02-07-2004 14:45									#31
	MY year 2101 (Data Angel Turn-restart) Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

Drogue:

I checked over the things foolish_icarus said. It's fairly reasonable and I also checked the time period it took him to do it. 4 hours is pretty much how long it should have taken.

So I inclined to believe that foolish_icarus has not done anything illegal.

Last edited by Kody on 02-07-2004 at 17:26

	02-07-2004 15:13									#32
	Increase the size of your Attachments

From Angel thread:

quote: Originally posted by foolish_icarus As for the map: I was under the impression that this had been done last game, in making "turn simulators". Certain landmarks have distinctive shapes. Garland Crater, Sunny Mesa, Unity crash site are easy to see. For the rest of the map, examine the slope-shape of the grid lines and land forms will be shown. Recreate the elevations in a map editor, and voila. I'm just glad we weren't using a huge map

quote: turn simulator... In clarification: Any exploring, military trials or probe actions, is not allowed. Testing former orders and AI diplomacy (without accepting any deal) is allowed. For anything else, check with Drogue before hand.

Those are the rules. However, while I would like the use of turn simulators for exploration to desist, it seems you have just point and clicked, and as such, other than finding the base, it is not something you couldn't have done without a simulator. Therefore, no action will be taken for this, but as said, I would like the use of turn simulators for exploration to stop.

If you're not sure if something is allowed or not, please PM myself and ask.

He didn't mean to break the rules, and didn't need to either, but he did, by using the turn simulator.

	02-07-2004 15:43									#33
	MY year 2101 (Data Angel Turn-restart) Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Umm Drogue what you said made no sense.

It's impossible to explore using a turn simulator, because the turn simulator only has land and enemy faction information you put into it. If there's a problem with getting illegal information it's with getting it from the real turn.

foolish_icarus basically said he was using the elvation map, which the gaians have already used, while spartans and morgans intend to use too. I believe that's a legal tactic.

Last edited by Kody on 02-07-2004 at 17:28

	02-07-2004 15:54									#34
	Got spare money?

It is. However he specifically stated he used a turn simulator to do it. He didn't need to, but he stated that he did. Hence why I warned him from doing it in the future.

	02-07-2004 20:37									#35
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

All done the Gaian turn.

EDIT: Updated attachment. Originally played the wrong turn

Attachment: acdg3-toangels-2101.zip
This has been downloaded 0 time(s).

Last edited by Method on 02-07-2004 at 20:48

	03-07-2004 16:22									#36
	Support Apolyton

Many thanks Will check all turns played tonight.

	03-07-2004 16:26									#37
	Re: Game Strategy Observations Got spare money?

quote: Originally posted by Kody Enigma seems to be following his lucky pod pop and associated habits strategy. His first set of pod pops was one in 200 chance maybe higher, even the restart pop are very lucky. It will probably win him the game. I can tell because he doesn't bother to deeply considering long term plans or possible problems. Rather he seems certain that he'll be able to deal with any issues long before they pop up and is fairly confident that pod pops won't cause any problems. Nobody thinks like that unless they've got more information than they should or they're not paying attention. I had a long chat with him, hopefully he'll listen to me. I'll should be able to tell if he changes his ways within a few turns of him doing so. So far it seems he's just gone deeper into hiding as I made him aware that is was so balant what he was doing.

You think he was replaying turns, or somesuch? What's you're thinking on this.

	03-07-2004 16:31									#38
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

I think you need to wait and see, he might change what he's doing.

Things like an insistence to pop the pods rather than Malk doing so, and not getting any bad results etc.

	03-07-2004 20:39									#39
	Um.... large bug. Suffering from ads?

Hello. I am not a mod for this game or in any team ATM, and with this posting I am sadly unlikely to ever be suitable for a team (mod is different matter, but that hardly matters now). However I am posting in this thread. I have not managed to find any of you on IRC since I found this bug out. It is major, and we need to get it fixed.

I frequently use the 'View Last Posts' button on the main Poly forums. When I last did it, I found to my surprise the private faction forums' last posts showed up. I clicked on one to be sure, but it took me straight to the post! Thus anyone in any team can gain access to private team forums by doing this. Once in they can 'next thread' or 'previous thread' to see anything they want, edit posts or even post (as I am doing now).

I am PMing Mark about this as well, and we once had a similar problem with the start-up of the Civ3 PtW Democracy game, with separate team forums attached to a main public game forum. That was solved (in fact I was the one to notice and report this then as well!), and hopefully this can be solved quickly. I am posting this because I wanted you all to know about this in case there is a suspicion of cheating at some point - this may be/have been the cause. If no-one else has noticed this it could possibly be fixed before anyone notices, although that cannot be certain.

Hopefully if anyone is getting anything using this without telling anyone they will no longer be able to when the bug is fixed. However I know xxxxxCENSOREDxxxx so if someone has done this XXXXX then there would be no stopping them through this loophole.

We should probably keep this secret until it is fixed.

Your servant,

WIA.

Last edited by MrWhereItsAt on 03-07-2004 at 21:06

	03-07-2004 21:05									#40
	Re: Um.... large bug. Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

quote: Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt However I know that xxxxxCENSOREDxxxx so if someone has done this xxxxx then there would be no stopping them through this loophole.

I just realised that if someone is using it already they could see this! PM me if you want to know what this bit was.

	03-07-2004 21:44									#41
	MY year 2102 (Data Angel Turn) Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

PM sent to MarkG

quote: Dear MarkG Someone who wasn't authorised to access the ACDGIII private forums was able to enter and post. From what can be gathered it appears to be a problem for any apolyton plus members. As it does not appear to happen with someone on a normal account or someone without an account, it can be concluded that it may be something to do with the apolyton-plus showthread script being different. The characteristics of the bug seem to be similar as the old private forum bug that plagued the ACDGII forums. Only this time the person doesn't need to first click "join" for the team, before being able to access without authorisation. Furthermore, the bug reportably only works with the ACDG forums, and is not a problem with the civ forums. It would be appreciated if this bug could be fixed, and when it is fixed notification given to either myself or Drogue so the passwords which were available in the private forums can be changed. Thanks for your time. Kody

	04-07-2004 03:00									#42
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

Thanks MWIA for pointing this out. Since we all have access to all the private forums we wouldn't be able to discover this ourselves.

	04-07-2004 04:46									#43
	MY year 2102 (Morgans) Support Apolyton

MarkG,

Thank you for fixing the problem.

I'll let you know if anything else comes up.

Kody

quote: fixed due to the mess that the vbulletin permission system is, an exact number of 37 users (not all plus members, some dg-mods and others) had access to the acdg team forums let me know if there is any other issue

	04-07-2004 04:51									#44
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

My suggestion is we need to change the passwords just as a safety precaution.

Drogue your thoughts on this?

	04-07-2004 05:11									#45
	Inflate your Upload Space

It seems that Enigma is still cheating.

http://www.apolyton.net/forums/show...373#post3119373

quote: GO TURN! It's already here. I'm waiting for Makahlua to come online. I should warn you that: if a probe pops a pod and has some movement points remaining, it can run away from worms. If it pops the pod with its last movement point, it will be eaten by worms.

Evidence of exploring ahead. He's obviously opened the turn noticed that the probe can move and pop a pod and made that comment to ensure Makahlua doesn't do so.

Makahlua then finds a pod, when she does the turn.
http://www.apolyton.net/forums/show...018#post3120018

Seems also what I've said previously is coming true. He's making sure that he's the one popping the pods.

quote: I think you need to wait and see, he might change what he's doing. Things like an insistence to pop the pods rather than Malk doing so, and not getting any bad results etc.

Grr I can't believe he's broken his promise to me so fast. My talk with him only made him more careful about his cheating, didn't stop him at all.

Edit: Actually thinking back, he didn't break his promise to me. He was a damn lawyer when he picked his words, I just wanted to think he was changing.

quote: If we come across 50 or more ECs in a pod, what should we do?

Let see if he pops ECs he's thinking of in the next pod.

	04-07-2004 09:49									#46
	Suffering from ads?

Sorry didn't get time to do too much Kody.

I briefly browsed through some posts. Noticed that you said that Enigma cheated in the Bear Baits pbem. Shouldn't you let everybody that's in the game know about this as you are the game mod? I didn't think that he needed any more advantages than he already has?

	04-07-2004 09:58									#47
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

What would it achieve?

If we do decide to do something about Enigma it cannot be a half measure. A half measure is dangerous as he will just learn how to get around it so next time he won't get caught. He's already learnt many of the things that will stop him from getting caught from my conversation with him. Half hearted resistance only will make him stronger.

I'm not willing to kick him out of all his PBEMs yet, also he's extracted a promise from me.

	04-07-2004 10:00									#48
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

I don't understand. Are you saying we just let him do whatever and should not try to retify the problem? What is half hearted resistance? Why couldn't we do a whole hearted resistance?

	04-07-2004 10:03									#49
	Suffering from ads?

Because a whole hearted resistance means checking over each of his PBEMs carefully. Then kicking him out of each and every one where he's obviously cheated. Telling everyone how much cheating he's doing and having to live with his eternal hatred.

I'm not prepared to do that.

	04-07-2004 12:57									#50
	Suffering from ads?

I've been thinking about the problem.

Did you know Enigma is staying up all night so he can be around when the most other players are around, and sleeping when there's no other players. I sometimes delay my sleep because I'm interested in read just one more post.

He's actively changing his sleep patterns because he loves this place so much. I'm not sure what will happen if we really do spill on the beans. Perhaps what we should do is tell the data angels that Enigma is not allowed to do anything that has random effects. No moving units into fungus, no probe actions, no military actions against other players or against mindworms, and no pod popping.

	04-07-2004 21:39									#51
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

quote: Originally posted by Kody My suggestion is we need to change the passwords just as a safety precaution. Drogue your thoughts on this?

I'd say no. If it only affected 37 people, out of the thousands who use Poly, I don't see there being much chance at all of a security breach. It's not worth changing passwords over. If it had been anyone able to, I might have said yes, but with only 37 people, and only by that method, which would be very hard to get passwords from, and would need to be discovered, it seems highly unlikely.

	04-07-2004 22:48									#52
	Full PM-box? Change here!

Kody: Thanks for watching Enigma closely. I will have a look through the saves, and see what I think. I'm not completely sure he's cheating, although it is looking like a distinct possibility.

I'll have words with him on MSN about it, and if it seems that he is, I will PM Maki, Geo and Herc about it, and see their thoughts. If needs be, we'll remove him from the DG, but a less drastic action could be to ask them not to allow him to be turn player, if we don't *know* he's cheating.

	05-07-2004 09:36									#53
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

Actually that was my exact thought when they accepted Enigma. But I thught they'd elect Geo as their turn player since it would be the most sensible choice. You probably noticed that I had prompted several times for an election but it looks to me that Herc really wanted Engima. I'm thinking that he didn't know Engima's reload trick, but wants his good "luck".

If we don't have evidence I don't know what the Angels will think if we just say that Enigma should not be the turn player. If we had support from Hercules things might get a little easier. I talked to Drogue this afternoon. Hopefully Drogue will talk to Herc some time. I don't know if I should talk to him, since I'm not a moderator after all, and I do not want him to think that I'm interfering Angel's affaires. He might already been a little mad because of my earlier PMs.

The bad thing with Herc is he is not on MSN so I can't talk to him directly.

	05-07-2004 09:41									#54
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

For pbems that Enigma are in where you are not a CMN, I don't know if you have the responsibility of making sure he doesn't cheats. However you are the moderator for the Bear Baits pbem. You have the responsibility to ensure the fairness of this pbem. If you let him go, he'll think that he can sneak from even under you nose, and the others who he looks down upon anyway, who can stop him?

If you do not feel ready to do disclose his cheating, I could open an informal vote to all, discussing the possibility of somebody found cheating. The option would be, kick him out with a permanent "cheater" mark, let him continue on a promise of no cheating again, and we all abandon rules and run a free for all exploits festival. I'm not sure who would be the winner if we do the third option. I do not remember how to do the reload trick, was never interested. However I do know a couple cheats myself. I could use them too.

	05-07-2004 10:36									#55
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

I've already let him go a few times. One more time isn't going to make a difference.

	05-07-2004 11:06									#56
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Well perhaps that's why he believed that he can manipulate people.

	05-07-2004 13:34									#57
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

HongHu: Thank you for not talking to the Angels directly, it could look a little confusing to them having it come from a non-Mod. I will PM Herc, Geo and Maki today, asking them their opinions, and to keep it quiet. Either Enigma stops cheating, or they remove him as turn player, or if it becomes bad, he is removed from the game. I'm hopeful it won't come to that, though.

	05-07-2004 14:02									#58
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

Me and my big mouth.

Okay I'll explain my full viewpoint. It's not a simple matter of cheating or not cheating anymore now that he's shown that I can't quietly dissuaded him from cheating. Now it's all or nothing, because any half measure he'll see as an obstacle to overcome.

At the moment I don't think what he's done deserves a kicking from the game.

He's got his flaws, but he has shown he's willing to change, but he has also shown it will be in his own time, not when we want him to. He's a fast turn player, very interested in the game and might I add the game SMAC is slowly dying out from lack of interest.

Also you said so yourself that when you're new you try out cheats. Now some people just take longer to learn than others. I hate to say this, Enigma is a slow learner when the answer cannot be proved mathematically or logically. If you approach cheating from a cold Machiavellian viewpoint as Enigma does, it makes perfect sense to cheat. He doesn't yet understand some of the wider concepts that make cheating wrong from a moral prespective.

In fact he's told me to my face that my morality will be why I will always lose. I haven't replied back to him yet on that because he wouldn't understand the answer. Basically, just because you lose doesn't mean you haven't won. He's so one dimensional sometimes, it comes out in the strategy he thinks of too.

I talked to Googlie about his viewpoint on the issue a while ago as Enigma was obviously cheating on the "Think you know everything - Turn Tracking", which is what first tipped me off on Enigma's activities and started me on watching what he was up to. Googlie reply from what I understand is that Enigma may win, but he doesn't really gain anything from winning if he's cheated and people know he cheated.

I think your post in the "Bear Baiting 101 Tracking Thread" was ill advised as it'll drive him deeper underground and he won't be so obvious anymore. In fact this recent turn he wasn't so obvious after my talk with him, but I could still detect hints of reloads. Whereas before he did something that was tactially stupid (if he hadn't been reloading) and the result was one chance in over a million literally. I think he must had reloaded 100->500 times to get those results.

Previously he was so confident that everyone would figure it out and once people could tell he couldn't brag about it at all.

I've asked Googlie if I can put his PM to me here as I may have mis-interupted what he said.

	05-07-2004 14:08									#59
	MY year 2103 (Gaians Turn) Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

I think that every time someone accuses him of cheating he'll just hide it better. That's what I've observed so far in the last few months I've been watching him.

If we don't want to kick Enigma out of all his PBEMs, it may be better to wait until he realises the pointlessness of cheating. My current policy I've decided to adopt is to let him cheat, but also let him know that anything he achieves is pointless if he does so.

Nobody really believes him to be a strategy king, he's just known as "lucky pod pop" so far and if that changes, meh we can quietly mention below any of his boast posts that we know. He'll come clean simply so that he'll be able to boast for real.

Edit:
I've been editing my posts to add the game time into the headings of my posts. This is so we have clear markers of when certain decisions were made.

Last edited by Kody on 05-07-2004 at 14:37

	05-07-2004 14:16									#60
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

For Enigma's development, Kody is right, he has to learn himself. However there are many people playing this game, and I'm not going to spoil their fun to aid his development. If I suspect that he has cheated again, and I have a reasonable idea, I will ask the Angels to preminantly remove him as turn player. That reduces how much he can cheat quite a bit. If, however, he still insists on cheating, I will ask that he be removed from the game. Letting him learn not to is good for his development, but could wreck the game. I have a duty to stop cheating, so if it happens, I will stop it.