Is it cheating?

[AndariusHaliusScipio]

A philosophical debate. Given the optional script "Force Diplomacy" in the game, where you can have the AI accept virtually any diplomatic resolution you attempt to pass...

- Is it cheating if you exploit this to your advantage? Is it cheating if you, as Rome in 220 BC, force the Seleukid Empire, which controls 1/3rd of the entire map, to be your client kingdom, and rake in tens of thousands of mnai per turn in tribute?

What if the Seleukid Empire is grotesquely overpowered? What if they've already destroyed Pontus and Baktria, and have pushed Pahlava up into Saka territory, and are expanding into Egypt and threatening war with Carthage? Isn't it an equalizer, then?

- What if you're dirt-poor, in territory where your only effective troops cost too much, and your cities are spread so far apart, it takes four turns to move units from your capital to your closest city, and you're suddenly attacked on your furthest border by a faction you've been at peace with for 30 years and have been fighting a mutual enemy together in that time? Is it cheating to forcibly make them ceasefire, even if it means doing it again and again, turn after turn, as they break the ceasefire every turn?

Is it cheating to force them to be your vassal state in order to stop this cycle? Is it still cheating if they stop attacking you permanently, and you never see their forces again for over 150 years?

- Is it cheating to do this to a faction that you feel is cheating anyway? Say that you're playing as Saba, or Pontus, or Baktria, and you've been waging bloody war against the Seleukids since turn 3, to the point where they have been beaten back to just Phraaspa and other northern settlements, only to have them besiege your biggest neighboring city with a FULL STACK army of a small core of elite and a large force of levies that somehow manages to cause your inexperienced, yet incredibly elite army to suffer CRUSHING DEFEAT any time you auto-resolve, and your computer can't handle fighting them on the field huge army to huge army, or your game crashes if you try?

Is it cheating to force the broken faction to become your vassal state in order to guarantee that they stop attacking?


- Is it cheating to force a new faction to become your vassal state after they attack you ONCE, without the intermediary step of forcing a ceasefire, just because you're sick of dealing with every faction you meet going to war with you regardless of their political/military situation?

[Sabazios]

yes it is

[Mediolanicus]

I use force diplomacy a lot in EB, just to compensate the broken diplomatic AI, but what you do in unrealistical and are pure exploits.. So yeah, cheating.
If you like it, continue, but playing like that would suck all the fun out of the game.

[Entropy Judge]

- Is it cheating if you exploit this to your advantage? Is it cheating if you, as Rome in 220 BC, force the Seleukid Empire, which controls 1/3rd of the entire map, to be your client kingdom, and rake in tens of thousands of mnai per turn in tribute?

Unequivocably yes.

What if the Seleukid Empire is grotesquely overpowered? What if they've already destroyed Pontus and Baktria, and have pushed Pahlava up into Saka territory, and are expanding into Egypt and threatening war with Carthage? Isn't it an equalizer, then?

Still cheating. After all, the Seleucids could possibly have done such had things gone differently, particularly in the Second Syrian War and if Antiochous II hadn't been poisoned.

- What if you're dirt-poor, in territory where your only effective troops cost too much, and your cities are spread so far apart, it takes four turns to move units from your capital to your closest city, and you're suddenly attacked on your furthest border by a faction you've been at peace with for 30 years and have been fighting a mutual enemy together in that time? Is it cheating to forcibly make them ceasefire, even if it means doing it again and again, turn after turn, as they break the ceasefire every turn?

I'm having serious trouble figuring out any region where this is true. The only region that I can think of that even resembles that area would be one of the steppes.

In any case, yes it's still cheating; if you manage to inflict substantial defeats (slaughtering whole stacks) such would be admissable, however.

Is it cheating to force them to be your vassal state in order to stop this cycle? Is it still cheating if they stop attacking you permanently, and you never see their forces again for over 150 years?

Yes, it's still cheating.

- Is it cheating to do this to a faction that you feel is cheating anyway?

Yes, particularly since the AI doesn't cheat.

Say that you're playing as Saba, or Pontus, or Baktria, and you've been waging bloody war against the Seleukids since turn 3, to the point where they have been beaten back to just Phraaspa and other northern settlements, only to have them besiege your biggest neighboring city with a FULL STACK army of a small core of elite and a large force of levies that somehow manages to cause your inexperienced, yet incredibly elite army to suffer CRUSHING DEFEAT any time you auto-resolve, and your computer can't handle fighting them on the field huge army to huge army, or your game crashes if you try?

Computer issues are not a good reason to cheat. If you can defeat them on the field yet your computer crashes afterward, however, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the auto_win command.

RE: Bold:

I mean, if I went around sayin' I was an empereror just
because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me they'd
put me away!

Is it cheating to force the broken faction to become your vassal state in order to guarantee that they stop attacking?

Yes; if you're losing to a faction, it's simply proof that the gods favour the winning faction.

- Is it cheating to force a new faction to become your vassal state after they attack you ONCE, without the intermediary step of forcing a ceasefire, just because you're sick of dealing with every faction you meet going to war with you regardless of their political/military situation?

It's still cheating. If they're significantly smaller than you and you butcher their armies and take a couple regions it might be allowable, but it certainly shouldn't be modus operendai. Not to mention the fact that you could simply crush the faction in question if you actually possess the power to leverage a vassal state.

[Dan Rares]

I just give money from me to the threatened factions and i still view it as a cheat .

[Zekal]

I usually use force diplomacy to force protectorate, when my enemy faction is near destruction and only have 1 settlement left. Still I surround him and when I am sure that I can crush him, I use force diplomacy to make them be my protectorate, (I use it with faction that give me trouble.) I justified this to a sort of present to a faction that have been fighting me bravely… Still, I didn’t use force-diplomacy to my advantage and if a faction break is protectorate I annihilate it completely.

Thus, it’s been a while I didn’t play EB, I think I’ll about to replay this mod!

So it depend on how you use it, if it is at you advantage you cheat, and possibly break the superb gameplay of the mod.

[Delta146]

I fail to understand how anything is cheating in singleplayer games. If someone plays a certain way, what benefit do we get out of labeling it as "cheating"? If it ruins the fun of their game, they are only cheating themselves. If not, then what's so wrong with it? Technically playing the game at all is "cheating", because we as humans already have a huge advantage over the AI.

[Entropy Judge]

I fail to understand how anything is cheating in singleplayer games.

Ahem:

cheat
–verb (used without object)


4. to practice fraud or deceit: She cheats without regrets.

5. to violate rules or regulations: He cheats at cards.

6. to take an examination or test in a dishonest way, as by improper access to answers.

Five is the most important answer to your question; cheating violates the internal rules of the game.

If not, then what's so wrong with it?

What's wrong with it? Nothing, really. However, cheating removes a lot of the aspects of the game that bind all the players together - if you play a game that you've cheated in so that you get the Augustan reforms almost immediately, you don't have the same experience that other players do when they try to get the Augustan Reforms. If you cheat to limit another faction's progress (or to increase your own), you won't have the same experience of playing the game "the right way."

All it really means is that cheating makes your own games (and by extension, your statements) less important to other people. It'd be like someone who only plays .81 trying to give advice for someone playing 1.2 - there's too much difference for the advice to mean a whole lot.

[Delta146]

Ahem:


Five is the most important answer to your question; cheating violates the internal rules of the game.





What's wrong with it? Nothing, really. However, cheating removes a lot of the aspects of the game that bind all the players together - if you play a game that you've cheated in so that you get the Augustan reforms almost immediately, you don't have the same experience that other players do when they try to get the Augustan Reforms. If you cheat to limit another faction's progress (or to increase your own), you won't have the same experience of playing the game "the right way."

If someone is merely referring to anything that cannot normally be accomplished in the game without cheat codes, mods, etc, as cheating, then I see no problem with calling it cheating, but otherwise the definition makes no sense in this context.

Essentially, I don't really understand the usefulness of labeling anything as cheating within the context of a game like EB. Players define their own rules when they play depending on what they enjoy, so there is no "right" way to play. There is perhaps a "normal" way to play, but if someone really wants to pretend they have played "normally" when they have not, I cannot stop them.

[Entropy Judge]

If someone is merely referring to anything that cannot normally be accomplished in the game without cheat codes, mods, etc, as cheating, then I see no problem with calling it cheating, but otherwise the definition makes no sense in this context.

Technically, any use of the Force Diplomacy modification is cheating; since his questions were based on the abuse of the modification .... More specifically, the examples are of uses of FD to limit the AI's growth.

Essentially, I don't really understand the usefulness of labeling anything as cheating within the context of a game like EB. Players define their own rules when they play depending on what they enjoy, so there is no "right" way to play. There is perhaps a "normal" way to play, but if someone really wants to pretend they have played "normally" when they have not, I cannot stop them.

I put "the right way" in quotes because - like you - I don't believe there is a "right way" to play, although I believe there are wrong ways - it's my way of saying what you call the "normal way." I also agree with your final statement - and, really, I have no problems if someone wants to cheat. If that's the way someone wants to play, I don't have any real problems with it, moreso since cheating is usually necessary to make the AI act rationally or with regards to its own survival.

As far as usefulness goes, I already answered that. It has to do with gameplay experience. If someone who does not cheat has problems with something, someone who does cheat is less-suited to answer than someone else who doesn't cheat. This is a variable answer - not everyone cheats a lot, not everyone cheats the same way, and some people cheat to make things more difficult.

[bobbin]

A philosophical debate. Given the optional script "Force Diplomacy" in the game, where you can have the AI accept virtually any diplomatic resolution you attempt to pass...

- Is it cheating if you exploit this to your advantage? Is it cheating if you, as Rome in 220 BC, force the Seleukid Empire, which controls 1/3rd of the entire map, to be your client kingdom, and rake in tens of thousands of mnai per turn in tribute?

Yes, completely.

What if the Seleukid Empire is grotesquely overpowered? What if they've already destroyed Pontus and Baktria, and have pushed Pahlava up into Saka territory, and are expanding into Egypt and threatening war with Carthage? Isn't it an equalizer, then?

Taking their money wouldn't do anything as they will continually get more from the script, you could try making them hand over regions to you and then gift them back to the original owners but it's still cheating.

- What if you're dirt-poor, in territory where your only effective troops cost too much, and your cities are spread so far apart, it takes four turns to move units from your capital to your closest city, and you're suddenly attacked on your furthest border by a faction you've been at peace with for 30 years and have been fighting a mutual enemy together in that time? Is it cheating to forcibly make them ceasefire, even if it means doing it again and again, turn after turn, as they break the ceasefire every turn?

Still cheating, they stabbed you in the back and caught you with your pants down, I know the AI is pretty stupid in its decisions but this is a perfectly legitimate move on their part.

Is it cheating to force them to be your vassal state in order to stop this cycle? Is it still cheating if they stop attacking you permanently, and you never see their forces again for over 150 years?

Yes, your getting money you shouldn't be and deciding when and where you want to fight.

- Is it cheating to do this to a faction that you feel is cheating anyway? Say that you're playing as Saba, or Pontus, or Baktria, and you've been waging bloody war against the Seleukids since turn 3, to the point where they have been beaten back to just Phraaspa and other northern settlements, only to have them besiege your biggest neighboring city with a FULL STACK army of a small core of elite and a large force of levies that somehow manages to cause your inexperienced, yet incredibly elite army to suffer CRUSHING DEFEAT any time you auto-resolve, and your computer can't handle fighting them on the field huge army to huge army, or your game crashes if you try?

If your getting crashes and you know you would win the battle you should use the auto_win cheat, no need for anything else.

Is it cheating to force the broken faction to become your vassal state in order to guarantee that they stop attacking?

No, if they're pratically gone it isn't really cheating it's just counteracting stupid AI. Although just forcing a ceasefire should be enough, try blocking their access to your territory and moving any armies that get through back to their homelands.

- Is it cheating to force a new faction to become your vassal state after they attack you ONCE, without the intermediary step of forcing a ceasefire, just because you're sick of dealing with every faction you meet going to war with you regardless of their political/military situation?

Yep, your still going to get loads of money from them and cherry picking who you fight with.

[Delta146]

Okay, I think I understand you now, and I also no longer see cause to argue my point. I believe I simply did not fully understand you before, and we probably have a very similar opinion.

[AndariusHaliusScipio]

I don't know why I thought this or where it came from (I do remember how in Red Alert skirmish games, it was always a free for all, but once I learned I could ally with the computer by pressing A on their units, they would ALL start allying with each other against me), but I was under the impression that using cheats in the console would cause the computer to begin using them as well. So every time I feel a need to use the Auto_Win, I save the game, exit it, and restart the game.

[bobbin]

The AI cannot use cheats, it does recieve a scripted injection of cash to stop it going broke, which was set by us. There are also some hardcoded benefits and behaviors it gets depending on the difficulty you choose, but thats it.

[AndariusHaliusScipio]

I still feel rather uncertain about using console cheats. I've indoctrinated myself into believing that once I use them, and hit End Turn, the AI starts using them wildly, and I don't even know how I came upon this sort of idea.


Back to original topic, boy howdy you all are quite absolute in your condemning EVERYTHING mentioned there as cheating.

Taking their money wouldn't do anything as they will continually get more from the script, you could try making them hand over regions to you and then gift them back to the original owners but it's still cheating.

If that is the case, I'd rather cheat than have the game broken because the Seleukid Empire (or in my last two campaigns cases, the Ptolemaic Empire) has all the strengths of Alexander's empire, and none of its own historical weaknesses, nor any concept of creating vassal states or restraining spending since it gets free money by script anyway.

Something doesn't sound right when the AI gets rewarded for its hoarding with free money, while you go into crippling debt for raising ONE full stack of recruits and regulars when you hold only two settlements.

Still cheating, they stabbed you in the back and caught you with your pants down, I know the AI is pretty stupid in its decisions but this is a perfectly legitimate move on their part.

For the most part, you are right. But "for the most part" isn't a case of 90% of the time, but around 60-70% of the time, with the remainder being "crippled faction with only four settlements left and an alliance with my empire of 80 settlements attacks my Huge City with huge stone walls and a huge garrison to keep down squalor-unrest with a half-stack army of inexperienced mercenaries"

I'm having serious trouble figuring out any region where this is true. The only region that I can think of that even resembles that area would be one of the steppes.

In any case, yes it's still cheating; if you manage to inflict substantial defeats (slaughtering whole stacks) such would be admissable, however.

The case in question for my example was Baktria.

[Entropy Judge]

Back to original topic, boy howdy you all are quite absolute in your condemning EVERYTHING mentioned there as cheating.

You asked.

Something doesn't sound right when the AI gets rewarded for its hoarding with free money, while you go into crippling debt for raising ONE full stack of recruits and regulars when you hold only two settlements.

Something in your phrasing makes it hard for me to understand just what you're complaining about, but it's quite fine - the AI simply isn't smart, so the only way it can even remotely compete with the human player is for it to get cash infusions. If the AI and the human played with the same set of rules, the AI wouldn't get anywhere.

For the most part, you are right. But "for the most part" isn't a case of 90% of the time, but around 60-70% of the time, with the remainder being "crippled faction with only four settlements left and an alliance with my empire of 80 settlements attacks my Huge City with huge stone walls and a huge garrison to keep down squalor-unrest with a half-stack army of inexperienced mercenaries"

In that case, just destroy the faction in question or butcher their armies and make them a protectorate. This falls under the 'maybe allowable' mentioned at the end of my first post.

The case in question for my example was Baktria.

There are three cities about 2 turns' movement from Baktra (Alexandria-Ariana, Antiocheia-Margiane, and Marakanda - Paved Roads help), and at least one more that's three (Gava-Haomavorga, Alexandreia-Eschate). Also, it's possible to build Mines in Baktria, Marakanda, Alexandreia-Eschate, and Kophen. It might be three turns fro Baktra to Alex-A or Antioch-M right at the beginning when there are no roads at all, but that would negate the "30 years" part of the example, and if you're "dirt poor" with at least 4 Mines in the area, something is seriously wrong with your governors.

[bobbin]

I still feel rather uncertain about using console cheats. I've indoctrinated myself into believing that once I use them, and hit End Turn, the AI starts using them wildly, and I don't even know how I came upon this sort of idea.

I too remember Red Alerts weird broken alliance system so I understand what your talking about. I can assure you they don't though, otherwise every game I use the move_character command (which is all of them) I'd see AI armies attacking factions on the opposite side of the map or appearing right in the middle of my empire's heartland.

If that is the case, I'd rather cheat than have the game broken because the Seleukid Empire (or in my last two campaigns cases, the Ptolemaic Empire) has all the strengths of Alexander's empire, and none of its own historical weaknesses, nor any concept of creating vassal states or restraining spending since it gets free money by script anyway.

Something doesn't sound right when the AI gets rewarded for its hoarding with free money, while you go into crippling debt for raising ONE full stack of recruits and regulars when you hold only two settlements.

It's a nessecary evil to make the game more challenging, the AI is very stupid and without the money assistance it would spam huge armies of crap units until it is completely bankrupt and can't do anything. In RTW you would see entire factions basically frozen because the had no money to do anything.
Also I'd lke to point out that the AI only gets the money when it's treasury dips below a certain amount (ususally something like 5000 minai), they don't get free money all the time.

I'll make no bones about it, EB can be very difficult and unfair, but that is the challenge, you have the brains, the AI has the money. If everything was equal the game would be pathetically easy and no fun at all.

As said before in this thread, there is nothing wrong with cheating, each person can play how they choose. I personally make use of them fairly regularly, but it would be a bit daft of me to deny that they were anything but cheats.

[sleep_well]

well i think it's just a game, u play bcz it's fun, one way or another, so don't feel guilty bcz u cheat, for what fun is in stressing ur brain after an already stressful day?
but ya i prefer play it normally, jz to prove sth, or jz bcz it's "fun". i do cheat, sometimes, like to get those stubborn reforms, if im happy with it, then no problem

[A_Dane]

I consider all but the third to last to be cheating. I used to consider it all cheating, but having experienced the third to last too many times, and coupled with the completely broken campaign AI, I usually cheat when I see one of those full stacks attacking. Mostly because I can't be bothered crushing yet another seleucid stack with minimal losses, only to have it crushed to freaking pieces in auto-resolve.

(I've literally lost an entire elite army using auto-calc against 2 elite seleucid pikemen, and eastern levies for the rest. After that I use auto_win whenever I know I can take the enemy army, but know that auto-calc can't, I know some people will look down on me for that, but I quite simply don't have the time to fight 5 of those battles every bloody turn.)

[Yomamashouse]

It is always technically cheating, but from a practical perspective, unbiased console usage to overcome the inherent flaws in the engine isn't. I use force diplomacy to create client states out of people who I have battered into near oblivion (I stomped a Greek empire from 20+ regions down to Rhodos and Sparta, and despite having 3 FMs and minimal militia troops, they still fought on, so I forced them to concede and be my client, as realistically there is non reason for anyone with a sense of self-preservation to keep fighting after that).