When you set up a game and make a bonus huge so that you can take it and get an easy win, that is certainly a bit on the unethical side - the reason is that though the settings are right there for all players to see, you as the creator of the game have an advantage: Certain pre-knowledge of the changed settings because you did it, whereas even the most experienced player could make a mistake and miss the change and lose the game because of it.

Very few people are going to disagree with you on this, Seroslav. Almost everyone thinks its cheesy to change settings to try and gain an advantage that way, and many people will indeed blacklist those who do it.

However, this fact is irrelevant in terms of making the decision as to WHETHER IT SHOULD BE ALLOWED. The only feasible way of enforcing against it is by blocking originating IP addresses from the warlight servers, something which is easily done. However, IP addresses change, and IP addresses can be shared between multiple clients because of NAT and subnetting. This means that if you ban IP address X because player_1 was using it when they set up a game with cheesy bonus settings, it's entirely possible (and, given enough time, even probable) that player_1 will be using IP address Y instead, and player_489 will be trying to login for their game using IP address X and will end up getting the shaft through no fault of their own.

However righteous a rule might seem to be on the surface, it is useless if it is unenforcable, as this is. A determined or patient player can do much worse than what you describe here, get banned, and yet easily circumvent that ban using a new account from a new IP address. The only way to get past this would be to implement some kind of identity check as a prerequisite for making accounts, and who the heck wants that, right? :)

As long as Fizzer is very picky about who he bans and for what reasons, he can stay on top of the job, and I for one am happy he's more concerned with people who are overly abusive and immature in chat and on the forums because it doesn't take much of that to turn Warlight into a very negative experience. Someone creates a game with cheesy stealth settings you don't like? It's really no big deal. Take a loss, add to the blacklist, and move on. And play multiday games because the players are cooler! Teehee!

>>"you as the creator of the game have an advantage: Certain pre-knowledge of the changed settings because you did it, whereas even the most experienced player could make a mistake and miss the change and lose the game because of it."


Technically, this is always true, for any setting...

it is cheating but in my previous post i said he didn't deserve to win and was suprised u didn't see it

Again, I agree with Seroslav. Starfantasy changed the bonus because he wanted to win. Sometimes people create a game with a huge bonus, but they write it in the title. For example: http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer.aspx?GameID=1864849

Lumberjack (the host) wrote: "pick south america", meaning is mean that he wanted to have fun and enjoy the game, and he wanted a fair game. Starfantasy didn't write "pick budapest", because he just wanted to win.

"pick south america" makes absolutely no sense when you can't pick (it's an auto-distribution game)...

Sorry for the double post, but there's more settings in that game which don't make any sense:

|> Card Settings
|> - Reinforcement Card in 3 pieces for 10 armies
|> - Blockade Card in 1 piece to multiply armies by 10000% (**minimum 1 piece per turn**)
|> Number of card pieces you get per turn: **1**

Why is that Reinforcement Card there, you'll never get one...

---

Also, reading the first few turns of chat, I get the impression he could've been a little more clear about just *how* badly he beefed up South America.

rvw y are u reviving dead threads

why*

brisk revived it, not RvW

I don't care for pedantic interpretations of rules and settings and such. When it comes down to it I regard it as a pathetic attempt to cheat because you are trying to deceive your opponent if you do not declare it in the knowledge many opponents may miss the alteration.

raverbaby72:

While I do think it's a rather childish way to gain a huge advantage and effectively ensure an easy victory, it is not strictly against the rules. You may consider that pedantic (even though I don't fully agree with it, I do see your point), but on the other hand, those people going for easy victories consider it perfectly fair. What makes your opinion more right than theirs...?

The way WL works (clients sending orders to the server, the server then figuring out, using the exact same rules for everyone, what actually happens) ensures the same rules apply to everyone. As long as you don't hack the server, that makes for a completely level playing field and prevents any grey areas: as long as the server lets you do it, it's fair, period.

|> you are trying to deceive your opponent

"All is fair in love and war"...

Well duh, why lose fairly when a little bit of "creativity" can get you a win? In a game with at least three players and fog, I can move a big stack away from my front with the one player, moving them (from his point of view) into the fog. The only reason I'd ever do that is to move them somewhere more important, right? No! There's a second reason: to make my opponent think (to deceive him into thinking) there's somewhere more important for them to be (read: the other player is attacking me). Would you also consider that unfair, another "pathetic attempt to cheat"...?

RvW, those are surely completely different cases (likewise I find Perrin's claim that breaking truces is "immoral" quite remarkable). Once the game begins, everyone is playing by the same rules; you are obviously free to deceive your opponent by any means at hand, because they can do the same to you. But at game setup time, the players are not on an even footing; the game creator enjoys powers special to them, and in my view those powers should not be used for an unfair advantage later.

I agree this can't be against the rules, not because it's not effectively cheating, but because it's impossible to police owing to the giant grey area between "obviously unfair" and "an interesting tweak to the map". I would definitely like to see changes to bonus settings, unusual changes to cards, &c. flagged up very prominently.

raverbaby.. I am going to make a new game with you, then declare every exact rule that I made in the game.. *61% O kill rate, 71% D kill rate, 18% luck, R card for 4 turns, 10 armies, etc. etc. etc.* because by..

"because you are trying to deceive your opponent if you do not declare it in the knowledge many opponents may miss the alteration"

that quote.. not expressly telling you what you can openly see in the settings panel is cheating..
why is it the hosts job to tell the player the settings? oh, don't worry.. the settings button is just there for show.. I'll hold your hand and tell you what it says..

the worst part.. is that bonus changing, especially changing a *single bonus* is so obvious that anyone that actually looks at settings *should* see it.. having not seen it means you did not look at a big empty box, and noticed it was no longer empty

bloodnok, the game creator has no more special privledges then the players can obtain via the settings page.. the owner took the time to -create- the game.. the players require much less time to look through the settings page, to gain the same advantage.