Dark Knight

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Oh, I don't mind. I've just saw the opportunity to quote Larry "I am not gay" Craig. And I had to run with it, despite it being in poor taste.

Here in America, we don't shoot the messenger, we have them run our government...

Okay... that bit was weak. Sorry.
I'm barely restraining myself from other lame attempts at humor. I had one good line, and it wasn't off of a [self-censored].

...
...

And it appears the original question was answered. I guess there's no way to awkwardly transition back on topic. I'll shut up now.

[quantum_mechani]

Xietor said:
it is cheating the same as if you hack someone's turn and did something to it.

This is quite absurd, the two are not remotely comparable. It is far more akin to for instance the accepted tactic of archer decoying, than hacking the game. Now, I have never personally employed the tactic in MP, but I would certainly not hold it against anyone that used it against me.

It takes a good amount of luck to get in a position to take advantage of bogus, and the orders are far from the overwhelming advantage that seems to be implied by most people. It would actually be fairly difficult to use in a gamebreaking way in the lategame where the issue usually occurs.

[Humakty]

And I used to burn Bogus and his squad to cinders while playing an astral heavy faction....
I'm sure that now, I wont see them anymore.

[llamabeast]

Oh sorry, I missed WonderLlama's question.

The only things I can think of at the moment are the issue under discussion, and also casting Mists of Deception before retreating (the battle never ends as more and more misty things appear, until the opponent is beaten). That's also definitely naughty. I think that might be being fixed in the new patch though, although I'm not certain.

[RonD]

Once upon a time, long ago, KO explained the ability of the Dark Knight and the Troll Mage to teach your commanders to "attack commander".

From my memory (so maybe not literal): "I guess he is a great tactician"

Doesn't sound like a bug to me. Maybe an unintended consequence, but what on earth *isn't* an unintended consequence in Dominions?

You are obviously free to make whatever house rules you wish, but to declare anyone who uses that trick as the equivalent of someone who hacks turn files is mighty high-handed.

[llamabeast]

Agreed, RonD. I'm declaring only rules I think should apply to games I host, but they are of course only personal opinions. Hacking files would be on an entirely different level.

[Xietor]

It is cheating. There actually used to be an attack commander option, but it was overpowered and removed.

Cheating-or taking an unfair advantage of other players-is all the same. I would prefer that my files be hacked, rather than have someone use an exploit and kid themselves into thinking they were fighting fairly.

I guess in the end, what the goal should be in any competitive game is that the players all use the same rules.
It is common knowledge that you can copy the dark knight's orders. What I thought was equally well known was that it is an exploit in mp games.

remind me not to let some of you be the banker if we play monopoly!

[quantum_mechani]

It's a slippery slope, if using such orders is cheating, how about archer decoying? What about GoRing tartarians (a non-obvious tactic that I would argue is actually a more potent one than Bogus's orders)?

As such, I'd say it's a tactic like any other: people find blesses and other strategies to be unbalanced in some contexts, and so often explicitly deny or restrict them when setting out rules for a particular game. It is certainly valid to do the same here, but to say it is by default cheating is to enter a quagmire of fuzziness about what is actually cheating.

[Xietor]

Gor any unit is not cheating. There is a spell designed to allow this in games by the designers. Same with using a bless.

It is a far different animal to capture a unit that has a command that was SPECIFICALLY removed from the game as being overpowered, and using a scripting command put in by the designers for reduced micromanagement to put back into the game an overpowered feature just for your armies.

In any event, I have seen this exploit used against me in the big game. But I overcame it. It is surmountable-but it is cheating. If I see it in the Epic Heroes game that I am running-I will see it only once. Then that player will be set to AI.

I guess it is up for the host of the game to set what is and is not allowed. I am glad Llamabeast has clear rules on what is and is not permitted since he is hosting a ton of games on his server these days.

Hail to Llamabeast!

[Ironhawk]

Yeah, I agree with QM. Since you arent breaking any rules of the game - the order is, after all, built in - you can't technically frame it as "cheating".

Which is not to say that I support its use - I've never used it in MP and I'm not sure how I would feel if it were used againt me. But in Dominions, all nations have advantages which are not available to any enemy player in the game... yet we do not hear anyone complaining that, for example, only Pyth/Mari get access to angels or something. The only difference there being that you know the advantages/disadvantages of each nation as you go into any given game, whereas gaining attack commanders via bogus would be something that would randomly happen and you (as an opponent) might or might not know about it.