Hi Tomb, thanks for your thougts.
Actually, the execution of your last proposition would result in deleting all (yes, every single one) best times on #12 and #12A.
In your case 2 you describe two totally differnt things. Pumping a town, resetting and claiming it afterwards is propably the most unfair cheating in CB you can do.You would save 5-10 minutes. In my opinion worth a temporary ban.
However, just to wait, till towns grow to a certains size is totally different.
Less of but still definitly cheating would be to prepare the road network.
So presuming, that no preparation of any single tile is happening in case 2, what's the difference to case 3? Actually your mentioned factors do not make the game any harder.
a) If you know what you do, you always have enough resurces available.
b) As described earlier, if you go for a good time, those players who need 1,5 or 2 hours aren't any issue.
Concerning your 2nd thought. You join late games. Where nobody is playing. Isn't that exactly case 2? (Obviously without preparation)
I would like to mention another thought.
In a race, for example a bicycle race, where everyone starts at the same time, all participants have the same temperatures, the same weather and the same time at which they start. In the self-contained competition, there is good comparability of the individual performances.
Now you could apply this 1:1 to a single CB-game. If it is only about the single game, nobody would start later than January 1980. (Maybe Feruary if you waste a lot of time choosing your town)
But the fastest times are not about a single game. It's about (personal) records. A cyclist who sets a record would never be blamed for choosing a day with pleasant temperatures and no rain. Nor would he be blamed for not having started immediately after breakfast, but only at noon, with a tailwind, for example.
No cyclist in the world would start a record attempt in stormy weather or thunderstorms. He would wait for a better day. And it is nothing else to let some time pass in CB.
Another example, which is probably less familiar to people, are central gliding competitions. There all gliders get in the air and after the start line opens, everybody has 2 hours to fly off and thus influence his individual personal start time and conditions. Choosing probably the best takeoff time is part of the strategy. As it is in CB with starting cour company.
Now, coming back to the initial problem of the starting year, I would like to think that only CB players can really decide whether to "wait" is cheating or not. If it is judged as cheating, then all times started after January 1980 must be deleted. Regardless of whether you were running the game yourself or other players were playing.
Believe me or not, that wouldn't bother me much. The comparability of the times would be much better. In addition, every attempt would also make sense, because at the moment a start in January 1980 makes just as much sense as trying to set a cycling record during a thunderstorm.
On the other hand, if it only bothers you to run a game with your own account to get to the good starting point, I think you should think twice before really bothering.
Running the game with another account without anyone being able to detect it is as easy as watching your domestically available series abroad.
Not that I would do such thing. Got enough other things to worry in my life.
edit: the thing with the game I would't do, I obviously do watch series of other countries with VPN.
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