Multi-player Bug! for diplomacy cheats!!!

[Aussie Gamer]

To all,
I was told a way to "cheat" info in the game.
Now as far as I can see this is against the spirit of the game and is cheating your fellow gamers.
If another empire, in a multi-player game, sends you a non-aggression or better treaty you can start your turn accept it, thus be able to see their scores, if set to see scores of allies. Then quit the game and then just start the turn a new.
This means the other player does not know what you have done, and you get a BIG adantage over them.
You of course could do this in a single player game, but it's only computer players so who cares!!!
Aaron needs to do something about this!! Such as both sides need to say yes then both get the agreement on the same turn. So it needs to occur during the host turn then posted to the palyers for them to see.
Please don't cheat other players.....
Rick

[Instar]

E-mail this to MM, but you could stop this with the right option.

[Aussie Gamer]

I realised this with the next game. No scores for anyone shown....
Still F#$King annoys me!!!

I will try posting it to MM later but my works mail server program went belly up earlier in the week and they have not fixed it.
Can you post it for me please so maybe it can be included in the next patch due out soon.
Thanks
Rick

[Lastseer]

This cheat doesn't work if you play with the option "see score for ALL players", because this information is already available. This is the way I normally play.

[dmm]

Yeah, I like to see everyone's scores also. Seems more realistic to me, since there is supposedly all this trade shipping going back and forth that one never sees. (Off-topic rant: Which annoys me a little because it assumes that every race will have a free-market economy with independent traders. Aaron is SO obviously American. Why can't I be a commie with state-controlled everything? )

On-topic whine: But I'd like more control over the detail. Sure, I'd probably know whether someone was powerful or wimpy, but not exactly how many ships, etc.

[Triumvir Emphy]

Biggest problem i have with seeing everyones scores is the exact amount of intel you have,...

[Lastseer]

Well while the USSR may not know how to make some of the specific high tech items the US has. I'm sure they probably have a very good graps on how many naval vessels or aircraft the US has (probably even by ship class). From both Intel sources like Satellites and tracking parts of the defense budget that are public record. But I'm sure they also do things, that don't require a high level of espionage. (E.g. have a tourist go to a nearby beach and count the ships that enter and leave port with a binocular.)

So I don't have a big problem with the level of intel supplied on the score screen. The amount ships, the size of my economy and how many planets I have. Mostly stuff I'd expect to be published in the newspaper of any society with a free press. (E.g. "NEW colony in Antares", "Galactic emperor to increase budget by 10%") It is not the sector locations of cloaked ships.

Whether against the computer or other players I don't think its a big deal to have this information accesible all the time. Given an invisible level of some kind of galactic trade by civilians or neutrels.

[DirectorTsaarx]

quote:

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Originally posted by Lastseer:
Well while the USSR may not know how to make some of the specific high tech items the US has. I'm sure they probably have a very good graps on how many naval vessels or aircraft the US has (probably even by ship class). From both Intel sources like Satellites and tracking parts of the defense budget that are public record. But I'm sure they also do things, that don't require a high level of espionage. (E.g. have a tourist go to a nearby beach and count the ships that enter and leave port with a binocular.)

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That brings up an interesting point: back in the cold war days, there was talk of a "bomber gap" between the US and USSR, based on observations made during a parade in the USSR. We found out years later (I think it was years) that the Soviets had tricked us: they flew the same bombers over the parade multiple times, to make it _look_ like they had more planes. The poor guy who was watching the parade and counting planes (and I think they did it with tanks, too, BTW), didn't realize what was going on.

Not certain how that would be implemented in SEIV, but it's a way to fool low-level espionage tricks like counting the number of ships that pass a given beach.

OTOH, there's quite a bit of data to be found in "public domain" periodicals. The problem is sifting through the vast number of magazines and newspapers. I heard someplace that the Japanese had an organization in WWII whose job was reading all the American journals and newspapers to find any information relevant to the war effort. Fortunately for us, by the time the war ended, they were 2 or 3 YEARS behind, because of the vast amount of information to wade through.

[Aussie Gamer]

Back on topic-
If you set it to "see all scores of all players" is not good either as you know how big the other empires are with out meeting them yet.
That' why I liked the "see score of allies" I thought that it would mean that you get to see the scores of allies, but it means that any treaty, except non-intercourse, you get to see their score.
That's why it's so annoying a cheat.

[Nitram Draw]

I'd like it if you could just see the other players score and place. That way you know the relative size of your opponents but not all the details.