Which Ones Out of These Are Cheating??

[Desertsnow]

The short answers are yes, maybe, no, no, and no, respectively, though there are certainly exceptions to #1. #3 strikes me as tedious.

 

[onomastikon]

What is "ship hopping"?

 

[SmartJock2112]

"Ship hopping" is when you set up a line of transports (it doesn't have to be continous just within the opperational range of each other) from your continent to your enemy. You load the first transport, which moves to the next transport. The unit's are loaded onto the fresh transport and that process can be continued ad infinitium. I don't usually use it so there's probably someone who could explain it better than me

 

[cleverhandle]

What SmartJock2112 said is pretty much it, but I'd add that you want the two ends of the chain to be cities, not just open tiles. Units in cities don't spend any movement points to load/unload into/from a transport. So with rails and a ship chain you can move a unit from anywhere on your mainland to anywhere in your overseas combat zone and still have them attack on the same turn, provided that you've established a beachhead city on your target continent.

 

[Kuhal]

#1: In a competition game is cheating. You can only load from a save game when an accident happens or a crash (i.e. C3C). In a fun game you are doing it for learning better play so it's fine. If you do it afetr any lost fight or slightly bad thing then you're only cheating yourself out of a good lesson

#2: It's legal and in the rules. It's been there in various forms since Civ original. When I first showed my friend the tactic in civnet he was both devastated and impressed and upset all at the same time. He's still not recovefred form the facial contortions necessary to portray all of these emotions simultaneously

#3: Never done anything like that since the original civ. Back then you could get a new technology every time you captured an enemy city. Nothing wrong with it but like #1, who are you kidding? It's only fooling yourself into beating a bad AI implementation. I'd do it when I know the AI is better than me but doing it on lower levels is self delusional I would not call it cheating however and if it was outlawed in competition games I would be surprised.

#4: Never knew this one - I have had armies caught on enemy land after war declared (from a MPP) and my Armies were attacked. Do you mean just the army commander on his own is not attacked? Or the army with followers is not attacked? I would say that it's an explot if an army with no followers is not attacked.

#5: Exploit and bad game mechanics but not cheating as per #3. At the very least, the unsupported units should not disappear all at once. They should convert to various types of units both controlled by the same player/AI and some controlled by Barbarian AI or to population explosions/unhappy citizens. I don't believe the previous poster who said this has happened many times in the past in history. I have never heard of the people making up a HUGE force simply disappearing of the face of the planet Armies cut off from their support lines may disperse it is true. It's not immediate and even the ones that do "disappear into the countryside" end up somewhere. So that's why I call it bad game mechanics.

I employ a similar tactic to #5 but mine is a bit more "realistic" although not very nice to think about. I will draw out a huge enemy fleet or definsive force and after meeting their challenge at a good spot, withdraw my units to a safe distance then nuke them. It's an honest way to reduce a huge stack. To hell with my score - I only want to beat those buggers! In any case. if I can afford to use nukes I've usually all but won anyhow. I only use them when nobody else can...Some pretty close historical truth in that eh?

Since I like playing conquests too, I usually opt for lethal bombardment instead. Bombers and Artillery are my favourite stack reducers and they don't cost me penalties for using nukes. People that have not played conquests can only imagine the pleasure you get from being able to bomb units to death.

 

[ferenginar]

Unless you are playing in a game such as Gotm which has specific rules then it is only cheating if you think it is. If you win after having reloaded a saved game (point 1) then do you feel it is a hollow victory, if so don't do it again.

 

[Warlord Sam]

Ship hopping isn't cheating in my opinion... if it is taking advantage of a bug that was not intended to be in the game, then I guess it might be considered such, but I've never heard it announced as a bug. In any case, it takes *quite* the effort to set it up, so I hardly consider getting a benefit from all my work setting it up to be "cheating".

 

[Damburger]

Nah, sounds like good strategy to me. Think about it as manipulating the press - you're leaving the enemy's populace in a greater state of fear, anxiety, and uncertainty by making sure that military action is always in the news. Not unreasonable at all. Besides, if you have the military strength to toy with an enemy this way, it doesn't take long before you collapse their government anyway.

Its been suggested that, during the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam Hussein retreated his forces back into Iraqi territory for propaganda purposes (i.e. he could try and claim he was defending Iraq).

Oh, and as for #5, thats sound strategy.

 

[axehaxe]

I had no idea nukes lower your score????

 

[occam]

#5: Exploit and bad game mechanics but not cheating as per #3. At the very least, the unsupported units should not disappear all at once. They should convert to various types of units both controlled by the same player/AI and some controlled by Barbarian AI or to population explosions/unhappy citizens. I don't believe the previous poster who said this has happened many times in the past in history. I have never heard of the people making up a HUGE force simply disappearing of the face of the planet Armies cut off from their support lines may disperse it is true. It's not immediate and even the ones that do "disappear into the countryside" end up somewhere. So that's why I call it bad game mechanics.

I hate to be a pedant... but many historical references fail to offer a useful analogy for Civ due to the time scale. Early turns last LONGER than a real life generation. What units would exist generations later without support? Even in modern ages, a year is a long time given the higher support demands. The US has a huge force in Iraq at the moment.... would they still be fighting in 2007 if the US cut them off entirely right now?

 

[dalgo]

Good questions axehaxe, this is my take on them:

1. Save/Reload. No problem in single player, it's your game, you paid for it (presumably) so you if you want to replay your battles or turns that's fine. In competition play however this will almost certainly be outlawed.

2. Ship Hopping. I love this. I've used it in Civilization, Colonization, Civ 2 and was using it in Civ 3 until I found out most people consider it an exploit. I don't know why, it's no quicker than a railroad and takes a lot more management. Now I only use it where it is expressly permitted, as it is in GOTM.

3. Metro-blasting. Sounds like fun. I've never tried it myself but I don't see any problem.

4. Pillaging. Definitely not cheating, many wars in history were fought just that way.

5. Unit support. Fighting a 2 front war against the AI is just sensible tactics. If it causes him to scrap some units all the better.

 

[Abdomination]

#1 I used to do this all the time, but now it just gives me a hollow feeling, like when I don't adequatly defend a city in the early game and another civ takes it, I would use auto-save to go back. Think of how many times the computer would do this if it could.

#2 definetly an exploit

3-5 seem fine with me, although I question the wisdom of allowing a city to be retaken and wasting an army on pillaging