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johndmuller
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Capitol Hill, Colony of DC
Feb 2001
time: 00:13
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I presume there some mechanism that notices if you:
- Copy/Reneme the incoming game file (1 or more times) before opening it;
- Play your turn with one of them, save if you like it - exit if not;
- Repeat "B" until satisfied.
I have to think that this has been already tried and I gather that the game has a way of catching it, but I can't help but wonder how the game detects it. It would have to write to the registry or to some kind of secret reference file on your disk (unless it just looks at autosave files, which you could, of course ...). I've always assumed that PBEM could be subject to questionable behavior along these lines (hoping that somehow it wasn't), but not having done much PBEM, I've never experimented with it; I'm not sure how much I really want to know anyway.
It seems to me that the Honor System would be in effect more than anything else; I can't imagine a verification system that couldn't be gotten around somehow - after all, we're starting with just an e-mail attachment and we're not exactly computer dumdums. Even with the most ingenious detection scheme, someone who was determined enough could do something radical like backing up their entire computer before taking their turn. Feel no shame when you lose a PBEM, because it could be that the funny look in Yang's eye is there from staying up all night waiting on his backup tape.
Anyone who may actually know a simpler way might want to consider first asking the group if we really want to know before spilling the beans. If I started to think that any or all of the others were doing something like this, it could be a lot more serious than the Stockpile Energy thing.
[This message has been edited by johndmuller (edited May 02, 2001).]
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MariOne
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Erewhon in Neverland
May 1999
time: 06:13
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jdm,
that has been attempted right when the hotseat/pbem patch came out, two years ago, by cousLeee first IIRC.
The game must be writing something in the registry (reason for which the m@ni@c trick doesn't work...).
Renaming the files, keeping copies of them, erasing them and downloading anew form email in different directories, none of the above got rid of the tampering notification to other players.
But what cuts discussion on the issue, is that *uninstalling* and *reinstalling* SMAC doesn't even solve the problem.
Thus, the solution is:
- investigate in the machine registries. I'm not a true computer geek, some attempted to track it down, to no avail.
- use multiple PCs ;^). I stick to the Honor System, but sometimes I was tempted, when I could play both @home & @work
- backup your machine b4 playing a turn, and restore it if you don't like the results
I have to say that, as I keep an end-of-turn Ctrl+S savefile of almost all my pbem turns, when I reopen one to check something that happened several turns & weeks ago (e.g. when I didn't kept note of when an election was called and the like), I see taht I can reopen them without getting the warning.... beware of slackers  
About spilling beans, figure that there's a pbem bug that allows you not to replay a turn unspotted, but to play as many turns as you want in one (first player in a pbem could receive first turn and transcend without ever passing the first turn to the second player....). but of course a CMN check would spot this...
Otherwise, I second every word cbn wrote.
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02-05-2001 03:59
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