PBEM Saves???

[TOCarroll]

[&o][8|] I am not too sure of the rules on this one: I am in a PBEM game, and after I made my second move (as the Axis), I lost the saved file before I could e-mail it to my opponent. Not too bright, I know[X(] - I did not have the "Display PBEM Saves" option checked. I had to reload the Allies first move, and re-do my turn.

This was an accident, due to inexperience, but it brings up a question. What is to stop a player from reloading his opponents move, and trying various replys, until he finds the most sucessful. Or, worse still, keep re-doing the move until he gets the die roll he wants? Is there a mechanism in place to prevent this? Also, is there some rule allowing for a reasonable amount of noob stupidity?

Since this is not a board game, it IS hard to visualize what a move would look like, before the combat occurs. I guess I would like to know what is considered permissible, and what is verbotten. I find cheating in computer games odd, and ultimately, counterproductive. Still, it happens. What IS permitted in this situation, and what does one do if a move gets lost, or the machine locks during the turn??

[ratprince]

TOCarroll;

Well....I will try to answer some of your questions:

The game does have a mechanism to protect against "cheating." When you load a game a counter is ticked off. If you reload the same game, then your opponent will see on their load screen a "console" number greater than zero. If you see a number greater than zero, you know the game has been reloaded at least once.

On to the ethics of this. I suppose that, in general, everyone makes mistakes. Therefore, if my opponent (that I have come to trust) explained they had a problem (crashed computer, etc..) I would have no problem, knowing that honor plays a big part in games. I would hope they would give me the same courtesy if it happened to me. However, if this "mistake" became a commonplace thing, the trust, which was earned, would begin to dissipate and I would become leary of these. Ultimately it is up to your opponent to honor these mistakes as mistakes or to mistrust them as cheating.

As for "noob stupidity" I would say you pretty much have to "bite the bullet" until you are not a "noob." It is like cutting teeth or your first time in combat. There are no "takebacks"...experience is just that, experience. If you get free "re-dos" then the experiential value is less.......of course this is in my old, jaded military man opininion! [;)]

So, to sum up, the game protects you from cheating (except the first turn theoretically) and eliminates any scouting or FOW issues. Unless you know your opponents honor is impecable, then be wary if you see "mistakes" happening many times.....

later

Mike

[MrQuiet]

I lost the saved file before I could e-mail it to my opponent. Not too bright, I know - I did not have the "Display PBEM Saves" option checked

You lost me in that quote.

You had to have the 'Display PBEM Saves' checked in order to load the turn.

Then when you finished Japans turn it took you to the save screen ('Display PBEM Saves' still checked). The file you loaded should have been highlighted in green.

All you do is click 'Save over file' icon.

That file is now located in GGWAW save folder on your hard drive.
How do you lose it?

I am not trying to be a jerk, just curious.

-MrQuiet

[Tac2i]

Another WaW noob here: MrQuiet, your response brings to mind another question. As a matter of procedure should each PBEM game use only one unique save game file (i.e. players in sequence load and save over it)? I've been giving each PBEM save a different filename based on the turn number and opponent (ALLIEDSP40meVSthem, ALLIEDSU40meVSthem, etc). Is the "console" anti-cheat feature effectively disabled if the same file isn't used by everyone? If it is, then I need to start using only one unique file for each PBEM game.

[CharonJr]

Hmm, haven't I read something about a "seed" number being saved for each unit in order to prevent email cheating ? Or was this just an idea which never made it into the live version ?

This one would be fairly important since I tend to "plan" my logistics by playing around with reloads till I am able to move my supplies as I want. Mostly the attacks are already finished by then, but I am fairly certain that when I repeated an attack I got the same result as before. But maybe this was pure chance, which I do kinda doubt, since the result was fairly unlikely.

If there is no "seed" number for the units I will surely have to stop doing this since I agree that it would be cheating otherwise.

CharonJr

[dembe73]

Hi Charon,

This number is part of one of the patches. Text below is from the readme file.

(Addition) The game now keeps track of how many times each player has loaded a saved game during the current turn when playing in a PBEM game. Some PBEM players prefer that player’s not be able to replay all or part of their turns. We’ve added this loaded count feature for those players. The loaded count appears just after the Console message on the Load Game screen. The game will track the number of times the game has been loaded during a player’s turn.

Each time a saved game is loaded, the save, and all other saves by this player this turn will have that player’s load count increased by one. Whenever a new save is made, the load count only for this save will be decreased by one. Whenever a PBEM game is saved, the game will automatically exit to the main menu. As long as a player always loads the most recent save (and only loads each save once), the final load count for the player’s save that they pass to the next player will be 0. So when you load a saved game, if the value is ever greater than 0 for any of your opponents, you know that that opponent has loaded a save more than once (allowing them to retry a portion of their turn). The loads are listed for each of the 5 World Powers: Ge, Ja, So, Ch, We (although nothing is listed for a player if their load count is 0). Whenever the German or Soviet player loads a saved game, the load counts of the previous players are zeroed out.

Example: Soviet Union is played by player #3 and China and the Western Allies is played by player #4. The Soviet player loads the save received from the Japanese player and starts playing. They then save the game, exiting to the main menu after the save. The Soviet player then loads his save, finishes the turn, saves the game and emails the save to player #4. When player #4 loads the save, he will see no load count as the Soviet player did not make any extra loads. Player #4 moves for the Chinese and then during the Western Allies turn they save the game. Player #4 loads this new save, continues the turn, but exits to the main menu. They then reload their save. Since this is an extra load, the Western Allies load count will be increased. If player #4 completes the turn, saves the game and sends it to the German player, the German player will see We: 1 on the Load Game screen for this save, and will know that during the Western Allies turn an extra load was made.

[tai4ji2x]

but what about if someone keeps a backup copy of the PBEM save?

[Maginot]

There are few people out there who are likley to do something along those lines. It takes a little trust and integrity. Just don't do it.

[tai4ji2x]

yes, but is there any way to technically detect/catch the "backup method"? or if possible, is it just not worth programming? trust and integrity is all well and good, but... [:'(]