Please read: A reminder.

[ainwood]

For those that are new to the G/COTM (or have only played a few games), and as a reminder to the old-hands:

Reloading is expressly forbidden.

You are ONLY allowed to reload when you start a new play session, and this is ONLY to be done from the save file from the end of your last session. We do not consider two play sessions a few minutes apart to be legitimate either.

This rule includes such cases as forgetting to do something 'important' (city rioting, forgetting to destroy an attacker next to undefended city and it is captured, forgetting to upgrade units, change city production etc). Unfortunately, you cannot be given an advantage over other players simply because of lack of due care and attention.

Obviously some tolerance is allowed for those that have technical problems (crashing etc), however we would encourage you to be proactive in contacting us for technical support (both to try to fix your problem thereby removing a source of hassle for yourselves, and also to gain more sympathy when crashes are presented as a reason for high reloads).

We expect players to play in sessions of around a minimum of an hour at a time. The odd 30-minute session is acceptable, but should not be the norm (and hence balanced by some longer ones).

We don't want to have to exclude more games.

ainwood
(on behalf of the GOTM staff)

 

[Tomoyo]

What about the 30 second session...?

Umm... I had a pediaicon problem, so my session was just pressing the enter button.

 

[Crakie]

Reloading is why I hardly ever submit a game. I usually make two or three huge mistakes and I am more inclined to finish the game with the mistakes undone. I still have the spoilers to compare the results.

 

[Xerol]

I usually just play a half hour or so session before I go to bed, just about every night until I finish, so my games are usually around 20 sessions. How average is this?

 

[AlanH]

@Qwertysoft: Players vary, but 20 reloads *would* be in the upper range of the main pack. Your average isn't as high as you think.

@Crakie: I really do recommend you break the habit. Live with your mistakes and submit your games. Humans learn fastest from remembered pain .

 

[WackenOpenAir]

It would be nice if it was simply made impossible in civ4.

Dunno if many games have this feature, but in diablo2, there is no save game option. No matter how you end your game session, even if it is by a PC crash, the game will simply always save the last moment.

If this would be implemented, the whole thing would no longer be an issue and we could all play our favorite 10 minute sessions without worrying about a thing

In a turn based game with grid squares and where every action has a clear start and end, this should be very easy to implement.

 

[AlanH]

True, but how would we receive your submissions? And there'd still be nothing to stop players copying a saved state to go back to.

 

[denyd]

AlanH: A question, I finished my game in the early 1500's, but went back to the 1450's to check get a couple of screen shots and to check a potential glitch, do those reloads count against my total?

 

[Offa]

I quite often finish my session, save the game, tell myself that enough is enough and that I really should get some sleep. Then I get an urge to check something out, and end up changing a few builds or the tax rate or micromanage a town or two. I then have to overwrite the original save. Does this count as a separate play session? If so I won't do it any more, which will probably be a good thing for my health/wealth/marriage/sanity.

 

[AlanH]

@Denyd: You save the current game state, load up an earlier save, and then reload your last save. So you have terminated your previous session and started a new one, and you've added one reload to your total. The fact that you looked at an earlier save while your latest session was closed has no additional effect other than that, though, any more than reading mail or walking the dog or cat would. [EDIT] Of course, if you had already finished the game then you won't play on and you won't change the reload count recorded in your final save.

@Offa: Every reload followed by a save adds to your total. Even if you do nothing, if you save again it counts another session.

 

[Vegasgustan]

I know I am a newbie to GOTM, but I am trying to figure out how the staff knows. What is to keep someone from playing the entire game and losing it or not getting as good a score as they want and then just starting a whole new game? If you just start from the original save file that you downloaded from this site and play again...how can anyone know? By the way, I am NOT doing this...but I just don't see how anyone could figure that out. I understand why reloading and short sessions are wrong and should never really be done, but how do you guys know. I guess I am just none to smart when it comes to these things. Oh and another wierd question, what about people who create multiple names on this forum and just download multiple copies and play each until they get what they want...how do you stop that?
Lastly, do these discussions about "cheating" happen every GOTM or is this one just special? LOL

 

[solenoozerec]

Even if you do nothing, if you save again it counts another session.

ooops, I think I was doing it quite frequently:
When I plan that it will be my last turn I save it and then I start wondering around, look on all advisers, do some micromanagement then save again. Sometimes just before closing a game, an occasional idea came to mind and if I do something, than I save the same turn for a third time. I guess from now one I should save a game only once after I am sure that I did everything.
Or leave it till next session if I am not sure that I did everything (though I have a habit hitting return immediately every time I start a new session).

I also often do 30 or 40 minutes sessions, sometimes I can steal small portions of time from RL, but I guess it is OK, since it is not on regular basis?

 

[AlanH]

@Vegasgustan:

1. First and foremost, we expect players to be honest and to play fair with the community. Some new players may have been over-eager to get on with the games and missed the small print concerning the rules this community operates to. Some older players may need a reminder. There are no monetary prizes here, and the staff are only trying to keep the playing field level. If you cheat you are cheating your friends and fooling yourself.

2. We aren't omnipotent or omniscient, but we do have a wealth of historical data to help us to know what are the likely and unlikely outcomes during games. Sure, a player can replay a game from scratch, but either they'll make a different set of mistakes and do no better, or they'll play so much better than the map warrants and/or their normal standard, that suspicions will be roused. On the one hand we have players complaining that they can't finish one game in a month and on the other you suggest that some will play it several times just to improve score and grab false honours?

3. Multiple logins are a banning offence for the whole site. They are detectable, and we can and do deal with them.

4. Contrary to popular belief, the staff are not a gang of power-crazed wannabe gestapo officers. Dealing with players who don't know, or don't want to know, the rules is by far the least enjoyable aspect of supporting these competitions. We do it because we believe the majority want it done. This thread has been prompted by the trends we see, and our desire to ensure that players realise they should play nice, and understand and follow the rules.

5. Speaking personally, I joined the staff primarily to offer technical assistance to improve the way we deliver the services, not to be a policeman. I'd much prefer to do the constructive things I enjoy, rather than playing a distasteful game of cops and robbers.

@solenoozerac:
You can save as often as you like during a session. I do it myself, just in case of crashes, or if I want to be able to go back and grab a screenshot or whatever .... As long as you play on and don't reload from a save you haven't completed a session.

 

[dmanakho]

I know I am a newbie to GOTM, but I am trying to figure out how the staff knows. What is to keep someone from playing the entire game and losing it or not getting as good a score as they want and then just starting a whole new game? If you just start from the original save file that you downloaded from this site and play again...how can anyone know?

I am not a staff member, but i can say "NOBODY WILL KNOW YOU (or someone else for that matter) CHEATED BUT YOU". So .... Use your personal judgement and your good will when playing GOTM. Cheating won't make you a better player... Yes you probably will move from 80something to 40something place in a roster, but will you really feel better yourself doing so? I doubt it.

@Offa: Every reload followed by a save adds to your total. Even if you do nothing, if you save again it counts another session.

This is not good... I have an old good habit to save more work every so often. It started when computers were IBM AT/XT and programs crashed every few minutes... Ever since whatever i do i do save a lot. I play civilization and i save my session from every hour to every 2 minutes, I also save before i declare a war, make peace, starting a wonder or any other important desicion.
It is not that i will reload the game, but it is rather an old habit that is hard to change.

 

[MOTH]

@vegasgustan,
Those methods could probably not be distinguished. There are going to be many methods of cheating that couldn't be detected.
Conversations about cheating or exploits do come up occasionally. My guess is that this is coming up because the "average number of reloads" has been increasing.

I usually manage to dedicate a big chunk of time to play until 2000BC in 1 shot and then to 1000BC in another shot. After this it is whatever RL time I can give it. I've got an 8 month old that usually sleeps for 30-40 minutes when I bring him home from daycare, so that is my usual session length after I get to 1000BC.

I'm trying to think of better ways to handle this without overburdening the GOTM staff or the CFC servers. 2 things I can think of are:
1. Players upload a save from each session as works in progress similiar to the way saves are uploaded for the SGOTMs. The upload programs could keep track of the reload count and the play time.
2. The utilities that many people use (CivAssist or CrpSuite) could become mandatory and these could insert a 'watermark' in the save if it detects a questionable reload.

 

[Renata]

@ Vegas -- you don't expect the staff to give up all its secrets, do you?

@ solen -- Overall, it's the pattern of things that gets noticed; or rather, things that fall outside of normal patterns. Like Cracker used to say, 95% of the people who play legitimately will never come to the staff's attention. If you haven't, your numbers are probably falling within the normal range.

@ everyone -- Don't panic! This is a reminder only, to people who don't know and to people who should know better, of what the rules are, because we've seen some save games recently that suggest the message has not gotten through. Use common sense with regards to legitimate reloads, avoid the illegitimate ones, and play in sessions of reasonable length whenever possible, and you'll be fine.

Renata

 

[IgrOK[SU]]

Even if you do nothing, if you save again it counts another session.

What?
Is this realy true?
Than "ooops", too.

 

[Renata]

No, that's not true. A reload is a reload; a mid-session save is not a reload. If it were, and if dmanakho is as paranoid as he says, he'd have had emails from us flooding his inbox long since.

Renata, who also tends to save about every sixty seconds out of very old habit

 

[ainwood]

This is not good... I have an old good habit to save more work every so often. It started when computers were IBM AT/XT and programs crashed every few minutes... Ever since whatever i do i do save a lot. I play civilization and i save my session from every hour to every 2 minutes, I also save before i declare a war, make peace, starting a wonder or any other important desicion.
It is not that i will reload the game, but it is rather an old habit that is hard to change.

Following on from Renata's clarification: This is not a save counter - it is a reload counter. Save as many times as you like - just don't save, open a previous save (reload) then play on from it.

We have no problem with people who:
* Open an old save to get some QSC / Timeline info then close it and continue their previous game.
* Submit their games then go back and replay as little or as much of the entire thing as they like.

 

[AlanH]

This is not good... I have an old good habit to save more work every so often.

That's a good habit. I should have said "every save AND RELOAD ...". Save as often as you like. Just don't quit too often. Leave the saves unloaded.