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Metaverse Scoring Audit

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Metaverse Scoring Audit

from Stardock Forums

As some people may have noticed, Stardock conducted a Metaverse scoring audit. The intention is to try to ensure the general integrity of the Metaverse. 

According to the Metaverse auditors, there were a number of top ranked players who had figured out a way to submit multiple entries for what was essentially the same game. We don't know precisely how they did this (hex editor, decompiler, etc.) but the only things that would appear different in the game were the gameID and sometimes the first researched tech.  Otherwise, it was still the same map, the same enemies, the same everything.

As a result, some people were able to quickly rise to the top of the Metaverse by submitting dozens of 60,000 (max score) games per week.  I have instructed our moderators to find anyone who has done this sort of thing in any significant way and zero out all of their games. Most of the top players were looked at closely.

Some players who have high scores have them because they took advatnage of a legitimate (though in hindsight bad idea on our part) feature of enabling people to resubmit games they played and replace existing scores with them.  So some players who had built, over time, many good games could resubmit as they figured out how to win.  We consider these games to be legitimate and won't be penalizing them (though in any GalCiv 2 this will be changed so that once a game's submitted to the metaverse, it's saved forever).

We also reserve the right to remove scores based on "Cheesing".  However, we have not done so thus far and before we would (if we ever do) we would first post explicitly the tactic being used that is considered off limits before acting. So any sort of cheese tactic wouldn't be arbitrarily chosen and would have to be publicly defensible on the forum (i.e. we would have to make a compelling case as to whether a given tactic was cheese).

If someone feels they were unfairly harmed, they can contact [email protected] who is in charge of the moderators on the Metaverse. No games were deleted, they were simply hidden and taken out of the counting.  But beware, don't waste our time with false claims of innocence. Looking at the scores at the top that remain there, I can assure you that the games were looked at thoroughly at at considerable expense (in engineering hours) on our part.

We consider the integrity of the Metaverse to be somewhat important as it has to be fair to the entire community. Not just to the dozen or so people who are focused on having very high rankings. It's not fair to the people who play the game fairly and submit their scores to be zapped into obscurity simply because a handful of people have found some exploit or cheat or whatever you want to call it to push up ridiculously high scores.


[Message Edited]
8,099 views 155 replies
Reply #101 from Stardock Forums Top
Once you start the game there is no way you should be able to alter the data for the game play, in this case the political party. It seems that the game itself recognised something was up (hence the anomolous score)which lead Stardock to suspect something.
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I don't disagree with you, but I don't think in R's case that he modified the data. He modifed the process, which I think is an important point. The data in the game got confused because of the process change. Now, I doubt that R knew what was happening in the game data. For all he knew, he found a weakness in the game that allowed him to back out an anomolus score and gain a 60K score. I think that is all he stumbled on. In my point about the PQ anomolus generation, one can back out that score as well. Is there really a difference?

In the details, the problem lies in the game. It allows moded political parties to have the same name as default parties. Now that we know this can happen, it is obvious that this is a weakness in the game allowing strange things to happen.

Fix the game.
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Reply #102 from Stardock Forums Top
I guess that to prevent modifying parties during the course of a game, the parties used at the start should be in the savegame. And when a reload is done, these pol parties are read from the savegame and not from the data and mods directories.
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #103 from Stardock Forums Top
the problem lies in the game. It allows moded political parties to have the same name as default parties. Now that we know this can happen, it is obvious that this is a weakness in the game allowing strange things to happen.
End of quote

Yes, but as I have stated, it isn't allowing that is a problem. It is the fact that the characteritics of the parties used at the start of the map aren't saved, in order to be sure that pol parties don't move during a game
Reply #104 from Stardock Forums Top
You know, I'm not even convinced that Renegade's sneaky political party trick would help. If he created a party that gave the massive bonuses he describes, then the AIs would choose it too (unless he gave it some massive penalties as well).
Also, there's been a lot of argument about whether Renegade should have been zeroed for doing this. But he wasn't banned for doing that. He has never been accused of doing it by anyone but himself. The accusations against him are totally different. I suppose it's possible that by changing a political party in mid-game, he caused some data to get overwritten and confused the auditors into thinking he had hacked the file directly. We don't know.
Reply #105 from Stardock Forums Top
In my point about the PQ anomolus generation, one can back out that score as well. Is there really a difference?
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Suppose I used a similar trick to give myself a +500% PQ bonus and then made it disappear before submission? Would you see a difference then?
The difference is in whether you abused the modding system to give yourself an unfair advantage during the game.
Reply #106 from Stardock Forums Top
changing the perty at the start does as you say.. and theres nothing wrong with that in itself.. but what he did in the middle or end of game is what is cheating.. and he doesn't strike me as being that stupid not to know that it wasn't cheating... as the AI's can't chop and changfe parties in mid game.. the game isn't designed to do it that way.. and so the data could have got corrupt.. and changing back to the same party all the time could have corrupted the data in the exact place where the autors were looking.. and not in the right place..

It doesn't matter how he cheated.. he still cheated.. by making the game react in a way that was not intended.. so I still stand by what i said ... that they should concider them selves lucky not to be kicked from the metaverse... Cheese is onething...(its not altering the actual game while its going..) neither are special parties... or mods...

This is one reason that I think that Cheat codes in Any game are bad.. as ppl arn't playing the game as its presented.. and is why i was against cheat codes right from the start.. you either play the game or you don't..

just like someone walking into a bank and up to a cashier and saying this is a stickup.. just to see what will happen.. then when the police arive they try and get out of it by saying I wasn't really robbing the bank.. i was just wondering what it would do... and then doing it repeatidly till they got caught


Reply #107 from Stardock Forums Top
Currently the following tactic, based on what Renegade has done, would work:
- create a political party (no need to have the same name or same id as a standard party) with only important negative bonuses. No AI will choose it but you will.
- in January 2178, save the game and exit Galciv.
- replace the political party you use (but withsame name and smae ID) with one with insane bonus. You will be the only with theses bonus. You may need the first election to take advantage from theses bonus
- play the game until the last election before the end of the game. Save at this point, exit GalCiv
- replace the politcal party for a mare acceptable one (could be a copy of a standard party)
- run Galciv and load the game. When the election arrives, your stats will be now based upon the characteristic of the modified party and will no longer trip anomalous flag.
- play to the end of the game.

The only way to avoid this kind of play, is to save the caracteristics of the political parties used by you and the AI in a savegame.
Reply #108 from Stardock Forums Top

We don't know precisely how they did this (hex editor, decompiler, etc.) but the only things that would appear different in the game were the gameID and sometimes the first researched tech.
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What Brad is saying is that there are multiple ways of editing a binary file. It's not like you could look at the file galciv.exe and say "Oh yes, that was compiled with Microsoft Visual Studio 6, Service Pack 5".  It doesn't matter which method you use to edit a binary file; the end result is the same.

It's not all that clear that Galciv Writer is a non Stardock program. Stardock should immediately issue a statement that sort of thing isn't allowed amd take greater steps to catch it
End of quote

We allow modding of Gal Civ and Hawaii 5-O's editor, and we even allow modded games to be submitted to the metaverse.  The Gal Civ Writer is a valuable tool that has helped this community by making it easy to create these mods.   You can edit our files with notepad; Hawaii 5-O's editor just makes it less tedious.

Wow!
I've sat back and watched this long enough:
There are questionable real-world events that are not getting this much scrutiny! If everyone here took the time put into just one of their posts and used it to contact someone about a real issue they feel strongly about, we could change the world!
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LOL! I agree. :)  People from Michigan, I suggest that we write to our governor and tell her not to let other places dump their trash in our beautiful state. :)

You know, I'm not even convinced that Renegade's sneaky political party trick would help. If he created a party that gave the massive bonuses he describes, then the AIs would choose it too (unless he gave it some massive penalties as well).
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Yes, it does help.  He uses a political party mod that gives him a huge PQ bonus.  This helps him throughout the game.  Then, before he ends the game when it would check for his PQ ability, he saves the game, alters the mod so that his PQ rating will drop, and then allies with the last alien giving him an alliance victory without getting an anomalous score, that he would have gotten otherwise.

The only way to avoid this kind of play, is to save the characteristics of the political parties used by you and the AI in a savegame.
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Yes, and I think that we're going to have to do this if we are going to continue to allow modded games to be submitted to the metaverse. 

Reply #109 from Stardock Forums Top
Yes, and I think that we're going to have to do this if we are going to continue to allow modded games to be submitted to the metaverse.
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And it mustn't be forgotten that you can mod galciv without having the files in the mod directory: you just need to have them in the galciv/data (and below) directories.

Modded games aren't simply games where the "use mods" button is checked.
Reply #110 from Stardock Forums Top
[edited: double post]
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Reply #111 from Stardock Forums Top

Modded games aren't simply games where the "use mods" button is checked.
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Yes, but I can check against that. 

Reply #112 from Stardock Forums Top
He uses a political party mod that gives him a huge PQ bonus. This helps him throughout the game.
End of quote

Yes, but if the aliens are picking the same party (I'm not sure if there's anything to prevent them) then they'll get the same bonuses on top of their standard Maso bonuses and he won't be any better off, relatively speaking. Maybe he could have won fairly all along if he'd just kept trying...

There are questionable real-world events that are not getting this much scrutiny!
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112 posts on finding out if our friends are lying cheaters or not? Compared to some of the things people go on about on these forums, I'd say it's a worthwhile discussion.
Reply #113 from Stardock Forums Top
Yes, but if the aliens are picking the same party (I'm not sure if there's anything to prevent them) then they'll get the same bonuses on top of their standard Maso bonuses and he won't be any better off, relatively speaking.
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Not as sure as you. Let's say that AI as PQ +20 as bonus on maso. It the pol party give a PQ +100,
you will have:
PQ 15 -> PQ 30 for human and PQ 33 for AI. PQ 18 with only PQ +20
PQ 20 -> PQ 40 for human and PQ 44 for AI. PQ 24 with only PQ +20.

I am pretty sure that at the beginning, the difference (from moral since it is one of the more important stats for a planet) with 1 Billion people is greater when comparing PQ 15 with PQ 18 than when comparing PQ 30 and PQ 34.
Reply #114 from Stardock Forums Top
Modded games aren't simply games where the "use mods" button is checked
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Yes, but I can check against that.
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Sure. But if a workaround against this check to submit modded games is to alter files in the standard GalCiv directory, you can safely bet that it will be used :)

I think that is better to let modded games to be submitted than to let a such easy workaround
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Reply #115 from Stardock Forums Top
! I agree. People from Michigan, I suggest that we write to our governor and tell her not to let other places dump their trash in our beautiful state.
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Nooooo.!!! BE SILENT SHEEP OH RESIDENTS OF MICHIGAN!!!! GARBAGE IS GOOD. WHAT'S A FEW NEEDLES IN YOUR LAKES HUH? BASK IN THE AFTERGLOW OF NUCLEAR WASTE. WHAT'S A LITTLE MERCURY IN YOUR CREEKS AND RIVERS!!! THINK OF ALL THE MONEY IT BRINGS TO THE STATE. THINK OF THE JOBS!!! THINK OF HOW MUCH OF THAT YOU'LL GET. NO WAIT. SCRATCH THAT LAST ONE. For if they don't dump it there, they'll want to dump it here. And our legislature is totally for sale. And like I always say. Better you then me.

Sparrow now gets out of elvish territory before yet another spell flies his way. Poof!!!! Too late.
Reply #116 from Stardock Forums Top
People from Michigan, I suggest that we write to our governor and tell her not to let other places dump their trash in our beautiful state.
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If you do that where oh where will Toronto send its garbage?

Toronto City hall likes to sit back and wait until the next election before they decide to make a stand on an issue.
Reply #117 from Stardock Forums Top
Send it to New Jersey. :)  Just kidding.  But I do believe that a better solution than dumping trash out of country could be found.
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Reply #118 from Stardock Forums Top
Not as sure as you. Let's say that AI as PQ +20 as bonus on maso. It the pol party give a PQ +100,
you will have:
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I think a more important point is that having a massive civ-wide PQ bonus (say 100%) allows the player to merrily colonize low PQ planets (as low as pq 8 in this example) and have it end up as a 15+ as soon as the people land on it.

That is definately a tactic that the AI would not utilize, and could not utilize.

Time to recognize R's actions as what they are: cheating. He created a mod that would set off the anom trigger due to the excessive bonuses which only a human player could fully utilize, then removed it at the end in a calculated attempt to circumvent being caught by the automated anom checks. He knew what he was doing, and he did it specifically to get away with posting games that would otherwise be zeroed on submission.

He may be an important part of the community, but cheating is cheating, and the rules finally caught up to him. There's not much more to be said of it.
Reply #119 from Stardock Forums Top
a massive civ-wide PQ bonus (say 100%) allows the player to merrily colonize low PQ planets
End of quote

That's true of a massive bonus, but he says he only took +30% PQ. Cheating, yes, but not very effective cheating.

For my own amusement, I just tried a tiny abundant maso where I gave one of the political parties +500% PQ. All the Majors chose this party. It was something of an advantage that I could colonise PQ 14 worlds that the AI ignored and turned them into something decent, but that's true of every game. I could also colonise PQ 3 worlds and have them turn into PQ 18, but since I was keeping my taxes at 100% (which was fine as most of my worlds were over PQ 100) PQ 18 wasn't good enough. Overall, it was quite fun (super-fast research!) and only slightly easier than a normal game.
(It came out anomalous, of course.)
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Reply #120 from Stardock Forums Top
With a 30% bonus though, that still puts PQ12 planets within your grasp from the start, when such planets should not be able to be made so productive in a "meta" game until late, if at all. :notsure:
Reply #121 from Stardock Forums Top
I colonise PQ12s all the time. They're don't bring much tax income, but in AP there's enough trade around it doesn't matter. With SE & HI, you can get them up to PQ 14 (15 with the 5% PQ bonus) at which point they give you no financial penalty. They produce research, population, events, ships and influence.
I agree with your basic point though - with an extra +30% PQ bonus I'd be taking PQ10s...
Reply #122 from Stardock Forums Top
People from Michigan, I suggest that we write to our governor and tell her not to let other places dump their trash in our beautiful state.
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Hear, hear!! NIMBY!! (Not In My Back Yard) >:(
Reply #123 from Stardock Forums Top
Cari,
saving just the political party preferences used won't make any difference. This time someone got caught playing with the political parties, but it's just as easy to play with the ship files or the anomoly files or the tech files or the building files. Someone will always push the editing limit to something considered cheating and unless you save all these files in the savegame you will not be able to catch it.
Even if you did save all the files there is nothing to stop a player using initial files that he knows the AI will react to. Is it cheating to make a ship the AI will never build because of the way it calculates ship values? Is it cheating the make a ship the AI always builds but is infact useless? Is it cheating to change the anomoly files to all bad events and then laugh as the AI keeps picking them up? Is it cheating to add techs the AI will never build which give the player huge advantages. Or to add lots of high value useless techs the AI builds but grant nothing?
All these can currently be done and at the moment do not trigger any cheating, but in reality they are cheating. Stardock cannot afford the time and energy needed to add these files to savegames and then analyse these files within all submitted games to look for cheating. Only way to stop any of this is to ensure original files are used with no mods for metaverse submissions.

Paul.

~SDC~
Reply #124 from Stardock Forums Top
Only way to stop any of this is to ensure original files are used with no mods for metaverse submissions.
End of quote


How could you ensure that? You need to be sure that no standard files have been modified and that Galciv take only the standard Galciv files associated with the version.
Reply #125 from Stardock Forums Top
I'm sorry, but mods are part of the fun. IMHO, mods should be allowed, but perhaps if there is a way to check for only the Stardock mods, that would work. But I like playing with mods.