Isn't allowing a friendship to Affect a game called metagaming and not against the rules?
I don't mean one of them committing suicide to give his friend the advantage (this never works btw) or discussing a gunboat game, but I do mean that if they've an inclination to ally together because their friends, its not cheating.

Metagaming is against the rules Geofram.

There is a certain amount of metagaming you can't avoid. If I'm unsure who to ally with, and I know one player well (whether he's a decent player, whether he's going to stab me in Spring 1901...) and don't know the other, it's impossible to stop that from having an effect on my decision.

You can't make an alliance or a rivalry based on a real-life relationship. That's definitely against the rules.

When playing with real life associates, you must be prepared to attack or stab them. Always allying with them is most definitely against the rules.

@figle, I had forgotten that section of the rules, but I had also forgotten how awful "You can't make alliances for reasons outside a game" is worded. This is impossible and is broken every day.

In regards to alliances, what difference is there between a real-life relationship and a relationship on the site itself? There are always going to be outside influences that have an effect on games. Whether it be the fact that I've looked at every single game in which you've ever played France and seen a pattern, or know your personality enough to manipulate you into either hating me or liking me, or know when you most often get online so I can have longer and more in-depth conversations with you than anyone else can.

There are players that compliment each other on this site, some don't even recognise it. They never encourage it, but when found in a game together, they just naturally get along and are more easy to ally together. It's not being a metagamer, its being a human.

There's a fine line between friends that compliment each other without it being called metagaming and the friends that compliment each other that is called metagaming. But being roommates rather than penpals does not matter.

And where does it stop Draugnar?
"Well I allied with him last game so I better not this time around?" is just as bad.

Sometimes people just make good allies together and are more apt to ally with them rather than something they don't get along with as well.

I said be willing to stab them. Situational awareness is key.

So its ok as long as I'm willing to stab my partner for the 18th once we both have 16?

It's not a hard and fast rule that can be judged. It's a mindset and even the mods can't prove motivation, just look at patterns.

And there is a huge difference betweedn real life friends and cyber firends.

Doh. Tried to coreect phone typos and accidentally clicked send. Anyhow, the difference is that you can leave cyberfirends behind and not look back, but real life people you potentially see on a regular basis so the attachment is stronger and the motivation to keep each other happy is greater.

Since we are back on the meta-gaming discussion, I want to make a point to mention that in the leagues and tourney's a minor amount of meta is used and allowed (like alliances to prevent someone from winning... alliances of the bottom players to boost their stats, etc...)

so if i understand correctly
there is no way to prevent metagaming unless you do it as a patern
i said to my friend that we should play anonimous and not discuss the game
otherwise it ruines the game
metagaming is a self solutionable isue because i guess metagamers will win points as if it was work and not fun and eventually leave the site out of bordom
am i rigth?

@taos - Pretty good analogy except we have had metastasis/multis hang around because they get a kick out of cheating. But they are rare.

Metas. Not metastasis. And it is still a problem as it has a potentially detrimental affect on the GR of the cheater's opponents.

You're fine to play with your friend as long as you them the same as you would any other player.

dont worry
i am planing to kick his b@
playing anonimous and stab my own friend must be really funny when after the game we discover who was what
haha is just a game
isnt it?

i also discovered recently that in vdiplomacy i can play against him one on one
so we can play together
why there is no option of playing diferent number of players like in the original board game?2-3-4-5

I thought vdip had a 3 player classic board. I know it has a 3 player non-classic board. And there are other maps for 4, 5, 6, etc... on vdip.

webdip has a limited number of maps because kestas wants it that way. Way back when, if you only got 5 or 6 players in a game, it would start with Italy (and Germany) in civil disorder. But people weren't liking that much so he made it so it would only start if you had the full 7 players.