Cheating and Historical Turn 1

[spence]

Regardless of whether you're playing against the AI or PBEM the first turn seemingly always causes more damage to the Allies than historically.

80-85% bomb and torpedo hits at Pearl Harbor are anything but rare in the game. IJN a/c losses are significantly reduced from reality (29 shot down over Hawaii and 77 damaged beyond rapid repair in the actual raid). The number of torpedo carrying bomber squadrons is nearly always greater than in real life, IJN carriers also start will a full load of fuel in addition to having the oilers from which they had refueled just prior to the raid start with full tanks.

The Prince of Wales and Repulse are offered up as ripe targets and are almost always sunk by the very same bombers which cause the damage to Singapore's port (that prevents the Brits from starting fortifications there).

Wake gets invaded and is usually captured by the inadequate forces which clearly demonstrated their inadequacy in real life. Japanese assault landing technique was so poor (SNLF troops were in no way the equivalent of the USMC)that in real life the reinforced second invasion force lost (KIA) the the entire force landed on one of Wake's islets.

Meanwhile the game demonstrates that the only thing needed to break the IJA's 3-year stalemate in China was to add some more enemies to their dance card.

Historically Churchill rejoiced when he heard about Japan's attack and said; "I knew we were saved" (or something similar). Without all the above extras the Japanese Player would never want to play the game.

[Alpha77]

The Prince of Wales and Repulse are offered up as ripe targets and are almost always sunk by the very same bombers which cause the damage to Singapore's port (that prevents the Brits from starting fortifications there)

- No, in my AI historic game , POW survived

Wake gets invaded and is usually captured by the inadequate forces which clearly demonstrated their inadequacy in real life. Japanese assault landing technique was so poor (SNLF troops were in no way the equivalent of the USMC)that in real life the reinforced second invasion force lost (KIA) the the entire force landed on one of Wake's islets.

- I held them them off for a while (in IJ PBM I was not able to take it and also did not send a 2nd invasion just thought not worthwhile enough island, Allied still had in 9/42)

[spence]

No will run the turn using the standard rules, and therefore the Allies will perform a lot better and probably make PH attack a costly mistake

First turn surprise off allows Allied player to issue orders for December 7th.

I've run this against the AI a couple of times near PH just to see what would happen (didn't check out the rest of the map). I issued orders such that every unit pounced on the KB: submarines, LBA (with escorts), SBDs with escorts (can't remember whether I could get TBDs in range), and 2 TFs with BBs included.

Except for the fact that the KB beat the b-jessus out of the poor USCGC Tiger and a few friends the Allies managed only about 3 or 4 shell hits and a couple of bomb hits disabling 1 carrier (max) meanwhile losing about half the bombers involved. The results for the Allies are anything but inspiring resulting from low experience and morale.

[gmtello]

Néxt patch should take this In consideration

[woods]

46 torpedo hits! What are the odds of that happening? 1 in 10,000? [X(]

[Aurorus]

ORIGINAL: woods

46 torpedo hits! What are the odds of that happening? 1 in 10,000? [X(]

About 1 in 5. Above 30 hits is good. Above 40 is exceptional. The results above are from my test. As 821Bobo stated above, this was not the actual attack in this game. The actual attack scored 64 torpedo hits, from 70 Kates carrying torpedos. How often does this happen? How often do you win a coin flip 64 out of 70 times? About 1 in a million.

[Aurorus]

ORIGINAL: spence

Regardless of whether you're playing against the AI or PBEM the first turn seemingly always causes more damage to the Allies than historically.

80-85% bomb and torpedo hits at Pearl Harbor are anything but rare in the game. IJN a/c losses are significantly reduced from reality (29 shot down over Hawaii and 77 damaged beyond rapid repair in the actual raid). The number of torpedo carrying bomber squadrons is nearly always greater than in real life, IJN carriers also start will a full load of fuel in addition to having the oilers from which they had refueled just prior to the raid start with full tanks.

I can tell you from a test sample of about 70 Pearl Harbor simulations, about 50 from sandboxing first turns as Japan, that 50% hits is about the expected result. Can Japan achieve better? Certainly. What are the odds of Japan scoring 85% or better hits with 2 consecutive Pearl Harbor attacks? What are the odds of getting a Royal Flush on consecutive five-card hands in poker? Nigh impossible. Can it happen? Sure... but unless the deck is stacked...you will never see it happen in your lifetime no matter how many hands of poker you play.

[Aurorus]

ORIGINAL: Jorge_Stanbury

A very good PH outcome, one time against the AI I managed to sink all 8 BBs... happened once

Problem is that talking about cheating or suspicious results will put the game on a downward spiral and it will be hard to recover from there... I mean this is a game that will take years to finish.

And as far as the results, they are really not a big deal, the game will be won with carriers and 4-E bombers. Battleships, especially the old BBs are not critical, sure they are nice to have and they can do an amazing job on naval bombardment, but you can live without them

I agree completely, and the Pearl result were more a curiosity to me than anything else, until my opponent stated that he had achieved similar results in a previous game. Then I became suspicious and discovered the exploit.

[tomamars]

OK, a guy who had that "suspicious" 1-st turn PH result here.
What we are talking about here are following settings:
Scen01
Historical first turn YES
December 7th surprise YES
Whether Kates will launch torpedoes or 800 kg bombs is up to a dice roll.
Results of day one were actually not so brutal as combat results might indicate because NOT ONE BB was actually sunk. Not even PoW or Repulse. Most of bomb hits on BBs in Pearl were actually Val 250 kg bombs that bounced of BBs deck. I'd prefer them hitting some subs or DDs or even better P40s and B17s and closing the airfield. Now, how is this result a cheater would frame is beyond me. It's a good result for Japan, no doubt about that, but not the best I ever had. Full combat report can be seen in my AAR.
PS: if you have any doubts about legitimacy of this first turn, just create those exact same settings and try several first turns with some of your buddies - not AI but actual human opponent - and ONLY if results are way different than this you could MAYBE have some doubts of some foul play involved. Also since this game is around 10 years old, wouldn't someone point out the possibility of framing results like this by now?!

[Aurorus]

I also want to clarify that this exploit is for "Historical December 7th: On" only, in which neither side enters orders. If Historical Dec. 7th is off, any change in orders by either player, even the smallest change, will produce a new and different combat report. I can verify that this is so, because I specifically remember one sandbox opening move that I did for Japan where I had Boise and Houston plotted to move to Tarakan, because I wanted to see if they would intercept an invasion fleet that I had magic moved to Davao. They did not, but I ran the same turn again, and changed the Boise and Houston to "full speed," rather than "mission speed." This was the only change in orders from one sandbox to another, and the combat report was completely different. I remember this because at "full speed" Houston intercepted the group, and I decided not to invade Mindanao on the first turn and stopped the TF just outside the Phillipine Sea to wait for the Chokai to cover the group.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: Aurorus

ORIGINAL: wdolson


If the something was changed with the set up for turn 1 that changed how combat played out, the results would be different, but the same set up will generate the same results for the same game start. If you start over from the scenario menu, the seed for the game's randoms will be different and you will get different results.

This is necessary for PBEM games to stay synced. AI games do the randoms a bit differently.

Bill

Thank you for that confirmation. Therefore, a Japanese player can run "historical" first turns until he gets the results that he desires, indeed nearly impossible results, and then send this save to his his opponent and be guaranteed to get these results. Of course, none of this is possible without a "historical" first turn.

Well, not really. This is prevented because the Japanese player has to select the scenario, enter a password, and send to the Allied player before doing anything. The Allied player then opens that file, enters a password, and sends it back.

That file would then have the exact same replay generated for it every single time it was reloaded. In order to re-run the first turn until optimal results were achieved, the Japanese player would have to receive the file back from the Allied player each time - starting from scratch, each time, so both players would have to enter passwords.

This would be true for both historical and non-historical starts...

ORIGINAL: Aurorus

ORIGINAL: woods

46 torpedo hits! What are the odds of that happening? 1 in 10,000? [X(]

About 1 in 5. Above 30 hits is good. Above 40 is exceptional. The results above are from my test. As 821Bobo stated above, this was not the actual attack in this game. The actual attack scored 64 torpedo hits, from 70 Kates carrying torpedos. How often does this happen? How often do you win a coin flip 64 out of 70 times? About 1 in a million.

Except that it's not actually a 50/50 coin flip for the torpedoes to hit. It depends on a ton of factors, down to the order of the planes attacking.

ORIGINAL: Aurorus

I also want to clarify that this exploit is for "Historical December 7th: On" only, in which neither side enters orders. If Historical Dec. 7th is off, any change in orders by either player, even the smallest change, will produce a new and different combat report. I can verify that this is so, because I specifically remember one sandbox opening move that I did for Japan where I had Boise and Houston plotted to move to Tarakan, because I wanted to see if they would intercept an invasion fleet that I had magic moved to Davao. They did not, but I ran the same turn again, and changed the Boise and Houston to "full speed," rather than "mission speed." This was the only change in orders from one sandbox to another, and the combat report was completely different. I remember this because at "full speed" Houston intercepted the group, and I decided not to invade Mindanao on the first turn and stopped the TF just outside the Phillipine Sea to wait for the Chokai to cover the group.

I want to clarify that, in a PBEM, this exploit is not possible, as stated above. To the best of my knowledge and understanding of how the PBEM file setup and replay generation works.

[Jorge_Stanbury]

I am surprised nobody caught that before, thanks Lokasenna
I just tested it and you are absolutely right: you need to save both passwords before the game start, then the 1st turn is saved before you can see the results

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: spence

No will run the turn using the standard rules, and therefore the Allies will perform a lot better and probably make PH attack a costly mistake

First turn surprise off allows Allied player to issue orders for December 7th.

I've run this against the AI a couple of times near PH just to see what would happen (didn't check out the rest of the map). I issued orders such that every unit pounced on the KB: submarines, LBA (with escorts), SBDs with escorts (can't remember whether I could get TBDs in range), and 2 TFs with BBs included.

Except for the fact that the KB beat the b-jessus out of the poor USCGC Tiger and a few friends the Allies managed only about 3 or 4 shell hits and a couple of bomb hits disabling 1 carrier (max) meanwhile losing about half the bombers involved. The results for the Allies are anything but inspiring resulting from low experience and morale.

I play a lot of Ironman scenarios with very ahistorical starts. Sometimes for fun I roleplay the notion that first turn invasions of places like Midway, Johnston, Hilo and Coal Harbor would preclude the possibility of first turn surprise and sand box a start without it to see what the Allies might be able to do.

Mileage May Vary:

Day Time Surface Combat, near Pearl Harbor at 180,104, Range 26,000 Yards

Japanese aircraft
no flights

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 19 destroyed
D3A1 Val: 18 destroyed
B5N2 Kate: 16 destroyed

Japanese Ships
CV Kaga, Shell hits 28, and is sunk
CV Hiryu
CV Soryu
CV Shokaku, Shell hits 1
CV Zuikaku, Shell hits 1
CV Akagi
BB Hiei, Shell hits 7
BB Kirishima, Shell hits 2, on fire
BB Musashi
CA Tone
CA Chikuma, Shell hits 1
CL Abukuma
DD Akigumo, Shell hits 1
DD Kagero
DD Isokaze, Shell hits 1
DD Shiranui, Shell hits 1
DD Urakaze, Shell hits 1
DD Hamakaze, Shell hits 3, on fire
DD Tanikaze
DD Arare, Shell hits 1
DD Kasumi, Shell hits 1, on fire
CA Adatara

Allied Ships
BB Maryland, Shell hits 3
BB West Virginia, Shell hits 29, heavy fires, heavy damage
BB Arizona, Shell hits 1
BB Pennsylvania, Shell hits 1
BB California, Shell hits 2, on fire
BB Tennessee, Shell hits 15, heavy fires
DD Bagley
DD Blue, Shell hits 2, on fire
DD Helm
DD Mugford, Shell hits 3, heavy fires
DD Ralph Talbot, Shell hits 1
DD Henley, Shell hits 1
DD Patterson
DD Jarvis, Shell hits 1

[Rio Bravo]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

ORIGINAL: spence

No will run the turn using the standard rules, and therefore the Allies will perform a lot better and probably make PH attack a costly mistake

First turn surprise off allows Allied player to issue orders for December 7th.

I've run this against the AI a couple of times near PH just to see what would happen (didn't check out the rest of the map). I issued orders such that every unit pounced on the KB: submarines, LBA (with escorts), SBDs with escorts (can't remember whether I could get TBDs in range), and 2 TFs with BBs included.

Except for the fact that the KB beat the b-jessus out of the poor USCGC Tiger and a few friends the Allies managed only about 3 or 4 shell hits and a couple of bomb hits disabling 1 carrier (max) meanwhile losing about half the bombers involved. The results for the Allies are anything but inspiring resulting from low experience and morale.

I play a lot of Ironman scenarios with very ahistorical starts. Sometimes for fun I roleplay the notion that first turn invasions of places like Midway, Johnston, Hilo and Coal Harbor would preclude the possibility of first turn surprise and sand box a start without it to see what the Allies might be able to do.

Mileage May Vary:

Day Time Surface Combat, near Pearl Harbor at 180,104, Range 26,000 Yards

Japanese aircraft
no flights

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 19 destroyed
D3A1 Val: 18 destroyed
B5N2 Kate: 16 destroyed

Japanese Ships
CV Kaga, Shell hits 28, and is sunk
CV Hiryu
CV Soryu
CV Shokaku, Shell hits 1
CV Zuikaku, Shell hits 1
CV Akagi
BB Hiei, Shell hits 7
BB Kirishima, Shell hits 2, on fire
BB Musashi
CA Tone
CA Chikuma, Shell hits 1
CL Abukuma
DD Akigumo, Shell hits 1
DD Kagero
DD Isokaze, Shell hits 1
DD Shiranui, Shell hits 1
DD Urakaze, Shell hits 1
DD Hamakaze, Shell hits 3, on fire
DD Tanikaze
DD Arare, Shell hits 1
DD Kasumi, Shell hits 1, on fire
CA Adatara

Allied Ships
BB Maryland, Shell hits 3
BB West Virginia, Shell hits 29, heavy fires, heavy damage
BB Arizona, Shell hits 1
BB Pennsylvania, Shell hits 1
BB California, Shell hits 2, on fire
BB Tennessee, Shell hits 15, heavy fires
DD Bagley
DD Blue, Shell hits 2, on fire
DD Helm
DD Mugford, Shell hits 3, heavy fires
DD Ralph Talbot, Shell hits 1
DD Henley, Shell hits 1
DD Patterson
DD Jarvis, Shell hits 1

Hans-

Now that is the start I needed against El Lobo!

*chuckling*

Best Regards,

-Terry

[cardas]

While testing my mod I've noticed that using Historical first turn + December 7th surprise seems to give the Japanese attacks more favourable results than simply using December 7th surprise, even if no orders are changed at all. There are special rules in place for the December 7th start after all, so Historical first turn might very well give the Japanese some extra bonuses to their attacks. Do remember that a Japanese player loses some flexibility with that start though.

I'll emphasize that this isn't necessarily a fact. I haven't done any large scale statistical tests of this so it might simply have been random chance.

[Aurorus]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna


I want to clarify that, in a PBEM, this exploit is not possible, as stated above. To the best of my knowledge and understanding of how the PBEM file setup and replay generation works.

The tests that I ran used 3 different passwords for the allies: "test1," "test2," and "test3." Test it for yourself if you think that I am wrong. Run a historical first turn as Japan; save the file; then reopen it 3 times as the allies with 3 different passwords and look at the results. You can even e-mail it to yourself if you really want to fully simulate a PBEM.

[Aurorus]

Let me clarify one last time, and then I am done with this thread. I discovered an exploit in the game. I wanted to notify the WiTP community that this exploit exists. Did I use this exploit? No. Would I use this exploit? No. I am simply trying to be honest. You can shoot holes in the messenger all that you want, but it does not change the message or the facts. The exploit exists. Period. Now, I am finished discussing it.

[tomamars]

ORIGINAL: Aurorus

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna


I want to clarify that, in a PBEM, this exploit is not possible, as stated above. To the best of my knowledge and understanding of how the PBEM file setup and replay generation works.

The tests that I ran used 3 different passwords for the allies: "test1," "test2," and "test3." Test it for yourself if you think that I am wrong. Run a historical first turn as Japan; save the file; then reopen it 3 times as the allies with 3 different passwords and look at the results. You can even e-mail it to yourself if you really want to fully simulate a PBEM.

If you did run those tests on those same settings as the game you are questioning, did you at least bother to compare the results of PH attack to those you are disputing? How do they differ? Do you understand that you are calling someone a cheater here with no shred of evidence not so ever! Even if you did discover an exploit, which is up to Matrix team to decide if it's real, there is no proof that this exploit was even used in this game or any other for that matter. You even stated yourself that you NEVER played a game with December 7 surprise on. How can you be sure that this IS NOT the usual outcome you get with those settings on? How about test this hypothesis on, let's say 10 different openings? I did it on two occasions and both were pretty brutal in terms of torpedo hits on ships in PH. As far as I'm concerned this is standard result you get with playing on those exact settings we did until someone proves me otherwise. And what I can claim with 100% certainty is that no exploit was used here and that result was 100% genuine!

[Grollub]

ORIGINAL: Aurorus

ORIGINAL: woods

46 torpedo hits! What are the odds of that happening? 1 in 10,000? [X(]

About 1 in 5. Above 30 hits is good. Above 40 is exceptional. The results above are from my test. As 821Bobo stated above, this was not the actual attack in this game. The actual attack scored 64 torpedo hits, from 70 Kates carrying torpedos. How often does this happen? How often do you win a coin flip 64 out of 70 times? About 1 in a million.

Heh ... Hold my Beer! [;)][:D]

It might be enlightening to see this combat report of the PH raid from my opponent's AAR a couple of years ago ... he scored 68 torpedo hits. The CR shows 71, but actual hits were "only" 68. I guess a little FOW was in order to keep him guessing. [:'(][;)]

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/fb.asp?m=3159855

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: Aurorus

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna


I want to clarify that, in a PBEM, this exploit is not possible, as stated above. To the best of my knowledge and understanding of how the PBEM file setup and replay generation works.

The tests that I ran used 3 different passwords for the allies: "test1," "test2," and "test3." Test it for yourself if you think that I am wrong. Run a historical first turn as Japan; save the file; then reopen it 3 times as the allies with 3 different passwords and look at the results. You can even e-mail it to yourself if you really want to fully simulate a PBEM.

Right, but the key point is that the Allied player has to send the file multiple times to the Japanese player in order for this to occur. Ergo, no cheating can be had.