Do you cheat? How?

[mcwill123]

I was kind of wondering how many people cheat. In what way do you cheat? Myself, I have no hesitation to reload a game when I accidentally right click on the wrong tile to move troops or if I give them a "go to" order and forget that the AI picks stupid routes. (e.g. One of the same length I would choose, but where the unit could easily be attacked by an enemy.)

 

[1234567890]

RELOADING IS EVIL. YOU DESERVE TO DIE IN HELL AND BURN FOREVER FOR YOUR SINS.

I don't hesitate myself to reload 80-100 turns before if I find myself in a desperate situation, but don't want to waste an interesting game. Thus I can rethink a whole new strategy.

 

[Breez]

Yes I cheat. I remove mountains from my capitals BFC but if I do I scan around adn do the same for all the AI also.

and I reload often. too often. i need to try it iron man with no reloads. Multiplayer we never reload, i need to play single player that way.

 

[Tlalynet]

Oh yeah, if a worker or settler walks into a suicide tile where it could plainly see the danger at the beginning of my turn before I could even click it I would reload that. If it gets eaten by a spider or its escort loses a battle then I consider that a fair loss. If its walking over a hill 3 tiles from its destination and something beat my fogbusting I don't like that it just says "Hi Mr Goblin" and continues merrily on its way, but its rare enough I don't want to bother moving it one by one.

I don't get a lot of wrong tile misclicks myself, but I can see how that would be a problem.

I also like to reaload turn one sometimes weather I win or lose if the map is neat.

 

[Onionsoilder]

I used to cheat all the time... mostly by reloading, but sometimes going into worldbuilder as well. Lately though, I've stopped myself from cheating, and instead try to fix my mistakes. Sometimes when I lose 3+ 90% odds in a row I end up reloading.... but I never finish those games, because I know I cheated and like playing a whole game.

One game the Sheaim took all my cities but one... which just happened to be the AV holycity. I built Rosier and used hit-and-run to re-take all my cities. That was a fun game.

 

[mcwill123]

One game the Sheaim took all my cities but one... which just happened to be the AV holycity. I built Rosier and used hit-and-run to re-take all my cities. That was a fun game.

Wow! That must be just about the all-time comeback game.

 

[CitizenSnips]

Last night I had just sent the Baron out into the wild southern tundra to build me an army of savages with which to overrun the Sheaim (for the heinous crime of constantly offering me one fish in exchange for my spare Water mana). Then he was suddenly eaten by one of those super powered bears that wander around in the late game. So I reloaded. Because hey, I wasn't done using him yet.

 

[Tlalynet]

I can see what you mean about that, I try to give him really safe battles until I have at least 5 blooded warewolves, but it doesn't always work out that way.

He got withered in my last game, I let him die, my ravinous werewolves could do his job then.

 

[Onionsoilder]

I can see what you mean about that, I try to give him really safe battles until I have at least 5 blooded warewolves, but it doesn't always work out that way.

He got withered in my last game, I let him die, my ravinous werewolves could do his job then.

Were you CoE or something? Why not just have a priest heal him?

 

[Cinnabar]

When an invisible (brown on a brown background) unit ate one of my workers, I called it a learning experience. When it happened a second time (different unit, different worker), I reloaded.

When I send a unit against another, with a >97 percent chance of winning and it loses, I'm likely to reload.

Sometimes I'll try a sequence of actions that I wouldn't want to do as part of the game (just to see what would happen) and then go back and do what I intended, but that is LEARNING, not cheating.

And of course, my current game left me so far ahead of everyone else (I listened to everyone about the learning curve for FfH and started at too low a level) that I I've played it from mid-to-late to three different victories so far, and I'm working on the fourth. Getting really tired of that map... but that too is learning. After all, I'm brand new at FfH.

 

[Tlalynet]

I could use my Priors or my sinoras touch spell to heal him, or just stack him with regenerate, its not like he couldn't heal, but the lack of XP gain caused him to flounder (he was only L4 when he was withered) and the other werewolves did the job without support.

I usually just take my >99% losses, even hero's don't live that long if you're at constant war... I've never found it worthwhile to attach a great commander to a unit for that reason, if you reloaded I could see them as being awesome attached, but as I play a command post or a rally is usually better.

 

[Lade]

The thing I hated the absolute most about Cib IV was my ability to just click two buttons and I could instantly do anything. Its kind've like being the DM and the player. I'm trying to stop myself from going into WB and destroying anyone when I get frustrated though.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

I used to reload if I lost a favorite unit or sometimes even a city (alright, ai, you win that won, best two out of three...) Usually now I don't reload unless I give some command accidently, press the wrong button or such, but not for the rng or tactical blunders, which can be fun challenges to overcome, or learning experiences at least.

 

[Angel-Julia]

I dont know if you call it cheating, or comparative learning... but i have occasionally re-loaded a game 100 turns back and re-played the last couple of hours of gameplay.

this is usually at a junction in the game, where i chose one tech path/religion/course of action over a different one.

yes I guess I already have knowledge of the land, but by that time I have normally already explored the map. re-playing 100 turns with a different strategy gives me a good comparison between strategies.

e.g. i might play a builder game at the start, then at one stage re-load and turn it into a war-monger game. then see the difference in my progress. the war-monger approach ends out faring much better in 99% of the cases, thus this practice has slowly turned me into a better war-monger.

It also lets me compare how my game would turn out if i persue techs economics first, or go down the magic, or horse, or melee, or recon line. then i see the comparison of how my battles fare if i fight the same battles with advanced melee or with advanced horse forces.

anyway, this is re-loading, though i dont know if i'd clasify it as cheating.

I admit when i started i have occasionally re-loaded when i lost a hero etc in a 95% battle. and i think the only time i used WB was a long time ago when my holy city appeared in the lamest city with no future, and i re-located it to be in a more appropriate city. since then i have learnt to starve off the population of innapropriate cities before founding a religion.

 

[Zongo]

I don't play on difficult settings and I cheat, I admit.

How much depends if I am playing to compete, or to write a story.

When competing I cheat, too, but only in dire cases. Margalard at turn 100? Could be fun. Margalard in your lands at turn 120? Reload at turn 101 and start building that wave of bronze warriors your will sorely need pretty soon.

When writing a story, I made a scenario, mod a bit the civs in order to have that perfect one (philosophical, tolerant sidar with the Grigori world spell) and farm those epic lairs with those heroes turned mimics, which will be vampire lords in the future. In this case I actually reload if I get a good outcome from epic lairs...

 

[Jheral]

I tend to reload a lot, especially when I get events that give permanent penalties with no chance of stopping it or reversing the effects (just what is it about goblin waste that's so toxic anyway?), or when I lose with the odds being >97-98% in my favour.

Other than that, I occasionally make modmods that changes some of the rules in my favour or gives me some marginally improved units (improved workers, or ones with access to the terraforming spells, for instance). For the most part, though, I find the process of making them more fun than playing with them.

 

[Zifnab]

I'll cheat extensively if I am checking out new features in a mod. But I wouldn't really call this cheating, more of a hands on practice run to try out all of the cool new shiny stuff.

Otherwise I'll reload for the accidental movements, if I'm convinced something happening is a bug, or if I'm playing a game with my wife, who loves exploring lairs and hates getting bad results.

Oh, and sometimes I used to cheat for great people too, like if I really needed a great prophet, and the odds had been in the great prophets favor the last five times, but I kept getting great sages. I'd kill the sage and give myself a great prophet, or just give myself a prophet and each of the AI's a great person that it seemed like they could use. But I felt bad about doing so.

Personally I think that cheating is great for learning about a game, but once I feel comfortable with a game I am more likely to be self-handicapping rather than cheating. Unless I just want slaughter.

 

[Breunor]

I reload if I make a mouse error. I don't think of this as cheating, to me the game is a strategy game and isn't about how I physically perform with a mouse.

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[SurahAhriman]

I've re-loaded to protect favored units, especially if I've got some kind of RP/story going on for them in my head. But generally, I prefer using smaller, more limited and thematic cheating. Like, playing Calabrim, if a worker is about to get foolishly eaten by a goblin, rather than reloading, I'll WB in a skeleton to provide a turn of cover, or give the unit haste, or, kind of a favorite, RP the unit taking the "desperate gamble" of me giving it mutated.

A turn of ill-gained haste >> hitting enter 40 times in a row after your only remaining initial scout ends a turn next to a giant spider.

 

[JonathanStrange]

Every now and then, I will go into WorldBuilder and turn all my enemies' capitol cities into lakes filled with Kraken. Purists may consider it cheating but one ought not to elect a magician as your leader and then complain that he does not behave like other people.