Why would someone cheat in a game as easy as Zeus?

I would faster cheat in Pharaoh I:

Besides, what's the avenue trick? It's first time I hear about such a thing... also, doesn't monsters bring down any building they find, including walls and gates??

Well, I know some players who do find certain non-Crtl+Alt+C methods cheating, and aside from those that I mentioned, I can list a few other additional methods some consider cheating:

- Animal spawning points could be used to build free roads; roads where you don't have to pay a single drachma on, no matter the length. Just take note of any animal spawn point, and you can build incredibly long lengths of roads that won't cost a single drachma as long as you count the animal spawn point as one of the roads.

And even if you place a road tile on it, this trick can work again and again and again, as long as you drive the road to that particular tile.

- The Demeter Sanctuary trick, where building farms around the meadow it creates, and then deleting the sanctuary could still make the ground fertile and make the farm still operate as is, despite the meadow being removed.

- With tidal waves and permanent floods, you can use the delete/undo button to conserve the buildings the floods would destroy on their way, creating what I like to call, the Jesus building. The building you deleted/undo'd would stand on the water after a permanent flood, as if it stood on land. Save the game and load it up again, and there would be land surrounding the building which you could connect to the mainland with bridges and it would operate again. (I could actually think of something interesting to do here. )

- Faster spawning merchants: Perhaps you might even be able to get immediate merchants coming to your city, by killing the ones exiting away. Maybe guiding them to a wolf-site or something. I haven't tried this so this one is only just a small hypothesis. I think you could do that in the other games? Not so sure.

- The avenue trick you've been asking about is actually more of a bug in the game, really. You set up a road adjacent to and under a 1x elevated cliff and you build the avenue/boulevard on that road. You will end up with an alternative pathway to the cliff, but you'll also get a really distracting image tile which you could never delete, so it's more annoying than helpful.

- Also, the question you posed here: "doesn't monsters bring down any building they find, including walls and gates??" - Not necessarily so. If you set a monster's specific target as let's say.. Industry or food, then you could use walls to "guide their way" towards their target. As long as you give them a path to go to their target and not block them, they are unlikely to destroy the walls you built. Then, when they eventually reach their target, block their path with a wall and open another path by deleting a distant wall.

I've done this a million times before when I didn't know about the delete/undo trick. Of course, if you set it to random, that's another story.

- Using watchmen to take down an angry god/goddess. Note which tile the angry god/goddess is spawned in. Build a road on it along with as many watchposts as you can that could patrol on that tile. When the angry god appears, he/she is forced to deal with the countless watchmen fighting him/her and eventually, he/she will disappear and would no longer pose a threat to your city. I've done this quite a few times before, and it mostly works. Using heroes is another way to do it too.

- Ares sanctuary. I've read this somewhere in an old thread here, where if you move the sparti flags out of the sanctuary, delete the sanctuary and undo it, you will have more than 2 sparti flags/banners. I can't remember if that was it, I've read this somewhere in this forum a long time ago. I've forgotten to experiment it, so I'm unsure whether this is in fact true. I kind of wanted to utilize this trick in another thermopylai-style adventure in the future, but I decided not to. The old thermopylai style adventure seems pretty cliche anyway, so... :/

- Other tricks to summon heroes - like summoning Odysseus immediately after placing elite housing, before they lose their "residence" form; so as not to have to waste countless valuable employment use on culture buildings to evolve them again (Like in my previous thread); OR using columns instead of walls to summon Theseus etc.

There are so many things I could think of which some may consider cheating, but I genuinely believe many of those are just elements that come with the game. - But some of those, like the Jesus building trick, are those I certainly don't want to do, as it definitely counts as cheating in my view.

[This message has been edited by Mazeppa (edited 10-21-2015 @ 07:12 AM).]

Oooh. Actually didn't know about any of this stuff o_o

I just use Ambrosia when I'm testing my missions so I can check further episodes without need to build cities earlier. Otherwise, I don't use cheats at all.

To me everything that's not Ctrl+Alt+C is not cheating (or at least, that's what it used to be? )

Actually I've never tried or even thought of many of the tricks you mentioned. Especially the tidal wave one is very cool! I once had to restart my Atlantis Reborn campaign because the island where I was contructing the required pyramid vanished in a flood...

The watchmen thing can't count as cheating, you're just sacrifing the lives of your brave watchmen for the benefit of the city. The Undo thing on the other hand may be thought of as cheating, but I've always done it (unlike Fireballs or Delian Treasure, which I never really used).

Looks like I just found a few more things after playing hannabad's new adventure. Maybe I should post a screenshot or something. I dunno.

I kinda like how hannabad made use of those @G codings in the .txt files.
He's the 2nd designer I've ever seen to do that.

[This message has been edited by Mazeppa (edited 11-29-2015 @ 07:29 AM).]

Okay, I believe I've figured that it's worthwhile screenshotting some of the things I've found here, as me explaining things in words would only serve to confuse people. XD And I've found some other strange things too. Let's start with the "free roads" trick. Like I've mentioned before in this post, you can build free roads no matter how long they are, as long as you connect it to an animal spawn point.

Here's an example.
https://fbcdn-photos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xaf1/v/t1.0-0/p180x540/12342638_917738958320984_5301670899346715229_n.jpg?oh=17393e7897249d376cdc20f368913191&oe=571C4100&__gda__=1461883623_8a69d09156ad07a41aa975b00cc8182b

This is one of the maps I've created in the third adventure I made, and as you could see, there are wolves located at the meadow on top of the mountain's peak. The middle wolf up there, is where the spawn point is located.

Even if you drive the road starting from that point to anywhere in the map, it'll utter this message:
https://fbcdn-photos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/v/t1.0-0/p180x540/12310415_917739094987637_4781219337948963545_n.jpg?oh=20cb923ab331d5edfadad50b8aea676f&oe=56DAA9FC&__gda__=1457282881_e97d738a34ac6a8516f00d83090d9800

But if you take notice, it didn't reduce the money you had before you placed the roads. I should've ended up around 1,127 drachmas poorer, but I still retained the money I originally had. You could even repeat this method with other roads, even if you got that road placed on the animal spawn point. As long as you count it as part of the roads, you will never lose money from placing roads. Unfortunately, this only worked with roads. Parks and walls and other structures oddly do reduce the money you started with.

Roads on cooled lava
Here's another thing I've found whilst playing hannabad's newest adventure:
https://fbcdn-photos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfp1/v/t1.0-0/p180x540/12299105_917738954987651_6264540933065959115_n.jpg?oh=50c8550ce7573196e52c9ffeee8ba8f6&oe=56D8C811&__gda__=1457443873_5f2a9012dadc45272c7be103cb04dd44

You could use roadblocks with the delete/undo trick to prevent cooled lava from blocking other needed resources. Thus, those workers there could still operate on the silver "blocked" by lava as normal, as long as the roadblock is there. I believe if you remove the roadblock, the cooled lava is still there and would still block anything it supposed to block in the first place.

Also, like the Jesus building I mentioned above, you could prevent buildings from being destroyed by lava from the same delete/undo trick, and you could make some really nice eye-candy sometimes, like the trading post here in Genis' adventure.

https://fbcdn-photos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xap1/v/t1.0-0/p180x540/12342622_917738961654317_5177244113309016227_n.jpg?oh=ee7a267e7b03b979e480fda8b587251f&oe=5720BEA6&__gda__=1457976568_5888d1bcc6f510bff19981d61adaf7fa

Resources raided from rivals it would not normally sell.
Another thing I discovered from playing Zeus and Europa was this: https://fbcdn-photos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xap1/v/t1.0-0/p180x540/12345468_917774824984064_5085221042576199112_n.jpg?oh=cc81cb896e7e68e2d249dcfff7287028&oe=571F0936&__gda__=1458015848_2f980e67f4039c1be2200bf8f3fe47e5

As you see, I got onions raided from Mt. Cithaeron, but if you know the adventure well, you'll know that this city doesn't sell anything, but only buys wine in the 2nd episode. Apparently, the game likes to keep a memory of what you raided before, but doesn't know that you clicked on another city instead of the same one. I even had sculpture raided from that city, and even 24 amphorae of wine.

From the other disasters like earthquakes and landslides, I haven't experimented them yet as of now, but one day I will if I have the time.

[This message has been edited by Mazeppa (edited 12-07-2015 @ 03:00 PM).]

Guys, do you think that using Ambrosia to find what will happen in the next episodes (from the text, the world map etc.) and then going back to your savegame counts as cheating?

^ Well, for the record, I never do that.
But that's just me I guess.

Also, the Ares sanctuary bug actually works!! And this even works with the Artemis one too. All you have to do is muster the Ares/Artemis squadrons and move their banner away from the sanctuary. Delete the sanctuary and build it again.

Do NOT press undo, or the trick would never work. You must rebuild it with the same marble, wood and sculpture as you did the first time. Once it completes, you will end up from 8 per squadron, to 16 per squadron. As you get 2, you will get 32 troops in total from the Ares/Artemis sanctuary bug.

Unfortunately, deleting the sanctuary the third time will delete the 2 squadron banners and thus, you'll get back to 8 per squadron. BUT!! If you attack a city with 16 sparti in 1 squadron, and lose 1 or 2, you could increase the number to 23 hoplites in 1 banner!!

Really neat little trick!
And for proof, here's a screenshot of this trick. :P

https://fbcdn-photos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfp1/v/t1.0-0/p180x540/12347873_919431941485019_6537184116328906613_n.jpg?oh=38ee1bf7f7be72236845e87aa89605dd&oe=56D9980D&__gda__=1461355325_3989c8b7fac888161a3425be9a143e83

As you can see, I lost 2 sparti in each banner when I conquered a 2 shield city. By rebuilding Ares sanctuary, I replaced the 2 with 8 more, increasing the number to 22 sparti in each banner; amounting to 44 sparti in total. You could do the same with Artemis' amazons too.

EDIT: Here's another dilemma. I wonder what happens if you evolve elite housing just after you send your troops out to conquer? :P

[This message has been edited by Mazeppa (edited 12-11-2015 @ 02:34 AM).]

I had 4 sanctuaries in the "Atlantis reborn" adventure. I got tired of the Sanctuary workers nicking my food for sacrifices. So I built 10 artisan guilds and set the priority for Mythology to low. That way I depleted the sanctuaries of workers and got to keep my food.

Just found something so damn awesome!! :P

Use the fireballs of heaven cheat on the water, where you think the tidal waves would occur.

- The tidal wave event fires as normal
- After the tidal wave event ends, land will form on top of the water, where you used the "Fireballs from Heaven" cheat.

So basically, you can manipulate certain disaster events when playing the game, to make something new and creative.

Too lazy to get a pic and upload it here, but I made a save for it, in case I'll decide to upload it in the future.

EDIT:
And with the avenue bug I posted above, using the fireballs from heaven cheat destroys the bug, and the cliff would return to normal. But you have to use the cheat on a 6x6 area or something to completely revert the bug to normal.

EDIT2:
I didn't want to reveal this secret, as I'll be putting this in my adventure (given that you'll be starting from a .SAV file), and only wanted to reveal it in the right time. But I changed my mind, so here goes:

BRIDGE TRICK:
Imagine you're seeing two cliffs, with a river in between. There's no water around, but there are all sorts of trees and rocks - something truly natural.

A tidal wave occurs, which covers the two cliffs with water, revealing a pond in each cliff. Now, you can build a bridge.

When the tidal wave reforms, both sections of the bridge will be destroyed, revealing only the middle part of the bridge intact, as long as the tidal wave didn't engulf the middle river.

This middle section can link the 2 cliffs together, and can be used as an alternative path. E.g. Let's say there's an immigration point in one of the cliffs. Immigrants can use this middle section to travel to the other cliff across the river, which was inaccessible in the first place. Basically, walkers can use it to cross to the other side.

May seem confusing, but I'll add it in my adventure and demonstrate it from there. - Can't believe there are so many secrets to discover in Zeus, even now. xD

[This message has been edited by Mazeppa (edited 12-31-2016 @ 09:12 AM).]

Most of the 'cheats' listed I've never even heard of, and yes, I'd consider them to be cheats, as they circumvent intended gameplay.

The 'avenue on a cliff' thing - I know that one, having found it accidentally - would be considered more of a goof in the programming rather than a cheat... unless you're using it to access a section of plateau that normally couldn't be reached.

The Demeter one I've never heard of before, but it makes sense, as far as the game engine - Farms have certain requirements, and once those requirements are met, the Farm will stay in place (as long as it has a road and Maintenance coverage).

Building Walls to direct a Monster isn't really cheating, though you have to know what targets they're set for and what their strength is (Passive, etc.). Semi-cheating, maybe.

As I said, I'd consider all of them to be cheats, and I don't use cheats... aside from 'Mammaldrome' when I've got a Hippodrome running, because it doesn't affect gameplay; it's just a visual choice. The same with 'Cheese Puff' - it's just a visual choice and doesn't affect gameplay. 'Bowvine and Arrows' is just plain silly... seeing Orichalc-equipped towers shooting cows... one of the designers was obviously a Monty Python fan. But again, that one doesn't affect gameplay.

All of the other Ctrl-Alt-C cheats are indeed cheats, allowing you to get further along in an episode / adventure than you would by playing normally; it's like knowing your opponent's cards by using a mirror... not good.

Looks like I've found another oddity as well. o_O

This one isn't really in the category of methods that can be exploited for cheating, and it's more of a bug in the game (and I'm not sure if this is also the same for Zeus)... I should've named this thread "Other Zeus oddities" or something. Ah well.

When a tidal wave occurs, set up a bridge as soon as the tidal wave allows one to be set up. When the tidal wave ends, it will destroy that bridge in the process and you will end up with roads on the same place. Press the undo button and you will turn that tidal wave into a Flood!!

Meaning that you can convert a temporary tidal wave into a permanent flood in the game, and this would add marvels of creativity if you made an adventure that requires opening a .sav file to start your adventure. You can generate two different maps in one map file, which is really cool.

- Ares sanctuary. I've read this somewhere in an old thread here, where if you move the sparti flags out of the sanctuary, delete the sanctuary and undo it, you will have more than 2 sparti flags/banners. I can't remember if that was it, I've read this somewhere in this forum a long time ago. I've forgotten to experiment it, so I'm unsure whether this is in fact true. I kind of wanted to utilize this trick in another thermopylai-style adventure in the future, but I decided not to. The old thermopylai style adventure seems pretty cliche anyway, so... :/

To get the unlimited Ares/Artemis army. Actually I have just tested it, you have to do exactly and repeat with the following step:

1. Build Ares/Artemis sanctuary
2. Pick the Ares/Artemis army flag and move it out of the sanctuary
3. Send (marching) Ares/Artemis soldiers to the army flag
4. Delete Ares/Artemis sanctuary
5. Build new Ares/Artemis sanctuary
6. Repeat step 2 to step 5 if you want to get unlimited Ares/Artemis army

Note: After build the new one, the Ares/Artemis army flag location will reset to basic location at the sanctuary and the number of soldiers will increase also.

This one is not really an "exploit" in the game, but is something that's really cool. But I can't really remember how to do it since I've found this years ago, so I could be wrong on the method.

For any custom adventure, make a notepad.txt file (or any other file), and just save it in your adventure's folder. Then go back to it and change the extension from .txt to .mp3, like this:

adventurename_P1_i.mp3 --- (ch 1 intro)
adventurename_P1_v.mp3 --- (ch 1 victory)... etc
adventurename_A_v.mp3 --- (adventure finish)

If you did it right, you'll end up with the music you'd normally hear in all of Impressions' adventures in the chapter intro and victory texts when playing your custom adventure, which could help players read your story - especially if its very long and detailed - and make your story more immersive.


The rationale behind it is that the game automatically loads this music in any adventure when you give your adventure an mp3 file (usually a voiceover), but it still works even if said file is 0 kb.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Another oddity is that in adventure texts, you can change the color of your letters green by adding "@" before every word.

E.g. A sentence like @The @cat @was @orange would simply change the color of all the words in the text to Green whenever you play your adventure. However, there are some characters that aren't compatible with the @, like "G" because the game uses @G numbers (@G1, @G2 etc) in the adventure text to generate pictures.

These are the same pictures you'd find in the game tutorial texts. So you can't use words like "gas" or "game" etc. I could describe more detail about G numbers, but this will make this post more long than I'd like it to be.


I'm guessing you can use the green color to drive players' attention in the story, or give clearer hints.. which would be really nice.

[This message has been edited by Mazeppa (edited 08-01-2021 @ 03:25 PM).]

I think this is a bug, heroes can be turned to stone and I really don't know why they're turned to stone.Is it because of Atlas or something else?

Sorry, but the Demeter cheat, is a cheat against the player and not the game, considering the sanctuaries' cost.

Weird. I can't see the rest of what you put.

Got it!

Quoted from Lisa1212:

Sorry, but the Demeter cheat, is a cheat against the player and not the game, considering the sanctuaries' cost.

Weird. I can't see the rest of what you put.

Got it!

Hi Lisa1212,

Yeah, it's been ages since I've put these images up and most of them might not be working now, but I'll try to update them when I have the time.. (been too busy these days!).

You have a point with the demeter cheat however, and yeah, it comes at a financial cost/drain for the player, given the heavy marble, sculpture, wood, and money cost.