Dom2 file formats

[alexti]

Originally posted by Johan K:

quote:

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Originally posted by Arralen:
pro:
Some folks could start working on "external", nation-specific AIs.
(I still wonder if you could write one in F77 ...)

con:
Some folks would start working on cheats and exploits to ruin multiplayer games ...

The problem with releasing info on the save files is that the 'con' part is very very much easier to do than the 'pro' part. Doing an external AI for Dominions 2 would be a humongous task. That said I believe the most common use for this info would be cheating. [/QB]

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I'm not sure how the information exchange is organized, but in principle, tampering with the 2h and trn files should not be a problem. trn essentially contains the projection of the world state for the specific nation and 2h contains player's instructions on what to do. As long as the server verifies logical validity of 2h file, the scheme is well protected.

If for example, the cheater modifies trn file to increase his earth gem treasury to 500, so that the client will allow him to summon 20 iron dragons, the server will check the command and discover that somebody is casting 20 iron dragons when he only has 10 earth gems (which is known to the server independently from trn and 2h files). The same thing would happen if the cheater has modified his 2h file.

So the only problem here is somebody getting information from other player's turns, but this can be prevented by encrypting the files with some standard method using the password as a key, so that only the person with the correct password can get the information.

Of course, this mechanism is not necessarily easy to implement