Re: Does Turbo Mouse ruin Stronghold Crusader Gameplay?

Posted by Dr.Peabody on Feb 05, 2010; 5:13pm
URL: http://the-best-of-crusader.24.s1.nabble.com/Does-Turbo-Mouse-ruin-Stronghold-Crusader-Gameplay-tp4470897p4521033.html

SHC has, out of necessity, pushed me to develop a 13x+ per second click speed.  This is a huge advantage over those who can not yet click that fast.  Though, sometimes it feels like my hand is gonna fall off lol; I'd almost consider it a design flaw of the game to not have a multi-clicker, much like you'd see in other RTS (like holding down ctrl or shift, for example, to click 5 or 10 times.)

Let's stop for a second to define a cheat.  

What is a cheat?  I'd generally think of a cheat as a deliberate unfair advantage beyond certain defined boundaries of the game, usually by some aid to alter the game, else an exploitation of a glitch.  Is it cheating that I can click faster than another person?  No, of course not - that would fall under the category of physical skill.

What if, however, one had 2 mice?  That would then enable them to click faster than one with only a single mouse,  potentially giving a significant advantage.  But it seems silly to call someone a cheater because they have better hardware - two mice, just as it would be silly to call someone a cheater in a FPS game because they have a faster PC or internet connection.  Furthermore, no alterations are being made to the game in any way, and no glitches are being exploited.

What if one had a mouse that physically had a turbo feature?  Again, this would provide an advantage, but again it would seem silly to call someone a cheater because they have better hardware.  To make another analogy, it would be like calling an athlete a cheater because he has access to better training equipment.

Now let's look at the software side - a "turbo mouse" program.  This could be as simple as a macro.  Anyone can make a simple macro for their PC.  They could make a macro for multiple clicks.  They could make a macro that presses H for the keep and then scrolls up or down to instantly change taxes.  etc.

 - I know some of you may be thinking it, so I'll bring up another sports analogy:  Steroids.  Pretty much all athletes, theoretically, could use steroids as a "soft" aid to boost their performance, thus giving them an advantage.  This, however, is generally frowned upon in sports.  Before you go and make a link to "turbo mouse", though, I'll tell you that this is a straw-man.  The primary purpose behind banning steroid is an ethical issue related to physical, mental, and physiological health (but the actual effects are debatable.)  Case in point:  Protein shakes can also boost one's physical performance, but no one is gonna go out there and tell an athlete that they can't have one.

So, then, I must fall back of prior premises - said macros can be used any time and are not bound to the game nor alter the game itself in any way.

Protein shake : Steroids  
as
"Turbo Mouse" : Trainer  

It would then seem to me that "Turbo Mouse" is not, in fact, a "cheat".  However, it's still up to the game's community to decide if it's taboo or not, lol.