I was sent this WARNING.....

[sdhundt]

**warning

if you are interessed i could tell you that **** is cheating. i have prove of it!!!!
he is increasing pilot exp an troop xp and if he need
he change TOE
it seems like he is hacking the savefiles like he need it**


This was sent to me on a different forum...I deleted the accused players name.....Could this be done by a very tech. smart player ? Just a word regarding the game against the accused player.......My pilot exp. is rising alarmingly slow and his pilots eat ALL my guys for breakfast but since I have nothing to compare it with I thought it wasn't a problem.....But recently I have started a game as the Japs.....SCN#2, just like the other game.....In that game my Jap. pilots don't come anywhere close to the domination that the first game has as the Jps.......I know this is almost imposable to figure out if cheating is going on....I am going to give the benefit of the doubt to my opponent....He is a VERY good player and I wouldn't find the game any fun if you had to change the Pilot exp. and other things just to win. Any comments would be of great interest to me, Thanks.

[Terminus]

I'd ask for this "prove" the individual claims to have.

[sdhundt]

I did ask for the PROOF about an hour ago but I have not gotten any response as of yet. I have not and will not address this to my opponent unless I have HARD proof. I have been playing the SCN#2 against the accused player for over 15 months and I'm not going to end it over what looks to be an angry player....But I will listen to his PROOF if he has it.

[seille]

Steven,

Keep cool. You´ve probably read Gudi1979s thread in the german forum. We´re discussing that thing the whole afternoon.
I looked at the save-files and they are indeed VERY strange, but i´m not experienced enough with AE and especially with the allied side.
Already asked a more experienced player for help. He might look at the allied side and tell me what he thinks.

Some things made me really wonder (early november 1942), especially:

1. 24 allied air units with 90xp, most of them did not even see combat
2. he has HUNDREDs of 90exp pilots, many of them without kills or even flown missions..as far as i know pure training can´t do that
3. Lots of ground units with 99exp and 99 morale (many of them chinese). Counted 35 active units with these stats

I really hope we can figure out whats going on there.

[PaxMondo]

editted out due to seille's post

[Historiker]

impressive stats
http://www.si-games.com/forums/showthre ... 14&page=12

[JohnDillworth]

impressive stats
http://www.si-games.com/forums/showthre ... 14&page=12

For anyone interest Google Chrome will offer to translate many foreign language pages including the one referenced above. I must say this player seem to have achieved a training level far beyond anything else I have ever seen. Strange

[Smeulders]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

impressive stats
http://www.si-games.com/forums/showthre ... 14&page=12

For anyone interest Google Chrome will offer to translate many foreign language pages including the one referenced above. I must say this player seem to have achieved a training level far beyond anything else I have ever seen. Strange

It looks like either a bug or cheating. Not sure the second is possible, though if people (tracker) manage to read out information from the save files, then people will probably manage to find out how a save file looks with some chosen stats changed.

One thing that I'm not quite clear on (probably due to my sub-par German), how did the player manage to get these screenshots ? The "accused" player certainly didn't give his password, because he asks this question himself. I'm not sure if he gets an answer to that.

[Historiker]

"wollte das spiel was er beendet hat, halt weiterspielen mit nem kumpel. da sich roy wie ich nun weis aus sehr guten grund geweigert hat das pw weiterzuleiten hab ich es mir bei matrix besorgt."
"I wanted to keep on playing the game roy ended with a friend. Roy denied, for good reasons as we know now, giving out his passwort, so I was provided with it by matrix."

While that sounds strange and I wouldn't expect matrix to take care of such things, the accused player doesn't deny that the pictures are true. He says he has achieved that by "tricks", which he doesn#t reveal. So the rest is sure this is either bugusing/exploits or editing of safe files, especially as only the units needed have such stats and as units just in fighting are filled with 90XP pilots with 0 Missions.

[frank1970]

"wollte das spiel was er beendet hat, halt weiterspielen mit nem kumpel. da sich roy wie ich nun weis aus sehr guten grund geweigert hat das pw weiterzuleiten hab ich es mir bei matrix besorgt. und was fragt mein kumpel mich ob das mein Ernst ist mit dem Spiel. ich natürlich nachgefragt, worauf er nur sagte ich soll mir das ganze ma ansehen. Ich Sag nur erschreckende Bilder die sich da gezeigt haben."

"I wanted to continue the game he had ended with a friend of mine. Because Roy did not give me the password ( I know the reason now), I got it from matrix games. My friend complaind whether I was sure with the game. He just told me to look myself. I was shocked."

[Cap Mandrake]

99 experience Chinese Corps with 600 infantry squads....LOL. They could WALK across the East China Sea and take Tokyo in a week.


How could the opponent fail to notice?


This is causing the Bull****ometer to peg, especially the bit about getting the password from Matrix.

[sdhundt]

Well now things are looking to be VERY strange indeed.....I don't want to point any fingers at what now looks to be either a bug or sad to say a player that is cheating, IS CHEATING the correct word to be used here ? Or is he just taking advantage of the game system ? It looks like cheating.

[sdhundt]

I guess it's my FAULT for not taking notice....I just didn't think a player would go to such lengths to cheat...What's the FUN in the game if you change how powerful your troops are just to win the game...It's not a game then it's just a computer screen with events taking place and you already know the outcome...No fun in that kind of game

[Hiltibrant]

To offer a quick transcript of what the linked thread was about:

It seems that it is indeed possible to "hack" the data during ongoing pbems. The example AAR linked to had ended due to personal reasons, and the other player just ventured to have a look at his opponent's side when he discovered several things which seemed not only fishy, but really impossible due to game mechanics. (In the thread it says that his opponent, the one accused of cheating, refused to share the pw, but that he got it from Matrixgames when he contacted them). That's how he got around to taking screenshots detailing what he discovered:

1. Several Chinese LCUs with Exp 99 and Morale 90.
2. A total of 24 Allied air units consisting entirely of 90 exp pilots, most of which had no kill and hadn't even seen frontline use
3. Some other players had a look at the savegames and found that several locations had much more supply than seemed possible due to supply-flow mechanics, and that hardly any area suffered supply problems (not even China).
4. A few of the commentators loaded several savegames into tracker and confirmed that some of the dubious pilots had indeed "jumped" from 30 exp to 90 exp in a matter of 75 days.
5. Some commentators expressed that they had played pbems against the individual in question and had experienced several strange situations involving him over the years, so this seems to have been going on for quite some time.

So yeah, it seems that a pbem game is susceptible to database-changes.

[sdhundt]

How very, very sad......It ALL makes sense now.......Shame on me for giving a player such trust....Why even play the game if you are going to edit the results to ALWAYS be in your favor....What a waste of 15 moths of game play.....Leason learned.

[Historiker]

ORIGINAL: sdhundt

How very, very sad......It ALL makes sense now.......Shame on me for giving a player such trust....Why even play the game if you are going to edit the results to ALWAYS be in your favor....What a waste of 15 moths of game play.....Leason learned.

I played him too, you're not alone![;)]

[aztez]

I can say having two PBEM's in late years that you wohn't see those kind of pilot experience nor LCU experience even than.

It is either an bug which itself sounds odd.. propably someone is able to modify data in ongoing games.

Is this person active in these forums as well?

[Historiker]

Yes, he was. When you open the game file with the good 'ol hex editor, it shows a lot of data. Not that I'd know how or whether to changes are possible, but the accused works in the IT sector...

[sdhundt]

I just don't see the FUN in playing the game if you edit it to always win..It's no longer a game if you cheat like this....Maybe the whole point was to put his "IT" knowledge to use in witpae just to see how smart he is or to just see if he could change the game....Either way i ask WHY even play the game if your plan is to change the outcome in a way where you always WIN .....Not any fun in that.....I still find it hard to believe ROY is doing this but it ALL points to him messing with the game system so he wins....Ugh, very sad.

[Historiker]

I doubt many here would see any sense in cheating to that extent.
Anyways, it is now said that the other one sent the game file to matrix and they resetted the password.