I want to say, in case club members don't know, what Mark & team has done takes a LOT of work. The gratifying thing is that if done with statistical distributions in mind (ANOVA = Analysis of Variance) and sufficient play time has expired (e.g., sufficient firing or melee results have been observed) that a very strong mathematical case CAN BE MADE against a cheater. Everyone should thank all the men involved with the analysis of this -- IT IS A LOT OF PAINSTAKING WORK!
Here is an example of the concept that is used. An ulterior motive here is to discourage ("scare") possible would-be cheaters reading this that with enough effort YOU WILL BE DISCOVERED. Let's roll two 6-sided dice a million times. The distribution that results is:
DR Probability 2: 2.78% 3: 5.56 4: 8.33 5: 11.11 6: 13.89 7: 16.67 8: 13.89 9: 11.11 10: 8.33 11: 5.56 12: 2.78
The actual results dice rolls (DR) should match up with the above probabilities (Prob) within understood limits to the theoretical results after about 40 or so dice throws (there is another way for smaller samples to be analyzed called "t-test" but won't get into this). In a real game all the firing data must be accounted: modifiers, FP factors, multipliers, odds, ranges, etc and then the statistically probable result compared to the actual. And this must be done for many results to produce an "observational" distribution which can then be compared to a "theoretical" one. Also not all the "dice" used are six-sided as in above example; some are 10 sided or 100 sided, etc. But over MANY MANY TRIALS the actual distribution better match up reasonably (and in statistics there is a clearly defined mathematically acceptable method to decide this) to the statistical theoretical otherwise the player becomes with more and more suspicious. But it really does work, folks! It's just a lot of painstaking methodical work.
After playing many games one develops a sense of when "things are just not right". Then to really 'prove' the opponent is cheating, one must go back through all the files and perform ANOVA. The other option, which in my older years I've tended to do, is just stop communication (and play -- even to allowing them the "win") with the cheater.
The one thing that haunts me is maybe the guy just got incredibly lucky and I'm over-reacting. For example, once I had an opponent who hit long range artillery shots that were just incredible for 10 TURNS CONSECUTIVE. It just looked ridiculous. So I went back and spent probably two days and ran through each turn (replay one shot, record all data in spreadsheet, repeat, then analyze all at end) and showed the probability of hitting the long range shots 10 consecutive turns (it was against Imperiale Guard cavalry) was about 7 in 100,000. That's 0.007% which I just couldn't stomach. I sent in all the files and conclusions and one of the higher ups said "Well, that could happen." I guess it could but it's highly unlikely.
I remember another game where I had two "B" quality French good order squares in MARSH/SWAMP around 1000 men total. This was such a critical point in the game (Saltanovka) that winning that melee screamed CHEATING!!! What is the probability that a stack of heavy cav can break the square in melee (let alone the historical accuracy of heavy cav charging a square in a wetlands terrain)? I didn't even bother and go back to do the analysis. I just didn't play anymore. The game was already mostly wrapped up, but I let the game go and never even checked if the opponent declared it a win. Didn't matter.
So, thanks Mark and all the other guys who do this kind of "cheater prevention" thing. It is analogous to referees in games who flag a player's INTENTIONAL cheating, a very important activity for the long term health of the game.
As a last closing remark, one way to SUGGEST YOU ARE AN HONEST PLAYER (though not always 100%) is to perform all your fires and melees in order from, for example, west of board to east of board methodically. And to use the Artillery Dialog method of firing after all musketry is fired in the same order as the dialog pops up. This prevents one the more onerous methods of cheating: saving and then re-selecting the appropriate shot in the sequence of 'random' results to get the best result for the juiciest target.
Regards
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