Dark Knight

[quantum_mechani]

Xietor said:
it is cheating the same as if you hack someone's turn and did something to it.

This is quite absurd, the two are not remotely comparable. It is far more akin to for instance the accepted tactic of archer decoying, than hacking the game. Now, I have never personally employed the tactic in MP, but I would certainly not hold it against anyone that used it against me.

It takes a good amount of luck to get in a position to take advantage of bogus, and the orders are far from the overwhelming advantage that seems to be implied by most people. It would actually be fairly difficult to use in a gamebreaking way in the lategame where the issue usually occurs.

[Humakty]

And I used to burn Bogus and his squad to cinders while playing an astral heavy faction....
I'm sure that now, I wont see them anymore.

[llamabeast]

Oh sorry, I missed WonderLlama's question.

The only things I can think of at the moment are the issue under discussion, and also casting Mists of Deception before retreating (the battle never ends as more and more misty things appear, until the opponent is beaten). That's also definitely naughty. I think that might be being fixed in the new patch though, although I'm not certain.

[RonD]

Once upon a time, long ago, KO explained the ability of the Dark Knight and the Troll Mage to teach your commanders to "attack commander".

From my memory (so maybe not literal): "I guess he is a great tactician"

Doesn't sound like a bug to me. Maybe an unintended consequence, but what on earth *isn't* an unintended consequence in Dominions?

You are obviously free to make whatever house rules you wish, but to declare anyone who uses that trick as the equivalent of someone who hacks turn files is mighty high-handed.

[llamabeast]

Agreed, RonD. I'm declaring only rules I think should apply to games I host, but they are of course only personal opinions. Hacking files would be on an entirely different level.

[Xietor]

It is cheating. There actually used to be an attack commander option, but it was overpowered and removed.

Cheating-or taking an unfair advantage of other players-is all the same. I would prefer that my files be hacked, rather than have someone use an exploit and kid themselves into thinking they were fighting fairly.

I guess in the end, what the goal should be in any competitive game is that the players all use the same rules.
It is common knowledge that you can copy the dark knight's orders. What I thought was equally well known was that it is an exploit in mp games.

remind me not to let some of you be the banker if we play monopoly!

[quantum_mechani]

It's a slippery slope, if using such orders is cheating, how about archer decoying? What about GoRing tartarians (a non-obvious tactic that I would argue is actually a more potent one than Bogus's orders)?

As such, I'd say it's a tactic like any other: people find blesses and other strategies to be unbalanced in some contexts, and so often explicitly deny or restrict them when setting out rules for a particular game. It is certainly valid to do the same here, but to say it is by default cheating is to enter a quagmire of fuzziness about what is actually cheating.