Multiplayer CHEATERS!?

[swordspider]

Ok so I have not confirmed this personally, but I was playing with gq_foine the other night and he said that there are now a bunch of cheaters in multiplayer. He said on multiple occasions that he has been rushed with 3-4 swordsmen on turn 30 with an ancient start. Clearly that is not physically possible unless you had the most astronomical hut-techs known to man coupled with el dorado and a legendary city. So, I guess my main concerns here are:

Is this true? Anyone else seen anything like this out there?

If it is true, is there any way to know it ahead of time?

Obviously I like to play with people I know from having played before, so that limits it a ton, but I would like to know if I get into a 6-player game with 5-unknowns if they have the ability to cheat.

LASTLY, if it turns out to be true, I think we should immediately start a BLACKLIST of players who are known to cheat. Thanks all!

 

[Tabarnak]

Turn 30 is very fast. You need a free tech leading to IW and cash from ruins. But still possible between 35 and 40 on a regular basis if a 6 iron tile is settled by a 2nd or 3rd city. Add a couple of turns to reach ennemy city. 1600 BC rush with 4 swords is really a pain for the defender.

Personnally i get AH before IW to add possible hammers.

 

[swordspider]

Turn 30 is very fast. You need a free tech leading to IW and cash from ruins. But still possible between 35 and 40 on a regular basis if a 6 iron tile is settled by a 2nd or 3rd city. Add a couple of turns to reach ennemy city.

Personnally i get AH before IW to add possible hammers.

Thanks Tab, but the point is not if it is possible to have the techs and 3-4 swordsmen attacking by turn 30 (which it is physically not if you do the math, even at 3 swords) but whether or not anyone else has observed cheating. Typically if it is going on, at some point there are the 12 year-olds who are just going to be blatant about it.

Once a cheater cheats, its like gambling, you can never go back to the 'official rules'. So I want to blacklist them *if* they exist.

 

[Tabarnak]

I never seen cheaters so far. I know the limits of the game and i will post here if i see something wrong.

 

[Smote]

this seems doable without cheating.

likely the civs have to screw themselves economically in almost every way possible to achieve this. I agree with 3-4 city build, with all hammers used for warriors or settlers and with commerce squares emphasized to provide funds for upgrading.

The hardest to stop rushes are always gambits such as this. You probably end up with about 12 science a turn, ~18 hammers a turn, no improved squares, 2 cities on bad locations.

you will likely lose a ffa with this strategy due to being outteched, though you indeed do have an excellent chance to conquer whoever is next to you (and maybe whoever is next to them too)

this is the equivalent of 3 gateway zealot rush from starcraft

 

[Deussu]

Uh, people, cheating is possible in multiplayer. Just tested it out with a friend.

As you can see from the attachment, the longswordman's strength is not 18, but 16. We also lowered the cost from 150 to 135, but that doesn't show in this picture. I, on the other hand, didn't have edited the longswordman.

This seems extremely troubling.

Oh, and we continued our experiments. This time we upped warriors. I edited mine to 1337 , he upped them to 666 . This worked somewhat. But in the attachments you see that one warrior inside his border is 666, but the one outside it 1337. Also after I entered his borders, the one outside the border changed to 666 instead of 1337.

What is going on?!

 

[swordspider]

Uh, people, cheating is possible in multiplayer. Just tested it out with a friend.

As you can see from the attachment, the longswordman's strength is not 18, but 16. We also lowered the cost from 150 to 135, but that doesn't show in this picture. I, on the other hand, didn't have edited the longswordman.

This seems extremely troubling.

Oh, and we continued our experiments. This time we upped warriors. I edited mine to 1337 , he upped them to 666 . This worked somewhat. But in the attachments you see that one warrior inside his border is 666, but the one outside it 1337. Also after I entered his borders, the one outside the border changed to 666 instead of 1337.

What is going on?!

From the picture, is *appears* you edited only the text portion. The actual *battle calculations* appear to still be in tact.

What gq said seemed more along the lines of an editing program or a trainer where the player was actually *spawning* units that still abided by the terms of the game. He was just creating mass units.

 

[Deussu]

From the picture, is *appears* you edited only the text portion. The actual *battle calculations* appear to still be in tact.

Nuh-uh. A single warrior cannot take out a full-health city alone in one attack.

 

[DaveMcW]

Nuh-uh. A single warrior cannot take out a full-health city alone in one attack.

Did you get an OOS when you tried?

 

[Deussu]

Did you get an OOS when you tried?

Out of Sync? No, once I attacked I won the game. I do admit there were a whole lot of desyncs when we edited unit cost or unit movement. Changing a unit's power didn't cause any desyncs.

Would require more testing to determine what circumstances make the desync happen. I imagine that a lowered unit cost causes a desync every time such a unit is trained. I'm unsure what would happen if you lower tech costs... would it work? Require more testing...

 

[swordspider]

Out of Sync? No, once I attacked I won the game. I do admit there were a whole lot of desyncs when we edited unit cost or unit movement. Changing a unit's power didn't cause any desyncs.

Would require more testing to determine what circumstances make the desync happen. I imagine that a lowered unit cost causes a desync every time such a unit is trained. I'm unsure what would happen if you lower tech costs... would it work? Require more testing...

Wonderful. So my forum topic about how to STOP cheaters has basically turned into the cheater's handbook. How nice.

 

[Deussu]

If cheating in multiplayer games is this trivial, I don't see a clear way to 'stop' players from cheating. Apparently there's just no XML check done at the beginning of the multiplayer session. It's downright sloppy work by Firaxis. Yes, you might blame me for bringing this out to the public.

Let it be clear that I do not promote or endorse cheating in any way. I was merely trying to make a few balance tweaks to multiplayer games to make it more enjoyable, and suddenly ran into this scenario. I find it crucial to tell this so that precautions could be made. And I intend to take this issue up on the Creation & Customization board so that some wise men can come up with a solution, maybe a separate checking program.

 

[Smote]

cool, I'm gonna give my warrior move speed 1337, power 1337, and blitz and go own everyone

 

[Tabarnak]

cool, I'm gonna give my warrior move speed 1337, power 1337, and blitz and go own everyone

I think everyone must have the exact same files to play multi online. If not the game won't start...am i right?

 

[Tabarnak]

Seriously, after almost 4 months of release and multiplayer threads from Internet, it's the first time i see someone saying it's possible to tweak some files without problems when playing a multiplayer game....again random players to be more precise.

As i remember, you CAN'T play when you try this at home. I mean from the main lobby of each servers around the world from the Steam menu. The connection fails. If some testings are from other type of connection, well i'm not aware from it.

 

[Deussu]

cool, I'm gonna give my warrior move speed 1337, power 1337, and blitz and go own everyone

Speed changes will cause desyncs. I should also mention it didn't seem to work all that well. My friend reported having his unit by my border one turn, but I didn't see it. Next turn it desynced and I'm not sure what happened.

Seriously, after almost 4 months of release and multiplayer threads from Internet, it's the first time i see someone saying it's possible to tweak some files without problems when playing a multiplayer game....again random players to be more precise.

As i remember, you CAN'T play when you try this at home. I mean from the main lobby of each servers around the world from the Steam menu. The connection fails. If some testings are from other type of connection, well i'm not aware from it.

As random as I may be, we didn't do anything peculiar when setting up the game. It was a normal internet game and both of us had Steam open. No funny business, bought copies of the game as well. No cracks, no nothing. If you are unsure about this, I recommend to test it with someone you know and owns Civilization 5. I can only provide you with text, assurance, and screenshots.

 

[Tabarnak]

Thanks a lot Deussu. Your post will bright my eyes a lot more when i will fight in multiplayer games. Just hope for a good patch from the new multiplayer programmer they hired. If they hired one...

I'm just angry a bit about all this....

 

[ori]

Moderator Action: Just a reminder: we do not allow user specific threads or posts - any attempt at creating a "blacklist" by calling out specific persons as cheaters will not be tolerated.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[swordspider]

Moderator Action: Just a reminder: we do not allow user specific threads or posts - any attempt at creating a "blacklist" by calling out specific persons as cheaters will not be tolerated.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

Even if they are cheating bastards? Can we call it something else then, like a 'cheatlist' or a random list of people's names that typically don't play by the rules. Ok ok, I'll back off on the list...

 

[ori]

Even if they are cheating bastards? Can we call it something else then, like a 'cheatlist' or a random list of people's names that typically don't play by the rules. Ok ok, I'll back off on the list...

just to make sure its clearly understood:

Moderator Action: No.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

we do not allow posts calling out other users (or users of other sites).