What do you consider Cheating?

[Benford's Law]

@Wodan - I do think that is a bug and it should be fixed; it had me confused. I will say that when I clicked on the second little "worker box" icon after the road completed...it went straight to work again "building a road". I clicked on the worker icon again and it stopped its work, no questions asked. Nothing was really lost, but I didn't realize at first I could cancel the second worker's orders without forcing it to end its turn in this case. Pretty weird. Your turn countdown timer makes sense, but that leads to my second point....

@Bleys - I ALWAYS give my workers individual orders; they are never carelessly grouped. I treat them as very precious and expensive units (which they are!). In this case though, I went back and reloaded a game from a few turns back to see if I was being "cheated" out of any worker turns. Both workers entered the same forest tile at 2240 BC (one right after the other on the same turn). I ordered both workers (individually!) to build a road at 2230 BC. Both worker boxes said "Build a road (3)". 2220 BC - "Build a road (2)". At 2210 BC - I no longer saw a turn countdown timer but both workers had a red dot and the road appeared on this turn and was technically completed, but both workers could not move at this point (which is okay to me; work is being completed on schedule, anyway). At 2200 BC on the screenshot I provided above, both workers were ready for action and I could easily move them both on that turn towards the next task....though that 2nd worker's 6-turn timer countdown suddenly appearing threw me off. Were your worker turns being lost by assigning them both as a group? I've assigned them *individually* to work on the same tile many times and I've never seen them lose any turns to inefficiency as a result of this approach.

@LAnkou - I'm not sure whether or not you were making any reference to my particular game or not, but I will happily go on the record saying I am nowhere near an Emperor-level player (at least for now, but maybe someday...). I have only won a cultural victory once on Noble and I tend to play higher-difficulty games because of the challenge and to learn something. I feel I can only learn to be a good player by learning from the proverbial "chess grandmasters", so why not shoot for the sky where difficulty is concerned?

For all intents and purposes, I still consider the game I've shown as a "live" non-cheating one since the Save & Reloads revolved around this narrow, confusing worker issue which I consider a bug that needs to be fixed, anyway.

~Benford's Law

 

[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

Sure, but that's the same objection as people who say any use of the WB is cheating. There are other uses of the WB besides dishonesty.

We should be consistent in our application of terms.

If cheating = dishonesty, then WB is not automatically cheating. Ditto for other things such as reloading.

Ultimately, the answer to this question is entirely subjective.

That's why my first response (up above) was to try and define cheating as doing something which gives you an unfair advantage or that undoes a bad die roll.

Wodan

 

[AmazonQueen]

Sure, but that's the same objection as people who say any use of the WB is cheating. There are other uses of the WB besides dishonesty.

So, we should be consistent in our application of terms. If cheating = dishonesty, then WB is not automatically cheating. Ditto for other things such as reloading.

Ultimately, the answer to this question is entirely subjective.

That's why my first response (up above) was to try and define cheating as doing something which gives you an unfair advantage or that undoes a bad die roll.

Wodan

Fair point
Personally I don't consider using WB in a SP game would be cheating
Or save and reload
I do think doing them would make the game pretty pointless and unchallanging though

Some people consider playing at marathon speed is cheating or using a leader who isn't that civs normal leader is cheating. Those are options provided when setting up the game though whereas using WB or reloading a save is altering the results ingame because you don't like them

 

[Wodan]

Fair point
Personally I don't consider using WB in a SP game would be cheating
Or save and reload
I do think doing them would make the game pretty pointless and unchallanging though

Not to but again, it depends entirely on what you opened WB or reloaded to do.

Wodan

 

[Duelingground]

If you're playing the game to truly test and improve your skills and ability to defeat the AI, then reloading, as well as any use of the WB, is cheating; specifically, cheating yourself.

If you're playing the game just to have fun, and don't really care about honing your skills, the sky's the limit.

JMO

 

[Wodan]

If you're playing the game to truly test and improve your skills and ability to defeat the AI, then reloading, as well as any use of the WB, is cheating; specifically, cheating yourself.

How is it cheating if I use WB to give the AI extra units? Say Mansa got caught by the corp. executive bug, so I delete them all and give him a mix of infantry and cavalry or whatever he's already teched to.

I just disagree with you guys, and I'll leave it at that.

Wodan

 

[Draknith]

I'm sorry guys, but I really do not understand the whole point behind this thread. It just seems that some players are trying to attack other players just for making their own modifications to a game they own. Some of you don't like the idea of cheating... okay, but why do you need to post your opinions about it, and downplay others because they do play in their own style? I look at it like this. I bought CIV Vanilla for roughly $40. I bought Warlords when it came out for roughly $30. Then I bought BTS for roughly $30. That's roughly $100 for really one game! Yes, there have been lots of upgrades to the game, but you know what, when you play CIV religiously, and have played 100's of games things tend to eventually start becoming common play. Well what to do in that case? Change it up.

It just looks like this thread continues to build-up, and everyone is looking for some sign of someone cheating. Hell, people have even said using prets is cheating... Would the real Roman (Republic) Empire have become so great if it didn't have such great troops? I guess we should tell our history teachers that it's all crap cause Roman Generals and Emperors were cheating.

We're all CIV players on this forum. Some of us are more experienced than others, and that's why we come here. To share our stories, experiences, and love of this franchise. To sit around and beat up on someone because they use the worldbuilder to enhance their gaming is just something I don't find very appealing to this open forum.

Like I said, I'm sorry for the rant, but I had to say something.

 

[ggganz]

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:

View attachment 167185

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

View attachment 167188

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

It wouldn't have kept building it. You tarnished your record for nothing.

 

[Benford's Law]

You mean, I only get an "A" instead of an "A+" at Integrity University?

 

[grommit5]

Let carry this one step. If you mod the game in any fashion through a xml file then are you not cheating? you are altering the game in a way it was not meant to be played so technically that would be considered cheating as well.

Gee, I think I just called all you modders out there a bunch of cheaters.

Just kidding folks, I thing the whole topic is stupid and a bunch of crap. play the game as you see fit and don't worry about what others think.

 

[AmazonQueen]

If you're playing the game to truly test and improve your skills and ability to defeat the AI, then reloading, as well as any use of the WB, is cheating; specifically, cheating yourself.

Not cheating, just self-defeating

If you're playing the game just to have fun, and don't really care about honing your skills, the sky's the limit.

JMO

Sometimes I play to improve my skills, sometimes I play to relax at the end of the day

 

[Wodan]

Good point about the mods. A lot of people tweak XML or run a mod to suit their own playstyle... which is exactly what we're talking about here.

Wodan