Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by ndworl</i>
<br />How do you change a pdt file?
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The same way you change the oob. With Notepad.[:I]

Not that I'm constantly doing it during the game. Actually I change oob's before the battle, so that regimental colors are expressed[8)][8D]

<center></center>
<center><b>Eyo Imperatorskogo Velichestva Leib-Kirassirskogo polku
Polkovnik Anton Kosyanenko</b></center>

Jim

I've had a couple of files sent to me with suspected iffy gameplay. Bg is the usual culprit. I think part of the problem is the game engine - some turns you get really good rounds, sometimes really crap ones: no matter what you do everything fails. It's as though the engine predetermines what quality round you will have. A really good one may make an opponent suspicious. I've made it clear that I'd only get suspicious if there was a succession of such good rounds although it can happen by chance. Similarly a really crap round may give the opponent the strong urge to replay, I had to resist the urge recently against Barrett, the results I had were simply ludicrous.

I take a longer term view rather than a single turn snapshot. I've certainly suspected cheating but it's a rare event in my experience. There is always the urge to win and get points but balanced against that is the fact it's a pyrrhic victory. There is certainly an increase in competitiveness within the club I've noticed but again that may well be due to increased playing experience.

Modifying the OOB and PDT is easy although most such modifications can be spotted easily enough. Opening Campaign files is easy as you say. There is a no file save option in HPS but that's easy to get around as long as you are prepared to replay the entire turn. In fact it causes more problems than it solves as my pc has crashed several times and despite saving every few shots it's been a nightmare replaying Borodino.

I don't know about HPS but certainly in Bg you could move units in the defensive phase due to some mistake in the engine. That of course is plain obvious, even if the units are hidden from view the length of the defensive phase gives the game away there. I did have one opponent who claimed he was forming all his hidden units into square but I felt it was unlikely given my army was some 50 hexes away.

Oh and if we are such a very tolerant club then indeed we should be allowed to discuss bestiality etc.[8)]Now where has the laboratory sheep gone......

I agree with the obversation that the games - BG at least - sometimes seem to conduct the die roll but once for the entire turn or phase rather than for each individual fire action. So that sometimes every shot seems to hit and sometimes you can't hit a barn at 50 yards <u>for an entire turn</u>. I have watched this in the most massive BG game I have ever played - Fredericksburg for BGN (in the ACW club). In basically the same situation, sometimes I would kill 6 cannon and several thousand men in one fire phase, the next turn no tube at all and only some hundred men due to many "no effect" and fatigue hits.

I have actually begun to take advantage of this knowledge in that, when I happen to take out a cannon with one of my early shots in the fire phase, I tend to think that this is a good "cannon-killing" die roll and consequently I start concentrating my fire on the enemy artillery. More often than not, it works. So that I may, in one turn, take out 5 or 6 enemy tubes in a medium size game, and in the next five turns none at all. I am sure this could look mighty strange to a suspicious opponent.

But then my opponents aren't suspicious, as a rule. Nor am I. [:)]

<center>Général de Division D.S. "Green Horse" Walter
Baron d'Empire, Duc des Pyramides
Commandant de la [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/3_VI_AdR_Home.htm"]3ème Division[/url], VIème Corps Bavarois, L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant l'Ecole de Mars, L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant de la Brigade de Tirailleurs de la Jeune Garde
</center>

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Jim Hall</i>
Over 100 hits in 12 hours more than even Marchal Nowacki normally inflicts on me[:D]

Yes Endemic was totally over the top but it did grab the attention[;)]
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Sure. But only because with one exception everyone felt the need to point out that it never occurred to him to think that his opponents could be cheating.

I must say, I find it considerably less than helpful to suggest, without any evidence whatsoever, that there is wide-spread cheating in the club. It just serves to make people suspicious and poison the atmosphere.

<center>Général de Division D.S. "Green Horse" Walter
Baron d'Empire, Duc des Pyramides
Commandant de la [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/3_VI_AdR_Home.htm"]3ème Division[/url], VIème Corps Bavarois, L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant l'Ecole de Mars, L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant de la Brigade de Tirailleurs de la Jeune Garde
</center>

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by D.S. Walter</i>
<br />sometimes I would kill 6 cannon and several thousand men in one fire phase, the next turn no tube at all and only some hundred men due to many "no effect" and fatigue hits.
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Dierk,
I 'think' I've observed this in HPS Campaign Gettysburg. In my current campagin game with a long time and respected opponent we've both noticed with some amusement that despite counter battery fire taking place every turn it's rare to take out guns, but when it does happen it sometimes 'appears' to happen in clusters in the same game turn. You might get to take out several guns in one turn. This could of course be mere coincidence, but it does make you wonder about the behaviour of the game engine.

<font color="gold">Major Antony Barlow
CO, 2nd British (Union) Brigade, Anglo-Allied Cavalry Corps.
Guards: 4th (Royal Irish) Dragoon Guards.</font id="gold">

(writing while on vacation in Minnesota):

Well here is my personal experience on this:

When the club was new a prominent member wondered whether I was cheating in NIR.

Rather than play the game from my perspective and get an understanding that the Russian guns can blow big holes in the French units he instead took the low road and asked a couple of other (ignorant) members if the shots he was getting from my Russkie guns were correct (100-150 at times and even a 225). They thought the results VERY high.

Obviously a quick game of NIR would have shown them that the losses were normal.

So Joe "So and So" sent me an email that he felt that his losses were too high - put me under the glaring lights with thugs about him to intimidate me and basically came away with egg on his face.

The bottom line is:

1. Before you even THINK its cheating eliminate the possibility that its NOT.

2. Go to someone in the club staff via email and have them watch the replays.

3. Find someone that understands how the files can be altered.

4. Do #2 and #3 LOTS of times until you can isolate it down to either cheating OR the person might be playing with a custom file by ACCIDENT (this happened one time in the ACWGC) and therefore different morales and sizes were represented (OB file takes precedence over the game file for size for instance), or its just good luck on the part of your opponent.

I disagree with Ernie and others here in that I am privvy to more historical info about this club. Stuff that never made the headlines. There HAS been cheating in the past and folks still send me files that look highly suspect. Our usual procedure is to do nothing as it leads to problems - folks step in and stick up for the accused and you have a club bru-ha before you know it.

When you see the pattern go on and on and on just dont play the person. Trying to PROVE cheating is very hard. Here is one of my standard messages I send if I want to confront the person.

"I am seeing some very odd results in our game. Are you perhaps using files from another module by accident or one that was used for a tournament? I am asking that we halt the game until my concerns are met and we can determine why the results I am seeing are far out of the norm. The files you have sent me have been sent to <name> for review. Please provide this person with the .oob, .pdt files so that they can check them out and compare them with the stock versions we should be using. If they are different I ask for a Major Victory. If they are the same then perhaps it must be very good luck on your part.

I am not accusing you of cheating - just want to determine why the results you are getting are so high or deviant from the norm."


and I have had to send this message out maybe once or twice in my entire time in the club. Most of the time I just figure its good luck. I have never had anyone cheat against me.

Oberst Wilhelm Peters
2nd Kuirassiers, Reserve Korps, Austrian Army

Hi Dierk
Sorry you think my motivation was to cause trouble.
The idea was to have a mature discussion concerning a topic that, as far as I am aware has never been covered in depth on the Board.
There has been some usful feedback as far as I am concerned.
Also it should make it easier, if an officer has a problem for him to approach another member to discuss the situation.

Field Marshal Sir "Lucky" Jim (K.G.)
Commander
Divisie Nederlandsche Kavallerie, 1st. Corps
Allied/Dutch Army

"And let my sword not sleep in my hand"

Gentlemen,
I am afraid Jim is right. There are cheats within the club who will do anything to win....as tragic as that seems. There are not many of them and I believe they are in single figures. I was the victim of a completely blatant cheater, however i never made copies of my games files so they could not be compared, therefore no proof. I just resigned the game.
From now on I am going to keep a snapshot of each turn and a copy of every game file, not when I am playing the guys I mainly play against and trust and the guys who have a good reputation and we all know who they are!! but especially in tournaments and if its a 'stranger'I am playing with. I know this goes against everything that the club stands for and in the 6 years I have been in the club it has happened to me 2 or 3 times, however my last experience sickened me so much that I am determined to catch anybody who alters game files or carries out any incontestable cheating activity. If you suspect anybody and you cannot prove it just walk away and resign, but you must report it to your CO.

General de Division Stuart Wilson
Comte de Montpelier.
I Corps D'Artillerie Reserve .
2e Brigade de la 1er Division de la Jeune Garde.

Indeed. Walk away. Enough folks walk away and the culprit becomes pretty isolated. Name and shame isn't realistic. I always view new opponents with a healthy scepticism, nothing wrong with that I feel. My view is that if I'm losing the opponent could possibly be cheating[;)]. It is an issue I'm sure. As I say even I was sorely tempted to replay a turn against Barrett as the results beggared belief. So I suspect some have given into that temptation in sheer frustration and to an extent I can sympathize with that.

With HPS normally every shot hits at least one man so psychologically that's more satisfying than the series of "no effect" results of Bg.

Interesting topic.

....And on a different note I did have this pompous ass send me an email with his very first turn before I'd even shot at him, saying to the effect he disapproved of cheating and would be watching my turns closely. After a series of terse emails I pulled the plug.

Then there was the bloke who asked me to replay the turn when I caught Nappy with his pants down squatting in a wood, completely by chance. I replayed on the basis I was winning anyway. Then he sent me an email with his turn saying what bad luck for me, my unit had just missed capturing Nappy by 1 hex. Duhhhhh.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Bill Peters</i>
<br />(writing while on vacation in Minnesota):
Oberst Wilhelm Peters
2nd Kuirassiers, Reserve Korps, Austrian Army

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Bill

Excellent, excellent post.

Brilliant way to handle the situation and I sympathise entirely with your comment about multiple oobs, pdts especially for those of us who dabble and those of you heavily engaged in scenario design. As an example I once had 3 full installs of PTW to try to make sure the right game went to the right set of files (this was easier than trying to remember to swap the relevant files in and out each time!).

Now, get back to enjoying your doubtless, well-deserved, long over-due, vacation.

BTW - Your post gets my vote for Post of the year
<font color="yellow">[edited to clarify]</font id="yellow">

Regards

Mark
VII Corps

For myself.. I am here to have fun... I care little about points etc and if somone has to cheat to beat me then I am far better than I think I am....

Marechal John Corbin
Chief of Staff
La Grande Armee

Mark/Bill
Indeed this situation has been identified by me. One individual was convinced the other was cheating in NIR and sent me the file along with copies of the emails that were to say the least undiplomatic - turns out one was using the NSP patch the other was not. By then however the exchange had become positively acrimonious and the game abandoned.
Good, sensible post here from Bill.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by andy Moss</i>
...One individual was convinced the other was cheating in NIR and sent me the file along with copies of the emails that were to say the least undiplomatic - turns out one was using the NSP patch the other was not. By then however the exchange had become positively acrimonious and the game abandoned...<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

If only they had adopted Bill's approach this could have been avoided so easily.

Mark
VII Corps

True. Very true. On the other hand as a bystander it was fascinating to read the row develop. I personally haven't had a good e-row (excluding fora that is) since I made a quip about Russia being cold and my Russian opponent threw a strop. Oh and some Mexican bloke from Nirproject days told me I moved too many units.

Recommended tactic if losing a game, tip Number 1 - start an e-row with the opponent. Then throw an e-strop and say "well if that's how you feel we'll call it a draw and move on!!" Exclamation marks and expletives are optional. Just find your opponents weak spot and push the right button. I can offer suitable recommendations at a price.

Generalissimo
Opolchenie Korpus
Russian Army