Galactic Civilizations: Metaverse cheating Exploit and a solution to the presented problem

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Do you still think GalCiv 1 is fun even with GalCiv II out?

758 votes

1- Yes

2- No

Metaverse cheating Exploit and a solution to the presented problem

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by Citizen zhukher - 5/27/2003 6:42:58 PM

I was thinking on how the game could be broken.
To me the game would be broken if a player would get a benefit that AI would not have access to. so i came up with it easily.

I will describe first how a planet quality could be altered in the even section and how stardock, should they wish to attend to this in some distant future when they have more time should go about fixing this.

in the /data/ folder there are 2 files named bonusevents.event and Coreevents.event
go into the bonusevents.event and delete everything except the planet quality artifact event.
save it as custom.event

now in the game that you play go and save just before colonizing a planet. go delete the 2 original event files.
load the save just before colonizing. and populate the planet. you can reload a few times to get acceptable percentage. save your game without exiting the planet que screen. exit to main menu.

go back to data and undelete the 2 original files and delete yours. can paste this one somewhere else until further need. (this way the ai can not benefit to the cheater's detriment)

load your game until the next colonization attempt.
====================================================

There are a few ways to solve save/reload exploit when dealing with random variables for metaverse purposes.

a. During map generation generate all the possible random percents for each planet and each anomaly. this will hamper save/reloaders

b. (i do not know if this is implemented) Have a metaverse algorithm check for the drop on the goodness/evilness scale for each colonization event. The events could be tweaked that a neutral event will give the same %change as an evil event without loss of good-evil standing

c. Adjust the algorithm to check whether the %les for the events are statistically the same for the player and the ai.

d. The data folder is not huge. in it's entirety it could be incorporated into the savegamefile in binary format in an encrypted form at the map generation. data folder zipped yeilds something like 400 kb so the size should not be a problem.

Yes of course the save file could be hex edited. I bet someone here is already working on a trainer.

From this viewpoint the metaverse algorythms should take care of judging the games for cheating better.

#1 by Citizen LeegleechN - 7/5/2003 8:22:32 PM

I think you're worrying too much.

#2 by Citizen EtherMage - 7/6/2003 1:16:40 AM

Already the Metaverse has algorithms to check games for anomalous conditions that might represent unbalancing modding (similar to what you've described), or other methods of cheating, like hexing a savegame. Now granted, CAREFUL cheating might get by these checks (and this IS a problem that's being worked on)...but how often are cheaters careful?

-EtherMage

Posted via Stardock Central

#3 by Citizen Joel Odom - 7/6/2003 8:53:24 AM

That's kind of like cheating at Solitare. If it makes the game more fun for you, then go for it. I'll stick to the challenge.

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