Reloading in GOTMs

[lroumen]

Hence I'm asking if I can continue to play on my old computer with the said tactics.

I would think not.

That is what I figured, but it is still a harsh measurement for someone who is doing his best to live up to the rules. I enjoy the GOTMs very much and to be disqualified just for playing on an old dingy computer and not using autosave for reloading because they are seriously buggy, seems sort of unfair.

 

[Ribannah]

In my view it is an illusion that a load detection system can significantly reduce the amount of cheating. It is simply too easy to circumvent, while it is also guaranteed to generate false positives (crappy computer, two people playing the game on the same system, getting called away frequently, etc.).

It is IMHO far better to look from the other end: the results. The goal of cheating is to get better results. Something useful that can be done is to record actual and expected battle outcomes. If you play fair you cannot consistently beat the odds.
Other types of cheating (foreknowledge of the map, particularly) will raise suspicion from the write-up or the lack thereof, although in these cases one can rarely be sure - but that's life. In the end, it all comes down to trust.

 

[lroumen]

trust as well as integrity

 

[Sheijian]

The problem is IMHO, you catch most times the wrong people.

If one really _wants_ to cheat and puts enough effort in it, you cannot detect it. Period.

So 90% of people you detect are just victims of game mechanics, computer errors or oversights that have nothing to do with game play ability (I do not consider this serious enough to make a difference, if one is able to avoid unintended mouse clicks at 100% of the time). In other words: People who do not at all cheat, but just can't handle mechanics as perfectly in their free time, as they would handle their chain-saw on the job.

I have not submitted a GOTM as yet, though I started a few, because to me it was really too much stress to be such over-aware of my finger-movements. I have a job where this is necessary, I won't do it at home.


I don't think this is a good approach for a thing that should, before everything else, be fun.

A suggestion:
Instead of putting an enourmous effort in cheat-checking that anyway is lost effort at those few people that really cheat professionally, rather officially allow a set number of sessions per game (depending on probable number of rounds). Some of these sessions are needed anyway for interruptions.

So there is a set frame, the rules are the same for everybody (so this is still a fair competition), you admins have much less stress and people who play great, but have old computers and the like are not in disadvantage as they are now.

Sheijian

 

[Ribannah]

A session count failed hopelessly in the 3OTM because many players kept the game running in the background, sometimes even overnight, just so that the apparent session count was lower. So once again this would be easily overcome by the so inclined whereas others would be excluded for no reason. This rule would also be a great burden on the players.

 

[AlanH]

Don't confuse minutes/hours per session with turns per session. The former is really of very little value in looking at player behaviour, and has never been used as a primary indicator of cheating to my knowledge.

 

[DaviddesJ]

That is what I figured, but it is still a harsh measurement for someone who is doing his best to live up to the rules. I enjoy the GOTMs very much and to be disqualified just for playing on an old dingy computer and not using autosave for reloading because they are seriously buggy, seems sort of unfair.

It sounds to me like you could buy enough memory to solve your problem, for a trivial cost, probably $20 or $30. Your machine would work better for other tasks, too. It seems unreasonable to me to expect the staff to treat you differently from everyone else because you just don't want to bother. If it were really, truly difficult to get a machine that runs Civ4 without crashing, I would have more sympathy.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

It sounds to me like you could buy enough memory to solve your problem, for a trivial cost, probably $20 or $30. Your machine would work better for other tasks, too. It seems unreasonable to me to expect the staff to treat you differently from everyone else because you just don't want to bother. If it were really, truly difficult to get a machine that runs Civ4 without crashing, I would have more sympathy.

Note: $20 or $30 is of course trivial to a lot of people in the US, Western Europe etc., and is especially trivial to people like professional developers (who seem to constitute a very high proportion of the Civ fanbase if these forums is anything to judge by :- ) ) But there are Civ players in much less well off countries - I recall someone recently posting to the GOTM forum from Mozambique. To some of those people, I'd imagine $20 is a pretty big sum

 

[RobertTheBruce]

Something useful that can be done is to record actual and expected battle outcomes. If you play fair you cannot consistently beat the odds.

I doubt that you would catch anything other than the most blatant cheating with a statistical analysis of all battle outcomes. There are usually one or two really critical battles in a warmongering game. Say, taking a capital with an axe rush. There are 50 or 60 later battles involving more units which only change finish dates by a turn or two.

It's not absurd to win two 20% axe vs archer battles and preserve a SOD in the early game. Its also not absurd to lose 3 or 4 axes taking those archers and these early random events can have huge effects on game progression.

It would take an analysis of multiple GOTMs and a system which understood which battles are truly 'important' to really look for battle reloaders. Looking at battles within x turns of session starts before a certain date might help detect critical reloads. The session count may not be helpful at all if there have been people moving autosaves to other machines to test battle results. (I tend to play a few hours per session so my turns/session numbers drop significantly during late game wars and you wouldn't want to flag lots of clean up battles in any reload check.)

 

[DaviddesJ]

@DaviddesJ: Evolution as evidenced in ainwood's lead post:

1. Technical changes to enhance detection of cheating (are we sure that did not come at the price of more false positives?). If ainwood could have detected all of this before the change, I'm sure we would have heard about it sooner.
2. Significant number of definite or borderline instances (and do I detect a bit of surprise at the number, so it is new?), again raising the possibility that its more false positives. More people who don't cheat raises the number of false positives.
3. If you are caught again ... (unspecified consequences) seems like you better be sure that you are not convicting the innocent.

As I say, this is exactly like the discussions that have always occurred around the GOTM for many, many years. People are found to be violating the rules (via a wide variety of methods). Absolute, total proof is lacking. The offenders themselves generally don't deny it, nor contest the claims, but, other people come out to complain that moral certainty is needed before anyone's results can or should be disqualified. Since it's impossible (and incredibly time-consuming) to have an open discussion of every reason that every game was disqualified, these discussions go nowhere, except to burn out the staff who eventually get fed up with all of the whining, quit, and move on. This has happened lots of times.

And posts in this thread that seem to suggest that some acting in good faith are getting dinged. Seems like a sea change to me. (And you did ask ...)

I have zero doubt that there are people who think they are acting in good faith but who are not following the rules, and who are being disqualified. That's the whole idea. Disqualifying a game is not a criminal penalty. It just is a statement that this game didn't meet the criteria for submission.

There is not one person who has posted here to say that they played strictly according to the rules and yet their game was rejected. There is not one person who says that they appealed the decision to the GOTM staff and that their appeal was not handled fairly or properly. In the absence of any such cases, there is no evidence of a problem. It would take a significant number of such cases, to convince me that there is a problem.

 

[Murky]

If your computer won't run Civ 4 properly you could always play Civ 3 gotms. In some ways that could present a greater challenge, be just as much fun and less problematic for you.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Note: $20 or $30 is of course trivial to a lot of people in the US, Western Europe etc., and is especially trivial to people like professional developers (who seem to constitute a very high proportion of the Civ fanbase if these forums is anything to judge by :- ) ) But there are Civ players in much less well off countries - I recall someone recently posting to the GOTM forum from Mozambique. To some of those people, I'd imagine $20 is a pretty big sum

He said he has access to a high-end laptop that can run Civ4 fine! He'd just rather play on his other machine sometimes. This is not a situation where someone can't afford a computer.

I will personally send $50 by PayPal to anyone who needs it to play Civ4 by the GOTM rules.

 

[Ribannah]

Murky, I don't know ... Civ3 looks incredibly ugly now for some reason.

@RobertTheBruce: Good point. It would be easy to 'make up' for winning important early battles against the odds by losing some insignificant later ones. In general, most attention should indeed go to the opening stage since that's when everything can make a huge difference.

 

[Murky]

Murky, I don't know ... Civ3 looks incredibly ugly now for some reason.

@RobertTheBruce: Good point. It would be easy to 'make up' for winning important early battles against the odds by losing some insignificant later ones. In general, most attention should indeed go to the opening stage since that's when everything can make a huge difference.

I miss the Army unit from Civ 3. It has some old graphics but is still a great game.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I miss the Army unit from Civ 3. It has some old graphics but is still a great game.

OT: I recently rediscovered my Civ3 discs and instruction manual. Was pondering spending part of xmas re-reading the manual and trying a game to see how it compares, now that I've got used to Civ4 (and all but completely forgotten how to play Civ3)

 

[bshumbera]

I will personally send $50 by PayPal to anyone who needs it to play Civ4 by the GOTM rules.

Please send me that . I cheat! I cheat! I need $50!

jk... for those that take this too seriously

 

[Murky]

If you send me the $50 I'll promise to play by the rules. Oh wait, I already did.

 

[ainwood]

Just a few observations:

"False positives"? We don't make exclusion decisions lightly. False positives are unlikely - borderline cases get sent a "warning" - in fact, warning is probably a bit harsh a term. They get sent a note that we have some concerns about their submission, offering some options to try and make their submissions more robust (request that they take more care, technical support, setting autosaves to every turn, reminder of what the rules are etc). They have a chance to explain themselves.

Exclusions:
We are confident (after a *lot* of testing) that the system we are using is robust. We will still listen to people's explanations, and reconcile their explanations against our evidence.

Will we publish the evidence for the court of public opinion? Absolutely not.
We are here to help people participate in a fun event. Banning people, or embarrasing them into never playing again is not the way to achieve this. We give people a chance (or two). Banning will be as a last resort.

Finally, I have been involved in the GOTM as a player and as staff for the bettwe part of 5 years. It is absolutely clear that our detection systems have to evolve to stay ahead of a people who just cheat better (to avoid detection) rather than try to play better. We've seen it with civ3; we're seeing it with Civ4. Going back and applying new techniques to old results makes sorry reading.

To make evidence available will make it easier for those dedicated to it to simply find workarounds to cheat 'better'.

 

[Beard Rinker]

I received one of the warning emails and have been trying to figure out WTH I did that made my game 'borderline'. It's possible there was a crash and I had to go back to an autosave and I did reload the last few saves to make sure I was submitting the correct file but it doesn't seem like much.

One possiblity is sometimes when I play I will load my current game just to check some things, not make any moves and quit without saving. When I continue playing I will of course be loading the same game again. I have not seen any posts about this practice and suspect this may be making my game appear as though it has been reloaded.

If this is what made my game borderline then saving my game even when no changes were made should prevent the reload count from being incremented.

Ainwood, you may want to mention in your guidelines for playing a GOTM that you should save your game even if you have not made any moves. I know you mention not to begin unless you can dedicate a reasonable period of time but their are times in a game where I plan out different strategies and may not make any moves.

 

[AlanH]

I received one of the warning emails and have been trying to figure out WTH I did that made my game 'borderline'. It's possible there was a crash and I had to go back to an autosave and I did reload the last few saves to make sure I was submitting the correct file but it doesn't seem like much.

Have you checked back with ainwood about your concern? If you replayed only a few turns then that is all it needed to trigger the "warning" mail. A "warning" mail has no effect on your standings here or with the staff. We are just trying to ensure that players avoid behaviour that could look suspicious.

One possiblity is sometimes when I play I will load my current game just to check some things, not make any moves and quit without saving. When I continue playing I will of course be loading the same game again. I have not seen any posts about this practice and suspect this may be making my game appear as though it has been reloaded.

As has been stated many times, this is not a problem, and would not put you on our radar screen at all.

If this is what made my game borderline then saving my game even when no changes were made should prevent the reload count from being incremented

That is entirely unnecessary.