Playing fairly is also a good thing, or so I've heard.

If they're good friends, I am personally okay with that. It means I'm screwed in the game we're all in, but I can live. :)

Metagaming that creates pre-determined alliances is pretty much just as bad as outright cheating, if you ask me. This would be why most of the play by email judges explicitly forbid players who know each other to be in the same game unless all of the players know each other. It's not fair to the other 5 players.

I've played with a friend I know from off-site, and hell, he went about making me lose against a person he didn't know. Friends aren't always biased.

Now, if two people know eachother in real life and decide to form a strong alliance for the majority of the game, there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing stopping the other players from contacting eachother outside of the game and strategizing. So long as it's not one guy with multiple accounts, it should be fine.

"Metagaming that creates pre-determined alliances is pretty much just as bad as outright cheating, if you ask me." They don't always have to be loyal to eachother throughout the game.

perhaps if you told the people you were playing with at the begining of the game, "hey me and xxxxx know each other and are tight buddies and will be effectively playing as one person controlling two countries, hope you don't mind." no it wouldn't be as bad (but still metagaming) but at least others would know that you are doing it before you juggernaut.. if you honestly played the game without your friendship pre-determining your decisions, it would not be metagaming, but refusing diplomatic means based solely on your existing "tight" relationship and on the conditions that exist solely in the game.. that's wrong..

Well, we weren't exactly trying to "play as one person controlling two countries," but I will apologize for any unfairness our alliance may have caused.

madbasilisk, my comments were more directed towards Shardz, i'm not sure what the factors and events were in your case..

I mean, I'll be staying away from any game with the two of them in the future, but I think that's just a fair reaction to their fair maneuver.

If you've got a difficultly with an alliance that looks too strong, then thats where diplomacy comes it - you'll have to try and break it up.

Personally, I doubt I would hold any strong alliance with somebody I knew over anybody else at all. It just defeats the purpose of the game for me, the fun. I mean, when I play at home with friends around a board I don't ally based on how much I like each person. It's as much about beating up on your best friends as anything else. I just bring that up to the people in this position, I can't say I've decided on whether its cheating, but its stupid to not take advantage of a players mistakes, and its fun to backstab on your friends right? If it weren't who would play the game? Not that I'm planning a backstab hehehe...hahaha...muahahahahahahaha!!!

I'm annoyed by the amount of people who come to a game called diplomacy, for crying out loud, and then turn into crying, simpering masses when they find out that horror of horrors, players have an alliance. Maybe it's even preconcieved, or the people who were started it were friends; this is what happens in real life, it's what happens in the game in real life, and it happens in politics in real life. So it makes the game harder. So? Let's say it's two players... There's a whole sea of people who will ally with you if you play your cards right. Three, or four? Then sow dissent! That's part of diplomacy? Five, six, seven? Then they're playing their own game, and it's no biggie.

Please, people. When I hear about 'metagaming' 'rules breaches' and things like that, I think of people hacking the server or doing something drastic. This is a game where people go to have fun, and is people who are friends or relatives or whatever in real life make alliances based on that fact, that's far different from cheating. There's no guarantee such alliance will hold; they're just as likely to backstab as anyone else.

Also, checking IP's is something you do when there is a hacker or a major problem... Or if you want dirt on someone. I think the person I'd be more likely to be worried about is someone who wantonly requests that sort of heavy-handed measure.

Also, looking back, sorry for being heavy-handed... No need for me to take out a bad day on the unsuspecting public. :)

"We just thought that not having to worry about one of our borders is a good thing."

That's the sentence that bothers me. If they truly "don't have to worry" about one stabbing the other, then they're not "just as likely to backstab as anyone else."

I think that the only time this becomes a problem is when an alliance is formed through a means of communication which is not universally accessible. If two players have played face-to-face in the past, they will still be able to play among a group of strangers, be it face-to-face, postal or php, provided that they don't communicate in ways that the other players cannot. To me, barring some telepathic link, this means that as long as people confine themselves to using this site as their sole method of communication, and don't use things like IM or cellphones, it should be possible to have a fair game with a group that contains both strangers and prior acquaintances.

That said, I would deem it unethical (and yes, one can lie about where his army in Galicia is going and still be ethical) for me to play in a mixed group of face-to-face friends and php strangers, since I would be unable to divorce my past experience with a player from my judgments of what he might do in the present game. This ethical dilemma does not exist within our little php world, since any player can draw conclusions based on the public information about an opponent's points and prior games.

So, to sum it up, I think that people who have played together outside of this format may ethically use php, but only in private games. If people are playing public games here, then they should not play with people they have played in other Diplomacy settings without first disclosing this information to the other players.

I can think of no reasonable way to enforce this, just as, in general, there is no reasonable way to enforce any ethical code. Except for guilt. But I don't think Diplomacy players have guilt.

The question i would ask is that, is an alliance between friends any worse than an alliance between strangers who agree not to stab each other at the start of a game?!

Before you ask, i have played with a friend on this site. On one occasion we played the juggernaught and won, on another i stabbed him in Autumn 01 and he was out the game by 04.

The friend thing is tricky. I've played on here for a couple of months and have had a great time. I told my best friend about it (we use to play face to face games in HS) because I was having so much fun. Of course he wanted to play a game with me, but I was afraid of meta gaming. His view was that he was just as willing to stab me now as he was when we were in HS as he wanted to "win". :) I guess it comes down to playing with integrity. Lucky for us, we ended up on opposite sides of the board, so there is no chance for collusion or back stabbing (matter fact I may be eliminated by my own alliance instead). That said, I've already made several online friends here as well and have made some very tight alliances. As I play more and more games, I'm likely to make decisions based on past experiences. While that is potentially bordering on meta gaming, it is also based on risk assessment. What is my best chance of improving my situation so I can win. If its online friend or real life friend... or the opposite, its hard not to pull those experiences into an individual game. In the end I think it comes down to each and everyone of us playing to win. Overall I think "friends" have less affect on the out come of games than Civil Disorder does. Grrrrrr.....Turkey.....Grrrrrr

Basically the only problem I have is that these two players seem so unlikely to stab. I'll be honest, if I played a game with one friend (I'm friends with Zeppflyer) and a bunch of strangers, I'd trust an alliance with him more than with anyone else. They seem to feel the same.

Again, I don't feel like they broke any rules; I just hadn't thought of the possibility of two friends when multilogging sounded more obvious.

But until I see them stab each other in a game, I'll avoid any game that could involve both of them. Not because they broke a rule but because it's poor strategy to join a game with someone else already twice as strong as you. Just as I wouldn't join a game made of thousand-pointers.

I think, and I know Kestas won't agree with me :-) the problem is that second placing is awarded as much as a victory. Why would two players in a strong alliance ever break it if that doesn't earn them any points. If they don't need victory too much, then why would they stab each other. For enjoyment? :-) Going for victory is what breaks alliances and generates stabs

If you take complete control of the map between an alliance, you can then hand over 1SC at the end, and you will in fact end the game with the same number of units...

i don't think that this is a big deal. you need to know who to trust in this game, so I suppose that it can be a little unfair when players have automatic trust. But at the same time, there is nothing stopping you from linking this thread into communication in this game.

BTW, All's fair in love and war.

When I played this game in a face to face enviroment, I had to back stab multiple "close friends" at a time. Now I look forward to the opportunity to, use and stab my best freind for all the times he wronged me. and to be able to do it so publicly is even better... the points dont concern me as much as gettting far away from "Political Puppet" I want the WIN