What's the problem with simply removing the possibility of cheating?
- The client receives all the information about the map, meaning it can be extracted in any case; the question is only about the amount of effort required.
- The client sends back the game state it deems necessary, meaning it can be modified in any direction; therefore, again, the question is only about the amount of effort required.
Guaranteed protection against cheating is only possible by changing the network protocol – having a server that stores all the information about the map, which sends clients only the part of the information they need to know, and which receives not the modified map, but a sequence of actions, which it then interprets into changes to the map.
But this is a colossal task, which even Baratorch is unlikely to be able to handle. Unless the VCMI developers take it on, and even then, it's unlikely, as they are not focused on online play.
