Is this a cheat ? (crawler users only)

Googlie · June 13, 2000, 16:47

You've moved your crawler three tiles by road, or one without a road, turn over.

If you have other units still to move, you can go back, click on that crawler, and get the nutrient/mineral/energy benefit the next turn without waiting for it to be reactivated that next turn and start blinking again. (So you get the turn movement plus the crawl effect one turn earlier)

Is this considered a cheat?

G.

June 13, 2000, 17:18

I would say it's a cheat. You letting the crawler do more than one thing in a turn (move and crawl). It would be the same with a terraformer (move, then start forming).

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Yours Truly

Googlie · June 13, 2000, 18:03

Rats

Velociryx · June 13, 2000, 19:51

Hmmmm.....I do it on occasion and never really thought of it as a cheat, but I guess in the strictest sense of the word it prolly is....then again, I'm all for mass upgrading from the DW if you've got the cash for it, and then moving....

-=Vel=-

WhiteElephants · June 13, 2000, 20:13

So if I had a crawler, or former for that matter, on a rover chassis it would be considered a cheat if I moved it and then started crawling a resource back or forming? Or what about an infantry chassis on a road?

Either way I don't consider it a cheat.

June 13, 2000, 20:17

Not if it still has movement points left.

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Yours Truly

Ned · June 13, 2000, 21:50

I believe it does work on terraformers - or any unit for that matter. You can click on a unit after it moves are complete and give it new orders for the next turn. If a former has stopped, you can click on it to direct it to terraform the next turn, and it will, as far as I know. If a unit has stopped in a city, you can, by clicking on it, immediately place it in standby mode so that it can be loaded onto a ship in the same turn it stopped. And so on.

In the larger view, all this is merely a sympthom of being able to change an units orders after its movement is compete. One really needs this capability to stop units on automatic or to correct a mistake (i.e., you hit N instead of M). Once we understand the way the game actually works, it is not cheating to play the game that way unless the written rules expressly say the opposite or the cheat fundamentally alters the game.

I do not know whether this is against an espressed rule. I do know that it does not alter the game in any fundamental way.

It would be different if, as in, Civ, one could ask a settler to build something, which he did at least partially in the same turn, click to give it new orders, repeat the orders to again partially build something, and by repeating, complete any improvement in one turn. If I could harvest minerals in the same turn that a crawler was given orders, and by repeating, harvest as many minerals as I wanted, I would call it a cheat. However, the procedure described here by Googlie is not a cheat.

RedFred · June 13, 2000, 23:43

I have been doing this for a long time now and I am disappointed to hear that opinion is divided on if it is a cheat.

It can be irritating when you have a whole mess of crawlers and you reach your destination with zero movement left. The game will think you are done and zip off to some other part of the globe. Leaving you to sort through all the crawlers for the one not ferrying resources.

In any case if the majority of players say "cheat" then I'll stop. Sigh.

JAMiAM · June 14, 2000, 01:27

My vote is that it is not a cheat.

What next? No disbanding (of crawlers or units) if no movement points left? No use of new population on the turn that they're born? No selling off facilities the turn you capture them? No spending of money the turn you earn (or steal

)it?

Okay, I'm being facetious. But it is a rather arbitrary choice to declare it a cheat, when there is no documentation against it, the technique doesn't fly in the face of design intent, nor is it, in any way, a "game breaker".

Garth Vader · June 14, 2000, 09:35

I wouldn't call it a cheat either, for the reasons listed above!

Red Archer · June 14, 2000, 09:36

I do not think it is a cheat either.

Enigma · June 14, 2000, 10:11

I *always* re activate my crawlers after they are done moving to get the extra minerals. I do not really consider it a cheat for Jam's above reasons, and besides that either way the difference is not large enough to be a major concern. The stockpile energy bug is a lot more major in my opinion since it is energy out of nowhere, the extra minerals energy or food from re activating crawlers is still using up a square 1 turn earlier.

Chowlett · June 14, 2000, 13:33

In general, I would say not a cheat. However, I would call it a cheat if the crawler had not reached its final destination yet - since presumably the thing is meant to set up a supply line, and I say it can't do that just temporarily, then move on next turn. So not a cheat, unless used before crawler reaches intended locale.

As for terraformers, I believe that if you start them with no movement points left, they take another turn anyway, so that's not a problem.

Aredhran · June 14, 2000, 13:33

Definitely not a cheat !

June 14, 2000, 13:40

-- apparently I'm heavily outnumbered here. What would you responce to whether or not it was a cheat be if that crawler on a borehole allowed someone to snag an SP one turn earlier, and you were ready to get it the next turn?

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Yours Truly

Aredhran · June 14, 2000, 14:03

While certainly not happy about losing a project to another faction, I would say "so be it". After all, I could have done the same thing...

Ogie Oglethorpe · June 14, 2000, 14:35

I'll join the masses here in saying I don't think of it as a cheat. In fact, many is the time I micromanage galor and in the process of moving a crawler out to the hinterlands will stop at every step along the way and make sure that little puppy brings back some form of resource be it Nuts/mins/or energy.
I'll then have that little crawler resume its march next turn to the more fertile resource areas and if need be repeat the process all the while having to wake the unit back up every turn and repeat adnauseum.

Call me a perfectionist (or a cheater if you prefer) but every little bit helps. (Some day I might be promoted to perfect cheater

.)

[This message has been edited by Ogie Oglethorpe (edited June 14, 2000).]

BustaMike · June 14, 2000, 16:04

Definately not a cheat...

The reason is that the crawler's movement and supply crawling occur at different parts of your turn. The crawler doesn't actually give any resources to the city until the upkeep of your next turn. Movement points have nothing to do with the crawler harvesting resources. I can't see how this is a cheat if the effect doesn't even happen until the next turn. I think it's a waste if the crawler has to wait a whole turn after reaching its destination to receive orders.

I think Ned mentioned above that you can do the same thing with terraformers. This is true, but you don't get any benefit. A terraformer uses it's movement points when it terraforms a square. If it didn't you could get a borehole in one turn by clicking on the former over and over again and giving it orders after its turn is up (you could actually do this in Civ1 from what I've heard, big cheat).

WhiteElephants · June 14, 2000, 16:55

I suppose theoretically someone could move a crawler over a borehole and finish a special project one turn ahead of me under the circumstances that they had no money, no other units to disband in the Special Project base, no nearby needlejets he could fly in and disband or any other nearby units, and in theory the said Special Project could be the Ascent to Transcendence and therefore I would lose the game because someone else transcended before me, but then you have to ask yourself "Why did he bother crawlering the borehole when he could have just moved the crawler into the base and cashed it in for the project?" Or maybe theoretically the crawler was one space away from the borehole and two spaces away from the base and there were no roads, or magtubes for that matter, and in that case (assuming the said crawler was on a infantry chassis and not a rover or hovertank chassis) I still would not believe it was a cheat and would bow down to the utter resourcefulness or my obviously superior opponent.

Googlie · June 15, 2000, 00:37

The weight of opinion is that it is not a cheat.

Moreover, the official little guidebook that came packed with the game says (page 95)..

A unit that has already exhausted all its movement points can still be activateed .... and given orders that don't involve further movement in the current turn

So it is blessed by the game designers themselves.

Phew!!

Googlie

Drago Sinio · June 15, 2000, 09:10

To me it is not a cheat, as a matter of logic. The crawler is doing the same thing as would an infantry unit at the end of its turn. The infantry unit would guard its square, the crawler will harvest its square. The exhaustion of its movement points is irrelevant, as the units function does not involve movement. Simple.

LoD · June 15, 2000, 09:39

I agree with the majority here that this is not a cheat. Morever, I tend to do the same thing Ogie does - harvesting resources each turn (when possible) while en-route.

LoD

June 15, 2000, 09:42

I give in in the face of overwhelming opinion and a quote from the rules (good find Brother Googlie).

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Yours Truly

Basil · June 15, 2000, 20:56

I've been getting gradually stricter with myself about this, in my first games I used crawlers any time the code let me, in my recent games I don't use crawlers that have moved and in future SP games I won't use crawlers that have less than half their movement left. Looking at these posts, I guess I'd better not do that in MP!

[This message has been edited by Basil (edited June 15, 2000).]

Misotu · June 15, 2000, 22:41

It's clearly not a cheat. Like someone else said, the ability of a crawler to harvest is quite separate from its movement ability.

There are, after all, sufficient obvious cheats in the game due to bugs without inventing some

- Mis