Coming back to cheating topic

[cargol]

First i would like to apologise to the forum admin for the fact that i am putting in the table a topic that was closed and as far as i ve seen create a tension.But i thought that it was my obligation to respond cause i felt, even though my nickname was not revealed in this cheating discussion,accused for sthing that i ve never did but also i even did not think about doing.And with the intention of putting some light to the case i would like to say that no i am not a vet player (played till now sthing less than 30 pbem games ladder or not)no i am not cheating only that i am trying to approach this game as much realistic as possible.For example my opponent was wondering why my assault gun knocked out all his 5 HTs even though the ratio was 5 HTs against 1 assault gun?The answer is simple: cause the assault gun do have the weapon to do so while the HTs do not.About the incident that he is refering i had 1 vet tank hunter team with some fausts positioned 100met away from his Tank in scattered trees,i ordered my hunter team to approach with steps to the tank and at the last 30m if i remember good i gave an assault order,the tank at that moment was buttoned facing the opposite direction,fortunattely for me my team had managed to knocked out his tank(earning also the Iron Cross 1st class for this acchievement :})this was all nothing supernatural or freaky or trick coming out of the magicians hat.

Now that my nickname is revealed who is interested could go to blitz search into my ladder opponents till now, and easily find out if also they have faced my magic till now and if i am a possible cheater,hacker,evil spirit that wants to win without being able to do it playing fairly.I really do feel sorry about this noise and also about the fact that my opponent thought in this way about me.

[jBrereton]

Hmm fair enough.

In addition to the original topic - no there aren't cheats, but there are ways of playing like a complete arse.

For example in CMBB and CMAK (and probably CMBO, really) I've played against people who've set up planned bombardments and then merrily waltzed their FOs off the field of battle so as to deny me the points - some people also do it with trucks / HTs etc after they move up their guns with them.

Pretty shameful tbh.

[Redwolf]

There's at least one cheat that messes with the amount of stuff you can buy.

Doing an inventory at the end of the game and count whether your opponent had what he was supposed to have is in order, passwords should be exchanged after the game anyway.

I haven't been able to find out whether that is the same thing as the reported cheat to raise unit quality, aka you buy the cheap low-experience units and upgrade them for free, exceeding your purchase points. From the sound of it it is likely that these two are the same one.

[Cabe Booth]

whoa whoa, Cargol. No No I wasn't accusing you of cheating at all! It was not our game that I had this event occur, even though you did have a kill on one of my shermans with a tank hunter crew... (2 in in fact grrrrr.). I am playing 7 PBEM games right now and I have had over 20 different opponents and I use similar strategies since I am learning to play UK units right now. I am playing GaJ with a German DAK loadout in a scenario, but all my other games are similar to the one we just played except the map. What happened in our game sounds similar to what I described but I have played enough games with you to know you are just a very good player and have beaten me every time time fair and square. I assure you I was not referring to your game we just finished. I have bought similar load outs on many of my games because I have been trying to figure out the best way to use UK units and hauling around the 17 pounder gun. When we play I have asked you via email for tips and advice as to what I am doing wrong and you have answered, I never thought of you to be a cheater or bad guy. So if my description sounds like our game I assure you it was not. The incident that occurred with your Tank hunter crew occurred because most of my HTs were shocked or blocked due to scattered trees and your assault gun had them scurrying. I knew exactly what happened there. I got my tank to close and got whacked.

I never thought it was cheating when I had it happen with this other player it seemed very superhuman and it just made me wonder if there was cheating in CM. I wanted to know because i get many emails from around the world when I post here requesting PBEM opponents and I don't want to get burned by a hacker, if they even exist.

I assure you the event that made me think this was not in our battle. It was against another guy I have played only twice and he sort of dropped out of playing halfway through the second game. He claimed to be a newbie to CMAK and was playing German vs. UK like us.

Please Cargol, understand in no way would I ever accuse you of cheating, I have played you enough to know you would never have to cheat to kick my butt. And I have yet to win. I sincerely hope you understand that it was not in reference to you or any of the other members I am currently playing. The guy I was playing has not emailed in a few days and seems to have vanished. He was a good player, and most definitely had nothing to do with cheating, just a good player, but just seemed to go on vacation or just too busy to play right now.

Let me make it perfectly clear that I have not and will not accuse anyone of cheating or tilting a game. I don't know enough of what units and good opponents are capable of to make such a call. My original post was only meant to ask if there were people out there that cheat, and if they do what does it allow them to do with the cheat.

-Cabe

I must add this edit to the end,

I sincerely apologize for anything I may have written in the forums that you thought was referring to our game or you as a player and a person. I have great respect for your ability to play and wouldn't have any negative reaction to getting my ass kicked by you other than cursing out loud as I watch the "we go phase. It is all a learning experience to me right now, and I don't have room to whine about my lack of strategy. Every loss is a learning experience for me. Especially when is happens the same way in 6 similar games. So please Cargol let me offer my apology to you. I wouldn't want you to think I was accusing you of anything but great strategy

I also want to apologize for the thread and reactions that cause this whole mess in the first place. to everyone in the thread, even JasonC.

I don't want to walk into this community with everyone thinking I am a complete ass or sore loser that has to explain away my losses with conspiracy theories. even seeing Cargol's post here makes me realize that my other thread could have had any number of my current opponents thinkings I was accusing them since the battles are very similar in units and outcomes.

I know my place here and just want to learn and help. I plan to mod when I have time and help folks that are new if I have an answer, but I definitely don't want to start a stressful thread that has to have a moderator be involved. I am just not familiar with the nuances of the boards and being new I got very sensitive when I felt like I was being attacked. So to everyone, my apologies.

[ April 11, 2007, 02:34 AM: Message edited by: Cabe ]

[cargol]

It is Ok, my apologies also for misunderstanding the whole thing and for thinking bad about you.

Thanks again to the admin of the forum for keeping the post open till the misunderstanding was solved.

I am closing my reply cause more and more it is sound like the speech of an Oscar winner thanking everybody and being emotional

[Cabe Booth]

Glad you understand. Now we can get back to the game at hand.

Maybe I can win this one.

But what am I going to do? the units are preset with random reinforcements....... I need an army of halftracks to do any good against your elefants

[jtcm]

Cheating in CM ? Surely not. I never felt that, even when I started playing CMBO as TCP-- and against some "Experten" (Sidewinder, etc), who played hair-raising, beautifully vicious, "matador" style CMBO, fully attuned to that game's specificities (killer arty, hardy infy). At times, I would lose games in15 turns, without quite knowing what had happened.

What I quickly learned to dislike was something else than cheating

-- cherry picking in QBs, so that one fought tedious battles against Brits with VT 155mm, Wasps and paras; StuGs in CMBB.

-- fighting MEs with flag-rushers

-edge-crawlers

not cheating, but just as irritating.

[Corvidae]

I have never encountered cheating in a CM game.

I have had my ass handed to me by a few players.

I have had bad force mixes from letting the AI pick my forces.

But I have never encountered cheating.

I have played against people far better than myself, with the full expectation that they were going to beat me.

But I have never encountered cheating.

[GAGA Extrem]

Cheating in CM ? Surely not.

Of course there are some ways to "cheat" in combat mission.

One way: There is a way to "hack" the game, so you can buy units for 0 point costs. However, that is only useful for larger battles, because if you play a 1000 point combined arms ME and he comes up with 2 Tiger, that would be... suspicious...

Second way: Just yesterday a friend reported this to me. He was wondering why he was loosing 3 battles against the same enemy so badly. E.g. he lost 3 50mm PaK and 6 Panzerschrecks to conscript T-34s always with their first shots. Finally he found out that his enemy was able to "see" (in the PBEM file) when his tanks would hit or be hit (and when not), so he just let his machine compute the same PBEM file several times and sent back the one were he destroyed the AT gun. Unforunatly, his enemy made the mistake to (accidentally) sent 3 computed files of the same round via email to him... Well I guess he will only play TCP/IP for a while...

I am sure there are more ways to cheat - wasn't there someone who complained about walking dead infantry squads some time ago?

...but thanks god this is not a FPS 16-year-old-kiddy community, so you will rarely - if ever - encounter cheaters in the CM series...

As for me, I never have. I was just owned by pure tactical skill.

(Like said in the post above )

[ April 15, 2007, 12:00 AM: Message edited by: GAGA Extrem ]

[KG_Jag]

Second way: Just yesterday a friend reported this to me. He was wondering why he was loosing 3 battles against the same enemy so badly. E.g. he lost 3 50mm PaK and 6 Panzerschrecks to conscript T-34s always with their first shots. Finally he found out that his enemy was able to "see" (in the PBEM file) when his tanks would hit or be hit (and when not), so he just let his machine compute the same PBEM file several times and sent back the one were he destroyed the AT gun. Unforunatly, his enemy made the mistake to (accidentally) sent 3 computed files of the same round via email to him... Well I guess he will only play TCP/IP for a while...

In light of the strength of the evidence and severity of the crime, I hope the offended player (your friend) reports the name/handle of the cheater in every possible CM related forum.

[Spears]

I have been acused of cheating ( but thats because im **** hot )

and no im not kissing me own ass

hehe

[Redwolf]

Well ok then...

[Subvet]

There is another cheat where you can make your air support attack every turn and never run out of bombs. I'm not going to tell anyone how to do it, but it was used against me once. This could happen accidentally though, so you can't say with 100% certainty that your oppenent is purposely cheating. In the end, this cheat is pretty useless though, because it's so obvious when you see it.

[KG_Jag]

That's an unfortunate game bug that certainly can be taken advantage of by unscrupulous players, as well as being encountered when playing someone who don't know about it.

At KG we were playing a large MP game that is spread over three maps and this occurred. The game creator adjusted the reinforcements in the next battle to adjust for the units destroyed because of the "extra" bomb load.

[TufenHuden]

KG_Jag-Gaga-Extreme,

What you have described it seems to be

use PBEM Helper-where a person can keep

replaying Pbem file until he get his

achieved outcome-like you have described.

A few have been caught-I don't use Pbem

helper-but some have been caught as you described

that you where automtically sent these files-

I guess he didn't shut that function off-if

it exsists-just a heads up....

[KG_Jag]

TH--PBEM helper was not a factor.

We were playing a CMBB MP game/campaign stretching over three playable maps (4 on the Allied side and 3 on the Axis side), with the game designer looking over it all as referee. All players were KG members, so there was no cheating involved.

In the next game the referee gave the Allies back their losses which were attributable to the extra bombing runs.

[John Kettler]

jBrereton,

Evacuating expensive assets rather than risking destruction or capture of same is not only common sense, but is actively encouraged in ROW circles. Victory or defeat hinges on such seemingly small things, and preserving as much of your force as possible when losing, without triggering autosurrender via morale collapse, is something of an art. Remember, prisoners are more valuable than equivalent kills, and this is even more true of crews and FOs. What you evacuate before the battle ends counts as a plus in your tally when the VPs are totaled. Don't give away VPs!

People,

You can counter cherrypicking by having a third party supply the map, buying blind following side assignment but with map unseen, and having a proviso that after a coin flip or similar by a disinterested party, you either fight the battle with the force you bought OR are now the other side, yet knowing exactly what you'll face. This is a huge disincentive to the kind of cherrypicking practices which have spoiled the game for many and automatically acts to drive force selections to equipment and troops

more broadly usable. Few can calmly contemplate facing an uber force they bought themselves, and forces which are murderous in their own environment, say, SMG squads in the city, can become lunch meat on the steppes, even when fighting vanilla infantry. Nor is this theoretical. Elite Uzi SMG armed Israeli paratroopers came to grief in exactly this way against Egyptian troops in the Sinai armed with the vastly more powerful and longer ranged AK-47.

BTW, the system I described is known in ROW circles as the Jarmo Method and was used successfully in a bunch of ROW I QBs. It's moot when scenarios are played under the Nabla System.

I always supply my PBEM password after a game. This is not just for force verification, but so my foe can watch the battle through my eyes, if desired. If your opponent won't do the same, and you suspect cheating, never fight that person again.

Regards,

John Kettler

P.S.

Whether or not you use the Jarmo Method, any of the several rule sets, or do everything from scratch, it is essential that you are both on the same sheet of music as to what's kosher and what's not.

[ July 25, 2007, 01:55 AM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

[Cabe Booth]

I agree. I have no problem sharing my PW with folks, but on another tact.... in fact I encourage it. Especially when using unique units that other's have had little success or frustration with like AVRE, just to see how I used it ect. I guess I like good opponents. If I can learn something from them and I can supply a running movie of a unit in action I see plenty of benefits.

I get tired of seeing people buy the same tiger/sherman loadout because they are afraid to take a chance with some of the more uncommonly mentioned units in forums.

My favorite unit is still got to be the valentine. Such great power for soooo little.

I also gotta like those dang churchills when they are avaliable.

[Broompatrol]

Well said JK.

Why would I not withdraw an FO if it was no longer useful? Just so the other guy can get points for it? Is it a good simulation to have a FO waiting to be overun? If I make a dumb move and you capitalize on it and get points, great, but just standing around waiting to die because of some weird ground rule doesn't sound fun.

[John Kettler]

Broompatrol,

Not to mention that real world FOs, as long as they have working comms to functioning firing units with ammo available, remain useful. The way that they're modeled in CM, though, once they've shot their bolt, their utility, except in enhancing hostile unit ID and similar tasks, drops to zero. Since there's no in game ammo resupply,

the same holds true for any unit with a fixed ammo supply and no Low ammo setting.

Turning now to evacuating other units, in QBs and scenarios I've evacuated F-Killed tanks and AFVs, trucks, jeeps/kubels, tank and weapon crews, carriers, ammo expended mortars and bazooka/Panzerschreck teams, plus others I've doubtless forgotten. It's all about keeping points in my column and out of my foe's.

Regards,

John Kettler

[The_Enigma]

I see nothing wrong with pulling your trucks, halftracks etc off the map if you feel you dont need them ... because if i spot them i will try and get something into that rear area to shoot them all up!

Although i most cases i cba to evac this stuff off the map so it will go hide in a forest or sit off behind some building etc hehe