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

[Mikeforall]

Dear players, 


I got a confession to make. 
First of all, my apologies for doing this so late. I had meant to do this a few turns ago already, but honestly, I was scared to do so.
I got convinced however after someone, who has been general lurking this pbem, send me a discord message about something posted in the Lurkers thread. 

I shall be completely honest here: I have abused a system in the game, which afaik only works when playing via hotseat. 
I discovered this by accident when playing my turn a while back.
Now, for context: Me and Jasper have had some trouble with the diplomacy screen when sending deals, mainly deals of him supporting me. It bugged out several times. When the deal got resent and I accepted it later in a double-save, I got the amount of gold he sent me... plus that of the bugged out deal. 
I should have quit and replayed my turn, and also tell everyone what happened. However, I did not. 
Thus, I in fact 'gold-cheated'. 
Honestly, I have felt guilty ever since, but I did not want to trow it out here in fear that my teammate Jasper, who has absolutely nothing to do with this and knew of nothing until confessed it to him today, would get caught up in this.  

So the reason why? Because I am an idiot. 
I used to think of myself as a good player, one who excells at Civ V mp and Civ VI sp. 
However, when starting to play online here for the first time, I just got behind on everything. I was taken aback by the skills of these players, and I just could not comprehend that I was not a match for them. 
So when I accidently stumbled upon a way to gain extra gold, I ignored all my values of fair play, and took the bait. I intended to keep it to this small advantage, this small luck 'given by chance', but once someone falls, he falls deep. Knowing how to do it, I simply could not ignore it. 

Having said all that, I would thus like to retreat myself from this game. Playing like this is not fun for anyone, especially not for my teammate who got caught up in my selfishness. 
For his sake, I would like the game to be continued even when I am gone. Perhaps someone can take my place and delete f.e. my current army, setting the game back to a more equal standard. 

Again I want to apologise for my greed and the misfortune I caused, although I know I will not be forgiven for this. 
I wish every single one here the best of luck playing. After all, unlike me, they do know how one should win fair and square.

A small edit a day later:
I did understate this, probably because I was still shaky yesterday, but the bug mainly let me discover a way of cheating. It was not merely the bug itself ofcourse. I have not laid out the exact method here due to its simplicity, but I will PM everyone involved that wants to know.

[Singaboy]

Oh dear  

First off, at least you have the guts to confess, for that I take my hats off. Of course, that doesn't change the fact that you and your team might have gained advantages that are undeserved. You should have immediately flagged this bug in the general thread and we would have advised you what to do. To abuse the bug to your own advantage is of course pretty damning.

Now, there are a few important things
1. I am enjoying this game a lot and have invested quite some time, thought and effort into it and it would be a shame to see the game end this way
2. What are the exact values that you got through the bug (in terms of gold), what did you do with it?
3. If you simply bought units with it, obviously, it has to be reversed. I leave it to other people to decide whether they think a punishment is in order.
4. Would there be a stand in for Mike. It has to be someone who has not looked at other threads. This is a particularly difficult issues, I think.

Opinions please.

[Japper007]

 

I heard about this for the first time only a few minutes before Mike posted here, I'm still just sitting here in impotent rage. 

I too would love to continue the game, I'm leaving a possible replacement of Mike and/or penalties to our team up to you guys.

And here I thought bringing a friend in on one of these games would be fun 

[Emperor K]

Well, that sucks.

I am enjoying this game very much so am all for what ever resolution allows us to continue.
-I think the exact amount and turn the amount was given should be found out.
-Also what was done with the money should be figured out.
-Then i suggest we let the lurkers handle this as to not ruin anything for japper, and for the rest of us.
-I would think the community is able to apply enough of a setback to make up for what ever gains he got.

-Also i don't think mike has to quit, it is just a game so, find a suitable punishment and lets all move on.

[Japper007]

I don't know the full extent of what exactly Mike did, nor how much it helped us, I just thought I was slinging him some gold and wasn't aware of him cheating up to a few moments before he told everyone. You'll have to ask details from him, I only know the amounts of gold I sent him, but I don't know how much of it he duped. He promised he'd be around this thread to answer questions and resolve this tomorrow.

I don't know of a suitable replacement, if you guys want to replace Mike, all my civ-playing friends already lurk me or are general lurkers. I suppose what I could do is log in through Mike's account and play his turns as well, though that does seem a little bit against the spirit of a team game.

[Mikeforall]

I do not remember the exact values, but they won't be all-to-hard to retrieve via screenshots, so I will search them up today or tomorrow and make them public.
As to what I used it for: The first time, I used it for a shrine and granary, the second time for upgrading units or buying a trader, since only a part of the money spent there was legit. 

I thank you for trusting me in continuïng on with a mere punishment, but the above statement should prove that I no longer can. After all, I did not merely do it once, the second time clearly was with conscious intent.
As someone who used to look down on cheaters (and still does) I just loath myself for doing this despite knowing very well what I did. 
Lately real-life has not really been easy on me, and although it is not an excuse, it did push me over a border that should not be crossed.
After all, I broke the one law in multiplayer which should never be broken. 
Even worse, I destroyed the joy of other players, and of myself. Those who have read my posts probably know that I really enjoyed this game, and I just had to destroy that joy with selfish stupidity. 

I once again like to stress Jasper has nothing to do with this. Indeed, that might be the greatest reason for my guilt, involving an innocent friend into this stupendous situation.

[Woden]

First, I am very much enjoying the game and map (thanks Cornflakes!). 

Second, since it is out in the open now, let me elaborate a little. I noticed some irregularities in Mike's numbers that weren't adding up. I went back and tried to reconstruct his opening with the numbers I could see to figure out what I was missing. When I still could not make sense of them and found more irregiularities, I sent oledavy a few previous saves to see if what was going on was legit. Since he could not help because he did not have the DLCs, I went to Cornflakes. I ask both of them to check somethings out and don't tell me what they found if all was legit. Neither of them gave me any spoiled information but it seems Cornflakes posted something in the lurkers thread shortly before Mike's post, so I figure what I found was correct and it seem so.  

For full disclosure, I do save a copy of the game file in case I want to plan out my coming turns after I play and find it easier than looking at screenshots. I seem to remember discussions about saving a file for planning purposes during PBEM2, so I figure it is ok. I also have the habit of never deleting anything off my computer so I have all my turn saves from this game. I hardly ever open a previous save beyond the last turn played since it is out-of-date information and never play any moves other than what I did originally. If anybody has an issue with this, please speak up and I will change my ways. 

Anyways, I sent Cornflakes saves for the turns where things jumped out at me the most and ask him to confirm what was going on without letting me know. It is too bad that I was correct, I am really enjoying this game and don't want it to stop but felt I needed to bring it to light because I didn't want to play against someone with an unearned advantage. 

I have a good idea of what was produced for free and some of it can't be deleted. I have an idea that I think will be fair to those most impacted but want to discuss it with my teammate before I lay it out. I also think it might be a good idea to pass it along via a neutral 3rd party to lesson any spoilers. They can decide if it is fair or have it discussed in the lurker thread.  

I would like to continue and don't care if Mike continues or not, but, once again, I will have to confer with my teammate because we have been discussing this for a few days and not sure how he feels about it. 

Let me know what you think about have a third person involved to minimize spoilers and i can share what I suspect was bought if people want to know.

[Emperor K]

Not sure if it should be public, keep it to the lurker thread or p.s until the other players say, if you are to be replaced I don't need to know what exactly happened and what the consequences are just that the community made the fix and it is as fair as possible.

[Mikeforall]

I don't know of a suitable replacement, if you guys want to replace Mike, all my civ-playing friends already lurk me or are general lurkers. I suppose what I could do is log in through Mike's account and play his turns as well, though that does seem a little bit against the spirit of a team game.

I know I have no right to say this, but I think that someone not affiliated with either of us should take over. That way, the others can be sure no more foul play will be played. 
After all, for them anyone you know might be anyone I know, and thus will have fewer trust than a third party player.

[Emperor K]

Finding a second replacement for this game is probably going to be very tough.
Also what happened probably influenced several key points in this game, namely religion and more importantly beliefs. Now someone else gets there religion later, due to increased cost of Great People and may not be able to select certain beliefs.