Hot take: GUI mods are NOT cheats and we should not regulate their use (+ general discussion about cheat prevention)

[Atrik]

@TheCJ, you made the effort the define categories where mods that gives any advantage are cheats. But 90% of players use autociv, that gives a huge advantage, and who even was the first mod to introduce auto-production. Now even feldmap displays additional stats in summary so they all are deemable cheats right? In practice, mods might be good for the ecosystem, it introduce ideas, improvements etc... Even if you refine your definition so that mods you like don't fit in, but those you don't use, do, the intent is probably more important then anything. @WiseKind's definition is just better to make a category real cheat (that DEFEAT a game feature like fog of war), and mods. You can disallow mods that you think give an advantage when you host, without the need to call them cheats, that would be good reciprocal respect of every player.

[TheCJ]

6 minutes ago, Atrik said:

You can disallow mods that you think give an advantage when you host, without the need to call them cheats, that would be good reciprocal respect of every player.

I can also allow mods while still knowing that they are cheats in the strict sense. And yes, autociv is a cheat aswell, of course. 

[Atrik]

41 minutes ago, TheCJ said:

And yes, autociv is a cheat aswell, of course. 

The problem is that now, anybody using it is a cheater, and that, also the mod is disgraced beside being a very good mod, that add legitimate improvements to interface with the game... I think/hope that's not you aim for, but you can see why having a definition that both fit the intent and have a very define description could be worth considering over your wider definition.
Also, if a mod is labeled cheat then very very few players would be interested into getting it, despite that they could actually like it. Cheats are often used when you are about to drop a game and you want quick satisfaction, mods get you to explore new ways to play it.
I try to only promote moderngui to players who describe a wish for a feature that is specifically in the mod,  and if another smaller mod have a similar feature, then I'll promote it instead, but I know for a fact that players who heard for the first time that a mod is a cheat is very unlikely to ever try it (permanent effect) compared to a player who heard about it as a mod will very likely do. I'm kinda over it now if some people want to call it cheat, I'm just replying to you @TheCJ since you seems more in a constructive approach, I don't want to get to personal about this @#$% anymore

[Seleucids]

2 hours ago, TheCJ said:

And any advantage you get over others by a mod is unfair, thus cheating.

Be careful with this. You have better hardware than me, e.g.  better mouse, stronger GPU, so you get more FPS than me. I am nerfed by lag and you have an advantage over me so you are cheating.

 

Autociv gives you a stats panel. The enhanced GUI mods are ugly but just having cube trees and grass raise my skill by at least 300. But jagsus plays worse with cube trees because he finds it mentally discomforting. Some like to see new icons whereas some want uniform icons from A23. If GUI mods are really only GUI levels then it's really just the same as enabling some graphics options in the settings.

[TheCJ]

1 hour ago, Atrik said:

In practice, mods might be good for the ecosystem, it introduce ideas, improvements etc...

again, this is correct. You make solid points, just not any that counter the fact that those mods are cheating.

Like, autociv is brilliant for its lobby changes (automatically assigning civs, pressing tab to cycle through all different names that start with the same letter, pingall restrictions and /link), its building hotkeys should probably be added to the base game, as should the panel that shows all spectators.

But as good as the mod and its impact on the "0ad ecosystem" are, it's still a cheat. You cant just say "Mod xy is good for 0ad, thus it cant be a cheat". Also, cheating isnt even bad. Like, ive cheated in so many singleplayer games and casual multiplayer games its uncountable. If I look at my siblings screen while playing AoE2 FFA, thats cheating. But who cares, its fun.

 

The only argument why autociv might not qualify as cheating while proGUI does, is precisely that so many people use it. If it becomes the norm, then, according to wikipedia, it ceases to be cheating:

"Cheating in video games involves a video game player using various methods to create an advantage beyond normal gameplay,"

 

27 minutes ago, Atrik said:

I know for a fact that players who heard for the first time that a mod is a cheat is very unlikely to ever try it (permanent effect)

Huh. I guess I did not think about that. It sounds reasonable, considering many people like to have a very "clean" image and expressing interest in a cheat sounds bad if you come from more competitive games... 

That leaves me in a bit of a precarious situation, as I dont like to lie/whitewash something I truly believe to be a cheat, but also dont want to stop anybody from using autociv or proGUI.

What would you call a mod that is not suitable for competitive play, but acceptable in a more casual environment? Just "uncompetitive mod"?

[TheCJ]

29 minutes ago, Seleucids said:

Be careful with this

You are correct. I was neither precise nor vague enough. The best definition might just be the one from wikipedia. "Advantage beyond normal gameplay is vague enough to be interpreted correctly in many different areas. For 0ad, the interpretation might be "Any advantage that could not be obtained by changing "normal" parameters, like setup, connection or settings and necessitates a modification". Thus, any change you make to alleviate "cheap" hardware or a certain disability would not be considered cheating, but any macro, that lets you execute 2 orders with one click would still be cheating.

Edited March 15 by TheCJ
Spelling mistake

[guerringuerrin]

On 11/03/2025 at 10:04 PM, WiseKind said:

guerringerrin: (couldn't find profile page, sorry)

Quote

You can not compare a standard of any RTS such as hotkeys with an interface that self-manages the barracks. This discussion about whether or not it is cheating is sterile.

If this is referencing the mentioned feature of ProGUI that automatically restarts the auto-queue when you once again have enough resources, then I think it's a stretch to describe that as "self-managing the barracks". Self-managing the barracks would mean more like the game automatically making decisions about what to train based on external game factors. Even with something like that on someone's computer, they do not become a formidable force just because they have those scripts installed, and they still have to pay attention to where all of their units are, and if unit production has stopped or is slowing down, why is that so? And that's not to say that the script always makes the "right" choice; as I said, you become more predictable of a player when you over-rely on these tools, and this actually makes you a worse player even if your score in the summary seems to be improving.

I think you are confusing several issues here:
1. This is not how the ProGUI/ModernGUI a.k.a. Atrik's Mod smarttrain works. The mod's GUI allows you to define your army's composition as a percentage or infinitely produce certain units of your choice. Then it automatically assigns all available Barracks(and other military units) to produce the most efficient amount of units based on your available resources. It does this instantly, and as long as you are not haused and have enough resources, it will continue to produce units infinitely as long as you have the resources available and will produce always on idle barracks rather than the vanila system which sometimes triggers a bug in where you end up with some barracks stacked of units and many barracks idles. It never stops production unless: you have no resources, no houses available, you have reached the unit ratio assigned in the GUI, or you make a mistake in this assignment. This means you can continue maneuvering your units on the attack and not have to alternate between selecting your barracks to monitor their production status, allowing you to focus your attention in the right place at crucial moments.
Another, more irrelevant but more graphic example is autostart: you configure your preference in the options, and as soon as the game starts, it automatically moves your units to the resource you've chosen and simultaneously produces units from the CC. That is, you can literally have your hands off the computer and your eyes closed for the first ten seconds (more or less depending on the batch size you chose and whether or not you decide to build a storehouse/farmstead) of the game while the other players execute the orders manually.

2.

On 11/03/2025 at 10:04 PM, WiseKind said:

Even with something like that on someone's computer, they do not become a formidable force just because they have those scripts installed, 

This is somewhat irrelevant if we discuss the root of the disagreement as has already been discussed in many threads, which is the automation of orders. Using automation won't inevitably lead you to victory, and it's not the only variable that defines your skill as a player, just as using a revealed map won't necessarily lead you to victory. So I could use your argument to say that using a revealed map doesn't necessarily give you an advantage. Do you agree with using a revealed map? I imagine not. But I don't mean to confuse things. Ultimately, some aspects of the multiplayer environment are defined by consensus.

3.

On 11/03/2025 at 10:04 PM, WiseKind said:

as I said, you become more predictable of a player when you over-rely on these tools, and this actually makes you a worse player even if your score in the summary seems to be improving.

 This isn't necessarily the case either. Automation significantly improves the average player's production, but it doesn't define their style. You can play in very different ways using it.

 

I wanted to limit myself to responding only to the short paragraph of mine that you quoted (which, by the way, I believe does not fully reflect the substantial part of my argument when I have intervened on this topic), but I will add a few short quotes to try to convey my point of view to you more fully.

4.

On 11/03/2025 at 11:01 PM, WiseKind said:

I would also like to point out that, even if you disagree that GUI mods should be allowed, you could still understand that "cheating" by using automation tools that aren't present in vanilla, and "cheating" by breaking the game itself to reveal the map or spawn in units, are two different things. You may think that they are both cheating and should both be banned, but they are still different kinds of "cheating".

Returning to the topic of consensus: a similar case can be seen in AoE2, where unit production is entirely manual. The community reached a consensus that using self-produced mods in a competitive multiplayer environment was cheating. On the other hand, some mods that visually modify the game, such as making trees smaller or showing fish icons in the water, ended up becoming almost a standard, and top players can be seen using them. Here, we have not yet reached the necessary consensus on what constitutes a fair multiplayer environment and what does not.

On 11/03/2025 at 10:04 PM, WiseKind said:

Importantly, these discussions were not productive at all, with people on both sides of the argument, including official members of the 0 A.D. development team, making personal attacks and missing the point entirely, and I got the sense that nobody really knew what they were talking about. The larger issue was never resolved, and eventually these threads became inactive between 2023 and 2024, which is the primary reason why I am creating a new thread instead of simply responding to those.

This was one of the reasons I stopped participating in these discussions, which ultimately became aggressive and circular arguments. I felt frustrated when I realized neither side was budging on their position, and while I'm against using automation, I have a greater interest in bringing positions closer and reaching a certain consensus. But this is impossible if the parties don't budge on some aspect and if there's no attempt to reduce the discussion to more basic issues instead of prioritizing personal tastes or totally subjective and anecdotal opinions like "I produce the same with or without automation," or "I'm still better than you even if you use ProGUI," or "I'm bored of repeating the same task over and over," or "without that mod you wouldn't be as good."

At the end of the day, I believe that the most important thing in an RTS game is to build a sense of fairness in a competitive multiplayer environment. I think the contrast between a system as limiting and buggy as the vanilla version of 0ad and the improved ProGUI system is so great that many players have felt unequal, and there's nothing we can do about it other than hope that whoever uses it doesn't use it, and hope that those we don't know if they use is don't use it, or watch replays to detect who uses it (wtf??). So, it's also understandable that without easy and secure mechanisms to detect mods, so that hosts can choose whether or not to allow mods in the game, the feeling of powerlessness grows and sometimes the responses of those who use the mod are arrogant and this generates even more animosity.

I'm currently working on a mod that I plan to PR for the next version of the game that eliminates (or at least considerably mitigates) the bug in vanilla that causes units to be assigned to already occupied barracks when producing from multiple barracks, leaving other barracks free when the necessary resources are insufficient, while respecting the essence of the system, which is automation-free. I have received help from @Atrikto do this and I believe it has now been incorporated into ModernGUI. Even with the major disagreements I have with him on these aspects of the mod, we have been able to work together.

 

 

 

 

[Grautvornix]

Apart from the definition - wouldn't it be good to just anounce for each players which mods are being used in a game? Cheating means also using an advantage and not visible/usable for others.

(This is obviously still leaving headroom for covert cheats buried into something else, but I am afraid that tehere is no such thing as abolute protection)

I'd like to propose putting all the energy that goes into such discussions into gameplay development instead .

[real_tabasco_sauce]

A GUI mod should not change the way the game works underneath, only the way you graphically interface with it.

14 hours ago, WiseKind said:

You are making the point that this "real-time" aspect necessarily means that there must be some mechanical challenge. You believe that this is what "real-time" always meant. I disagree with this.

Yes, but you are forgetting that the spirit of competition drives one player to be better than another and that as a direct result, players with high APM do better than players that cannot keep up. This is inescapable. Automation generally is not the solution because it just decreases the number of actions a player can do, which flattens the learning curve. Instead, the ways in which an action can be better than another action, strategic options, should be increased. This allows one players fewer, smarter actions to have more of an impact.

I'm trying to help with this last part 

[Atrik]

5 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Automation [...] flattens the learning curve

Across all domains, the very opposite is true. New power tools enrich any discipline. Obviously it stands true to 0ad where teaching yourself to make a repetitive task, isn't hard or challenging, but just take space for you to think, or try new things. You or others admitted this was the main unfair advantage that it provides earlier. If ever you switch off the auto-trainer, you retain the new technics you had the brain space to try out : so the learning curve actually got UNflattened. For the other points, I already replied elsewhere so I'm done here with the thread.

[WiseKind]

On 15/03/2025 at 2:46 AM, TheCJ said:

Its contradicting to say this is "your definition" of a real-time game and then follow up with this:

I think I wasn't clear the first time, and I apologize. I think I was wrong to say this:

On 15/03/2025 at 12:57 AM, WiseKind said:

I believe that real-time simply means that (as opposed to the former example) in a multiplayer match, all players must be continuously present for the entire duration of the match; it means nothing more than that.

I tried to clarify throughout the rest of the post, but ultimately I created an unnecessary contradiction, which was confusing, and I am sorry. I think it was just sloppy writing that caused my original post to be unclear. I'll edit the post so nobody else gets confused.

Let me make myself extra clear as to what I was originally trying to say, as to the definiton of "real-time".

Real-time strategy means that there is non-stop action, according to the 0 A.D. vision. This means you must be constantly thinking ahead while reacting quickly, and this does indeed require the ability to concentrate. If you cannot focus for an extended duration of time, this will put you at a disadvantage.

What I was trying to say last time, was that this ability to concentrate is not the same thing as being able to do multiple things with one click. You can install a mod that auto-manages the barracks, but still be too tired to actually think about it, and then such a feature becomes useless to you.

I believe that a large part of the game's skill curve is the ability to mentally multitask, and focus on multiple things at once. This is something different from being able to click faster. You can click faster, but be unable to concentrate. I would also like to claim that in all of the time that I have been learning to play 0 A.D., I have never once been overwhelmed by needing to click on multiple things at once. My lack of concentration manifests in the form of being unable to click on anything because I don't know what to do. There has never been a point in which my performance was reduced because I could not type fast enough to do everything that I wanted to do.

On 15/03/2025 at 2:04 PM, guerringuerrin said:

This is not how the ProGUI/ModernGUI a.k.a. Atrik's Mod smarttrain works. The mod's GUI allows you to define your army's composition as a percentage or infinitely produce certain units of your choice. Then it automatically assigns all available Barracks(and other military units) to produce the most efficient amount of units based on your available resources. It does this instantly, and as long as you are not haused and have enough resources, it will continue to produce units infinitely as long as you have the resources available and will produce always on idle barracks rather than the vanila system which sometimes triggers a bug in where you end up with some barracks stacked of units and many barracks idles. It never stops production unless: you have no resources, no houses available, you have reached the unit ratio assigned in the GUI, or you make a mistake in this assignment. This means you can continue maneuvering your units on the attack and not have to alternate between selecting your barracks to monitor their production status, allowing you to focus your attention in the right place at crucial moments.

So, you are making the point that these mods actually do make the attempt to make strategic choices on your behalf. This is different from a mod that merely makes it easier to do what you want. Now we are going somewhere.

I have already said, in previous posts, that this game has so many diverse choices, and there is not (and should not) be "one right way" to play the game. There are so many strategies to try out, and every single action you take has a strategic meaning, from what proportions of resources to gather at any one time, to where exactly to gather those resources from (you have to think about vulnerable supply lines, and how the enemy could cut you off), and how many storehouses to build, that even if a mod attempts to make a somewhat viable choice on your behalf, there will always be an effective counter-strategy.

I would also like to say that it is relatively easy to accomplish simultaneous use of all unit trainers in the vanilla GUI, while not taking your eyes of the front lines even briefly. Just put all of those structures in one control group (I usually do '9'), and then press that number quickly, hit F3, and then if you want 50% spears and 50% slingers, that only takes two clicks. The optimal batch size based on your resource counts isn't that hard either: just scroll up until the box becomes red, and you know the largest batch size that you can train (which isn't always the best strategic choice, by the way). That is a routine part of my muscle memory, and it only takes me a second or two, so someone whose computer does this for them wouldn't have a significant advantage over me, and I'm not even good player by any metric. I know you said to avoid subjective arguments such as this one, because someone else may play differently, but I'm just trying to give a real-world example to put some of the ProGUI tools into perspective.

On 15/03/2025 at 2:04 PM, guerringuerrin said:

This isn't necessarily the case either. Automation significantly improves the average player's production, but it doesn't define their style. You can play in very different ways using it.

That may be true, but this game has such a depth of strategy, that any tool that automatically determines what units to train, and what resources they should gather, is not going to be able to make the "best" choice in every circumstance, unless that tool has such complex logic that it could be described as artificial intelligence. If a programmer wants to put in that much effort to design such tools "just to enable players to cheat", then let them; we need a better A.I. player than Petra Bot.

Obviously, these mods will not actively stop you from playing the game how you want using the existing vanilla tools, but if you allow them to pick your economic strategy for you, they will not always pick the same strategy that you would have chosen if you had done it yourself. And if you choose to take all of your attention span off of the autonomously-managed economy, then you won't be aware of the potential tactical vulnerabilities of your supply lines, in the same way that you would be if you had carefully planned out and built them yourself.

On 15/03/2025 at 2:46 AM, TheCJ said:

Also, you don't get to define what "real-time" means in this context. Neither do I. According to wikipedia

That definition from Wikipedia doesn't really help either side. And just because it was on Wikipedia doesn't mean we have to abide by it. Again, I was unclear the first time due to sloppy writing, and I apologize, but what I am really saying is that mental overload, and mechanical overload, are two totally different things. Personally, I have never experienced the latter.

You said that someone who can do more things simultaneously will have an advantage. But I said that how many things I can do simultaneously isn't actually the problem, it's my ability to keep track of everything so I can make the next move based on the optimal strategy. If you install a mod that handles one or more of the components of the game, it doesn't make you a better player, or even seem like a better player beyond summary numbers. The mod will choose the simplest solution, which won't always be the best solution.

Maybe a super noob who doesn't even know how to play would seem to be greatly aided by the tools that you are all describing, but that's because they don't know how to play. But the people who use these tools aren't super noobs who desperately want to feel good about themselves; they are good players who use these tools to allow them to use the same strategies they always would, but with fewer keystrokes. They will still think about where their resources are coming from, which will always take the same amount of attention, but once they have made their informed choice, they don't have to tediously implement their action.

On 15/03/2025 at 6:20 AM, Atrik said:

This thread is going on with ""progui"" quoted every single comment but with none of the participant actually ever tried it right?

I will go ahead and say that I haven't tried ProGUI, and I don't think that matters. What ProGUI can or can't do is not essential to my argument, and I hope I am making it clear that I believe that there can be no such thing as a GUI mod that I would consider cheating, and cheating only happens when someone actually defeats a core game mechanic, like fog-of-war.

However, I might actually try ProGUI sometime and share my thoughts, just for fun. But let me stress that my opinion will be unchanged by it, because I believe that good players are good not because they can click faster, but because they can think fast and see the potential strategic consequences of every decision they make, better than any mod can.

On 15/03/2025 at 2:04 PM, guerringuerrin said:

The community reached a consensus that using self-produced mods in a competitive multiplayer environment was cheating.

Admittedly, I don't know a whole lot about Age of Empires, but I do know that the stated design goal in the 0 A.D. vision is that a good player should be good because they can think strategically, not because they can click faster than everyone else by repeatedly going back to the barracks. I believe that this necessarily means that we should allow these "cheat" mods, because if we have succeeded at our stated design goal, then the secret use of these mods should not matter any more than the secret use of better equipment, or coffee, or other metrics. The point is that we are allowed to be different.

Actually, I should be careful. I, myself, said that these mods are comparable to drinking coffee, but what I really want to say is even that isn't really true. Again, I don't feel actually limited by my click rate, only my ability to keep track of everything. These tools do automate some actions, and they can make strategic choices on your behalf, but I wouldn't see that as bypassing the need for me to actually think strategically, since the choices that the computer makes for me won't always be the best choice, unless the mod is so complex that it can be compared to A.I. more than any UX mod.

On 15/03/2025 at 2:08 PM, Grautvornix said:

Apart from the definition - wouldn't it be good to just anounce for each players which mods are being used in a game? Cheating means also using an advantage and not visible/usable for others.

(This is obviously still leaving headroom for covert cheats buried into something else, but I am afraid that tehere is no such thing as abolute protection)

I believe that it is impossible to enforce such a rule without making 0 A.D. at least partially nonfree, something I gather we are not going to do any time soon. Even with our small, tight-knit community where cheaters aren't a real problem (at least according to @TheCJ), it would be a bad decision to claim that these tools should be banned, because we can't enforce that, and as the community grows, any holes in our security should become a problem. I think it would be better to at least consider reworking our networking model to fix the problem with reveal-map cheating, as I described above. Then we can think about whether we want to have a section of our community dedicated to people who actually care about the setup that other players are using.

Simulation speed and reaction time

One thing that I recently thought about was the fact that, when setting up a game (and even during a singleplayer game), you can change the simulation speed to be a factor of the normal speed. There are different choices, with different names such as "Relaxed (0.5x)", or "Insane (2x)". This implies that there is an additional difficulty curve to playing the game at a faster speed. I agree with this, but as I said, the difficulty curve comes from being able to think fast, not being able to type fast. I don't think I really have to explain this further than I already have above; just know for now that I do agree that real-time implies a challenge that is not shared with turn-based strategy games, and this is generally not essential to my point.

Of course, there will be a point in which the game is so fast that an entire army can get defeated in the time it takes for you to reach for your mouse. This is probably why the game doesn't let you go faster than 2x for real-time play. If you were playing at 16x, then the game is so fast that most of the difficulty curve comes from being able to click fast enough, and I don't think that would be a fun or engaging experience at all. Think about if you were competing with someone in a rated 0 A.D. game at 32x game speed. What strategy would you use to get an advantage? Your strategy would probably have more to do with how you use the keyboard than how you actually play the game, at that point. Does that sound like fun to you? Just some food for though.

[Atrik]

39 minutes ago, WiseKind said:

So, you are making the point that these mods actually do make the attempt to make strategic choices on your behalf.

The quote you use of @guerringuerrin  actually clearly and accurately describe the opposite. That's the main reason these tread have little value, is that people keep referencing a mod speculating on what it does or how, creating almost-myths.

[WiseKind]

1 hour ago, Atrik said:

The quote you use of @guerringuerrin  actually clearly and accurately describe the opposite.

@guerringuerrin was describing a system that automatically chooses what barracks to train from, and the batch sizes, and I think someone else mentioned that ProGUI will automatically send units to gather resources at certain proportions depending on the needed resources for the units you want to train, but please correct me if I'm wrong.

I do think that these amount to strategic decisions. Batch sizes are a strategic choice because bigger isn't always better. If you are interested in growing your economy, then smaller batch sizes will give you more short-term gains, but larger batch sizes will result in more overall efficiency of your structures. Always choosing the largest batch size that you can isn't always the best strategic choice. This is what I mean when I say that these tools make strategic choices on your behalf.

1 hour ago, Atrik said:

That's the main reason these tread have little value, is that people keep referencing a mod speculating on what it does or how, creating almost-myths.

Please don't allow the temporary miscommunications to discourage you. Know that my main purpose for starting this thread is simply to make my voice known, and provide a space for meaningful argumentation. So far, I think I have been mostly successful, and I am very glad I was available to start this thread, and participate in the debate.

If anyone thinks I mis-interpreted something, then please correct me. I am not perfect, and just because I didn't understand you the first time doesn't mean I am intentionally spreading misinformation.

[Atrik]

41 minutes ago, WiseKind said:

doesn't mean I am intentionally spreading misinformation.

If you were wise, you should know that talking about a subject you haven't investigated might lead to saying bs. Reading what other people in the same case (that didn't investigate) say doesn't count. This thread refer to a specific feature within a specific mod every single comment or almost. Now if you continue to debate with countless references to this feature, chances that you are spreading misinformation are probably absolute, and you won't really know better yourself in the end. Epistemology 101.

Edited March 17 by Atrik

[TheCJ]

11 hours ago, WiseKind said:

On 15/03/2025 at 3:08 PM, Grautvornix said:

I believe that it is impossible to enforce such a rule without making 0 A.D. at least partially nonfree, something I gather we are not going to do any time soon

Well, what does "enforcing" mean, here?

If I host a multiplayer game, and I do not want my players to use any GUI mods, I will ask them when they join my game "Do you use any GUI mods?".

If they say "yes, I use xy", I'll (politely) tell them that I do not want to play with them and they should turn the mods off if they want to play with me.

If they say "no" and dont lie, we play together.

If they say "no" and lie, we still play together, but if I realize during the game that they lied to me, I ban them. Also, if I realize they lied to me, I wont play with them again.

If they say "I do not want to disclose this information", then thats their right, but I will still tell them "then you cant play with me"

 

By doing this, I am "enforcing" that players I my game do not use GUI mods (that can be detected through gameplay). But I did not need to change anything about 0ad code for that "enforcement".

 

 

7 hours ago, Atrik said:

If you were wise, you should know that talking about a subject you haven't investigated might lead to saying bs. Reading what other people in the same case (that didn't investigate) say doesn't count.

I understand your sentiment. But you see, I do not have the time to take a proper look at proGUI, as all the time I do have for 0ad goes to the few games I play with my friends and helping Leif with the historical patch (which is getting better by the day, you should check it out).

I'd wager others are in a similar position, they do not wish to invest their time into checking out proGUI, as they already believe it is not a mod they would enjoy/endorse.

The different opinions based on whether the auto-trainer is a strategic decision by you or the mod comes from different perspectives, as I understood it;

If you believe the choice, in which barracks to produce units in which size is a direct strategic decision, then proGUI is taking that decision for you (or is it not?).

If you believe that the choice where to produce how many units is just a means to a higher strategic decision, and the actual decision is still taken by the player, as he defines the ratio (ranged-melee) which proGUI should try to match, then proGUI is not taking any decision fot you.

[TheCJ]

11 hours ago, WiseKind said:

That definition from Wikipedia doesn't really help either side. And just because it was on Wikipedia doesn't mean we have to abide by it.

We use words to convey meaning. But we do not define what the words mean. Because we want to be understood. So we have to use the words according to how they will be understood. Even if you clarify that you will use your own definition for a word, it will be confusing if that definition differs too much from what the general population believes the meaning of that phrase is.

Thus I use wikipedia for definitions, as it is the place where most people first learn of specific words/concepts. Therefore I maximise the probability that the person I talk with will understand me.

 

11 hours ago, WiseKind said:

Again, I don't feel actually limited by my click rate, only my ability to keep track of everything

So you think 0ad is doing a good job staying true to its vision?

 

11 hours ago, WiseKind said:

Of course, there will be a point in which the game is so fast that an entire army can get defeated in the time it takes for you to reach for your mouse.

@Seleucids already thinks his army evaporates too fast on 1x speed, when fighting against multiple enemies in a mp game. And, to be honest, if it werent for the notorious lag, 0ad would be the fastest paced RTS I know.

(I heard SC2 averages on 11-13 min for high level 1v1s, I believe 0ad is on par, if not faster. And AoE2 takes like, 20-120 mins, especially for 4v4 tgs. Even the longest 0ad games dont often exceed 1h ingame time)

Therefore, if you reach top level in 0ad, you will meet some APM restrictions.

[Atrik]

49 minutes ago, TheCJ said:

I understand your sentiment. But you see, I do not have the time to take a proper look at proGUI, as all the time I do have for 0ad goes to the few games I play with my friends and helping Leif with the historical patch (which is getting better by the day, you should check it out).

I would say the same thing, and probably you would too, if someone made lame assumptions on historical right? One will never try it if he is imprinted into thinking he'll not like it (he'll convince himself he doesn't if ever he tried it anyways), and he'll have the freedom to do so. I also have the freedom to say that speculations are stupid and explain that it's dumb to refer to something you don't have knowledge about. And it is.

@TheCJ @WiseKind please don't take my comments for personal attacks. They just explain why it's not working to argue in those threads.

Edited March 17 by Atrik

[WiseKind]

I'm not trying to make this personal, but I must say that I don't think I was making any assumptions or spreading misinformation.

First of all, I have been extremely transparent from the beginning that I am not an expert on ProGUI, and that everything I have said is simply repeating what other people have said, and I have also stated multiple times that I am not arguing based on any particular fact about ProGUI, and I am only making the case that all mods should be allowed as long as they don't break the fog of war, which is a case that does not depend on any particular example. The only reason why I mention ProGUI so often is because it's a neat example that helps me to illustate my point, but my case actually has nothing to do with ProGUI specifically.

I think it it safe to assume that a reasonable person would not take home any flawed information about ProGUI because of what I said, or use such information to help them decide whether they want to try ProGUI.

I do think that some of my writing has been sloppy, as I am tired and busy these days, and frankly wouldn't even be here if I didn't feel the need to make my voice heard right now. I think that this has led to some confusion, and that's my bad. If you think I misinterpreted something or made a mistake, please let me know, and I'll correct it. Then we can resolve any misunderstandings and move on. I do think that this thread can be productive, and I do think it has been very productive so far. Don't give up just because someone got offended once.

4 hours ago, TheCJ said:

Thus I use wikipedia for definitions, as it is the place where most people first learn of specific words/concepts. Therefore I maximise the probability that the person I talk with will understand me.

Personally, I use the Cambridge English Dictionary when need to quickly look up a word, and this is what that website has to say for the word "cheating":

Quote

1. to behave in a dishonest way in order to get what you want
2. to have a secret sexual relationship with someone who is not your husband, wife, or usual sexual partner
3. a person who behaves in a dishonest way
4. something dishonest that makes people believe that something is true when it is not
5. a collection of instructions or special information that someone can use to help them play a computer game more successfully
6. to act in a way that is dishonest, or to make someone believe something that is not true in order to get something for yourself
7. to behave in a dishonest way or deceive someone in order to get what you want
8. a person who behaves in a dishonest way
9. something dishonest or unfair

And here's the same for "real-time":

Quote

1. communicated, shown, presented, etc. at the same time as events actually happen
2. used to describe the way in which a computer system receives data and then communicates it or makes it available immediately
3. the very short amount of time needed for computer systems to receive data and information and then communicate it or make it available

But at the end of the day, words can change and have multiple meanings, and the meaning can be dependent on context as well. That's how language works. We need to establish a clear definition of what is cheating and what is not, and I personally don't think looking it up in a dictionary will be helpful, because these resources are oriented around very general definitions that can help someone who has never used the word "cheating" in natural language before and only recently heard about it. The argument of what should be allowed in a ranked 0 A.D. match has nothing to do with that.

4 hours ago, TheCJ said:

Therefore, if you reach top level in 0ad, you will meet some APM restrictions.

My point is that this can be improved by making the gameplay better. I'm not going to try to come up with an example on any situation in which I wish I could type faster in order to win, but I'll give a few examples for things that I think could be changed to make the game easier. And obviously, I wouldn't know whether or not these features are already implemented in ProGUI, just to be clear.

• Add a default control group number for a particular barracks, so that any units that come out of the barracks will automatically be assigned to that control group and can be selected by pressing that number on your keyboard
• Make it possible to set a rally point on a soldier or hero or other unit, so that units that come out will automatically come to guard/escort that unit, even if the unit has moved since the rally point was first set. I know that it's already possible to set a rally point on a boat, and units will automatically garrison in that boat even if the boat has moved, so I am saying we should extend this functionality to all units.
• Make it possible to set a rally point on a formation, and units that come out will automatically get in formation. This would allow frontline tactics to be so much easier to manage in some cases.
• Generally make it possible to assign any command (garrison, repair, capture, attack, gather, move, guard, etc.) to any unit or structure for a rally point, assuming the command makes sense. I know that it's already possible to choose between setting a rally point to garrison inside that structure, or repair that same structure depending on whether you use G or J (default keys) to assign it. Sometimes, I feel limited by having to rally my units manually in certain cases, which would require a lot of APM whereas this change would eliminate the need for all of that.

This is just a handful of examples that I have come up with while playing at my current level. You may have more examples, and my point is that if there are any APM restrictions at 1x speed, then this is a problem with the gameplay that needs to be fixed. The better we make the gameplay, the less impactful these mods become, because the game is designed to have a greater emphasis on strategy as opposed to APM. The person who wins should be the person who can keep track of everything to implement an effective strategy, not the person who isn't limited by their click speed. If it is true that a GUI mod can provide a significant advantage by reducing the need for clicks, then I would consider this a flaw in the gameplay that needs to be addressed.

And yes, I do think that 0 A.D. has done a decent job so far at keeping alignment with its stated goals. There's some way to go, and I believe that arguments like this should be about how we can change the gameplay to make mods less of a problem, not how we can ban the mods so that everyone must suffer the need for fast clicking. It might require more work, but it will make the game so much better in the long term.

[guerringuerrin]

20 hours ago, WiseKind said:

So, you are making the point that these mods actually do make the attempt to make strategic choices on your behalf. This is different from a mod that merely makes it easier to do what you want. Now we are going somewhere.

No, i'm not saying that. I'm making my point against automations and smarttrain feature.

20 hours ago, WiseKind said:

I have already said, in previous posts, that this game has so many diverse choices, and there is not (and should not) be "one right way" to play the game. There are so many strategies to try out, and every single action you take has a strategic meaning, from what proportions of resources to gather at any one time, to where exactly to gather those resources from (you have to think about vulnerable supply lines, and how the enemy could cut you off), and how many storehouses to build, that even if a mod attempts to make a somewhat viable choice on your behalf, there will always be an effective counter-strategy.

Here you are defining typical characteristics of a real-time strategy game.

 

20 hours ago, WiseKind said:

I would also like to say that it is relatively easy to accomplish simultaneous use of all unit trainers in the vanilla GUI, while not taking your eyes of the front lines even briefly. Just put all of those structures in one control group (I usually do '9'), and then press that number quickly, hit F3, and then if you want 50% spears and 50% slingers, that only takes two clicks.

Are you really explaining how to use control groups?

20 hours ago, WiseKind said:

The optimal batch size based on your resource counts isn't that hard either: just scroll up until the box becomes red, and you know the largest batch size that you can train (which isn't always the best strategic choice, by the way). That is a routine part of my muscle memory, and it only takes me a second or two, so someone whose computer does this for them wouldn't have a significant advantage over me, and I'm not even good player by any metric. I know you said to avoid subjective arguments such as this one, because someone else may play differently, but I'm just trying to give a real-world example to put some of the ProGUI tools into perspective.

I invite you to play a competitive multiplayer game and see if you still believe that 2 or 3 seconds isn't a long time. Also, in the fast-paced nature of a competitive game (not exactly Medium Petra Bot, not even Very Hard Petra Bot) you may forget to check your barracks for several seconds due to the number of things you have to pay attention to. Additionally, it may be necessary at some point to check which barracks are IDLE and which are overcrowded. This has to be done manually in the vanilla version of the game, and this takes valuable seconds of time.

20 hours ago, WiseKind said:

I will go ahead and say that I haven't tried ProGUI, and I don't think that matters. 

Talking about something you don't know it's not wise at all.

20 hours ago, WiseKind said:

What ProGUI can or can't do is not essential to my argument, and I hope I am making it clear that I believe that there can be no such thing as a GUI mod that I would consider cheating, and cheating only happens when someone actually defeats a core game mechanic, like fog-of-war.

Indeed, generally, the definition of what is cheating and what isn't is ultimately determined by the general opinion of the game's community. In this case, for you, there's no such thing as a mod that cheats (unless it breaks a core mechanic), even if you haven't tried it and don't have the slightest idea how it works.

20 hours ago, WiseKind said:

However, I might actually try ProGUI sometime and share my thoughts, just for fun. But let me stress that my opinion will be unchanged by it, because I believe that good players are good not because they can click faster, but because they can think fast and see the potential strategic consequences of every decision they make, better than any mod can.

Here we return to subjectivity and irrelevant arguments such as "I can still beat you even if you use ProGUI" and this same sentence is enough: "I can still beat you even if you use revealed map".

 

Ok done whit this. Good luck!

Edited March 17 by guerringuerrin

[MetaPhyZic]

The density of substantive content per paragraph is exceptionally low here. It is therefore unsurprising that such threads invariably conclude in the same manner.

[WiseKind]

16 hours ago, TheCJ said:

If they say "no" and lie, we still play together, but if I realize during the game that they lied to me, I ban them. Also, if I realize they lied to me, I wont play with them again.

Not speaking from my own experience here (because I don't have any), but just going based on what other people say, about the heuristics used to determine if ProGUI is used.

Yes, I do see now how it can be pretty easy to detect the usage of ProGUI based on replays.

However, in general, my argument has nothing to do with ProGUI. My argument is that from a general, technical standpoint, it is impossible to be completely sure that a given player's in-game actions weren't automated, due to the nature of free software and the Internet. There may be another mod out there which works differently and has a different feature set, which is coded in such a way that it is much harder to tell the difference between that mod's behavior and human behavior using the vanilla client. That is what I mean when I say that it is impossible to prevent other people from modifying their client.

8 hours ago, guerringuerrin said:

Talking about something you don't know it's not wise at all.

I have said this once, and I will say it again: I am not making any claim based on a specific fact about ProGUI. I mention it often because everyone else is using those terms, and it's a neat example to help illustrate my point without actually making a claim based on it. I think I have made it very clear that I'm not an expert, and don't claim to be.

And if you think I misunderstand something, please correct me by telling me exactly what was wrong with my claim. I admit that not everything I say will make sense, and this can lead to confusion. But making the claim that I am basing my argument on assumptions is a stretch. If it seems that way, let me know because I might have made a writing mistake and made it seem like I am making a logical derivation directly from a feature of ProGUI or other mod, but I am not. My core argument is based only on general technical details and free software ideals.

The actual core of my argument is simply that I believe all mods should be allowed, because the skill curve of this game is based on strategy instead of click rate, and while some mods may try to emulate a good strategy, they will inevitably come up short, unless those tools are so complex that they can be described as artificial intelligence, and then that's a different story.

Like I said, it's not that I don't use ProGUI, it's that whatever ProGUI can or can't do is not essential to my case. In truth, I am considering taking a look at it, just to see what all the fuss is about. But I still strongly believe that this game is about strategies more than click rate, so nothing I can possibly find out about ProGUI will convince me that I am playing a completely different game whenever I turn it on.

8 hours ago, guerringuerrin said:

I invite you to play a competitive multiplayer game and see if you still believe that 2 or 3 seconds isn't a long time.

In all of the time I have played in singleplayer, I have never once been limited by my ability to issue commands with my keyboard. But there have been plenty of times that I was limited by my ability to keep track of everything that was on screen. These are two different things.

You can make the case that I just have yet to see pro gameplay, but even if there will come a point in which my strategies become so finely tuned and intense that I start wishing I could type faster, I believe that this is a flaw in the gameplay itself that could use improvement. I already explained in some detail what I mean by this, but in general, it's never fun to be limited by your typing speed, and while I believe that this game should be challenging, I think that this challenge should not come from how long it takes to issue commands to the computer.

8 hours ago, guerringuerrin said:

Also, in the fast-paced nature of a competitive game (not exactly Medium Petra Bot, not even Very Hard Petra Bot) you may forget to check your barracks for several seconds due to the number of things you have to pay attention to.

Yes, it can be part of the challenge to forget to check certain aspects of the game, which can make you a weaker player. What I have already said is that this is different from being unable to type in commands fast enough to do what you want.

I can see, however, the scenario of using a mod that auto-manages the barracks (and by the way, I thought you were exaggerating when you first said this, but after you described it in more detail, I actually do think this is the right word now), which enables the player to focus more attention on another area of the map, is not something I am ignoring. This can, in fact, change how someone plays the game. In some cases, it can make you seem like a better player. But I will say that this doesn't make you a better player if you over-rely on it. You still have to think about the barracks, taking up valuable mental space (which is different from time spent clicking on stuff). If you don't, then you're completely relying on the tool to decide a crucial element of the game for you.

Before I proceed, I will once again say that I do think that any decisions about what to train, and where, and what batch sizes, are all strategic decisions. This is because there is no "best" batch size for any given scenario, and different batch sizes will have different consequences. A larger batch size will take hold of your resources for a long time, which can cause you to stall in some cases, but in the long term this provides more efficient use of the barracks. A smaller batch size will provide faster short-term results, which can help your economy accelerate faster in the short term, but your population generally won't grow as fast in the long term. An automatic decision that always picks the "optimal" batch size based on resources isn't really taking everything into account.

So, as I said, you can choose to use ProGUI, while still thinking about your training, even if you aren't actively clicking on it to make anything change. This would defeat the supposed advantage of having more concentration for something else, because even if you don't have to actively click on it, just thinking about it is different. To be good at the game, you still have to have the mental capacity to keep track of everything, even if you have a mod running that will make some of those choices for you. If you don't actively think about everything, then you risk making a suboptimal choice, or failing to realize where your base is most vulnerable.

Just to be clear, this is all meant to be a single example to illustrate my point. If ProGUI had more or less capabilities than I am describing here, that wouldn't matter; I would just write a different example of the impacts of that different functionality.

8 hours ago, guerringuerrin said:

and this same sentence is enough: "I can still beat you even if you use revealed map".

I shouldn't have to explain why we should all be able to agree that revealing the map in a competitive scenario is cheating. But you are probably making the point that the impact of revealing the map is about the same as using ProGUI, therefore ProGUI is no less of a cheat. I must say that this is a case that is yet to be determined.

Now that I think about it, I really should try ProGUI, and measure my performance against a bot with and without ProGUI, just to see what kind of a difference it makes. I think there's enough reason to assume that a pro player will be affected less by such tools than a total noob (like probably me), so the effect on me will be greatly exaggerated, and might say something.

But I must remain clear that my case has nothing to do with any specific mod or any specific example. I believe that there can be no such thing as a cheat mod, because 0 A.D. is a strategy game, and the only way to imitate the strategic thinking in an algorithm is by creating artificial intelligence, which is a totally different discussion.

17 hours ago, TheCJ said:

If you believe that the choice where to produce how many units is just a means to a higher strategic decision, and the actual decision is still taken by the player, as he defines the ratio (ranged-melee) which proGUI should try to match, then proGUI is not taking any decision fot you.

This isn't a mutually exclusive statement. Strategic decisions can have consequences which can lead to further strategy. So you can make a strategic decision (training a batch of 3 before a batch of 10), which can lead to another strategic decision (this means you get some wood faster so you can build more fishing boats earlier on). They are both strategic decisions.

Yes, I do believe that the decision on what batch size to train is just as strategic as every other micro-decision you make in a normal match. A mod could be written with some simple logic to make a decision for you, but this game should be deep enough (and I believe that it is deep enough) that such simple logic won't be enough to truly replace human thinking and ingenuity. Thus, in order to make the most of these mods, you must still think about the decisions your mod is making for you, and their potential consequences. You save a few clicks, but as I described above, clicks don't matter; concentration does. And you must still use concentration to think about what your mod is doing, if you want to make the best possible use of it.

[WiseKind]

9 hours ago, guerringuerrin said:

I invite you to play a competitive multiplayer game and see if you still believe that 2 or 3 seconds isn't a long time.

After some additional thought, I think I can say more about this one point.

This is an example to help illustrate my point. Let's imagine the specific scenario of you conducting a raid, and you have no trouble keeping track of everything you need to. You hear the sound cue that your soldiers have come out of the barracks and are now gathering resources back at your base (or are heading to assist in the raid, whatever strategy you chose...). You didn't enable auto-queue because your food count fluctuates wildly based on hunting and fishing gains, rather than the steady flow of resources provided by a farm or whatever. But you do have enough resources to train another batch. Your raid units do not need constant input. They may be on an attack move to the enemy civic center, or they are trying to capture a fortress, or whatever.

It's not hard to get the 3 seconds you need to press 9, press F3 (if that's appropriate), then use the scroll wheel or whatever input to select the batch size you think is best, and shift click to train the next batch. If you are constantly clicking on your raid units, that's a bad habit. I started beating the Hard Petra Bot when I realized that I could have a raid going while still focusing on my base and growing my economy, and I often win fights without even paying attention to them anymore. The fighting mechanics of 0 A.D. are simple enough to allow a more balanced distribution of your input and attention between attack, defense, and economy.

Like I said, in all of my gameplay, I have never been limited by input speed. When my input is limited, it's because I can't keep track of everything. A mod like ProGUI, with its auto-trainer, might seem to help remedy that, but I am relying on a tool that only does simple logic based on pre-determined preferences, while the mechanics of 0 A.D. economy management are so complex that there will inevitably be cases where this is insufficient, especially in pro games where seconds matter more.

EDIT: I know someone might say that I only assumed that the auto-trainer mechanics are too simple for the complex mechanics of the game, but that's not the point. My point is that it is (should be) so difficult to program a mod that always makes the "best" decision, that such a tool could be described as intelligent. Other people have said in this thread that the auto-trainer takes into account your current resource counts, a desired army composition (how many spears, swords, slingers, etc), and number of structures.

But when a human decides on what batch size to train, they must take everything into account. Do you have reason to believe that a large army is headed your way? Better pick smaller batch sizes to make sure they aren't still training when the enemy arrives, just in case. Or maybe larger batch sizes, if you know more precisely how much time you have. Or maybe you have two split territories, and you only want units training on one of those bases. Or maybe you want unit training to be tied to your corrals, so that after each batch of livestock is slaughtered, a certain fraction of the proceeds go to training soldiers, and the rest goes to more livestock? That's a strategy that I have tried before, and I must admit it's actually not very good, especially in the early game, and is best used as a supplement to another food source.

You can make the case that ProGUI can actually be set up to handle all of these cases with its automation, but I doubt it is so complex and sophisticated that it can automatically decide what is best to do, based on all of these external factors, without any coaching or configuration from the user. And I should be careful for @Atrik ; I don't mean to insult your mod, especially if I haven't even tried it. I don't think anyone was expecting ProGUI to literally be an A.I. that plays for you, and I don't think that's what you wanted either. I'm just trying to illustrate the point that I don't think these tools were meant to be used as a way to bypass the actual macro-strategy elements of the game, which are what ideally make the most impact in a solid RTS, and @Atrik has said this as well.

Edited March 18 by WiseKind
Yeah, don't even think about saying I assumed that the auto-trainer is simple

[guerringuerrin]

 

8 hours ago, WiseKind said:

I started beating the Hard Petra Bot when I realized that I could have a raid going while still focusing on my base and growing my economy, and I often win fights without even paying attention to them anymore.

Please, @WiseKind, do yourself a favor and start playing against HUMAN players.

Experience will give you much more than these countless words full of assumptions.

See you in the lobby

Edited March 18 by guerringuerrin

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

No one cares which mod you run in single player*. It's what you run in multi-player which may or may not cause a problem. In a competitive environment, we should endeavor to make the experience and challenge as consistent as possible for all participants. 

 

*Though, bragging rights are reduced the more automation-focused your mods are, even in single player. It's not as impressive to beat "the campaign" on hardest if you're running all kinds of mods compared to someone who beat it with stock 0ad. 

[WiseKind]

On 18/03/2025 at 12:58 PM, guerringuerrin said:

Please, @WiseKind, do yourself a favor and start playing against HUMAN players.

Experience will give you much more than these countless words full of assumptions.

See you in the lobby

Perhaps I have not been concise enough for you. Let me make it up to you by writing a short (ok, not really short) summary of everything that has happened in this thread so far:

1. I open the thread with my main idea, which states that modding is not cheating, because the challenge of 0 A.D. is based on strategy, which is not easily replaced by a mod. Even if there is a measureable advantage, that is not the same as cheating. I also bring up the separate problem of revealing the map unfairly, and I think this has a technical solution.
2. The first reply is from @wowgetoffyourcellphone, who says that the idea that mods are cheats is ubiquitous, and there is no reason for 0 A.D. to be the outliar. I said that 0 A.D. is already an outliar by being a free software project, and my original claims are tied primarily to free software idealism.
3. I clarify one of my previous points by saying that this thread is actually about two arguments, one being about mods like ProGUI, the other being about the ability to reveal the map unfairly. Even if you believe that mods should be regulated, you can still agree with me on the point that we can do better to make the network protocol of 0 A.D. more secure.
4. Then, @real_tabasco_sauce comes into play, saying that ProGUI makes it easier to exploit a known gameplay vulnerability where people expliot the garrison mechanics to transport units much faster than walking. I said that this is a flaw in the game design itself, and should be treated as such.
5. @TheCJ brings up several points:
   
   The first one is that the GUI is part of the game (I still don't quite understand the logic behind this one, but that's okay).
   
   The second point is that even a small increase in input speed (a few seconds, or even milliseconds) provided by these mods is an advantage, therefore cheating. I counter this by saying that the gameplay should be designed with enough depth that it's not about who clicks the fastest by a few milliseconds, but rather who is the smartest at thinking ahead.
   
   The third point is that it's not necessary to have "checks" in place, just a general consensus of what is allowed. I say that this will become increasingly insufficient as our community grows.
   
   The fourth point is that TheCJ does personally find fast clicking to be enjoyable in gameplay. I say that while some might find this enjoyable, it is generally better, from a UX design perspective, to minimize the amount of input needed to play the game.
6. @Boudica barges in with a highly personal insult implying that I'm just sore about not being able to cheat in video games and used Machine Learning tools to assist in writing my article, and also grossly misquotes some of the things I said. Rightfully ignored by literally everyone.
7. @bb_ makes a comment that while changing the network protocol to be more secure may work in theory, the performance requirements of such a model would be forbiddingly costly. I clarify that the network protocol doesn't have to be implemented in the way that they are describing, in order to gain the security benefits that I described.
8. @Seleucids makes the claim that the vulnerabilities in 0 A.D. game design are not easy to exploit and therefore low-risk, and also claims that the features provided by ProGUI are not merely GUI mods, but do change the behavior of the simulation code. I counter the latter claim by saying that, while I can't make any statements about how ProGUI actually works technically, the mod does not need to modify the simulation code in order to work as advertised.
9. @TheCJ once again tries to claim that the best practices of general UX design should not apply to game design, and @real_tabasco_sauce affirms this notion. I reply by making the statement that the "mechanical challenge" of 0 A.D. is a necessary evil, and needing to click faster does not make the game better.
10. I clarify one of my previous points by saying that there is a distinction between input speed and actual mental concentration capacity. Mods can help with the former by automating certain actions, but the latter cannot be helped by anything short of artificial intelligence, which becomes a totally different discssion (should robots be allowed to play video games?).
11. @TheCJ calls out a supposed self-contradiction in my argument, which was actually a writing mistake that I later corrected.
12. @TheCJ claims that we don't need to argue about the definition of real-time when a dictionary definition exists, and I reply by saying that a dictionary definition is not helpful because dictionaries are meant to provide the general use of a word, while this is a highly specific case.
13. @TheCJ claims that even if concentration and input are two different things, they are both part of the challenge. I insist that the latter is not part of the challenge, and that was my original point for making that distinction.
14. @Atrik makes a comment on the feature set of ProGUI, and claims that it was about UX improvement from the very beginning. @TheCJ affirms that this is precisely what makes it a cheat mod. @Seleucids later steps in by saying that under this metric, any circumstantial difference can be considered cheating. This is consistent with an argument I have also made previously.
15. @Atrik then replies that there are so many GUI mods out there, and there are so many different opinions about what mods are cheating and which aren't, that it's better to stick with my more narrow and concrete definition of cheating, while also affirming that individual hosts should have the right to develop and enforce their own policies. Atrik also claims that it's important to consider intent (correct me if I misunderstood this part, because I likely did) when judging what mods should be allowed.
16. @TheCJ states that these mods should be regarded as cheats, even if some hosts allow it.
17. @Atrik makes a comment that the notion that these mods are "cheats" can have the lasting consequence of turning people away from using these tools, even if they would otherwise find them useful, and this is another good reason to be careful when calling these mods "cheat mods". This point proves effective against @TheCJ.
18. @TheCJ claims that the sheer popularity of AutoCiv disqualifies it from being called a cheat, and uses yet another dictionary definition to support this argument. I covered this already, in my original claim that dictionary definitions aren't helpful in specific cases like this (I don't believe that AutoCiv is, or can be, a cheat; just for a different reason).
19. @guerringuerrin comes in hot, with a variety of claims:
    
    The first point is that I misrepresented one key aspect of ProGUI: a feature that is much more sophisticated than I ever gave it credit for. I conceded and even apologized for this, but also claimed that it doesn't affect the actual core of my argument, which is that a GUI cheat mod cannot exist, even with automation.
    
    The second point is referencing my original claim that these mods have a small impact on performance, because what it takes to be good at this game is not input speed, but rather strategy. The second point is that the same can be said about revealing the map. I counter this by saying that revealing the map has its own reasons for being considered cheating, not necessarily tied to how it affects gameplay in practice.
    
    The third point is referenceing a previous point I made that these mods make you more predictable, therefore weaker, if you over-rely on them. The third point is that a player doesn't have to limit their unique style in order to gain an unfair advantage from these mods. Actually, I don't think I ever replied to this one, but I did say at one point that even when using these mods, a player must still keep track of everything going on in a match, to the same degree as other players, and if they fail to do so, then they are leaving themselves vulnerable, just like another player would, even if that is not as obviously apparent.
    
    The fourth point references my previous clarification of the two different kinds of "cheating" that exist". The fourth point is that other communities have come to the consensus that modding is cheating. I, once again, clarify that this doesn't mean we have to, and in fact, it would go against our stated design goals if we restricted the use of these mods.
    
    The fifth point mentions the habit of these types of threads for being unproductive and too personal, and affirms that we need tools (the kind of tools that, as I have argued, cannot exist) in order to promote fairness by regulating the use of these mods, and also something about a bug in the vanilla game.
20. @real_tabasco_sauce claims that APM inevitably becomes part of the challenge in any RTS. @Atrik claims that the very opposite is true.
21. I make another example claim by referencing the ability to change the simulation speed of a match in real-time, with the design of this feature implying that it has an effect on the difficulty. I claim that this effect, when used in moderation, only affects the need to concentrate, and think fast; it does not affect the need to type fast.
22. @Atrik claims that I misquoted something from @guerringuerrin. I reply by clarifing the point I was trying to make. @Atrik doubles down by being the first to accuse me of making baseless assumptions. I address this by clarifying that my argument does not have anything to do with ProGUI, and I only ever used it as an example, and I have done my due dilligence to avoid sounding like an expert on ProGUI when I am not. @TheCJ steps in and says that other people should not be expected to thouroughly research ProGUI, given they may not have the time to.
23. @TheCJ counters my original claim that modder transparency is impossible to enforce, based on a specific example of how ProGUI works, which is easy to detect based on the replay. I make the statement that I see this specific example clearly, but other mods may not work the same way, and generally, any attempts to control what software can run on a player's computer will be an uphill battle.
24. @TheCJ forwards some other claims that were already sufficiently mentioned in this list, and mentions that @Seleucids thinks the game is already so fast that click rate begins to matter. I make the claim that this is a flaw in the gameplay and should be treated as such, therefore it is not a valid counterargument. I also think this is not what @Seleucids actually meant.
25. @Atrik express a concern that too many misunderstandings can also repel someone from trying out mods such as ProGUI, if they get confused themselves.
26. @guerringuerrin make the claim that this game is already so fast that APM matters. I counter this by giving a specific example that illustrates my point that I have never (personally) been restricted by APM, whereas I feel constantly restricted by my mental capacity at my current level. @guerringuerrin also becomes the second person to accuse me of making unfair assumptions and bigotry, and I address this promptly. @guerringuerrin also mentioned at this point that the definition of cheating is determined by the majority (can't really argue with that), and correctly repeats back my personal definition of cheating (something that breaks a game mechanic directly). I don't think that last part really needs to be said, but it's just for those who are going to try and say I'm cherry-picking my case here by ignoring the real arguments (I'll get to that soon).
27. @MetaPhyZic complains about the unproductivity of this thread. I, personally, think that this thread has been very productive so far, but there are a few things that I need to address before we can move on, which is part of the reason why I'm writing this list.
28. @guerringuerrin says that I have only been making assumptions so far, and nothing of substance has been said, and also says that I do not have the authority to discuss any of this until I have tried "real" competitive multiplayer.
29. @wowgetoffyourcellphone makes a comment that kind of makes it sound like I'm only using this thread to rationalize my usage of ProGUI, which makes no sense because I don't even use it, and don't plan to use it for anything other than out of curiosity (because it's been brought up so much already), and because I have already stated why I am writing this thread, which is because I believe that this project is promising, but I am worried that too many people are working on a free software game design project despite not understanding the true values of free software, which has me worried about the future of the project.

So, there you have it. Not really short at all, but better than nothing. This is a decently-sized thread, after all, and I think it has been productive. Now, @guerringuerrin, I personally dare you to write your own list of every assumption I have made in this thread, followed by the truth that I am missing. Don't just say that I am making baseless assumptions and walk away.

I have said this multiple times before: if I am misunderstanding something, I want people to correct me, and not just call out my assumptions without any real opportunity for clarification. This way, we can move past the misunderstandings, and move on productively.

Admittedly, even I am starting to get frustrated with the circular arguments and personal attacks, but I believe that my thread doesn't have to end this way. And if a subset of people are not being productive in the debate, the other productive members can just block them out and carry on.

I'm going to be away for the computer for a week, so I won't be available to continue to participate in this discussion until about April. We'll just have to see what happens. All I'm saying is that I do think that this thread has been everything I wanted it to be, and I'm not ready to give up yet.