... could be caused by cheating
 

Hi together,

in my game i've got a Message from Host :
[...] had an unexplainable increase of wealth this turn. This could be caused by cheating.

Is this certain evidence for cheating ?
I'm the host of this game, what should be my reaction ?

Thx for answers

mighty_scoop

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

I you still have all the files required to produce this message (i.e. all files saved from the previous turn) then I would be glad to take a look. Because if it isn't a cheater then it's a bug in Dominions. You use the latest version of Dominions I hope.

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

If he's in llamaserver and he deleted the previous turn's mail, llamabeast should have it anyway I think...

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

It can be caused by a mismatch of Dominions versions.
If one machine is using the latest patch, and the other is a few patches behind, then a machine can do things that the other machine would consider to be cheating. Or possibly if one machine is using a mod and the other isnt. Altho I think Dominions checks for both of those now.

Those would be rare though. Usually its cheating, or a bug being found.

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

I think that game would crash if not all turn files are from same patch. Mods can be responsible though.

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

Misinformation... The client can't usually play a turn with a lower version number than the turn file that he got from the server. What kind of mods are loaded depends solely on the game being played. Outdated mod files with the same name as the newer ones can be a problem, though, yes. Most usually this is an unexpected thing like removing units from building queues of forts that have been taken over or stuff like that, at least that was often the case in earlier games. It might be something similar to that now.

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

Yes ... it's a llamaserver game and as far as i know you can't send in your turn if you don't have the newest version ( happend to me once ... i was forced to update ) ... how do i get all the necessary files ( guess i have to ask llama ) ...
the mod in use is CBM 1.3 ... but we are already in turn 67 (or so) and haven't got any similar problems so far.

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

Hmm has anyone ever tested whether the game recognizes and enforces previous mod versions? I know that it doesnt check the guts of the mod itself. Ive played with the things possible by having a different mod than the one the server is running. But I havent tried it with a "version" number in the mod.

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

mighty_scoop:

There were no rollbacks? They can mess things up too.

But you should PM llamabeast, you have .2h and .trn files in your email only, but he has fatherland that may be necessary.

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

Incidentally, has anybody else tried to explore the limits of what the servers can spot as cheating? I've found at least three things that are definitely cheating, two of which are totally game-destroying, that the server fails to spot. However, they all require injected code or editing data in memory, so are probably limited to the host.

In fact, I may ask Gandalf if I can use one of his server's games to test the theory...

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

Yes. More than one person was banned because of actually cheating in MP games, too.

It should have changed a little after the latest patch. If you still know about things that are not detected, you should send your findings to Illwinter / JK.

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

Lokean:

I think that hacking .2h files would give you much more power, for example making units commanders, adding magic paths, getting more than 1 unique summon in the game. But all that is based just on problems with rolling turns back at llamaserver and it was before last patch.

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

Lokean, your post about the possible attack vectors falls in line with the same cheat possibilities that have been disarmed before, and it's verbose enough to understand how to use those cheats, so I moved it to the Beta Testing area now. In order not to jeopardize MP gaming by giving malevolent people ideas, please only report to the Illwinter email address and/or moderators here via PM about this.

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

Sorry, I was actually trying to keep it nonspecific enough that people couldn't glean anything from it. I'll put together an email with example turns and send it off.

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

I see this message a lot in MP games. I figured it was the server flaking out but it sounds like more often than not this is really someone cheating?

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

The only way I expect it could result from the server flaking out would be a corrupted .2h file, which is astronomically unlikely given the size of the files, even if there's no checksum, which there ought to be. I would expect a 'false positive' to be very rare indeed.

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

I think there is a checksum.
--verify Verify all 2h-files and exit (creates .chk files)
the result looks like this...

$> cat early_arcoscephale.chk

2h file is OK!
gamenbr -1
turnnbr 92
serial 1022

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

I have gotten the message once on llamaserver and I perfectly well know I wasn't cheating. A rollback was involved and that was several versions ago.

I have a feeling I had a hair more money (~100) than I was supposed to but I didn't have the old files around to calculate exactly how much I should have had.

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

Bear in mind that rollbacks are not actually part of the product, they're performed by users hacking a workaround for something. From a purely theoretical standpoint they are actually an exploit, they're just not a malicious one.

To clarify, unless the users are doing something to the game that is not included in the code of the game itself (which would include rollbacks, mods and similar user-created features in addition to malicious activity) the chances of the cheat detection throwing out a false positive should be virtually nil for any well designed game, which this one clearly is.

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

Just looked at that move (it is my nation, that got that warning). There are actually about 1200 gold more, than it should have been. If this is the only problem seen, then should there be a rehost or this gold should be divided?

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

As far as I remember we got several turns in succession with such a message at the beginning of the game

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

There are (or were) few cases in which player might accidentally cause extra gold for himself. As lch said in the first page: "Most usually this is an unexpected thing like removing units from building queues of forts that have been taken over."

Also, having high-enough Alchemy bonus and converting gems to gold used to produce a cheating message. That was quite annoying, because a Master Alchemist pretender with a Philosopher's Stone triggered it, and even then it's the gems-to-gold ratio is pretty low.

I don't know anything that would cause it in the early game, though.

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

You should tell the server administrator to investigate this, then. If somebody cheats in MP gaming, he will receive an immediate ban.

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

i have found that if someone buys a merc and then sets it to build a fort but someone else buys the merc before the fort is finished then the merc still has commands to build a fort, changing the command to something else results in the player being given the price of the fort into his coffers, this tends to cause the cheat message to appear though it may have been fixed in recent patches.

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

Sorry, i was away for the last few days so i could not post any response in this forum ... no we didn't had any rollbacks so far in our game ...
rtyffg send me i private msg in which he told me, that he used a modified cbm file for the last 2 turn ( tested some gargoyle thug capabilities ) ... probably that was the cause of the problem ... i do not impute cheating to rtyffg as he was a nice and fair player in the game ... i do not have the impression that he intended to cheat ... nevertheless i will postpone the game until the prob is solved if only to find a ( the) bug

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

I've had some massive lucky events that have added something like 1500-2000gp to my treasury (I even had one on turn 6) and I wondered if that would set it off.

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

3000 gold events did raise such warning in other game, but this time it is 1200 gold came from nowhere (counted income\upkeep + events + leftover money).

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

I've gotten that message in a SP game :D

Luck 3 gave me all the big money events on the same turn.

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

Thats funny. :)
Are you sure you werent running a mod?

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

Yeah, it was my first vanilla test game (after a long time of using CBM).

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

So have I; mine was from hiring away a merc who wasn't finished building a fort, as was described above.

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

There is one thing that still triggers this message, removing units from the build queue in a fort that is being sieged.

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

Something for everyone to keep in mind in your MP games.
Johan has a very interesting policy. He doesnt decide and punish such things. He announces them to the other players and the host letting them decide. Was it a cheat? Was in on purpose? What should be done about it?

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

I'd assume that is because the amount of false positives is still very high.

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

My thought also. But we can all be appreciative of Johan in that regard. Ive known many programmers who would go ahead and judge/jury/executioner on questionable positives. Johan just brings it to our attention and lets us decide.

Re: ... could be caused by cheating
 

Yep, I agree on this one. Automatic kick/ban is easier than actually talking to people ;). And it takes a lot less time.