PBEM 7 - Team Contest (4 x 2) - discussion

[Mikeforall]

I have read your statements again, Mike. Pardon me but they do sound a little incoherent. In none of those PBEM's I have played and the ones I am reading have I ever heard of a bug that makes trading between two players irksome (Mind you, I play little on a German site too). Neither has anyone reported this trade bug' that gives you double the gold.
Shrine + granary and trader cost 750 gold. Getting this much gold via double trades alone this early in the game is mind boggling.

I want you to be open about this. How does this trade bug exactly work so that the community can stay clear of it. You owe this to the other teams that played fair and square with all their hearts and passion. You could have used this game to learn like so many of us have taken a deep bow to the better players. I do hope this game is salvageable but boy, I am damn mad.

There is a more to it than 'just a bug', otherwise I would not call it 'cheating', but I decided not to lay out everything here. I will however PM you, and and everyone that wants to know, what exactly happened. 
It is merely that I discovered how to thanks to this bug. 
I did not clarify this very well yesterday, I agree, I was rather shaky after typing all of the above.

Edit: I sent an PM to those involved. If they want me to make the private message public here, I will do so.

[Cornflakes]

Due to it's simplicity I think it is more important to make public [but do avoid spoiler referenced to this game in a public thread]. There are many other simple ways to cheat in these games, and we trust each other not to. If the exploit is made public then at least we can intentionally avoid it. Some other examples: lurker & other spoiler threads are "public" information on the forums yet we stay out of those; it is trivially easy to remove the passwords for the other players and advance through the turns and see the game state.

I received Singaboy's PM request and will take the lead in trying to find a fair solution to keep the game alive. Might be a day or two.

[Singaboy]

Thanks so much Cornflakes!

I agree with Cornflakes. There are so many ways to cheat. RB prides itself to be above such cheap play and we all trust each other. This trust has been severely undermined. Please do describe the bug in a non spoilerish way.

[Japper007]

I'll be out of town untill tomorrow evening. I wouldve announced it yesterday but I forgot due to all the drama. That should give Cornflakes and the lurkers some breathing room to sort this rotten mess out, I'll probably be following the thread still, though my replies might take some extra time

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I have been enjoying the game thus far, and if possible I would like it to continue. A couple of things need to happen, though:

1)Obviously, the advantages gained from the free gold need to be rolled back. The biggest difficulty with this is that some things are irrevocable. Khmer sniped a Great Prophet with a shrine and gold that beat China by a single turn. Those beliefs are locked into the game now. A few other more minor things aren't deletable either. Finally, there's also the fact that some of the moves caused alterations in Woden and I's play as we attempted to respond to them before growing suspicious. For me, at least, most of the rest of the game is going to be dogged by "what might have beens" no matter what as a result. However, like I said above, I'm enjoying the game, it seems most everyone else is, and so I can get over that so we can continue if we can suitably roll back the other stuff.

2)We need to find a replacement. I'm not sure how easy this will be, we already lucked out once when Sullla was there to step in for BRick.

[Cornflakes]

It sounds like the consensus is to play on if a sub can be found for Mike. I'd suggest posting a sub request in the general forum to at least get that started. Would you be opposed to Mike remaining in command of the civ and playing out the game if a sub cannot be found? After all, what better way to punish a player than to make them live with the punishment and play on through the end of the game from the difficult position? 

I do think it is good to clear the air with a couple other comments:

• I do think there is a solution that will not undo the past damage (namely the religious beliefs) but at least make it so that Khmer doesn't reap any immediate benefits from founding an earlier religion. I have posed my thoughts in the lurker thread. To avoid spoilers I won't go into more details here.
  
• Mike did give us an explanation of the bug via PM. To me his explanation makes sense. I don't have time to independently verify, but essentially the gold value for each civ is just stored as an integer in the game save file. If you know which value to change (locate via cross-reference between a couple of sequential turns) you can simply edit the value to increase your gold amount.
  
• It has been demonstrated that the 1st player in player-order can copy the game save into the single player save folder, open the game as a single player game, use firetuner to give himself and any other player gold/units/etc., save the game, re-open as a hotseat save, set everyone back to human, and continue as a hotseat game with the firetuner changes incorporated. This only works for the 1st player in the turn order. Since Japper is the first player, the best working theory prior to Mike's explanation was collusion between them to add gold to Khmer ... but although this was demonstrated to work I am almost certain that did not occur in this game. Mike's gold as far as I can tell never increased after Japper played, only after Mike played.
  
• I believe there is indeed a trading bug, but it does not result in extra gold magically appearing. Rather the inability to accept gold trade when needed is what prompted Mike to explore if there were other ways to increase his gold amount. I think at least one other team in this game in addition to Mike/Japper reported issues with not being able to accept trade deals from their partner on the first attempt. Also I remember seeing a comment in [PBEM 6?] about a trade deal not working on the first attempt. I do not think there is a concern going forward that someone will inadvertently end up with extra gold from a trade deal.
  

[TheArchduke]

What a mess.

I am at a loss what to do. Abusing a cheat repeatedly is not something to be dismissed lightly. I do not think that Mike should play on in this game, maybe have a cool off period and come afresh in another PBEM with a bit more oversight.

Difficult to find an unspoiled player I fear. Sullla´s participation is sure to attract much attention, which is bad in this case.

The only thing I can think off is Mike continuing and a lurker checking the save or report every turn.

[Modo]

Speaking as an outsider with a lot of respect for what the community here stands for I have to ask: is it that hard to find a proper replacement?
After something like this I would imagine everyone will have a renewed understanding about his / her responsibility when taking over Mike's place.
And what about Japper handling both civ's in the meantime? I know the point is to have this played as a team exercise but he may be the only option until a proper replacement can be found (assuming he's even willing to do so).

[ESToFI]

Also speaking as an outsider, the level-headed and judicious response of the other players to what must be an immensely frustrating development (especially given the effort involved in maintaining such a regular turn pace and excellent reporting) does the RB community great credit.

The only downside to such excellent reporting is that, as Archduke says, finding an unspoiled sub may be difficult - anyone with a passing curiosity will likely have been following this game with interest, and presumably you guys would ideally be looking for a volunteer able to continue playing in Mike's 19:00-00:00 GMT window.

On the other hand, perhaps a  spoiled sub would be more incentivised to play out Khmer's position after the punishments are applied?  At least they would know what they were taking on, and a motivated teammate would give Japper the chance to play things to an honourable conclusion (and reduce further game imbalance by putting up resistance to any other teams looking to capitalise on the situation). That might also mitigate concerns about erring on the harsh side for punishing Khmer, since there would be a limited, albeit quickly out-of-date boost to team KhmerKongo's strategic knowledge?

[Cornflakes]

I think regular screenshots showing the amount of gold should be sufficient oversight, and documenting every purchased item. One thing that raised suspicions and led to the investigation into the save files is that after a certain point the top bar showing gold amount was edited out of Mike's screenshots. It should be fairly straightforward in the future to confirm that the amount of gold in the screenshots stays consistent with the +gpt. The fact that the saves do exist and can be investigated should be sufficient deterrence.