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Total Members Voted: 66

[AzuredreamsXT]

To force quit and load the autosave so i could use a new method to tell my broker to trade, instead of harvesting plants and dicking around despite him being requested at the depot?

[Necro910]

I'd say no, because you're manually correcting an annoying quirk in the game. Technically it is savescumming, but it has a good cause.

[melphel]

This is a single player sandbox game.  Nothing is cheating unless you think it is.

Personally, I would not hold myself above doing that.

[AzuredreamsXT]

I want the communities' and forum elder's opinions on this, i can't decide myself. I need their honest wisdom here

[GaxkangtheUnbound]

It's not really cheating unless you think it is, as melphel said. That's all there is to it.

[AzuredreamsXT]

When unsure, turn to elder's for advice!

[Shmadolf Shmitler]

Dude, tearing apart the very laws of time and space just to get a better deal on a trade is one of the single most dwarfy things I can think of!

[Bricktop]

With singleplayer games like this I think the definition of cheating pretty much comes down to why you do it and what sort of game you want to play.

Example: Before the combat overhaul I used to always edit ranged weapons out of the civ raws for kobolds, goblins, and humans and refused to create any of my own for my dwarves because... well... assualt-rifle crossbows always felt a bit broken to me and the game just seemed to balance out so much better with ranged weapons almost entirely taken out. (Weirdly, I never did it for evles though. The reasoning I think was that if I mess up enough to make them attack me I deserve to have trouble fighting them).

Another example would be when people edit the reaction raws to give themselves unlimited resources... which would cearly be cheating except it makes sence if you are playing the fortroess mode simply to make cool places for adventurers to explore.

Basically, as long as you don't lie about your achievements to the community I'd say nothing is cheating.

Bricktop

[Mickey Blue]

You know with the whole "Its not a cheat if its in a single player game" thing is something I've said myself but the more I think about it the more I think this attitude has come because people don't want to admit that things they do may amount to 'cheating'.

I mean waaaay back with Doom you had 'cheats' even though it was a single player game.  There is the cheat code in Contra to get 30 guys, there were cheat codes in Starcraft (for single player).. There are literally countless examples of cheats existing in single player games.

If I give myself god mode (invincibility, for you young-uns) in Doom would anybody seriously look at me with a straight face and say "Well no, of course that's not cheating, unless you think it is". 

Cheating is not some zen concept, it either is or it isn't.  I think with regards to single player games you simply have to look at it as "Does it matter".  If I 'cheat' at Doom, or download a walkthrough for the latest RPG game, I am cheating.. But the only person it impacts (for better or worse) is myself, nobody else.

Now Dwarf Fortress becomes somewhat more complex in that there are not 'cheat codes' as we are accustomed to but rather exploits.  In that vein I would say that I am now (after said introspection) comfortable saying that save scumming (barring I guess a bug or something), danger rooms, etc are 'cheats'.  Calling them something else or leaving the word 'cheat' up to individuals to define themselves is simply inaccurate and (I suspect) a way to free ourselves of admitting that we may, on occasion, cheat at a game (which has a negative connotation to many).  But in reality its just about playing the game in the way that gives us the most fun, whether it be having a formidable fighting force a few seasons in, or mowing down enemies in a FPS without taking a point of damage or ever having our ammo run dry.

So in answer to the OP's question; yes, I think it is cheating.  You are save-scumming for reasons outside of correcting a bug of some kind to net yourself a gain.  The real question you have to ask is "am I enjoying the game more or less as a result".  If the answer is "more" then you made the right decision.

[Garath]

since your people are idiots and the game is hard enough to master as it is, nothing is cheating untill YOU decide you should do without something

[Oliolli]

At the basis, you were fixing an AI quirk, not something Fun happening. I can't really see that as cheating.

...nothing is cheating untill YOU decide you should do without something

I always make do without marksdwarves.

[jasonwill2]

ive done this before with adventurer mode when i was pissed that my guy got killed. i would get him to work up to killing titaans and reverting was easier. also did it once or twice until my adventurer got the killing blow.

its really not cheating in my book, since its just a way to  get out of the lack of a standard save/load feature

[NightlinerSGS]

Apart from this discussion, OP needs to learn how to use dwarf therapist/burrows to make his broker do the stuff he want him to do.

[Random_Physics_Nerd]

ive done this before with adventurer mode when i was pissed that my guy got killed. i would get him to work up to killing titaans and reverting was easier. also did it once or twice until my adventurer got the killing blow.

its really not cheating in my book, since its just a way to  get out of the lack of a standard save/load feature

Doing that with the normal save/load systems in other games is where the phrase "save-scumming" originated I think, and it seems this discusion is about whether or not save-scumming is a cheat or not. In your case, you were reviving the dead, I would call that cheating. In the Op's case, he's correcting a problem cause by the game's AI, which I would say is straddling the line.

[melphel]

Cheating is not some zen concept, it either is or it isn't.  I think with regards to single player games you simply have to look at it as "Does it matter".  If I 'cheat' at Doom, or download a walkthrough for the latest RPG game, I am cheating.. But the only person it impacts (for better or worse) is myself, nobody else.

That's just it though.  The only thing using a cheat in a single player game will do is deprive you of the satisfaction of doing something the hard way, assuming there was any satisfaction to be had in the first place.  What is being missed out on is what needs to be under inspection.  If a cheat just bypasses a lot of tedium, or shortcuts through something that would only have ended in frustration, it isn't that bad.  It's up to the individual to decide what is too tedious or frustrating.
 
Dwarf Fortress also differs from games like Doom in that it has no clear objective, no predefined goals, and no dictated methods of play.  The methods one takes to accomplish what they set out to do is up to as much interpretation as the goal itself. 

"Cheat" implies that something is being taken away or is being denied.  If a person is only cheating themselves, they are the only one who can determine if what happened was cheating.  We can't accurately say he was going to have more or less fun if he didn't save scum.

People not wanting to admit that they are cheating is a distinct possibility, but it is not true for all cases.