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I think it's up to the players, as to whether they want to allow a certain number of reloads. In the game of Market Garden I'm playing with Akhenaton, neither of us are getting reload messages, and I know both of us are saving, and coming back later to finish a move, ie, we don't complete it in one session. I think we need some more experience with the new version, and some more input from other players; also, if everyone will pay close attention to what they're doing, maybe we can pin down exactly what's going wrong. The problem, Kru, is that in a large scenario, allowing five or six reloads can really tilt the game, if a player uses those to re-run a few critical combats.

just an idea

Would it be so hard to force toaw-pbem engine to save your game only over the web in a specified website (fttp with psw or https maybe) ? saves are pretty small and multiple reload would be easily spotted.

cheers
Luca

Hmmmm, interesting idea, but I'm not smart enough to evaluate it; I'll forward it upstairs; Ha ha, no good idea goes unpunished!

I've only got a few games of TOAW3 going, but I've had the same experience.....we (I and my Opp) both know we are saving (to have a file JIC SNAFU, for tornados, not to replay combat ops), and we are not getting reload messages.

I suspect there is a threshold within the engine that once exceeded, reports reloads. Just a guess.

The more pressing issue me and my opps have found is the event error file. Wishing that could be fixed for scenes ported to TOAW3 from ACOW. It seems any scene ported from COW into 3 is getting Elmer warnings, and its annoying as hell, because we can't find the units being reported SNAFU.

<sigh>

March......or DIE
/motto of the French Foreign Legion

Cheers!

The "anti-cheat" features really aren't that.  "Anti-cheat" to me means you stop it.  In TOAW III, it's more snitching, "I'm going to tell Mom."  If you can detect it, programmatically you can stop it.  Why tell your opponent you are using the "undo" button when it can just be disabled in PBEM games?  Same thing applies to the reload message, although I've never seen it.  It is possible to prevent files from being reloaded if a PBEM turn has started.  The sad fact of life is it's easier for allow finger pointing by providing the reload message, that may or may not be valid, than to prevent cheating reloads altogether.    

I write programs for a living and I know it can be done and how it can be done.  We do it at work all the time when reloading yesterday's file or a partially processed file could cost my company millions.  The problem is you have to test the code to death because code bugs in this area could kill valid PBEM games.  That would cost money in testing and delay the game release, also potentially costing money.

Thanks for those insights. I agree completely that although making a game cheat-proof is theoretically possible, it may not be cost-effective given the current cycle of game production/marketing. At least we're better off with TOAW III than many of our older standbys, like War in Russia.

I think the undo is helpful; I hardly ever use it, but occasionally I or an opponent will, and I don't think most people object to a very occasional use; but the "warning" beep is what tells us it's only occasional. Frankly, if you've spent 50 hours on a game, and then accidentally move a fortified unit off an important victory hex by accident (which can definitely happen!), you ought to be able to undo it. This isn't FIDE championship chess. The undo is banned for most tournaments, but for non-tournament games, the opponents can agree to reasonable use. You program for a living, and may be attracted to absolutes; I work with people for a living, and find that being reasonable often pays dividends!

Reloading games and old positions and replaying moves are all potentially much more disruptive to fair play, than using the undo button. The other player never sees what's "undone"; it doesn't affect one or two units, but a whole series of combat resolutions; etc. And really, "I'm going to tell Mom" can be rather effective, if Mom's willing to bring smoke. But the most effective solution is to not play the offender again.

TOAW III is new, but I'm now in my fourth game, and in three of them, neither side has seen the "reload" messages. It does appear that the system is working, more or less as planned.

I agree that I do tend to think in absolutes.  And I'll toss in that I have played in USCF tournaments before so I'm use to the concept of not being unable to take back a bad chess move.  

The undo feature does have it's valid uses.  I'm on a laptop right now and use the touchpad, so I've had units go where I didn't intend them to go.  At the very least, undo should be conditional.  If you move and get attacked (interdiction) or find an enemy unit, it can be construed that using undo might be used to undo the negatives effects of the move.  It can't undo the fact you now know where a previously hidden enemy unit is.  Information can be gained undoing a move where no enemy unit is found.  You know where they aren't.

Reloading the game to restart the turn is nothing more than 'undo' on a grander scale.  Instead of undoing a move, they are undoing a turn.  This tends to be much more offensive to players.  

My opinion, which is just that, neither right nor wrong, is it's better to prevent being cheated than to catch a cheater.  Anti-cheat features that prevent cheating saves me time that is wasted playing someone I shouldn't have bothered playing.

I can see the business reason for a company designing games that inform of rather than prevent cheating.  Quite honestly, even being cheating in a game produces no tangible loss to the cheated player, but writing code to prevent such cheating would cost the game company money.  They opt for the short solution to satistfy public demand for something and that is notification.

I am curious as to where the mysterious beep everyone is talking about comes from.  My game flat out tells me undo was used and it does so for each occurrance.

On a slightly different slant, the game approaches game piracy more directly.  I was trying to recreate the PBEM reload message on the same computer and the game detects "both" players are using same copy of the game.  At first it notifies both sides and then it disables the PBEM game.  The PBEM game has to be abandoned at that point, but there is no permanent harm to the rest of the game.  Here, they see piracy as a potential loss to them, so the prevent this from working.  In this case, one game, one computer, it wasn't piracy.  I just saved the PBEM game and proceeded to load it as player 2.  They figured that wouldn't happen with the hot-seat option, so they prevented it.  

The "beep" occurs during the "replay" of your opponent's move, or at least, it did during COW and prior versions. Perhaps in TOAW III the beep has been replaced by the message.

Thanks for the further insights, and good gaming!

The beep is the same in TOAW3 (at least for me) he just isn't hearing it or the sound isn't being routed to whatever sound output is hooked up.

The message is the same too, in the little box under the replay window, where it shows what unit is moving (or reads, "invisible"), if the undo is used then a message appears there, something along the lines of "Your opponent used the undo button" (don't remember the exact language.)

I've found that sometimes new players use the undo button. "Oh wait, I better not do that...." Not out of any attempt to recon, but rather thinking it must be okay since the button's there. I introduced a fellow to the game, and he was happily using that button quite a bit, until one day he said, "man this guy seems really p.o'd that I'm doing that, what's up with that??" After I explained how it could be used to "recon" and that it is usually considered taboo in email, he was like "OH!" He didn't have any malice aforethought, just thought that is was normal to use it.

Someone said after all, it isn't FIDE....WHAT???? Heck no, its chess on STEROIDS :-) I don't have any problem with the occassional undo, but personally I live with any touch-move I make...I figure if I slip, its just that much more life-like (things don't always go perfectly on the battlefield)

But, the dumping to desktop on a save to me, is just annoying as all heck. Leave the message, just don't dump it to the DT. I save routinely, after an hour on FiTE I couldn't handle a power surge or whatever wiping out a move like that.

Well, Cheers!

I have recently installed TOAW III on a flash drive. The reason is so I can play it at work during rain days and there is nothing to do, work wise. So I tested it using the Tutorial scenario and ended up getting this message:

"You or your opponent are using pirated software"

YARRRR!

So now I need to ask my opponents if playing against a pirate is ok.

BTW: I am no pirate. I bought it fair and square from a DL at Matrix.