be initialized within a different game first with the BtS version, for some reason.

 

[whb]

From an "I like to know what programs are doing to my computer" perspective, does the mod also write to the registry or anything external to the save? (This would be useful in terms of preventing replays from the original starting save, but I feel a little uncomfortable at the thought of a mod blatting stuff all over my computer rather than keeping its effects in a nice packaged location)

In a similar vein, does the mod do anything that could be construed as a "privacy leak" -- eg, sending data to the internet upon opening of the save. (A naive approach to preventing complete restarts would be to send the computer's mac address to civfanatics when the save is opened -- but this could be seen as a big privacy leak; an MD5 hash of the mac address might be less worrysome, but it still could be worth being upfront with people if the mod does this.)

 

[humbe]

The HOF mod that we require incorporates a lot of security into your saved game so we can pretty much see everything you do in a game.

Hmm.. So it actually tracks all unit moves, builds and researches etc?.. Is it possible to use it to get a decent replay, rather than the overly simple one you get after finishing a game, where you can actually replay turn for turn and see what you're producing/researching and moving? Would be nice if one could actually download one of the high rating games and see how the serious contenders do things

Even if you just go back to a much older save to just test something out, but don't continue that game, it's against the rules I believe, as you might find out something you wouldn't know in your normal course of playing.

I totally understand the no going back rule as you're trying to compare your run with others and that's the only way you get a fairly decent comparison. And I have no problem with the intention, but I feel there are legit reasons to load too.. For instance to get information that is free and public, but with availability issues:
- How many resources will I actually get in my town if I settle here? plains/hill = 2 hammers most know, but as far as I remember you can get 3 food or 2 commerce too by settling on resources etc, and there's more cases where you can get 2 hammers. Easiest way to find out is to settle.
- How much will my city maintenance go up if I found another city. This is a killer. And something you have to learn. Especially hard for me to know as I'm used to playing on another difficulty level where the costs are different. Playing another game to test stuff like that out takes much more time. (Maybe there's a mod that can tell me this?)
- What's the distance penalty of settling this far from my capitol?
- And for this specific GOTM, you might think that food or hammers didn't make a difference, but after settling you found that, hey.. +50% settler speed only adds to hammers, not to food, so your initial assumptions might have been screwed.

As to illegit reasons for loading, I totally agree that loading to attack in a different pattern to not lose troops, hurry that extra soldier etc should not be done. But it is also kind of sad, for instance if you escort your first settler with a warrior, and still end up being killed by a wolf with 2 movement that came out of nowhere. Seriously setting back your game. This early you lose a lot of speed if you're going to play it perfectly safe, but when you can get a huge setback by a bit of bad luck.

I'm an old civ3 player, and what really annoyed me back in the days, is that I played noble to learn how the game worked. Once I learned how things worked noble was too easy as the AI was brainless. Thus I had to pump up the difficulty, but as the AIs needed to cheat really bad to be a contender, the game was totally different. As deity, you would always be behind in tech no matter what to begin with. Once you caught up in tech you had already won. You could never build a wonder as AIs could have cities twice your size (no happiness penalties), used half the hammers to build them and started them before you could aquire the tech. You couldn't really research at all. As research cost was constant but gold price dropped as more got them, you had to just get gold and buy them once price dropped, hopefully sell them on to AIs that was far behind. Thus I basicly started playing civ4 at monarch/emperor, to not learn tactics which are useless once I learn enough about the game for it to be interesting. I'm far from being as familiar with civ4 as I was with civ3, but to me it looks like civ4 is better balanced here. I bought Bts merely because of the note about improved AI I guess this is the reason why I have often loaded my games, as the easiest way to answer for instance "will invading this small continent kill my economy in maintenance costs, or will it give me a boost after a fairly short time?" is to try both and compare.

From an "I like to know what programs are doing to my computer" perspective, does the mod also write to the registry or anything external to the save? ...

Hehe.. As a previous sysadmin whose job description is to be paranoid, these are some of my concerns too, and why I'm sceptical to third party addons/mods. At least Sid have an economic motivation for not screwing with their paying customers. But reckon there's enough civ fanatics in here that some has actually verified that this patch doesn't do something really outrageous

 

[Thrallia]

From an "I like to know what programs are doing to my computer" perspective, does the mod also write to the registry or anything external to the save? (This would be useful in terms of preventing replays from the original starting save, but I feel a little uncomfortable at the thought of a mod blatting stuff all over my computer rather than keeping its effects in a nice packaged location)

The mod can write to a text file if you turn on the autologger, but other than that, it doesn't write anywhere. It does read some files other than your save file, but it doesn't write to them.

In a similar vein, does the mod do anything that could be construed as a "privacy leak" -- eg, sending data to the internet upon opening of the save. (A naive approach to preventing complete restarts would be to send the computer's mac address to civfanatics when the save is opened -- but this could be seen as a big privacy leak; an MD5 hash of the mac address might be less worrysome, but it still could be worth being upfront with people if the mod does this.)

It does not send any info over the internet. The only time we get any information from it is when we open your save and parse out all the tiny details from it. There's been talk of doing that, but it has never materialized because of the knowledge that some people do not play on computers that can connect to the internet.

Hmm.. So it actually tracks all unit moves, builds and researches etc?.. Is it possible to use it to get a decent replay, rather than the overly simple one you get after finishing a game, where you can actually replay turn for turn and see what you're producing/researching and moving? Would be nice if one could actually download one of the high rating games and see how the serious contenders do things

AlanH is actually working on building a new replay system. Currently we do have a replay system in text that shows all the major events for each civilization next to each other, but not a graphical one like Alan is currently building.

I totally understand the no going back rule as you're trying to compare your run with others and that's the only way you get a fairly decent comparison. And I have no problem with the intention, but I feel there are legit reasons to load too.. For instance to get information that is free and public, but with availability issues:
- How many resources will I actually get in my town if I settle here? plains/hill = 2 hammers most know, but as far as I remember you can get 3 food or 2 commerce too by settling on resources etc, and there's more cases where you can get 2 hammers. Easiest way to find out is to settle.
- How much will my city maintenance go up if I found another city. This is a killer. And something you have to learn. Especially hard for me to know as I'm used to playing on another difficulty level where the costs are different. Playing another game to test stuff like that out takes much more time. (Maybe there's a mod that can tell me this?)
- What's the distance penalty of settling this far from my capitol?
- And for this specific GOTM, you might think that food or hammers didn't make a difference, but after settling you found that, hey.. +50% settler speed only adds to hammers, not to food, so your initial assumptions might have been screwed.

As to illegit reasons for loading, I totally agree that loading to attack in a different pattern to not lose troops, hurry that extra soldier etc should not be done. But it is also kind of sad, for instance if you escort your first settler with a warrior, and still end up being killed by a wolf with 2 movement that came out of nowhere. Seriously setting back your game. This early you lose a lot of speed if you're going to play it perfectly safe, but when you can get a huge setback by a bit of bad luck.

I'm an old civ3 player, and what really annoyed me back in the days, is that I played noble to learn how the game worked. Once I learned how things worked noble was too easy as the AI was brainless. Thus I had to pump up the difficulty, but as the AIs needed to cheat really bad to be a contender, the game was totally different. As deity, you would always be behind in tech no matter what to begin with. Once you caught up in tech you had already won. You could never build a wonder as AIs could have cities twice your size (no happiness penalties), used half the hammers to build them and started them before you could aquire the tech. You couldn't really research at all. As research cost was constant but gold price dropped as more got them, you had to just get gold and buy them once price dropped, hopefully sell them on to AIs that was far behind. Thus I basicly started playing civ4 at monarch/emperor, to not learn tactics which are useless once I learn enough about the game for it to be interesting. I'm far from being as familiar with civ4 as I was with civ3, but to me it looks like civ4 is better balanced here. I bought Bts merely because of the note about improved AI I guess this is the reason why I have often loaded my games, as the easiest way to answer for instance "will invading this small continent kill my economy in maintenance costs, or will it give me a boost after a fairly short time?" is to try both and compare.

Well, the answer to that is that sometimes you learn through experience, sometimes what you thought was a mistake ends up helping you. Other times what you thought was good ends up hurting you. However, if you need to know the answer to something before continuing, you can always save your game and then go into ou strategy&tips section. It has pretty much ny info you could want. A lot of it is in spreadsheet form somewhere in there as well.

Hehe.. As a previous sysadmin whose job description is to be paranoid, these are some of my concerns too, and why I'm sceptical to third party addons/mods. At least Sid have an economic motivation for not screwing with their paying customers. But reckon there's enough civ fanatics in here that some has actually verified that this patch doesn't do something really outrageous

I've been skeptical of third party add-ons as well, but this mod is pure gold. A ton of us use it in our private games as well, just because it provides so much better advisors than regular Civ4 does. BtS actually included the code from one of the advisors built into the HOF mod, so Sid trusts the mod people enough to have asked for some of their code to improve Civ itself. And yes, there's thousands of players on here who use the HOF mod regularly, so if there were something really outrageous, it would have been caught by now

 

[Erkon]

Hmm.. So it actually tracks all unit moves, builds and researches etc?.. Is it possible to use it to get a decent replay, rather than the overly simple one you get after finishing a game, where you can actually replay turn for turn and see what you're producing/researching and moving? Would be nice if one could actually download one of the high rating games and see how the serious contenders do things



I totally understand the no going back rule as you're trying to compare your run with others and that's the only way you get a fairly decent comparison. And I have no problem with the intention, but I feel there are legit reasons to load too.. For instance to get information that is free and public, but with availability issues:
- How many resources will I actually get in my town if I settle here? plains/hill = 2 hammers most know, but as far as I remember you can get 3 food or 2 commerce too by settling on resources etc, and there's more cases where you can get 2 hammers. Easiest way to find out is to settle.
- How much will my city maintenance go up if I found another city. This is a killer. And something you have to learn. Especially hard for me to know as I'm used to playing on another difficulty level where the costs are different. Playing another game to test stuff like that out takes much more time. (Maybe there's a mod that can tell me this?)
- What's the distance penalty of settling this far from my capitol?
- And for this specific GOTM, you might think that food or hammers didn't make a difference, but after settling you found that, hey.. +50% settler speed only adds to hammers, not to food, so your initial assumptions might have been screwed.

As to illegit reasons for loading, I totally agree that loading to attack in a different pattern to not lose troops, hurry that extra soldier etc should not be done. But it is also kind of sad, for instance if you escort your first settler with a warrior, and still end up being killed by a wolf with 2 movement that came out of nowhere. Seriously setting back your game. This early you lose a lot of speed if you're going to play it perfectly safe, but when you can get a huge setback by a bit of bad luck.

I'm an old civ3 player, and what really annoyed me back in the days, is that I played noble to learn how the game worked. Once I learned how things worked noble was too easy as the AI was brainless. Thus I had to pump up the difficulty, but as the AIs needed to cheat really bad to be a contender, the game was totally different. As deity, you would always be behind in tech no matter what to begin with. Once you caught up in tech you had already won. You could never build a wonder as AIs could have cities twice your size (no happiness penalties), used half the hammers to build them and started them before you could aquire the tech. You couldn't really research at all. As research cost was constant but gold price dropped as more got them, you had to just get gold and buy them once price dropped, hopefully sell them on to AIs that was far behind. Thus I basicly started playing civ4 at monarch/emperor, to not learn tactics which are useless once I learn enough about the game for it to be interesting. I'm far from being as familiar with civ4 as I was with civ3, but to me it looks like civ4 is better balanced here. I bought Bts merely because of the note about improved AI I guess this is the reason why I have often loaded my games, as the easiest way to answer for instance "will invading this small continent kill my economy in maintenance costs, or will it give me a boost after a fairly short time?" is to try both and compare.
...

As soon as the results are published for a GOTM, all final saves are available on the GOTM results page together with the even file. You can't find unit moves or builds, but research, wonders, city founded etc is available.

The four examples you provide are excellent, since they represent game mechanics knowledge not specific to the map. One way to learn is to create your own game and enter the World Builder. There you can try out everything. You can also ask stuff in the pre-game discussions. Finally, you can join a Succession GOTM (which runs twice a year at least). Thats an excellent opportunity to learn from others (You can visit Team Murky Waters thread for example, as long as you don't reveal anything to anyone else). Getting a grip on maintenance cost is one of the most difficult challenges, and it take a lot of experience to predict a suitable growth rate. There are quite a lot of info in the Strategy Forums. This site has LOTS of information, but is a bit tricky to find.

I would say that sad is an understatement. God knows how many times I missed a wonder/key tech with one turn. It's extremely frustrating. And once I lost my capital after 15 turns or something. I was furious! And if you play too safe, you will not get a competitive end year. GOTM is all about adjusting to the situation, regardless if it's luck or unluck. Keep in mind that we are hundreds of players competing and comparing. We all hate it when one unlucky event postpones the victory date with 10 turns.

You have already mentioned the need to adopt strategy depending on difficulty level, and that is absolutely true. The way you play Noble is VERY different from Monarch, which is very difficult from Immortal. Don't play Deity, it's too much depending on the start location. The current GOTM 27 is Emperor. Try it out and ask your questions in the spoiler threads. Welcome!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Hmm.. So it actually tracks all unit moves, builds and researches etc?.. Is it possible to use it to get a decent replay, rather than the overly simple one you get after finishing a game, where you can actually replay turn for turn and see what you're producing/researching and moving?

Some of these questions are getting a bit too specific. Beyond a certain point, the answer to 'what exactly does the HOF mod' track is 'it's a secret'. Why? Because there are a small minority of players who are prepared to cheat and who will try very hard to do so without being detected. If we start publicizing what information from the game we store and how, etc. etc., we'd lose some of the security we have against those people. Suffice to say, our systems are very sophisticated and we can tell pretty much everything we need in order to know who has played by the rules and who hasn't. (And sadly, scarcely a game goes past without a small number of people's games getting excluded because those individuals, presumably, thought they could get away with replaying).

- How many resources will I actually get in my town if I settle here? plains/hill = 2 hammers most know, but as far as I remember you can get 3 food or 2 commerce too by settling on resources etc, and there's more cases where you can get 2 hammers. Easiest way to find out is to settle.

Some questions like that you can find out by generating a new random map, editing it in WorldBuilder and then testing on that map. (In one recent GOTM I did that in order to find out whether irrigation would spread through a city on a desert tile - it does - and I placed about 3 cities based on that knowledge). There are of course questions you can't find out from that, but then it's not unreasonable to expect that playing a GOTM well requires a lot of 'intuitive' knowledge from experience about what will happen in a given situation. (Some other questions btw you could find out by examining the python code).

As to illegit reasons for loading, I totally agree that loading to attack in a different pattern to not lose troops, hurry that extra soldier etc should not be done. But it is also kind of sad, for instance if you escort your first settler with a warrior, and still end up being killed by a wolf with 2 movement that came out of nowhere. Seriously setting back your game. This early you lose a lot of speed if you're going to play it perfectly safe, but when you can get a huge setback by a bit of bad luck.

Civ is partly a game of luck, and of balancing risks against benefits. And inevitably, in that situation, bad luck sometimes occurs. If you escort your settler with a lone warrior (as opposed to, eg. two warriors, or an archer, or having several units clear the route ahead), you know you're taking a small chance of losing the settler, in order to get the benefit (city founded faster) than if you took better precautions against losing the settler. Frustrating when it happens, but that's the game

Hehe.. As a previous sysadmin whose job description is to be paranoid, these are some of my concerns too, and why I'm sceptical to third party addons/mods. At least Sid have an economic motivation for not screwing with their paying customers. But reckon there's enough civ fanatics in here that some has actually verified that this patch doesn't do something really outrageous

Well y'know, where do you think we get our motivation for running the games from? Thanks for all the bank account details guys, we'll use them wisely

(But yes, someone would notice, especially as computer-literacy amongst civfanatics type people tends to be very high)

 

[PutCashIn]

If people are ranked on the date of victory, what happens to the time/score victory condition? is there an award (or spoon) for that?

 

[Zanthra]

What if you spill milk on your keyboard, and cleaning it up presses alt-Q ! If reloading an autosave for that mistake (spilling milk) is not allowed, I respectfully request that my game be removed from BotM 3 competition, and I will curse the game developers, rather than you guys. They really really really should have an "Are you sure?" prompt for surrendering. I guess they might figure that q and alt are far enough away to not accidentally click, but with input remapping (dvorak), that does not help.

 

[Capt Buttkick]

While I agree with the staff's position on this issue on most accounts, I think there could be more openness about the cheating detection system (I know I'm probably here, but I'll state my case anyway ).

What you're doing here is not eliminating cheating, merely making it tougher for players who can't, or can't be bothered to, read code.
For the computer literate ones with an inclination to cheat, reading the mod code is not a big obstacle. Nor is examining save games in the same way staff do. In that way, if so inclined, they actually gain an advantage to cheating over the rest of us (I'm in the can't-be-bothered-to-read-code group myself (not that I'd use it for cheating even if I could be bothered )).

Besides, there are ways of cheating that can't be detected and never will be. (I won't give anyone any ideas here ) There are "smart" cheaters out there who can always escape the nets you cast out. I believe the more hard core cheaters already know where the pitfalls are and how to work around them.

So, in conclusion, if anyone can cheat undetected, it'll be the computer literate ones. Publishing the cheat detection process may not increase cheating as much as you fear it would. And it would ensure that everyone has the same understanding of the process.

 

[humbe]

Some of these questions are getting a bit too specific. Beyond a certain point, the answer to 'what exactly does the HOF mod' track is 'it's a secret'. Why? Because there are a small minority of players who are prepared to cheat and who will try very hard to do so without being detected. If we start publicizing what information from the game we store and how, etc. etc., we'd lose some of the security we have against those people. Suffice to say, our systems are very sophisticated and we can tell pretty much everything we need in order to know who has played by the rules and who hasn't. (And sadly, scarcely a game goes past without a small number of people's games getting excluded because those individuals, presumably, thought they could get away with replaying).

I'm new here, and I'm not gonna start quarreling about rules. I just want to make sure I understand them and know what is illegal so I don't do something without thinking about it and end up banned from GOTM for it.

Don't want to say anything specific about my current BOTM3 game as no spoilers are written yet, but I don't think it spoils anything to say that I was not riding it safe enough, so I ended up restarting it fairly early to play safer. In this situation I don't really think that gave me any advantage apart from play experience, as I settled first city in same spot and didn't need any information I had from last game before I detected it in new game anyways, but I'll make sure not to commit it. What attracted me to GOTM was playing game that was very comparable to others, so I can compare my tactics to others. I don't care that much about the ranking, so I don't mind not being able to upload my current game.

Nice game btw DynamicSpirit.. I assume I can join discussions in spoiler threads once they come even if I replayed and ain't gonna upload my game. First spoiler thread will be well past both my current and my replayed game anyways..

 

[Thrallia]

@humbe: yes, you can participate in the spoiler threads even if you are not submitting(and yes, restarting it as you did would make it ineligible for acceptance)

What you're doing here is not eliminating cheating, merely making it tougher for players who can't, or can't be bothered to, read code.
For the computer literate ones with an inclination to cheat, reading the mod code is not a big obstacle. Nor is examining save games in the same way staff do. In that way, if so inclined, they actually gain an advantage to cheating over the rest of us (I'm in the can't-be-bothered-to-read-code group myself (not that I'd use it for cheating even if I could be bothered )).

actually, since the code is already compiled, it is darn near impossible to read the HOF code.

It is impossible to eliminate cheating entirely, as human nature tends toward cheating in the first place. Thus, all we can do is make it tougher and tougher to cheat, until is is not worth it to even the worst cheaters to do so. Right now, that is what the HOF does, and I feel it does a great job of detecting cheating. However, to reveal how exactly it does that, would open up the doors for people to attempt to find workarounds again, just as they did when it first became required. I really don't think any of the staff has the desire to do taht again...because it we can't be sure that the competition is fair, what is the point in us putting the time into it that we do?

 

[whb]

Hehe.. As a previous sysadmin whose job description is to be paranoid, these are some of my concerns too, and why I'm sceptical to third party addons/mods. At least Sid have an economic motivation for not screwing with their paying customers. But reckon there's enough civ fanatics in here that some has actually verified that this patch doesn't do something really outrageous

Oh, I do trust the HOF-mod-writers here. I mean I've been playing the GOTMs for a couple of years and didn't get around to asking the questions til now (wasn't sure if it might be a touchy topic, but since this thread came up I thought I might as well ask).

Much kudos to Thrallia for the decent way he/she's dealt with all the questions, and I agree some details should be kept quiet. Hearty thanks also to the mod-writers -- it must have been a lot of effort to develop.

 

[Thrallia]

no problem(I'm a he) I asked most of these questions myself when we first started requiring the mod, but the first time I used it, I decided that any security issues or anything else i might do was fine just because of the way it made so much of the info easy to see and find and read.

 

[Capt Buttkick]

Let me start by giving a huge to the hof staff for the mod as well as to the gotm staff for implementing it in the gotm. I never play a game without it.

actually, since the code is already compiled, it is darn near impossible to read the HOF code.

This serves to emphazise my point, if anything. I've been here too long to believe that there aren't people on these forums with 1337 skillz to reverse engineer the hof mod. Thus, the gap between the computer illiterate and the truly nerdy cheaters widens.

It is impossible to eliminate cheating entirely, as human nature tends toward cheating in the first place.
-snip-
because it we can't be sure that the competition is fair, what is the point in us putting the time into it that we do?

Am I wrong in thinking that you contradict yourself when you first state that it is impossible to eliminate cheating entirely and then go on to saying that it's no point in continuing putting time into it if you can't ensure an equal playing field? Why are you still doing it then?
I believe the answer is what you said yourself, you can only try to make it as hard as possible for cheaters to cheat, but that sort of eliminates the "quit making gotm" argument. I'd like to hear your views, though

I don't think human nature particularly tends towards cheating. It does, however, tend towards maximum gain for minimum effort, which for some amounts to cheating (others will have moral grounds, peer pressure and so on to weigh against that).

Another aspect to human nature is that we tend to be suspicious of each other: "He must have cheated to get that result." If you think others get away with cheating, you're more likely to cheat. Openness around the cheating detection process can only serve to prove to the community that most entries are legitimate and that cheating will never be a match for the best of the legitimate players.

Besides, involvment from the community will improve the cheating detection methods faster than the staff can on it's own. I can't deny that some will keep trying to cheat, but the community will have a better chance at staying ahead of the cheaters than the staff has on its own.

A rhethorical question to finish my ramblings Would you say it's true that internet communities have thrived largely because of emphazises on openness?

 

[Thrallia]

This serves to emphazise my point, if anything. I've been here too long to believe that there aren't people on these forums with 1337 skillz to reverse engineer the hof mod. Thus, the gap between the computer illiterate and the truly nerdy cheaters widens.

Well, I haven't graduated yet, but I'm pretty sure it is impossible to reverse engineer compiled code(at least, compiled code that has no backdoors into it)

And I'm pretty sure that if there were a way to do it, that it would've been found by now and likely fixed by Denniz and the rest of the HOF staff.

Am I wrong in thinking that you contradict yourself when you first state that it is impossible to eliminate cheating entirely and then go on to saying that it's no point in continuing putting time into it if you can't ensure an equal playing field? Why are you still doing it then?
I believe the answer is what you said yourself, you can only try to make it as hard as possible for cheaters to cheat, but that sort of eliminates the "quit making gotm" argument. I'd like to hear your views, though

I dunno, I don't consider it a contradiction. If I did not feel that the GOTM competition was very secure, I don't see a reason for me to put time into it, and I'm sure that Alan and Ainwood feel the same way, since they put much more time into it than I do(or probably ever could...they are insane!)

However, I feel very confident that the HOF mod provides the equal playing field needed for us to justify spending the time we do on the GOTM...trust me, the HOF mod provides a huge difference in security from what we had before the HOF mod was used.

So, it probably isn't impossible to cheat right now, but the HOF mod makes it hard enough to cheat, that I feel we have as level a playing field as possible, and that's all I ask for, for the time investment that the staff puts into it. Make more sense?

I don't think human nature particularly tends towards cheating. It does, however, tend towards maximum gain for minimum effort, which for some amounts to cheating (others will have moral grounds, peer pressure and so on to weigh against that).

And I do think that human nature tends toward selfishness, and a look out for #1 no matter what mentality, so that if it is possible to do better with less effort by skirting the rules, many would do so. I agree that for the most part morality keeps people from acting on those desires, but for some, either they don't care, or don't have that morality to prevent them from cheating.

Another aspect to human nature is that we tend to be suspicious of each other: "He must have cheated to get that result." If you think others get away with cheating, you're more likely to cheat. Openness around the cheating detection process can only serve to prove to the community that most entries are legitimate and that cheating will never be a match for the best of the legitimate players.

Not necessarily, there is a very limited set of security systems that are suitable for 'public-key security'. Most systems work well because the process behind detecting the breaking of the rules is hidden or unknown. Only the rules that shouldn't be broken matter. If you know you shouldn't reload, then it shouldn't matter HOW we detect it, just that we can. I can tell you that we've had an extremely low(probably negligible) level of false positives in our cheat detection, especially since the staff personally looks through the data we have to make sure that there's no alternative explanation other than cheating(either intentional or not).

Besides, involvment from the community will improve the cheating detection methods faster than the staff can on it's own. I can't deny that some will keep trying to cheat, but the community will have a better chance at staying ahead of the cheaters than the staff has on its own.

A rhethorical question to finish my ramblings Would you say it's true that internet communities have thrived largely because of emphazises on openness?

I doubt the community would have a better chance, since the cheaters would be part of that community. I think that openness has its place, but not in security. If openness worked in security, then the murder rate in New York City would be a lot lower, because people would actually help with security, rather than ignoring crimes or helping cover them up.(probably a bad example)

I think internet communities have thrived largely because of the ability to find others who share your passions or interests, not because of openness.

 

[whb]

Well, I haven't graduated yet, but I'm pretty sure it is impossible to reverse engineer compiled code(at least, compiled code that has no backdoors into it)

It's perfectly possible to decompile compiled code and reverse engineer it. In fact, most compiled C/C++ binaries even preserve useful details like a list of variable names to make post-compilation debugging easier (people generally don't turn that option off in the compiler these days). However, it would be a lot of work and I can't imagine anyone seriously trying to do that.

In any case, there are so many theoretically impossible to detect methods of cheating (unless we can tell when a player goes over to his mate's house to watch him play the game first) that it is really about making cheating too much effort for someone to do, and trying to remove temptation a little bit. And part of that is making "finding out how not to be detected" too much effort.

 

[Capt Buttkick]

Well, I haven't graduated yet, but I'm pretty sure it is impossible to reverse engineer compiled code(at least, compiled code that has no backdoors into it).
And I'm pretty sure that if there were a way to do it, that it would've been found by now and likely fixed by Denniz and the rest of the HOF staff.

That sounds almost like a challenge. If only I could be bothered
Joke aside, I don't believe that any bits and bytes created on a computer are safe. If you can put it together, someone else can pluck it apart.

Make more sense?

Yup, and more or less what I thought

And I do think that human nature tends toward selfishness, and a look out for #1 no matter what mentality, so that if it is possible to do better with less effort by skirting the rules, many would do so. I agree that for the most part morality keeps people from acting on those desires, but for some, either they don't care, or don't have that morality to prevent them from cheating.

I won't debate you on your views of the human psyche. Although they may be a tad on the cynical side for my taste, I can see your point. We may be closer than I like to think there
However, my argument is that while we're looking out for #1, there's a wide gap from there and to willingly, openly cheating in a friendly contest with the eyes of your community on you. I wasn't making my case on morality alone. Peer pressure is often just as strong a cause to make you stay on the narrow path. If I had been tossed out of the gotm for cheating, I wouldn't show my ugly avatar here ever again

Not necessarily, there is a very limited set of security systems that are suitable for 'public-key security'. Most systems work well because the process behind detecting the breaking of the rules is hidden or unknown. Only the rules that shouldn't be broken matter. If you know you shouldn't reload, then it shouldn't matter HOW we detect it, just that we can. I can tell you that we've had an extremely low(probably negligible) level of false positives in our cheat detection, especially since the staff personally looks through the data we have to make sure that there's no alternative explanation other than cheating(either intentional or not).

I can't see it's a big problem either way. I mean if you're caught now, you get a smack on the hand and your entry for that month is withdrawn. In the case of a false positive you find out what caused the disqual, make sure it doesn't happen again and keep playing. If you cheated, you either stop cheating and continue playing, you keep on cheating the realy silly way and are thrown out of the competition. OR, you learn how to cheat the "smart" way...
Does the staff really think it's so hard to find out ways one can cheat undetected now? Cause that would be naïve...

I doubt the community would have a better chance, since the cheaters would be part of that community. I think that openness has its place, but not in security. If openness worked in security, then the murder rate in New York City would be a lot lower, because people would actually help with security, rather than ignoring crimes or helping cover them up.

But that's just the case with neighborhood watches in many towns and cities all over the world. And, while I'm on thin ice here, I understand virus detection software to work like that: gathered information on breach of security from a huge number of informants serves to improve the product (of course with a varying degree of openness into how the VDS itself works).
However, my point wasn't necessarily that openness works in security. Just that a closed system doesn't work any better, imhso. So why bother?

I think internet communities have thrived largely because of the ability to find others who share your passions or interests, not because of openness.

That's their purpose and reason for being in the first place. I was thinking more along the lines: why are some successful and others not so? For instance, wikipedia is based on people contributing to the wiki. But much more than that, it's based on the belief (and maybe now a confirmed fact) that for every person destroying a part of wikipedia, there will be hundreds or thousands others standing by to correct mistakes, blunders and sabotages.

I'm sorry if I don't get my meaning across at all times. I can't really blame it on English being my second language either, cause I've spoken/written it for about 25 years now. Come to think of it, that may be pretty close to your experience too