05-07-2002 14:18									#1
	More silly questions - savegames this time... Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

Thanks again all for helping me out with the servers.dat questions but I have a few other questions about another issue: I understood there is some kind of utility for renaming auto-save files from MP games so they are saved and can be inspected when cheating is suspected for the WC. My questions: what kind of tool is it exactly? Who made it? Where can I get it? Is it (or can it be made) compatible with CtP2? What else do I need to know? Reasons for asking: because it's a potential addition to the file database, but moreover because I'm considering to run a MP Tournament for CtP2 as well and would need such a tool to detect cheating (if you might be interested in participating/helping out, here is the thread).

	05-07-2002 15:08									#2
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AFAIK, our WC moderators are just going to monitor all the turns, checking each one for evidence. Don know if there's an utility they use... our Chief Moderator, Blackice would be nice if he replied here.

	05-07-2002 16:05									#3
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Yeah, but isn't the auto-savegame overwritten every turn?

	05-07-2002 16:20									#4
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Don't know .

Blackice, come here.

	05-07-2002 19:24									#5
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Autosave does rewrite the save so it is useless in this type of environment. Players have to save each and everygame turn. As I previously pointed out in the Original tourney thread "H" has made a utility for saving turns when not the host of the game. This is handy as both players can then save the other players turns.

A good windows shell utility for renaming files is Better File rename it can be found here:

http://www.publicspace.net/windows/...name/index.html

It's free (trial version)but like anything that is free if you like it write the author a nice "thumbs up" letter for his promotional use. or buy the product for just $14 bucks or so cheap really.

Or go to my saved google search there are many different programs there :

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...G=Google+Search

Hope that helped.

Last edited by blackice on 05-07-2002 at 19:29

	05-07-2002 19:58									#6
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quote: Originally posted by Locutus Yeah, but isn't the auto-savegame overwritten every turn?

To answer this one question,YES each turn the autosave overwrites the previous turn. Thusly, when you say go to George ashington-Americans saved folder, it is there at top, but as for autosaving everyturn?? I have not not heard of a tool or program for this..of course, I aint the Shiniest Apple of the Bull with the Biggest B@()$ so maybe someone out there knows of it??

~sigh~ I only know how to check by putting the old chat screen up and /A to advance to various member turns, or should I say various civs which will scroll through each time you put the chat screen up, and for each /A, including Barbs!

Troll

	06-07-2002 13:49									#7
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Thanks for the info...

So, how do you guys do it for the WC then? Save every turn manually? Or is that everyone's own responsibility?

Anyway, never mind the shareware tools. I appreciate the info but I just got my good old JDK out and it took me less than half an hour to write a Java program that does the renaming for me (it's not tested on actual CtP1/2 autosaves though, my pc is broken and I don't have the games on my backup - but it works like a charm on regular files; VBasic would be a better language for such a tool anyway, but I don't have that on this PC either). It's free, small, fast (well, as fast as fast goes in Java anyway), clean, efficient, open source and optimized for personal use. No shareware in the world can beat that...

	06-07-2002 16:31									#8
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Haha, you don't have VBasic! You can't then be called a real programmer! Shame on you .

	06-07-2002 17:05									#9
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No VB -> not a real programmer? Obviously you haven't seen the Dijkstra quote yet that's in the forum quote database, and which I wholehartedly agree with ("programming Basic causes brain damage" or something)

	06-07-2002 17:17									#10
	Remove this text

Ah, here's the original (I suspect):

quote: BASIC /bay'-sic/ n. A programming language, originally designed for Dartmouth's experimental timesharing system in the early 1960s, which for many years was the leading cause of brain damage in proto-hackers. Edsger W. Dijkstra observed in "Selected Writings on Computing: A Personal Perspective" that "It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that have had prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration." This is another case (like {Pascal}) of the cascading {lossage} that happens when a language deliberately designed as an educational toy gets taken too seriously. A novice can write short BASIC programs (on the order of 10-20 lines) very easily; writing anything longer (a) is very painful, and (b) encourages bad habits that will make it harder to use more powerful languages well. This wouldn't be so bad if historical accidents hadn't made BASIC so common on low-end micros in the 1980s. As it is, it probably ruined tens of thousands of potential wizards.

C rulez!

	06-07-2002 18:47									#11
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A good one, you say it's in the quotes? Haven't seen it...

Well, yeah, BASIC does give some awful habits, but I just love it for a few reasons, and I hate Pascal for even more reason.

Though it's obvious that it's C++ that drives most of it, but...

	07-07-2002 02:42									#12
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It should be noted that VBasic bears very little relation to the BASIC described there (they probably had line numbers - *shudder*) - Just to prove I'm no real programmer I'll admit I wrote CTPEd (c.f. CTP2 forums) in VB - it exceeds 10,000 lines, and was not painful to write in the least. The main reason I like VB is because it's so easy to debug. I've never found a decent way to debug C(++) so I can never locate problems, and never learn from my mistakes. Thus I never made any real progress with 'real' languages...

	07-07-2002 16:28									#13
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Well JBTW, if you write 10k line programs, you are a programmer. Sure, VBasic has a nice IDE, but in my experience, debugging in Borland c++ is even better...

	08-07-2002 02:27									#14
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Borland is one I've never had experience of - presumably you have to pay for that? I got Visual Studio under student liscence so I have Visual C++ but can't install it under W95... With luck I'm getting a new computer soon, so maybe I can rectify that.

	08-07-2002 13:54									#15
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

Sure, you got to pay for Borland. If you want free, you can get Delphi, based on Object Pascal, but I think, and Locutus will agree, that Pascal completely sucks.

Borland C++ has a trial version, so you can well see what's the buzz about.

	09-07-2002 18:47									#16
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

Borland has a free C++ compiler too but without IDE

Well, RAD languages like Visual Basic and Delphi are for quick development therefore ideal for small and medium size applications.

But when you need to take full control of your program you use C++ and Assembly which both are a great pain in the ass, especially the latter.

That's why they use C++ and Assembly when creating games

	09-07-2002 19:08									#17
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

Assembly is not suitable for writing software, Keyg.

Visual Basic is good for medium apps. Delphi sucks.

While Borland C++ can develop any app, no matter how serious .

	09-07-2002 22:38									#18
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quote: Originally posted by Solver Assembly is not suitable for writing software, Keyg. Visual Basic is good for medium apps. Delphi sucks. While Borland C++ can develop any app, no matter how serious .

Well, no matter how suitable Assembly for writing is it is still used in several "heavy duty" applications. In science is used a lot and even in gaming industry some graphic rutines are coded in Assembly. For the latter I read that nVidia with Microsoft I think released a C-like language the Cg to replace Assembly on graphic coding.

	09-07-2002 22:39									#19
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Whether or not a language is easy to debug is a non-issue: that's usually a property of the compiler, not of the language itself. And compilers are irrelevant: if you're not happy with the existing ones (which is not too likely), you can always write your own...

I could be wrong but I don't think Delphi is freeware by default, most packages are commercial IIRC. It's Java that's free (except if you buy it from Micro$oft but who would be that stupid? J++'s GUI s*cks and it's not compatible with anything else), and Java is quite a good language (the only real disadvantage is that it creates JARs rather than EXEs, so that complicates distribution among non-nerds). Then again, for every language there are at least some free compilers available (though of varying quality), ala GCC...

Keygen is quite correct, VB and Delphi are basically RAD tools, as is Java (only much better (more OO) and therefore suitable for larger programs as well), while C and ASM give you full control. And yes, Solver, ASM is very suitable for writing software, quite vital even in some cases, you just shouldn't code an *entire* (10,000+ lines) program in it. A lot of games and critical sections of Linux kernels are coded in ASM...

	09-07-2002 23:21									#20
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Locutus, what I mean by the Assembly not being able to write software is that complex programs won't get written in it. Of course, it's some routines and maybe some kernel procedures written. Oh, and yes, I do run Linux .

I thought Delphi RAD is free, but might be well mistaken, I don't have it at home, and don't plan to. I got quite enough with Visual Basic, Borland C, Java and also Linux stuff.

Oh, well, you know, Java could be the perfect language if it produced non-JARs, and if it operated faster. However, if those were .EXEs, Java wouldn't have the portability it has now.

	11-07-2002 21:09									#21
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There are some very complex routines that are written in Assembly. On what language do you think is written the software that controls critical systems like nuclear power plants, nuclear weapons or sattelites and spacecrafts?

I don't think that speed is an issue anymore in Java. Modern computers can run java programs pretty fast that will not bother the user.
Unless he has a real old, rusty computer