[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Cheating

[Christian Knoke <chrisk@xxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Apr 25, 2003 at 04:02:49AM +0100, Vasco Alexandre Da Silva Costa wrote:
> On Fri, 25 Apr 2003, Christian Knoke wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, Apr 24, 2003 at 09:48:17PM +0200, Raimar Falke wrote:
> > >
> > > This link (http://catb.org/~esr/writings/quake-cheats.html) was posted
> > > to linux-kernel and is a bit related to freeciv.
> >
> > ----
> > Carmack observes that "the [cheating] clients/proxies focus on two main
> > areas -- giving the player more information than they should have, and
> > performing actions more skillfully."
> > ----
> >
> > Freeciv isn't Quake. I think it is not to hard to fix the main information
> > leak (we could invent an "indifferent" tile which is assumed to be next to a
> > known tile near the border to the unknown, and correct the drawing once it
> > gets known). As to move bots, we could have an intelligent move model, which
> > is subtle enough to not effect the usability too much, and guarantees that
> > fighting does not become unfair - without blocking bots of course, we need
> > them for CSAI. Some ideas of such models have been on the list recently. I
> > would be happy if we get this.
> 
> Jeez is it that much of a big deal to be able to see one tile extra? You
> could already do that in Civ1 for example. It is no big deal if anyone can
> use this information. In that case it is not unfair.

Well, if it was like this ... If you reveal this information, by drawing the
tiles, you have the same drawing problem: how to draw the tile "bindings"
(can you say so?). So, why not solve the problem at the root, and change the
drawing a little bit? On the other hand, if you reveal the tiles, exploring
(it's fun!) will change a lot, because the number of tiles we talk about
isn't small. For me, it doesn't make sense.

I suppose, the tile information is only needed for drawing, currently. Or
are there other uses I'm not aware of?

> What would be unfair was something like we once had: submarine position
> info being always sent regardless of visibility. Especially when we didn't
> even have fog-of-war and stealth had much more significance.

Yes, we have made progress in this respect.

> Vasco Alexandre da Silva Costa @ Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisboa

Christian

-- 
Christian Knoke     * * *      http://www.enter.de/~c.knoke/
* * * * * * * * *  Ceterum censeo Microsoft esse dividendum.