Is that cheating?

This comes up a lot on this forum. People suspect others of cheating because they flew a lot of passengers very quickly, because they got a lot of event currency very quickly, because they have lots of unfilled space, because they flew lots of passengers without lots of passenger buildings, because they seem to have fewer resources than you but are doing better.

If you are relatively new to the game, some things that are quite common for seasoned players at a higher level may seem extravagant to you - maybe even like cheating. But you probably can't tell when people are cheating. You simply haven't explored enough of what is possible in the game to tell the difference between cheating and experience.

The very easy answer is that it is probably NOT cheating.

I played AC from 2012-2016 then quit and started a new game early in 2020 so I've been around the block before. When I started this new game, it was a struggle to earn 10,000 coins in a few days. Now I can make 1m coins in a day if I try hard. When I restarted the new game, I was flying a few thousand passengers a week. Now I fly 150,000 passengers every week without breaking a sweat and I don't have the greatest fleet yet. When I restarted this game, I was not able to finish all the events. Now I can finish them in a few days.

Some common occurrences that may solicit accusations of cheating:

• How did that person fly 200,000 passengers in a week without a lot of passenger buildings?
  They probably have lots of buildings that increase the amount a passengers a buildings produces and may even have a visa center to store passengers.
  
  
• How did they get the fuel to fly 1M passengers?
  They have probably been saving a while to get lots of fuel in the warehouse and in saved gifts to be able to do those flights.
  
  
• How did that person fly 400 flights in an hour?
  They may have flown 400 flights in an hour. But they may have also played for an entire week during vacation without wifi and finally got connected and so their activity is uploaded all at once rather than a bit at a time.
  
  
• Why does that person have 10,000 fuel on the fuel bar?
  They probably loaded all their fuel gifts and fuel from inventory all at once so they didn't have to stop flying to reload fuel.
  
  
• Why does that low level person with so few buildings have so much land?
  That person may have had an unrecoverable game that G! compensated them for with land and greenies.
  
  
• How did that person get so much event currency so quickly?
  They probably used lots of saved fuel and passengers along with doubling bonuses to earn lots of event currency really quickly. They studied the details and made smart decisions about where to fly and what buildings to collect from. They may also play for many more hours a day than most people

There is a plausible explanation for almost everything.

There are lots of people on this forum who can answer these questions. We are here to help.

Sometimes, the reaction to these scenarios is to suggest it's cheating. Unfortunately, often the people accused of cheating are just long time, seasoned players. There are people on this game who have been playing (and paying) for 8 years. That gives them an advantage ... but not an unfair advantage.

G! has implemented measures in the game to try to reduce the advantage long time players have over new players but they couldn't make a completely level playing field without taking away a lot of things these players worked for years to accumulate. And in fact, there never will be a completely level playing field. Some people spend lots more time in the game. Some spend lots more money. Some spend time on strategies and calculations to make the most of the resources. And some have been just building up resources for a long, long, long time.

And their monumental accomplishments can look like magic ... or cheating ... to someone who doesn't know the game at the same level.

Of course there are cheaters in the game and we all want to see cheaters dealt with. But we also need to be careful before accusing anybody of being a cheater - especially before reporting to G!. G! may end up banning somebody for perfectly legitimate play. If you are interested in how somebody accomplished something that seems like magic, just ask them how they did it. Most people on this forum will help you.

But be especially careful with the people who have been on this game for years. They came by their resources through years of play and dedication to this game. They are the ones with all the QLs who help you get through launches for events. They are the ones with event buildings that pull them out even before the event starts so you have buildings to visit once the event starts. They are the ones with the rare buildings like planetariums and training centers to help you accumulate launch preps and rocket fuel. They are the ones that came up with the idea of a magic square so you can combine bonus buildings and ultimately fly 50k pax in an hour. They are the ones giving you guidance on how to make the most of the game. They are the ones who create and maintain top 100 alliances that they specifically recruit new flyers into so they can help them along. They are the ones who have shared their knowledge to create this forum and wiki.

They are the ones whose knowledge, guidance and generosity you came to this forum for.

 

[Teboho]

In my warehouse I have 400+ P150, P50, P10, P5 each...

 

[Madge59230]

In my warehouse I have 400+ P150, P50, P10, P5 each...

Yes but you lose any new ones! They were there before v7. Doesn’t make you a cheat.

 

[Teboho]

Yes but you lose any new ones! They were there before v7. Doesn’t make you a cheat.

Those are pre v7 paxI started loosing any new pax gifts after updating...

 

[Harry Rayner]

This comes up a lot on this forum. People are accused of cheating because they flew a lot of passengers very quickly, because they got a lot of event currency very quickly, because they have lots of unfilled space, because they flew lots of passengers without lots of passenger buildings, because they seem to have fewer resources than you but are doing better.

If you are relatively new to the game, you probably can't tell when people are cheating. You simply haven't explored enough of what is possible in the game to tell the difference between cheating and experience.

The very easy answer is that person probably is NOT cheating.

I played AC from 2012-2016 then quit and started a new game early in 2020 so I've been around the block before. When I started this new game, it was a struggle to earn 10,000 coins in a few days. Now I can make 1m coins in a day if I try hard. When I restarted the new game, I was flying a few thousand passengers a week. Now I fly 150,000 passengers every week without breaking a sweat and I don't have the greatest fleet yet. When I restarted this game, I was not able to finish all the events. Now I can finish them in a few days.

Some common occurrences that may solicit accusations of cheating:

• How did that person fly 200,000 passengers in a week without a lot of passenger buildings?
  They probably have lots of buildings that increase the amount a passengers a buildings produces and may even have a visa center to store passengers.
  
  
• How did they get the fuel to fly 1M passengers?
  They have probably been saving a while to get lots of fuel in the warehouse and in saved gifts to be able to do those flights.
  
  
• Why does that person have 50,000 fuel on the fuel bar?
  They probably loaded all their fuel gifts and fuel from inventory all at once so they didn't have to stop flying to reload fuel.
  
  
• Why does that low level person with so few buildings have so much land?
  That person may have had an unrecoverable game that G! compensated them for with land and greenies.
  
  
• How did that person get so much event currency so quickly?
  They probably used lots of saved fuel and passengers along with doubling bonuses to earn lots of event currency really quickly. They studied the details and made smart decisions about where to fly and what buildings to collect from.
  
  
• Why does that person have lots of greyed out buildings without roads?
  The are likely buildings that people don't need to collect passengers from regularly to fly their planes and they save them for when they load the visa center and move them to the magic square when needed.
  
  
• How are they collecting 5 times the event currency that I do?
  Maybe they play 5 times longer in the game that you do.
  
  
• That's a very weird layout with an empty square in the middle.
  That's a magic square. Feel free to ask about it.

There is a plausible explanation for almost everything.

There are lots of people on this forum who can answer these questions. We are here to help.

Sometimes, the reaction to these scenarios is to suggest it's cheating. Unfortunately, often the people accused of cheating are just long time, seasoned players. There are people on this game who have been playing (and paying) for 8 years. That gives them an advantage ... but not an unfair advantage.

G! has implemented measures in the game to try to reduce the advantage long time players have over new players but they couldn't make a completely level playing field without taking away a lot of things these players worked for years to accumulate. And in fact, there never will be a completely level playing field. Some people spend lots more time in the game. Some spend lots more money. Some spend time on strategies and calculations to make the most of the resources. And some have been just building up resources for a long, long, long time.

And their monumental accomplishments can look like magic ... or cheating ... to someone who doesn't know the game at the same level.

Of course there are cheaters in the game and we all want to see cheaters dealt with. But we also need to be careful before accusing anybody of being a cheater - especially before reporting to G!. G! may end up banning somebody for perfectly legitimate play. If you are interested in how somebody accomplished something that seems like magic, just ask them how they did it. Most people on this forum will help you.

But be especially careful with the people who have been on this game for years. They came by their resources through years of play and dedication to this game. They are the ones with all the QLs who help you get through launches for events. They are the ones with event buildings that pull them out even before the event starts so you have buildings to visit once the event starts. They are the ones with the rare buildings like planetariums and training centers to help you accumulate launch preps and rocket fuel. They are the ones that came up with the idea of a magic square so you can combine bonus buildings and ultimately fly 50k pax in an hour. They are the ones giving you guidance on how to make the most of the game. They are the ones who create and maintain top 100 alliances that they specifically recruit new flyers into so they can help them along. They are the ones who have shared their knowledge to create this forum and wiki.

They are the ones whose knowledge, guidance and generosity you came to this forum for.

Whats the magic square?

 

[Chloe11111]

Whats the magic square?

Great question - I will likely make a separate post about this. But it's a square that is covered by lots of bonus buildings to combine bonuses. e.g. covered by 3 cloud castles which all give 5% passenger bonus boost - so 15% passenger boost to buildings in the square. So an emerald house that normally produces 99 passengers would produce 113.

 

[Harry Rayner]

Great question - I will likely make a separate post about this. But it's a square that is covered by lots of bonus buildings to combine bonuses. e.g. covered by 3 cloud castles which all give 5% passenger bonus boost - so 15% passenger boost to buildings in the square. So an emerald house that normally produces 99 passengers would produce 113.

Ok , very informative i never knew about that thankyou!

 

[Pavolko_Gun]

On Monday morning this week, I have had 100 pcs of f20,50,150 and 300 in warehouse. I have got literally 100s of unopened boxes from space launches (daily runs and 3 big QL parties for R/B/G) with different type of fuel inside. The critical part is the collections as you can have only 100 gold/bronze boxes (f150/f50) in warehouse, so I have had a lot of collections for excavation maps unopened. On top I have had 550 f20 gifts unopened from friends. All total resulted into 132k of fuel.

So the fuel is not a big issue to get. The same applies to PAXs. You can run 9h contract, use 3 family tickets and utilizing the PAX pod (magic square with 277% bonus and by small movement of one side it is applicable for 2x2 and 3x3 buldings) will give you around 54k PAX for one alarm clock. So to collect 600k PAXs you need to have a lot of time and 12 or 13 alarm clocks.

On the other hand doing this every week will result to the situation I quit playing soon as the time demand is too high to make that happen. So it is good that to collect so many resources require a couple of months.

 

[Chloe11111]

On Monday morning this week, I have had 100 pcs of f20,50,150 and 300 in warehouse. I have got literally 100s of unopened boxes from space launches (daily runs and 3 big QL parties for R/B/G) with different type of fuel inside. The critical part is the collections as you can have only 100 gold/bronze boxes (f150/f50) in warehouse, so I have had a lot of collections for excavation maps unopened. On top I have had 550 f20 gifts unopened from friends. All total resulted into 132k of fuel.

So the fuel is not a big issue to get. The same applies to PAXs. You can run 9h contract, use 3 family tickets and utilizing the PAX pod (magic square with 277% bonus and by small movement of one side it is applicable for 2x2 and 3x3 buldings) will give you around 54k PAX for one alarm clock. So to collect 600k PAXs you need to have a lot of time and 12 or 13 alarm clocks.

On the other hand doing this every week will result to the situation I quit playing soon as the time demand is too high to make that happen. So it is good that to collect so many resources require a couple of months.

You were one of the players I was referring to when I wrote this post. You may recognize which item is about you and it wasn't the 1m passengers

 

[Bob69bob]

Magic squares is a topic I’d been hoping would stay below the radar for as long as possible. Be aware that GI aren’t thrilled about the use of magic squares. Some bean counters (who believe magic squares cost the company sales of greenies to buy land) want them gone, but my guess is that they haven’t worked out a way to do it without starting a bombardment of complaints.
As for the greyed out buildings with no roads, I will resist the temptation of using the word “cheating”, but nobody can deny that it’s a feature of the game that was unintended by the programmers. The sooner they change the code so that the regeneration timers on buildings pause when disconnected to roads, the better. It’s bad enough that they want to kill off magic squares, but seeing half a city all greyed out will only force their hand sooner rather than later.

 

[Chloe11111]

Magic squares is a topic I’d been hoping would stay below the radar for as long as possible. Be aware that GI aren’t thrilled about the use of magic squares. Some bean counters (who believe magic squares cost the company sales of greenies to buy land) want them gone, but my guess is that they haven’t worked out a way to do it without starting a bombardment of complaints.
As for the greyed out buildings with no roads, I will resist the temptation of using the word “cheating”, but nobody can deny that it’s a feature of the game that was unintended by the programmers. The sooner they change the code so that the regeneration timers on buildings pause when disconnected to roads, the better. It’s bad enough that they want to kill off magic squares, but seeing half a city all greyed out will only force their hand sooner rather than later.
And trust me, I’d rather not lose mine...
View attachment 44959

I suspect they are making a lot every time metro stations come up for "sale"

 

[Brian D]

in a similar vein to the magic square another good tip is don’t simply line up all of your radius expanding builds next to each other on the edge of the city

 

[Tiberiu]

The good part of having you guys around (the old players) is that you have a lot of funky stuff tried and proved (or not) and when you also share your findings you deserve all the gratitude from the newer players like me.
So hat off to @Chloe11111 and the guys.
That been said, the game nowadays for the new players is different than what you've played in your days - or so it seems. I, for one, have very rarely any fuel (or pax) saved at the end of an event because I'm focusing on toping the rankings in each of them. From what I saw in the forum, your only incentives with the events in the past was to complete them, get stars and maybe get one building. To me, getting 40-ish chests (3 or 4 every event) is the best reward in this game - at least while I'm leveling. I can see how I could build up a nice stash of resources by playing more passive it's just not very entertaining.

I whish GI would put out a nice carrot for you as well to make you burn your reserves and play a more active game have more fun on a weekly basis not just once every some months when you decide to put your stash to good use. In my view is not so much about leveling the field is more about playing the same game.

 

[Madge59230]

From what I saw in the forum, your only incentives with the events in the past was to complete them, get stars and maybe get one building. To me, getting 40-ish chests (3 or 4 every event) is the best reward in this game - at least while I'm leveling. I can see how I could build up a nice stash of resources by playing more passive it's just not very entertaining.

In the past events were more fun. The past was 4 months ago! You earnt event currency. You could spend it on bonuses, or unique buildings. You had to be coordinated with other players for event building items... not just visiting. Events now are all the same. Premium class isn’t worth it. Bonuses are cheaper to buy with cash than through a 6€ pass. It’s quite frankly boring. You want to chase greens and chests, go ahead. The ranking system is the only decent change in the new event system. Personally I think they should mix it up, old and new. Why earn 20 000 pilgrim hats when you can’t do anything with them? They’ve killed off a good part of the game that only needed tweaking.

 

[Chloe11111]

That been said, the game nowadays for the new players is different than what you've played in your days - or so it seems. I, for one, have very rarely any fuel (or pax) saved at the end of an event because I'm focusing on toping the rankings in each of them. From what I saw in the forum, your only incentives with the events in the past was to complete them, get stars and maybe get one building. To me, getting 40-ish chests (3 or 4 every event) is the best reward in this game - at least while I'm leveling. I can see how I could build up a nice stash of resources by playing more passive it's just not very entertaining.

I whish GI would put out a nice carrot for you as well to make you burn your reserves and play a more active game have more fun on a weekly basis not just once every some months when you decide to put your stash to good use. In my view is not so much about leveling the field is more about playing the same game.

It's not different really. Back in they day, if you finished an event one year you likely didn't go full out on the event the next year. You make choices. You said you focus on topping the rankings. People who have lots of chests and have done the event many times focus on other things - like maybe the brutal slog of getting from 1100 to 1200 stars or getting the next black plane.

I took a break for a while - well 3 1/2 years - so I'm not the authority. But I can guess some of the wishes ... new space missions, new levels beyond level 80 (it's been there for ages), new exciting events ... and maybe an extension on the 100 item cap which benefits nobody!

 

[RobWu]

Great article, @Chloe11111 ! Chapeau bas!
I play AC for 8 years and I still learned something new from this post.

 

[V_421]

A player from level 30, having a town hall level 11 (available at level 73), is that cheating?
I know you can unlock buildings quicker by using greens. But is skipping 43 levels possible?

 

[Bob69bob]

A player from level 30, having a town hall level 11 (available at level 73), is that cheating?
I know you can unlock buildings quicker by using greens. But is skipping 43 levels possible?

I doubt it very much. On top of that, I would suggest that it’s also pretty dumb if the person wasted greenies on Town Hall upgrades when population increases are easily achieved by other means - unless, of course, the player has unlimited greenies!

 

[jpm-wv]

Great question - I will likely make a separate post about this. But it's a square that is covered by lots of bonus buildings to combine bonuses. e.g. covered by 3 cloud castles which all give 5% passenger bonus boost - so 15% passenger boost to buildings in the square. So an emerald house that normally produces 99 passengers would produce 113.

I actually have a magic square that gives 340% so an Emerald House (99) gives a bonus of 337. Almost textbook.

 

[Chloe11111]

Magic squares is a topic I’d been hoping would stay below the radar for as long as possible. Be aware that GI aren’t thrilled about the use of magic squares. Some bean counters (who believe magic squares cost the company sales of greenies to buy land) want them gone, but my guess is that they haven’t worked out a way to do it without starting a bombardment of complaints.
As for the greyed out buildings with no roads, I will resist the temptation of using the word “cheating”, but nobody can deny that it’s a feature of the game that was unintended by the programmers. The sooner they change the code so that the regeneration timers on buildings pause when disconnected to roads, the better. It’s bad enough that they want to kill off magic squares, but seeing half a city all greyed out will only force their hand sooner rather than later.

As I look at the cost of the police station (160 greens), I expect they have figured out a way to monetize MS. That and metro stations ... I need 6 more minimum.