Hi everybody,
(Background information - for actual question see below)
I am trying to adjust my hotkeys and in the process I am considering what is possible and what not. In general, I want to have a layout where my hand would be in the center of the keyboard (because I am used to the H+C for towncenter+villager, and so on). Something I never liked about that type of layout is that important keys are far away (most importantly: CTRL, SHIFT and ALT). In order to create a control group, I would like to do something like Z+number (using a QWERTZ-keyboard) and instead of SHIFT or ALT I would like to use Spacebar instead. But apparently, CTRL, SHIFT and ALT are special and you can only do combinations of keys with these.
If I'm not wrong, gaming keyboards often use a software that allows you to change the values you are pressing. But since I am using an ordinary keyboard, I was looking for a different way. Probably, there exist various ways of doing what I want, but this is the most convenient way I found currently:
I installed AutoHotkey and with that software I can run a script that "presses" CTRL whenever I press "z" (the script is one line and looks like this: z::Ctrl). And it works perfectly as intended (only downside is that if you were to type something in the chat, you cannot use the letter "z" anymore. But I can live with that for the moment).
(Actual question)
But now comes the tricky part: As I understand that AutoHotkey software, it would also be possible to write a more sophisticated script that let's you execute some sort of macro. You physically press one button, but it executes a list of orders (for example: select all archery ranges, create an archer). And as I remember, I think it was in the early days of DE, there was a discussion about it which concluded that it is cheating. I also remember that there was a way to deselect a monk from a group of monks with one click and it was considered cheating as well.
I fully agree with that and my question is wheter there can be drawn a line and wheter it is possible to detect somebody using a macro (and at which points something starts to be a macro?). I imagine that on voobly, the anti-cheat would detect me using a script. Does something similar happen in DE as well (I only tried the script in singleplayer so far)?
I am asking these questions because I don't want to start a new dynasty of cheaters, and on AoEZone we were talking a lot about cheaters lately. Other than that, soon there will be a Swiss AoE2 tournament and I would like to get back in shape with new hotkeys and tryharding on the 1vs1-ladder again. But if no difference can be seen between my usage of AutoHotkey and that one of a macro-cheater, then I rather won't use it.
Second question then: What would be the easiest way to do what I want (let's say swapping the CTRL and the Z key) without using a software that allows scripting macros?
(Background information - for actual question see below)
I am trying to adjust my hotkeys and in the process I am considering what is possible and what not. In general, I want to have a layout where my hand would be in the center of the keyboard (because I am used to the H+C for towncenter+villager, and so on). Something I never liked about that type of layout is that important keys are far away (most importantly: CTRL, SHIFT and ALT). In order to create a control group, I would like to do something like Z+number (using a QWERTZ-keyboard) and instead of SHIFT or ALT I would like to use Spacebar instead. But apparently, CTRL, SHIFT and ALT are special and you can only do combinations of keys with these.
If I'm not wrong, gaming keyboards often use a software that allows you to change the values you are pressing. But since I am using an ordinary keyboard, I was looking for a different way. Probably, there exist various ways of doing what I want, but this is the most convenient way I found currently:
I installed AutoHotkey and with that software I can run a script that "presses" CTRL whenever I press "z" (the script is one line and looks like this: z::Ctrl). And it works perfectly as intended (only downside is that if you were to type something in the chat, you cannot use the letter "z" anymore. But I can live with that for the moment).
(Actual question)
But now comes the tricky part: As I understand that AutoHotkey software, it would also be possible to write a more sophisticated script that let's you execute some sort of macro. You physically press one button, but it executes a list of orders (for example: select all archery ranges, create an archer). And as I remember, I think it was in the early days of DE, there was a discussion about it which concluded that it is cheating. I also remember that there was a way to deselect a monk from a group of monks with one click and it was considered cheating as well.
I fully agree with that and my question is wheter there can be drawn a line and wheter it is possible to detect somebody using a macro (and at which points something starts to be a macro?). I imagine that on voobly, the anti-cheat would detect me using a script. Does something similar happen in DE as well (I only tried the script in singleplayer so far)?
I am asking these questions because I don't want to start a new dynasty of cheaters, and on AoEZone we were talking a lot about cheaters lately. Other than that, soon there will be a Swiss AoE2 tournament and I would like to get back in shape with new hotkeys and tryharding on the 1vs1-ladder again. But if no difference can be seen between my usage of AutoHotkey and that one of a macro-cheater, then I rather won't use it.
Second question then: What would be the easiest way to do what I want (let's say swapping the CTRL and the Z key) without using a software that allows scripting macros?