PBEM PATCH NEEDED ASAP

[Mowgli]

That's really bad. I knew you could just re-load your turn, but the flaw brought up here is on another level.

I know, I know! It's a game for gentlemen! But it leaves a sour taste in your mouth when you don't know if it was all just good gut feeling on your opponent's behalf when enemy recon units never ever stumble into you. And it does not go well together with the idea of a ladder / "competitive" scene.

I really don't get it why the answers here are so aggressive. It's an obvious flaw and if something could be done about it, the game would become better. When I show the game to new players, I always have to inform them that yes, there is a way to cheat and it's just up to the players' good will not to do it.

As for the solution, I don't know. I'm not a programmer. I guess the problem is that anything that messes with the save-file has the risk of corrupting the whole game and as the turns just consist of ordinary files, nothing prevents you from copying them. Any solution would be quite complex?

E.g. there would need to be at least a combination of two things:
1) The game would need to have a way to tell if the player opens the "original" turn-file or a copied version of it (the latter should not be allowed)
2) The player should not be allowed to save the turn. The game automatically saves the turn (updates the "original file") when the player closes the game. Players must not be allowed to cancel/evade that autosave.

But then team games are no longer possible. A solution for team games would probably require some kind of server that provides the "original file" to the players. Everytime a player makes a move, that original file (stored online) would need to be updated.