IMPORTANT! Cheating is possible in multiplayer games!

[Deussu]

I and a friend of mine fiddled with the XML files to see if multiplayer games can be modded the hard way. What we found out was amusing and discouraging... or something like that.

Here is a picture that should tell you everything. (http://i.imgur.com/lzNji.jpg) I smudged the other player's name in order to keep him safe, although this test was done in mutual understanding and there was no real cheating taken place. This merely shows you *CAN* cheat. You can lower the production costs in the XML files, thus being able to train units a lot faster.

Oh, and what we edited was lower the cost of a Longswordman from 150 to 135 and lower the combat value from 18 to 16. This was merely a test. It's ridiculously easy and if it works, competitive multiplayer is rather moot. Small changes in the XML files are nigh impossible to detect by the other player.

Edit: We continued our experiments, concentrating on warriors. I had mine to strength 1337, he to 666. Here (http://i.imgur.com/HjrGn.jpg) are (http://i.imgur.com/45Y8m.jpg) screenshots (http://i.imgur.com/qujIW.jpg), three of them, from the situation we tested. There were 3 warriors, one was mine (1337 str). The two of his were of different strengths though. One inside the border was 666, one on the outside had 1337. Once I entered the enemy border the one outside became 666 though. Really weird.

2KGreg, or anyone from 2K, I hope you are reading this.

[Yaca]

I thought the purpose of steam was copy protection and cheat protection but it's obvious now the sole purpose this game uses steam is copy protection, allthough the real theft is tricking someone into buying this game.

This is very basic stuff and it just shows how little effort was put into this game and how ☺☺☺☺ty the programming is.

[CanuckSoldier]

Civ5 doesn't use VAC, that was stated months before release. But Firaxis did have a very solid MP file security check in Civ4, I'm not sure why they did not reuse that code for Civ5......

CS

[DahChronic]

lol remind me never to play with you canuck :D

[WarningU2]

Dah ... you misunderstand. CS was only commenting on how CIV should protect against this ... not advising how to cheat.

[Deussu]

I must note though, that changing the unit cost or unit movement caused a whole lot of desyncing. I'm rather sure desync happens each time "an illegal operation" is performed. This wouldn't be easily noticed if you lowered production costs and such with care, not by 75%. E.g. if you lower a unit's cost by 10%, it might desync a few times during the game. Since the game is in its current state a few desyncs will go unnoticed.

[civdiss]

Civ5 doesn't use VAC, that was stated months before release. But Firaxis did have a very solid MP file security check in Civ4, I'm not sure why they did not reuse that code for Civ5......

CS

They shot themselves in the foot, they had a very good MP set up ready from CIV IV BTS and they decided to scrap it and go for this incomprehensible downgrade to say the least. I wish I could get my money back too at the moment

[Bantams]

MP died a while ago for me lets hope the MP patch when they Employ somebody to do it fixes our MP

[kooljay2]

MP is certainly not dead for me. I played three games yesterday. Won one, lost another, had to leave early in the last one (but I was doing well, thank you very much).

[oscarr]

Hi All

There is big problem big bug in Civizilation V multiplayer mode the game keep reloading and sometimes just crash completely

other day I could not play one game in one day because keep reloading the game every 4 minute

any idea why this happening do you think someone breaking the code

[Bantams]

Possibly more likely you or someone in the game is on a bad connection though im on 20mb cable and it usually resyncs once every game usually at turn 100 when im at war too