Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

asking questions in this thread. Apparently, I am not. In moving from one age to another, sometimes I get a popup, sometimes not. In my current game, I'm in the middle ages, and have researched all non-optional techs. (The ones without the little "slashed circle" are the non-optional, right?) But I'm still in the middle ages, and now researching optional ones. Why didn't I advance to the IA?

Thanks in advance.

 

Have you researched Metalurgy and Banking? Those 2 hide off the main tech path, so you might have forgotten to research them.

 

Metallurgy, yes (it allows cannons, right?); banking, not yet. That must be the key.

 

I am playing a PBEM and I strongly suspect of a player cheating due to the very (very) high number of Elite units he has.

My question is this: is it possible to change the .sav file data in order to give change the number of units or the experience of those units in a PBEM game?

 

Yes. You can change anything.

 

I am not aware of any tool that can do that, does not mean one can't. Is that civ Military? Do they have the Epic. Maybe they are being smart and using barbs to get to elite status.

Just kill off the barbs, but not the camp. Don't built near possible camp sites to allow them to spawn.

 

The game is a scenario and there are no barbs.

Furthermore, one turn he had no (visible) elite units and then (within 2 turns) all his visible units (even after having some killed) are elite...

I've been looking in the net and I found one utility software that allows you to do that. It cames with some spyware attached, but I guess that is the price for cheating.


EDIT: If someone is willing to investigate this in detail, I can provide the .sav files and the Administration password. It would require DownLoading the scenario, though.

 

It is definitely possible. I don't know how but one guy was caught over at CDZ. The acccusation came from impossible situations happening in the game and, IIRC, the site owners proved it by checking the game. Some people who might be able to help you include Ainwood, ProPain, Matrix, Annares, Gramphos and Dianthus.

 

I would imagine that if you could find the offset to the flag for vet/elite, you could use a hex/binary editor to change it. If a utility exist that has that field defined, then anyone could use it.

As I said, I have not heard of any tool that does this. The real issue is that why would anyone be so foolish as to change all units to elite in one turn? Such a gross cheat is likely to be noticed.

You don't give numbers, but it could be that elites were moving up from some place. In any event if you do not trust them, give them the reason and see if they have a valid explanation, If not don't play in their games.

 

Yeah I haven't played exp civs for a while. What happens when you disband your scouts (except for the two shields gained - if in a city)? One of the advisors complain about them 'being OUR people' or something similar.

 

And Padma too, I bet. I'm sure that this kind of information is common knowledge in the back halls of CF.

 

Yeah, but no happiness issues?

 

Are Seafaring civs more likely to start near a coast tile?

 

Yes 567890

 

Now another question: When using Debug mode, if I have many (not sure what means many, generally more than 1/4 of the civs) Seafaring civs, I see that all the civs on the map start near water. Is this a known thing or just some 1 in a million RNG thing?

 

I was under the impression that Seafaring civ's always started on the coast. I do not remember ever playing a seafaring civ and not having a costal start.

 

The readme for one of the earlier patches mentioned improving the chances of Seafaring civs getting a coastal start...it said something like "it should nearly always happen now."