Anti-Cheat Features in TOAW III

[Currahee]

Several anti-cheat features have been added to TOAW III; for example, you may get a notification that your opponent has reloaded the same move several times.

Continuous reloads are forbidden of course, and such behavior may allow an opponent to claim a forfeit; however, we're not enforceing that yet, as there may still be some bugs; during playtesting, there were occasional "false positives" caused by something other than cheating; ie, playing two simultaneous games against two different opponents, or playing a human and the computer at the same time, or simply loading an older move, to check a hex location. Generally, though, the system seems to work well now, if the players aren't doing something weird.

The problem, of course, with continuous reloads, is that you can run combat until you get the results you like; or recon the enemy's position, and then re-do your move; or try out several moves, and then decide which you like best, etc; all those things are cheating, and have always been considered as cheats; it's just that before, the opponent rarely had any indication it was going on.

Other changes to the game make it more difficult to convert a mid-game move to an .sce file, to take a look behind enemy lines; etc. Generally, the improvements will be welcomed by most players. It is lots more fun to play without cheating.