Until Reloads are fixed, I won't believe

[Hubert Cater]

Hi Brian,

The possibility of reloading is not unique to Strategic Command, rather to any Matrix or Slitherine game that uses the PBEM++ server.

Sometimes there can be legit reasons for replaying a turn, e.g. a lost connection during your turn, a failure with the PBEM++ server etc., and of course, unfortunately, non legit reasons as well.

From what I understand, Matrix keeps track of this and will warn abusers and has kicked players from the PBEM++ server as well.

Hubert

[Bavre]

Oh, touchy subject.

While I agree that reloads are definitely a problem, not everyone who seems on first view to be clearvoyant is a cheater. There are some legit ways to get excellent tactical awareness. To loosely quote myself on passive scouting from an older thread:

Spyfighters:
Fighters are the only unit that gets good vision range on land (2+range tech for a max of 7). A unit's vision range is applied at its starting hex and after its first move (for planes only if there's flying weather on those hexes). A spy fighter is a fighter with nothing but range upgrades and in grounded mode. It does not matter what strength or supply he has, as this does not affect vision range and he never fights. Keep him at a save distance behind the front line, move him forward to get his vision range applied and a sort of x-ray of the enemy position and then move him back to safety with the rest of his action points.


At sea it is even more extreme, as you can get between 8 and 12 hexes of vision range (again both at your staring point and after the unit's first move). So 2-3 cheap naval bombers or CVLs can reveal enormous swathes of ocean with passive scouting alone.
Another point is that as long as a recon flight is not intercepted or hits a town, harbor or enemy unit (to trigger any sort of combat) it will not be shown in the other sides replay.
And last but not least subs in silent mode are also excellent early game scouts, provided you know the trick to it.

[Brian72]

Thanks for taking notice of this and responding Hubert, it says a lot about your care for the games you develop. I noticed this problem during the first or second game of MP I played. I legit lost my internet connection, which rarely ever happens, and had to reload. It was at that time I realized the potential for cheating. I was pretty disappointed and decided to test it to see if there were any repercussions to reloading a lot. After many tests of reloading, quitting, and reloading I finally did get a email where is said something like "we've noticed your internet connection appears to have problems, if you continue having problems please ask for support" or something like that. That was not what I expected, I would have preferred the stern warning email instead. I've tested it in other MP games as well and never gotten any more emails. At that time I just stopped playing MP and sometimes play against the AI. I feel like well hell if my opponent is doing this and I am not than I am at a serious disadvantage especially with naval engagements as they are very unforgiving. The one that strikes first usually dominates in Naval war. Again this is not to bash this game, this game is fantastic. I just really wish that something could be done to fix this potential cheating issue.

Perhaps a conversation with the ones who run the PBEM Matrix servers could help to solve this problem. One simple way to likely put an end to this problem without having to code anything would have Matrix to modify its response whenever reloads occur is to alert both the "disconnector" and his/her opponent with emails when this happens to alert both of them to the fact that a reload occurred. This could lead to a "house rule" that if an opponent disconnects for any reason, their opponent get a free disconnect, or some other handshake way of dealing with this as determined by the players. I bet that alerting both alone would put an end to this. Their are other ways and suggestions as well, but something bolder should be done as the majority of players who play MP play competitively. Just look at the ELO tournament thread, there is a lot of competitive interest in this great game. Thanks for your time reading this.

Responding to OCB: Yes, unfortunately its happening. By the way, I enjoy the YouTube games you and GWTC play. I can tell you both have great sportsmanship. This is shout out for others to check out your MP games, they are fun to watch.

[OldCrowBalthazor]

Thanks for taking notice of this and responding Hubert, it says a lot about your care for the games you develop. I noticed this problem during the first or second game of MP I played. I legit lost my internet connection, which rarely ever happens, and had to reload. It was at that time I realized the potential for cheating. I was pretty disappointed and decided to test it to see if there were any repercussions to reloading a lot. After many tests of reloading, quitting, and reloading I finally did get a email where is said something like "we've noticed your internet connection appears to have problems, if you continue having problems please ask for support" or something like that. That was not what I expected, I would have preferred the stern warning email instead. I've tested it in other MP games as well and never gotten any more emails. At that time I just stopped playing MP and sometimes play against the AI. I feel like well hell if my opponent is doing this and I am not than I am at a serious disadvantage especially with naval engagements as they are very unforgiving. The one that strikes first usually dominates in Naval war. Again this is not to bash this game, this game is fantastic. I just really wish that something could be done to fix this potential cheating issue.

Perhaps a conversation with the ones who run the PBEM Matrix servers could help to solve this problem. One simple way to likely put an end to this problem without having to code anything would have Matrix to modify its response whenever reloads occur is to alert both the "disconnector" and his/her opponent with emails when this happens to alert both of them to the fact that a reload occurred. This could lead to a "house rule" that if an opponent disconnects for any reason, their opponent get a free disconnect, or some other handshake way of dealing with this as determined by the players. I bet that alerting both alone would put an end to this. Their are other ways and suggestions as well, but something bolder should be done as the majority of players who play MP play competitively. Just look at the ELO tournament thread, there is a lot of competitive interest in this great game. Thanks for your time reading this.

Responding to OCB: Yes, unfortunately its happening. By the way, I enjoy the YouTube games you and GWTC play. I can tell you both have great sportsmanship. This is shout out for others to check out your MP games, they are fun to watch.

Thanks Brian for detailing your experiment with log out-log in. Well this is something to ponder after all. So yeah occasionally I have suffered either getting kicked from the server and had to restart a turn. You will get new Intel checks with a refreshed turn.

You detailing that you can repeatedly do this before getting the rather weak Email you described is rather surprising. So you did multiple back to back log out- log ins and got 'you might have a weak internet connection'? That's definitely a slap on the wrist.

Also, Bavre did a good job pointing out legitimate ways of gaining excellent intelligence on an opponent, but your experiment with the PBEM server is telling. High risk to your account in the name of science also. Thanks again on the follow up of what your experienced.

[Taifun]

A simple reload counter would fix this problem.

[Chernobyl]

A simple reload counter would fix this problem.

I think a reload counter would help, but do some people have a "style" of play that involves quitting and reloading more than once per turn? I know I take longer than most people and tend to partially play my turn, get distracted, go back to it later, and sometimes even save and quit mid-turn. But maybe that's just me?

Save count is worthless because you can manipulate it.

[Brian72]

That isn't a problem Chernobyl. Saving and continuing turns later isn't cheating at all. Since it saves your progress you can do this legitimately as many times as you want during a turn. I have found that during a 30-60 minute turn its pretty easy to make an unintentional move mistake, especially during things like naval cruises. I save often just for this reason. I suppose making a legitimate move mistake and then quit/reloading would be considered a cheat, but its not the same as scout cheating, or cheating to get a good combat outcome. I don't know how the move mistake reloading could be fixed though. I suppose if the reload counter or warning emails come into effect you would just have to live with your move mistakes. An acceptable tradeoff to get rid of cheating in my view.

[archmache]

A lot of the issue is that people don't know about silent sub scouting, passive scouting with airplanes, or the no intercept flyover, or lastly an intel hit on a unit. Most of the time it is the above.

The only time you can cheat is if you download, scout around, then cut internet on your machine, then "re-upload" then it won't actually upload. If you save and upload no big deal. I do not do the passive air scouting b/c it's busted and lame and totally unrealistic but you have to make house rules for that.

Easiest work around is to only play elo games on the forums against people in the community etc.

East fix of all would be to add not a save and upload but a flag that says if that specific turn was "Internet cut" so the opponent could know.

[Bavre]

A lot of the issue is that people don't know about silent sub scouting, passive scouting with airplanes, or the no intercept flyover, or lastly an intel hit on a unit. Most of the time it is the above.
...

That is actually so much of a problem that it can turn games into a total farce if only one side knows that stuff. For me discovering sub scouting was such a revelation back in my early days of SCWW1 that I made a little thread in the war room containing this plus some other kind of opaque game mechanics, in the hope to spare other new players some frustration.

Nevertheless reloading very much is an issue in games. One thing that is also something of a hint there are those super ambitious, low success chance openers that miraculously always succeed due to very lucky rolls.
I remember doing like a 100 hotseat tests in WW1 to fathom how all my early Central Powers opponents could consitently pull off turn 1 captures of Belgrade. Then it dawned on me that I was not unaware of some important gameplay mechanic as I initially thought, but that the real reason was much simpler.
Of course a cheater can always reload and reroll in every round, but openers are the easiest to spot because you can check the moves out in a 100% identical hotseat and see the odds.

East fix of all would be to add not a save and upload but a flag that says if that specific turn was "Internet cut" so the opponent could know.

That would unfortunatelly not work, since you don't need to cut your internet for a redownload. Crashing the game during your turn gives the same result.
What should work is a counter on redownloads of one and the same save.

[EarlyDoors]

Is silent sub scouting just looking for the enemy with sub in silent mode?

[Bavre]

Is silent sub scouting just looking for the enemy with sub in silent mode?

Not quite, there's a little trick to it: you need to move your silent sub in one go (use waypoints if neccessary), do not creep up on the enemy hex by hex.

[EarlyDoors]

So they do like an /\ shape or something

What is the max spotting range they can achieve? I think it's just 2 right? I don't think they can get a range bonus like you do with fighters

[Bavre]

Only planes and carriers can do meaningfull passive scouting. Subs have sight range 1, but you'll see everything "along the way".
Just do an experiment in hotseat:
Place an ASW and Non-ASW RN ship a bit apart in the north sea. Then approach each with a silent german sub, one time moving hex by hex and the other doing a "drive by" in one move (ending the move at least 1 hex away from the RN ship).

[archmache]

So they do like an /\ shape or something

What is the max spotting range they can achieve? I think it's just 2 right? I don't think they can get a range bonus like you do with fighters

you have to hold down control and then you map out the silent subs moves. It will move around, or, if it can't then it will show where the ships were. Like if you try to run into a "block" of ships (for example cv surrounded by battleships" if your 'waypoint" was in the middle of the blob the entire blob gets revealed.

This drove me nuts and I swore people were cheating cause I kept losing naval battles until I figured it out.

I used this on you a couple times during out last match which is how I kept taking your carriers out if you were wondering how I knew where they were. (one time you did not have the fighters on escort so random fighter flights into the ocean revealed its).

[archmache]

So they do like an /\ shape or something

What is the max spotting range they can achieve? I think it's just 2 right? I don't think they can get a range bonus like you do with fighters

you have to hold down control and then you map out the silent subs moves. It will move around, or, if it can't then it will show where the ships were. Like if you try to run into a "block" of ships (for example cv surrounded by battleships" if your 'waypoint" was in the middle of the blob the entire blob gets revealed.

This drove me nuts and I swore people were cheating cause I kept losing naval battles until I figured it out.

I used this on you a couple times during out last match which is how I kept taking your carriers out if you were wondering how I knew where they were. (one time you did not have the cv fighters on grounded so random fighter flights into the ocean revealed its).