Playing with people you know is fine. The line comes at agreeing before the game even starts to work together for the whole game. This is a practice known as metagaming, and it's a bannable offense. The line is kind of difficult to draw; it's one of motive, not of result, because friends working together is fine -- the problem is if you're working together because you agreed to work together before the game, as opposed to working together because the in-game situation makes it the most viable option for both of you.

For instance, if you're playing an anon game and talk to your friends outside the game so you know which countries you are, that's a bannable offense.

I think what Diplomat means(by reading his post anyway) is that he wants to play with friends and have pre arranged alliances in order to "conquer the World".

Meta gaming i believe that's called.

And it's always polite and decent sportsmanship to advise others in the game that say the 3 of you know one another and are friends- that way if they see you working together they can make a decision as to whether to eliminate you.

I still don't condone it however

I always wonder how in a gunboat anon game two people can figure out that each is going to take 17 SC's without speaking to each other and then draw.

that i believe would probably point to metagaming....
i've never seen such a game, so if anyone knows one, could you post the link here?
Be good to see the map replay

Baelar,

It has been said that players who do this talk through another chat medium, like AIM or Facebook.

Three way and four way draws in gunboat are very feasible with experienced gunboaters. But a two way would be damned near impossible. Hell, the two way draw in full or public press is a rarity due to the fact that one player pretty much has to reach 17 then sit on his or her ass.

http://www.webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=35604

that game's a poor example, they WERE fighting at the end, so how would you call them meta-gamers or even post that example? I had a game that was 17 17 draw, full press, feel free to look through my hundred games and find it, cause I'm not about to.

Buy the board game and play together, but the point of online is to play alone and use your skills to get other to work with you. Playing with friends is an unfair advantage and doesn't rally show your skill as a player, IMHO.

Yea, the major points of online play is to play games with players around the world

My question was how can two people draw at exactly 17 SC's in a gunboat anon game. I didn't levy any accusations at anyone.

@ Baelar:

You can get a legit 17-17 draw in a gunboat because certain stalemate lines naturally occur, and experienced players getting to this point may decide that a draw is the best ending.

Me and the Czech had one a few days ago. He was England I was austria

Lol someone posted it

It makes me mad cause I could have won

@Baelar: it's not very common, but definitely possible. Stalemate lines can often force that situation and good players recognize that they should just take the draw. The example that you pointed out illustrates that. It's ironic that you think it's illustrating the opposite.

As for the original question: that's just the most basic example of meta-gaming and not allowed on this site.

I actually have quite a lot of friends from real life playing on this website, but to avoid any meta-gaming or other unfairness I follow these rules of thumb:
1) Never play with a mix of friends and strangers. Just better to completely avoid any situations that could be easily misinterpreted as meta-gaming. Also, I feel like just knowing someone and being able to talk to them face-to-face is too big of an imbalance.
2) Okay to play in a game consisting of Only friends, but password protect and keep the pot small if there are a lot of beginners to keep things fair.

@Baelar,

There is a natural 17/17 stalemate line from North Africa to Piedmont/Tyrolia/Boh/Sil/Prussia/Livonia/St Pete. You can arrive at this line naturally when one of the countries is France, England, or Germany and the other is Italy, Austria, Turkey, or Russia. For Russia to be one it has to have lost St Pete to the other player.

Thanks for the responses. I've never even survived long enough to get 13SC's let alone 17, so I honestly didn't know anything about naturally occurring stalemates and how to identify them.

Ah, well, you should read up on them. You don't have to have a large number of centers to need a stalemate line. For example, let's say you are in a game with someone who shoots up to 13 centers. You'll want to rally the other players to stop the big guy and knowing the stalemate lines helps. Especially if you can establish yourself and being a key contributor to stopping the big player.

Here are some links to read up on them:
http://www.diplom.org/Online/StalematesAtoY/
http://www.diplom.org/~diparch/resources/strategy/stalemate.htm

And this one is a handy reference:
http://www.diplom.org/Online/StalematesAtoY/visual.htm

Wow thanks!

@Centurion Get over it. If you didn't want the draw, you didn't have to hit the little button that reads DRAW.

Czech chill out. In the end you got me I'm talking when I kept missing games.

Anyway I really loved that game

Cent -1 for poor sportsmanship