What do you consider Cheating?

[Draknith]

Well, if you take into consideration that most people in real life are cheating all the time and noone seems to do anything about it... I guess emulating that in the CIV world would be ok. That's why pie is such a good thing to do. Nothing is really cheating, unless you say that the one mistake I made with Isabella while negotiating deep intimate realtions with Catherine is cheating... ahhh there's one for ya ladies...

 

[Emperor2]

If something really rediculous happens, like a warrior beats my archer with a star upgrade or whatever it's called, I'll go to world builder and "Fix" the problem. Also, If I'm on high difficulty and doing pretty well, I'll give myself a few good units during war time, because in reality you can draft in anything from a village to a city, and you can do it in any period of history, not just after you discover nationalism.

 

[El Koeno]

I reload when I make a mouse error. I have arthritis, so I not accepting anyone telling me I'm cheating when I make an unintentional mouse error and reload. To me, Civ isn't an arcade game.

Reloading though, because your 85% combat lost, and attacking next turn, I would view as cheating though.

Best wishes,

Breunor

It's a personal thing. No one can tell you you're cheating. I personally do save and reload on occasions. Sometimes I make silly mistakes, so if I have a save handy to undo it, I'll do so. In my recent game I've done it to see if I could win an important battle, I lost and reloaded. That was cheating.

The idea is that you lose some battles, there has to be some risk you know. I win some 15% battles, so I don't moan if I lose a precious elite soldier on 85%. I'd never reload for that, not because it's cheating, but because I think it's quite lame (and takes too long on my PC anyway ).

(Executive summary: I agree completely with what Breunor said, but used some more words to say it)

 

[6K Man]

What about out-and-out quitting a game near the beginning, if you discover you're playing against someone you really hate?
I started a game last night, and quit as soon as I met Monty. Man, I hate having him as a neighbor!! Plus, panthers ate the first settler I was able to build - totally wasting about 25 turns of build and move time.
So I quit that game and started a new one. Is that cheating? I don't think so.... I would have hated that game and was doomed to never finish it.
Amy

Quitting a game isn't cheating. To me, cheating is something that one does to make it easier to win. You're not going to win the game if you quit it. Count that as a loss and move on.

Now... if you make a habit of regenerating starts that don't have lots of resources, grassland forest, floodplain, etc... and then hold yourself out as a good player because you've won x number of times in a row on y level, that's deceptive. But not cheating, if you count the abandoned starts as losses.

 

[aragami_frog]

Quitting a game isn't cheating. To me, cheating is something that one does to make it easier to win. You're not going to win the game if you quit it. Count that as a loss and move on.

Now... if you make a habit of regenerating starts that don't have lots of resources, grassland forest, floodplain, etc... and then hold yourself out as a good player because you've won x number of times in a row on y level, that's deceptive. But not cheating, if you count the abandoned starts as losses.

Leaving a failing country isn't cheating cause a lot of politicians and or warlords do the same. If the country is doing fine stick around and then when things get real dire and you know you aren't gonna get anywhere or end up getting occupied then it's not cheating to do what many leaders do in real life, and that is to get away from the country.

 

[SJSerio]

To me, regenerating the starting location is not cheating, because the map scripts are all terrible.

 

[AmazonQueen]

Quecha or any other UU rush isn't cheating as far as I can see, its just making use of that civs strong feature. The rest, well I don't do them, although cheating in a SP game is a meaningless concept IMO.

I do often use 'real' world maps which if you know them well makes the game easier and on random maps I often tick balanced resources. I hate playing ancient civs and never getting a chance to use their UU before its obselete because of an unlucky starting position.

 

[Party]

Quecha or any other UU rush isn't cheating as far as I can see, its just making use of that civs strong feature. The rest, well I don't do them, although cheating in a SP game is a meaningless concept IMO.

I do often use 'real' world maps which if you know them well makes the game easier and on random maps I often tick balanced resources. I hate playing ancient civs and never getting a chance to use their UU before its obselete because of an unlucky starting position.

Agreed entirely.
I also hate it when i'm fighting an ancient civ that should have it's UU but is at a huge disadvantage like that.

 

[Warhead5654]

I think using trainers is cheating,makes the games boring....CIV 3 IMTALKING ABOUT

 

[Swein Forkbeard]

Of, course, since Civ4 is just a game, there is no such thing as "cheating" unless you are in a Civ4 competition like the GOTMs or Realms Beyond Civilization. If you want to just Worldbuilder your enemies like that, do it. If you want to cheat, do it, it's just a game.

 

[Tristan_C]

Saving and reloading to scramble battle results is cheating, and so is using the world builder. Instead of saving and reloading, build more military units and diversify, and don't overextend.

That being said, I prefer to check the world builder at the very beginning of a game because I simply enjoy the game more for some reason if I have a sense of what's out there. And I won't hesitate to reload when a spearmen vs. tank scenario occurs because I HATE SPEARMEN VS. TANK SCENARIOS!!!



I hate them so much, in fact, that I reload even when they occur in my favor, so I guess you could say I don't cheat on that one

 

[troytheface]

astounded that many think restarting is not cheating.
"i can win at Emperor!-provided i have a great start location"
Even "correcting" stupid mistakes (ah that we could go back and redo all our "little" mistakes) is cheating.

 

[Benford's Law]

troytheface,
Now if I make a PROCEDURAL mistake (example - giving a worker the wrong work order because I misclicked an icon or because something wasn't clearly shown on the map/interface) I would think even a "purist" would consider a reload only fair in that instance. I've done this a few times before and I didn't consider it cheating. Consider...that computer AI's are not frail humans that can click the wrong button or not see some tiny detail on a terrain tile....

If it's from a bad strategic decision (or, obviously, trying to re-roll combat results), then reloading at that point can start to cross into "cheating" territory. I won't even discuss the World Builder here, I always lock mine .

It all depends on how seriously one takes a particular game, I guess. I will give up on games when I make a bad mistake or it seems hopeless...No shame in that for me, I just fire up a new game! I don't care if I constantly lose games and restarting by being a "purist", I just enjoy playing and learning...

EDIT - I never do start regenerations, either...I think they're kinda cheesy, too..(After all, how many shots are you allowed to "do over" in a golf game?).....UNLESS, you are playing a game for a specific purpose like you might see here on these threads (Role-Playing a leader's personality or stuff like that.)
~Benford's Law

 

[Benford's Law]

Apologies to all for the double posting....
I felt the need to show a couple of screenshots from my current "pure" game where I had to save and reload because of an interface issue:

Here are the game parameters:



Here is the questionable interface screenshot that forced me to (very reluctantly!) reload my game:



Notice how I have two workers there that just completed a road in the forest tile. On the unit description box in the lower left corner the second worker in the list says "Build Road (6)" (Building a road is 6 turns for one worker in a Marathon game). Yet, I've ALREADY BUILT A ROAD THERE! What could I believe at this point? I misread this into thinking the road still needed some more work on that tile when it was already finished and I accidentally ordered the workers to continue building a road there. I felt a reload would be justified in this case and consider it an interface bug of some sort unless I'm missing something here.


~Benford's Law

 

[Wodan]

BL it does that and isn't a bug. It's the result of two things.
1) The first worker still thinks it's building the road, because the second worker was the one who finished it. The game progresses through automation one unit at a time, so this is inevitable.
2) The count-number-of-turns routine calculates the partial completion and subtracts from the total # of turns, but since the road is already completed, the partial completion is ZERO. This probably could be fixed easily enough.

Wodan

 

[Wodan]

astounded that many think restarting is not cheating.
"i can win at Emperor!-provided i have a great start location"
Even "correcting" stupid mistakes (ah that we could go back and redo all our "little" mistakes) is cheating.

Sometimes I restart when the game flubs in order to clear out memory. By "flub" I mean something which appears to be a glitch.

In addition, sometimes I restart or use WB when the game does something differently than I would have programmed it. If the AI does something that to me is simply idiotic, that's an unfair advantage to me. So I go fix it for the AI. This may strike some as anal, but to me it increases my enjoyment of the game, so who cares? Certainly, I don't think it would be "cheating".

I also sometimes use WB to test out a strategy or gameplay theory. This isn't cheating so much as creating the conditions. Once I have developed the strat and think it has promise, in future games I then begin to use it without these crutches to see if it holds up.

To me, cheating is something that gives you an unfair advantage or that undoes the result of a bad dice roll.

To compare/contrast, I think that taking advantage of something such as the AI's inability to properly conduct an early game war could be considered cheating.

Wodan

 

[Bleys]

A few years back, I taught some chess at my local club to kids after school. I am not a "Master" by any stretch, but I am solid enough. Anyway, we would get guys stopping by all the time, and invariably, they would all proclaim their skill by telling us how the beat their computer "all the time".

And invariably, we would sit them down for a game only to discover they were horrible. Why?

No take backs.

I am not saying these folks "cheated" when they played their computer, by taking back bad moves, all I am saying is that IF they do it, then they arent as "skilled" as they think they are.

So if you're a save and reload guy playing Emperor level, I would hazard to guess your actual skill around Prince, maybe. I can beat Immortal if I save/reload a lot, like huts for techs, battles that go poorly, etc. But I struggle on Monarch "playing it straight". So no, I dont consider save/reload cheating, I do call bullkitten on a S/L guy saying he "beats Immortal regularly".

As far as the others go, World Builder is just plain wrong. Play a lower level if you want to demolish the opponent that handily.

Rushing with any civ isnt cheating.

Pie is only cheating if you make it from a pre-made crust + canned filling. Thats just WRONG! And dont even get my started on buying a whole pie pre-made! Now, if you make the crust yourself, and make the filling yourself, its not cheating, but its still not as good as cake

EDITED NOTE about BLs "worker" bug. NEVER EVER group your workers! Give each one individual orders. I discovered I was wasting tons of "worker turns" by grouping them, because if one worker "finishes" its upgrade, the other wont be usable unless you ungroup them, and lots of times you dont even know it. (the other note I was going to make was already explained quite clearly by Wodan, good posting Wod!)

 

[LAnkou]

well, it all depends on what you claim publicly...
If you claim to be the greatest player and you use the Worldbuilder, well, that's cheating.
If you are honest and say" I play at emperor but i give myself 1 more settler at the beginning", that's another story.

If you have fun and are honest, everybody may say "poor player", but not cheater. You do what you want, you don't play with them, so have fun.
But if you claim something while using a particular method "forbidden in competitive games" (I.E. HOF, multi, etc...), that may be considered cheating.

some says regenerate maps is cheating. Well, i play random leaders, but from time to time, i don't like the leaders i get, or i'm not in the mood, so i restart. Is that cheating?

some says "I don't save". Sorry, but i can't play a game in a "from beginning to end" session, so i save (and load) my games...

Quechua rush: why would it be cheating? If it's systematic, maybe "poor play" or "easy trick", but "cheating"?

choosing opponent, choosing map, well choosing all settings could be considered cheating (the deity duel modern map with ghandi...)

Cheating is about the rule to use and breaking it.
In HOF, Worlbuilder is forbidden. Using it and send your game to HOF would be considered cheating.

Anyone make his own rules when he plays alone. However, there are "supposed" rules when claiming things about your games. Not-using worldbuilder and non-reloading is a "non-written" rule when talking with other people about your games. if you broke it, you have to tell it, and it won't be totally considered cheating.

 

[Wodan]

Quechua rush: why would it be cheating? If it's systematic, maybe "poor play" or "easy trick", but "cheating"?

If you know the IA is programmed to act a certain way or to not defend against a certain thing (or, at worst, to not defend againstit well), or if you know the AI isn't programmed to be able to respond to a certain thing, then doing that thing is taking advantage of a specific lack of programming. That's why it could be considered to be cheating. Another term that could be applied is exploit.

Wodan

 

[AmazonQueen]

If you know the IA is programmed to act a certain way or to not defend against a certain thing (or, at worst, to not defend againstit well), or if you know the AI isn't programmed to be able to respond to a certain thing, then doing that thing is taking advantage of a specific lack of programming. That's why it could be considered to be cheating. Another term that could be applied is exploit.

Wodan

I'd prefer the term exploit
Cheating implies dishonesty
Taking advantage of a weakness in the AI isn't dishonest although it could be considered cheap