Today I played a nomad FFA where I lost to a French knight snipe from the other side of the map. At first I though I just didn’t scout well and the timing wasn’t good as I just had a fight. However, after watching the replay in his POV, I am very confident that he is map hacking: he looked at black screen very frequently, sent armies and vills DIRECTLY to enemy landmarks/vills, and stone/gold in the dark, etc.
My in-game name is Akko, you can look at my nomad FFA replay with a French player named xxx (edited for ‘name-calling’)
I will give some examples here, but these are by no means inclusive, just some obvious ones. The message here is that he’s been constantly able to send vills to stone/gold directly without scouting; send armies to landmarks without scouting for snipe, constantly looks right on top of opponents’ armies in the dark. Here are the time stamps:
0:19-0:47 looks at dark/unscouted locations and sends vills directly to a favroubale corner with fishing eco, etc.
1:02-1:20, 2:00 sees a nearby enemy town center in the dark, immediately pulls vills to kill it.
5:00-800 scouting: really bad scouting pattern that covered little of the map, yet he was able to send the scout DIRECTLY to where sheep were
12:50-13:40, 16:00: 'sees a Rus proxy landmark in the dark, immediately makes stables and rallies knight into the hidden landmark in the dark. Also directly goes Rus’s proxy base without scouting.
27:32-27:35
28:45
29:26-29:35 checking path to China’s base
31:25-31 (looking on top of Mongol army in the dark)
32:00 check my (Akko’s) landmarks
32:20 looks at my food eco in the dark, immediately sends knights
32:35 looks at wood villagers in the dark, immediately sends knights
34:30 sees more buildings, immediately sends knights; villagers accurately send to stones and gold spots with perfect path
35:06 sees my gold hidden villagers that are far away, sends knights directly
38:00 checks Mongol villagers on stepp redout sends units
38:10 sees my new landmark, immediately sends knight straight to it
39:03 checks Mongol’s landmarks
41:28 camera right on top of nearby China (name:pathofeden) productions and landmarks
41:33 looks at China’s forward villagers
41:38 looks right on top of Mongol army
42:10: checks entrance to China’s base
43:00-45:00 directly goes to China’s exposed buildings and villagers
46:05 checks entrance to China’s base again
54:10 looks on top of gates to China’s base
56:22 looks at China’s main army (right on top)
59:10 looks at China’s main army (right on top)
59:40 checks Mongol’s base
1:00:05 checks path and location for a proxy to landmark snipe Mongol
1:00:30 China’s army and gates
1:06:10 China’s water eco
1:06:16 Checking locations of Mongol’s landmarks
1:07:39 Looking at China’s army
1:11:00-1:12:30 landmark-snipes Mongol by sending army DIRECTLY on top of them in the dark with perfect precision
1:14:10 checks remaining Mongol’s remaining landmarks
1:17:10 looks for the hidden Mongol landmark in the dark and goes directly to it
1:17:30 checks China’s base after snipping Mongol
1:20:10-32 (long nice look on a dark screen) examines Chinese productions and landmark locations
1:20:50 sees trebs in the dark out of position immediately sends knights directly to kill it
1:25:35 checks path for snipe
1:30:50 checks China’s landmark locations
I’ve already sent an in-game report, but due to the character limitation, I couldn’t provide the full evidence. So I am re-posting it here to let the devs know that map hacking is 100% real and likely to become more prevelant due to more people playing Nomad now.