Fog of War...unfortunately...not the case

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All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [World War II] >> Uncommon Valor - Campaign for the South Pacific >> Tech Support >> Fog of War...unfortunately...not the case

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Fog of War...unfortunately...not the case - 7/17/2008 9:19:15 PM

Bigdog128

Posts: 24
Joined: 6/3/2008
Status: offline

I have found what I think is a significant bug in the game. Under the correct set of circumstances, a Japanese player is able to re-run turns, until he/she is satisfied with the results. I have successfully tested this theory of mine 3 different times. The circumstances to set this up are difficult to duplicate unless the Japanese player is trying to duplicate the bug for his/her gain in the game.

Basically, both players must save the game and then restart the game from a position above 20. Then....I think....they must both restart from the same position at some time in the game. This, I believe, sets the bug/cheat in motion.

Example. The Japanese player saves the game in position 12, 21, 25. Restarts in position 12, 21, and also 25. Finally ends his turn in position 13.

Allied player gets the save game. Starts it from position 13. Saves it in position 21. Comes back later to finish his turn, restarting it from position 21, a position that the Japanese player has previously saved to. At this point, the bug/cheat is enabled.

From now on, the Japanese player can watch the animation, and if he/she is unsatisfied with the results, quit the game with out saving, and run the animation again...until he/she is satisfied with the new, cheating result. He then sends the turn off to the allied player.

The way to know that cheating is going on, is that the combat text save file from the jap is not the same one the allied player will generate. no matter what the Jap sends, running the allied turn will print the original, true turn text save file, and the watching the animation will also be the original true turn result. What is different is that no matter what was originally done the first time around, the actual save game file now has the new, cheating results and the allied player has to live with the results. the only way to know the cheating is going on is know you have saved beyond position 20 at some point as the allied player, and the animation and combat text file you generate does not match what the Japanese player sends you.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I feel people should know and how to look for it and how to avoid it by not saving in positions above 20. I am done testing at this time. I am satisfied, as I have duplicated the results with 3 unique runs of the coral sea scenario, and each time i could duplicate the results. What exact number of saves to positions beyond 20 and what not I leave to someone else to discover and post. I am done with this post, and very disappointed that people would knowingly hack and cheat the system.

Bigdog128, aka Jamie Steffens

Post #: 1

RE: Fog of War...unfortunately...not the case - 7/17/2008 10:14:18 PM

bigbaba

Posts: 1238
Joined: 11/3/2006
From: Koblenz, Germany
Status: offline

it seems that you think that i am cheatting in our game, because you sent me 2 different combat logs back via email with your "comment".

if thats the case, i am very very dissapointed and would end our realy enjoyable game immidiatly. as for the difference in the combat logs, just surf here in the forum and you will find a lot of posting about this problem. even i had the same problem in my game vs ike where i got 2 realy different combat logs (check the AAR about my game with ike). thats a game issiue and should not be used to name other players "cheater".

this 2 logs you sent to me seem to be the problem:

AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR 03/08/43

Weather: Rain

Air attack on TF, near Buna at 12,38

Allied aircraft
Hudson x 3

no losses

Japanese Ships
AG 2053

Attacking Level Bombers:
3 x Hudson at 100 feet

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Air attack on TF, near Buna at 12,38

Allied aircraft
B-25J Mitchell x 6

no losses

Japanese Ships
AG 2067, Shell hits 8, Bomb hits 4, on fire, heavy damage

Attacking Level Bombers:
2 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet
4 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Air attack on TF, near Buna at 12,38

Allied aircraft
Hudson x 3
B-25J Mitchell x 7

no losses

Japanese Ships
AG 374, Bomb hits 3, on fire, heavy damage
AG 375, Shell hits 4, Bomb hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
AG 121, Bomb hits 1, on fire, heavy damage

Attacking Level Bombers:
3 x Hudson at 100 feet
4 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet
3 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
and:

Weather: Rain

Air attack on TF, near Buna at 12,38

Allied aircraft
Hudson x 3

no losses

Japanese Ships
AG 2053

Attacking Level Bombers:
3 x Hudson at 100 feet

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Air attack on TF, near Buna at 12,38

Allied aircraft
B-25J Mitchell x 6

Allied aircraft losses
B-25J Mitchell x 1 damaged

Japanese Ships
AG 2067, Shell hits 12, Bomb hits 2, on fire, heavy damage

Attacking Level Bombers:
2 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet
4 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Air attack on TF, near Buna at 12,38

Allied aircraft
Hudson x 3
B-25J Mitchell x 7

no losses

Japanese Ships
AG 375, Shell hits 4, Bomb hits 6, on fire, heavy damage

Attacking Level Bombers:
3 x Hudson at 100 feet
4 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet
3 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet

-----------------------------------------

all i can say it:

-i run every turn only one time.
-i saved all savegames in slots between 1-20.

now if you trust me, we can continue...but if not, then game over.

feel free to send the savegame files to someone from matrix to check them. but i do not accept that someone calls me a cheater although i too had very high loses in our game and you won many battles against me.

< Message edited by bigbaba -- 7/18/2008 6:19:04 AM >

(in reply to Bigdog128)

Post #: 2

RE: Fog of War...unfortunately...not the case - 7/18/2008 2:57:40 AM

Bigdog128

Posts: 24
Joined: 6/3/2008
Status: offline

Unfortunately, it is not what I want it to be...or what I wish it to be....it is what it is.
I can duplicate this bug 100% of the time as I have tested this 3 times in a row in three games that I set up PBEM.
I am not sure what the minumim requirement is to set off the bug/cheat, but I know I can set it off by the methods described above. The results that I got exactly duplicated the type of discrepencies I was getting.
I am a relative newcomer to the UV world and I would not have even thought it was possible had not Hans Bolter and I discovered it by chance.

We were playing at the local coffee shop last week. There was a carrier battle about to happen, but the shop was about to close.
So, we just ran the combat animation for the jap turn, and it was very exciting to watch. However, no carriers were hit in these initial results. When Hans got home and ran the combat animation again, I got about 5 hits on a carrier of his, and he got several on mine. He had to run two hours worth of turns to get very close to the original turn that we both watched that initial time. He never did get EXACTLY the same result, but it was close enough to continue.
That got me thinking about all the discrepancies that were occuring in my game. I started to research to see if I could duplicate the bug, and unfortunately, I was.

I had thought that Hans had also saved and restarted a game in a position above 20, but tonight, when we played again, he told me that he had not. So that is telling me thatonly the allied player saving/restarting above 20 in some sequence can anable the bug. I will research this more to try and determine exactly what can duplicate the bug with only the allied player saving/restarting above position 20.

jamie

< Message edited by Bigdog128 -- 7/18/2008 2:59:59 AM >

(in reply to bigbaba)

Post #: 3

RE: Fog of War...unfortunately...not the case - 7/18/2008 7:44:27 AM

fuelli

Posts: 233
Joined: 7/4/2004
From: Germany
Status: offline

If I understand correctly there is simple method for the allied player to prevent this: Never change the saveslot of the incoming japanese turn. Correct? Or to make things more save: Befor starting the game both players agree upon one savespot used by both and neither of them should change them during the. As I understand the described above can not happen and the allied player has the control over that matter even if the japanese player tries to cheat. Or did I got something wrong?

< Message edited by fuelli -- 7/18/2008 12:22:52 PM >

(in reply to Bigdog128)

Post #: 4

RE: Fog of War...unfortunately...not the case - 7/18/2008 11:06:14 AM

HansBolter

Posts: 7704
Joined: 7/6/2006
From: United States
Status: offline

I don't know why, but feel responsible for the can of worms that is being opened here.

As Jamie stated WE discovered it accidently. We were impatient and didn't want to wait to see the combat phase as we both knew it was going to be full of action with both surface and carrier combats. We started the Japanese turn, watched the combat phase resolution and then QUIT out of the game without saving the progress of the Japanese turn.

I believe that if we had saved the progress of the turn it would not have been possible to rerun the combat phase and get completely different results. The different results were NOT fog of war. When I got home and ran the turn again the next day I was aghast at the fact that it was completely different. The differeing results were real. It wasn't just fog of war in reporting the outcome.

Realizing that Jamie might think I had somehow cheated, I immediately quit out of the turn again without saving it to test what was going on. Sure enough, I got different results again that were not fog of war. I then decided to run and reun it until I got something very close to the original results we had watched the first time. It left me with a very sour taste in my mouth to have been forced to "cheat" multiple times in an attempt to avoid cheating.

When this occurred, I recalled some threads on the WitP forum where half the posters were claimiing that it was impossible to reun a turn and get different results and half were making the counter claim. I can never remember his screen name, but the guy with the avatar of the sad sack GI from a Bill Maudlin cartoon was repeatedly assuring people that there is a way to rerun a turn and get different results, but he refrained from explaining it in an apparent attempt to keep the cat from getting out of the bag, so to speak. I believe we stumbled on to it.

As for whether, or not, saving in a slot above 20 somehow removes some kind of security lock that is applied to slots 1-20 is something I cannot personnally confirm, Jamie experimented with this. I have only ever moved a saved PBEM game to a different slot once, and that was at the request of my opponent to move it to a slot he had open, which was #16.

Believe me, I am not happy about being the one to have "discovered" this. It opens a huge can of worms. It is still certainly possible that the differeing results an Allied player sees between his run of the combat phase and the combat text report are the results of fog of war. The potential implication this "discovery" has is that now everyone will be suspicious every time they see a differing result.

I really, really, hope we can get Matrix/2x3 to comment on this.

(in reply to fuelli)

Post #: 5

RE: Fog of War...unfortunately...not the case - 7/18/2008 11:37:26 AM

Bigdog128

Posts: 24
Joined: 6/3/2008
Status: offline

To be honest, I have not completely tested whether the Japanese player can initiate the bug on his own, without Allied help. I sure hope he can not. I will be testing for that possibility in the next few days. I will report back when I have tested and re-tested and then re-tested yet again.

Jamie.

(in reply to HansBolter)

Post #: 6

RE: Fog of War...unfortunately...not the case - 7/18/2008 3:56:43 PM

Erik Rutins

Posts: 37503
Joined: 3/28/2000
From: Vermont, USA
Status: offline

I'm not sure what's possible here, but we'll look into this ASAP.

_____________________________

Erik Rutins
CEO, Matrix Games LLC

For official support, please use our Help Desk: http://www.matrixgames.com/helpdesk/

Freedom is not Free.

(in reply to Bigdog128)

Post #: 7

RE: Fog of War...unfortunately...not the case - 7/19/2008 5:04:09 AM

Ike99

Posts: 1747
Joined: 1/1/2006
From: A Sand Road
Status: offline

quote:

Unfortunately, it is not what I want it to be...or what I wish it to be....it is what it is.
I can duplicate this bug 100% of the time as I have tested this 3 times in a row in three games that I set up PBEM.

quote:

it seems that you think that i am cheatting in our game, because you sent me 2 different combat logs back via email with your "comment".

if thats the case, i am very very dissapointed and would end our realy enjoyable game immidiatly.

bigbaba, if you remember in our game you sent an early turn in a slot above 20 and I told you to always put your PBEM turns in slots 1-20 because these are PBEM secure. I have no doubt you did that not to cheat, but just because you didn�t know. I was playing a long time player and did the same thing (save in a slot above 20) and he told me the same thing i told you. There are several post of mine on here mentioning this prior.

Bigdog128, as far as I know slots one through 20 are totally secure. Always play your PBEM turn in one of these slots, then there are no problems or doubts.

< Message edited by Ike99 -- 7/19/2008 5:07:10 AM >

(in reply to Erik Rutins)

Post #: 8

RE: Fog of War...unfortunately...not the case - 7/19/2008 8:06:33 AM

bigbaba

Posts: 1238
Joined: 11/3/2006
From: Koblenz, Germany
Status: offline

ike, jamie and i saved our games only in 1-20 slots. so there is no logical reason in my eyes to end a game in which we invested so much time and which advanced into the middle of 1943.

(in reply to Ike99)

Post #: 9

RE: Fog of War...unfortunately...not the case - 7/19/2008 11:15:58 AM

Bigdog128

Posts: 24
Joined: 6/3/2008
Status: offline

Unfortunately for me, I had temporarily saved and restarted in save game slots above position 20 in this game and in all the games I have going, enabling the bug. I did not know about the bug. Now I do, and will not do this in the future.

Jamie

(in reply to bigbaba)

Post #: 10

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All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [World War II] >> Uncommon Valor - Campaign for the South Pacific >> Tech Support >> Fog of War...unfortunately...not the case

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