SMG Studio

I have reported all the cheaters that I know for sure in the game because some of them are very obvious. However, this issue has yet to be resolved. I would like to be able to get back into the game after being wiped so that I can see the end of the game and figure out who's cheating for real. This game is not fun at all if people cheat and I am considering to find something else more entertaining and healthy to play.

Birdie Rossi 6 & Sven Gudelj seem to be the same player.  All borders are protected by 1 piece at all times.  I hit one the other one immediately attacks me even though we were allies.  It is just not how two different players normally play.  Please check and suspend them.  I am quite sure they are on the same IP.  Impossible to get a fair game with cheaters. 

But remember everyone......using multiple accounts isn't cheating!

I honestly thought my game of six was totally clean! Daily I play and don't see cheaters.

I'll let the Grand Master speak for himself..

Jason, any thoughts how to stop all the cheaters you see ?

Jason, wasn't there, but any chance Red went AFK after he killed you ?

As in RF called ?

Hey Eric,  just lost another game because 3 players botted out.

6 player game....1 bot at the start.  3 players quit for whatever reason.  I'm surrounded by bots in Australia and the bots don't even try to stop the only other human player from taking over NA and SA.

I was down in Australia with the green bot, it just kept adding men to one territory in  Australia!  It didn't attack my territories in Australia even when I broke out of Australia and I only had 1 troop in each territory!

The orange bot took over Europe, then sat there and attacked random territories in Asia while the blue player had NA and SA!

How can the AI be so broken?  How is that possible?  You guys can't program the AI to at least try to take away continent bonuses?  Or make basic strategic decisions? 

And if you're not a programmer could you pass the word along to them that this is a HUGE problem?  Especially when people leave games and bots take over?  I was literally surrounded by bots blocking me in while the other player could just do as he pleased.  This has happened to me twice in the last few games I've played.

There are cases where leaving a border unprotected doesn't necessarily mean cheating. Not everyone who does this is a cheater, as someone pointed out you can use it to test somebodies trust.

However, by watching how players play, you can tell when two people are working together beyond an alliance. In my game, the players weren't protecting borders in a mutual understanding mostly because one of the players held 0 continents and the other held 2 (they held Australia and South America). If you don't hold any continents, have 10 men on Siam and the other player has only single men on each of Australia's territories what is stopping you from taking over Australia? It makes it a lot easier to cripple your competition if you know that 1 person will NEVER turn on you (probably because it is also you).

 

Also, this was the second time I played these two (1?) guys in the same fashion. I don't understand the complaints of cheating via software bugs. I don't understand how that is possible but maybe it is and I just haven't played someone like that. Multiple accounts seems to be the most common form of cheating and it is pretty obvious in most cases.

Eric, I just lost another game because 2 people botted out, one didn't confirm the other quit early in the game.

Seriously......why is the AI so bad?  Having to sit there and watch bots let a player keep NA because they don't have the tactical sense to attack is infuriating.

I've been playing this version of Risk for 2-3 years......how in the  hell is it the AI is still this bad?  I mean it's completely broken.

And there's nothing you can do to avoid it....if someone quits they turn into a bot.  I don't know if it's because I'm higher ranked now but I've been having a real problem with people quitting in games.

Is there some explanation for why the AI is completely broken years after the game was released?  I had Risk on my Iphone 10 years ago and the bots in that weren't as good as humans but they actually had tactical sense and would try to take over continents. 

This is why I asked if it were possible to hack a bot, because that is the only bot I've ever seen that behaved that way....INTELLIGENTLY.  

Background: I've played more than 500 games and have been "stuck" on Intermediate level for weeks now, sometimes getting nudged up into Expert. I think the game ranking has changed with that new push they did a few weeks ago. Not sure, just a hunch. It feels like game play is better, with dice rolls, auto-nation layout, and rankings, in particular. So, thanks SMG for that!

On cheating: Just yesterday I saw something what others have talked about. An Expert joined my game along with two Beginners. Now, usually, I boot any Novices. Won't even play with them anymore. (They're too erratic and too likely to be the side accts for the cheaters.) So the Expert quickly took N. Am. and one of the Beginners took S. Am. and kept 1 troop--through the rest of the game--to "guard" Central Am. Too obvious. The Expert quickly swept the board.

Solution: I think someone has already mentioned a "solution" to cheaters, but it's worth repeating. Start your own game. Boot out any Novices that join. And, I hate to even suggest this, but now it seems be wary of Beginners joining your game, too. Mark them down. The Expert I played with was DoctorJMitch. The Beginner was AriochGS.

SMG: 1. Couldn't this type of cheating be resolved with code, figuring out which accounts play the same game to play against other players, track them and penalize them somehow? 2. Is there a log somewhere we players can track/report this type of game abuse?

I play as John Baptiste 4.

Hey Божа 537,  here's another cheater that I reported.

Notice how the purple player blocks for the blue player in Australia?

That was early in the game, the purple player protected the blue.  Later blue had SA, Europe and Africa and what did purple do?

He took his 70 men and attacked the green player's 80 allowing blue to win the game.  Nothing fishy there right?

I knew what was going on as soon as purple blocked the entrance to Australia, unfortunately there is no way to alert the other players so Blue (who was grandmaster ranked after 24 wins lol.  Sounds legit right?) won the game after purple took out the only other player left.

Let me know if you want to see more pics, purple didn't attack blue once to take away a bonus the whole game even though at one point Blue attacked Yellow in SA and only had about 20 men left while purple had about triple that.  Purple allowed blue to hold Africa and SA with 1 man on every territory in Africa except the entrance to SA.

 

Божа 537 Remind me again why we shouldn't report cheaters?