I'm going to go ahead and jump into this thread too because a while back I was playing a game (http://www.wargear.net/games/view/4763) and thought "whoa, it's a ffa and these two dudes are blatanly ganging up on me". Not that they are attacking me for strategic reasons or because I'm an easier target but as in an actual 2v1! I mean these guys would share 1 unit borders with each other and not bother break each other's bonuses (it would take just 3 units to break some of those +12 bonuses). Then I saw the names that Magpie mentioned and I thought "that looks familiar". Then General Von Klinkerhoffen echoes it. General Novak and ObiWan are colluding in every match!

The issues isn't about creating alliances. For some players, that's part of the game. But there's a difference between going after the leader (or seeing an opportunity to break someone's bonus) and making pre-arranged teams.

The issue isn't about playing with friends. I've personally introduced six of my friends to the site and we like to play together. But we do so in TEAM games. TEAM games. It's obvious we're working together because we're in a TEAM game.

The issue with having pre-arranged unbreakable alliances before a !FFA! match has even started is that it basically turns it into a 1v1v1 except that one of those "1"s is acutally a team of two. Essentially taking two turns. Taking in twice the number of risk cards. Focusing fire on specific opponents. Guarding each other's borders.

It makes the game less enjoyable to legit players because they are playing a lossing game. Skill is tossed out the window when an entity is controlling two teams. Not to add to the fact that the entity is SECRETLY controlling two teams (I would have never attacked red in my game if I knew General Novak and ObiWan were teammates).

EDIT: Just a little summary of the match I posted (in case you don't want to run through the replay) and the reasons colluding is bad for the game.  You can clearly see them fortifying away from each other (less fronts to defend; more units available to guard the fronts that DO touch enemy territories).  They never attacked each other except to secure bonuses (this one's obvious, less units lost in unnessecary battles; more units available to attack the legit players).  They never broke each other's bonuses (ensures higher bonuses; bonus reinforcements go toward attacking legit players and to secure more bonuses; rinse with warm water and repeat).

You are (mostly) preaching to the choir.

If this was a single player using multiple accounts to improve their ranking then there's no question it's against the rules and it would lead to he/she being banned.

However this sits in a grey area - in-game alliances are not against the rules, and while these two players seem to be working with each other in some games, they are also competing with each other as well as seen by who has won each game they have played in.

Should there be a rule that says friends can't play together or make alliances with each other? Ideally you would say that you should not be allowed to join the game together with the intention of forming an alliance but that's practically impossible to enforce.

What are other's thoughts on this? I'd rather not go down the Conquer Club route of banning all in-game alliances as I think they are a fun tactical way to get an edge in a game that makes them a lot more like real life. Usually if two players have made an obvious alliance in a game it's a clear sign to the other players that they should team up quickly against the others. Obviously if you are in a 3 person game then that option isn't too practical.

tom wrote:  I'd rather not go down the Conquer Club route of banning all in-game alliances as I think they are a fun tactical way to get an edge in a game that makes them a lot more like real life. Usually if two players have made an obvious alliance in a game it's a clear sign to the other players that they should team up quickly against the others. Obviously if you are in a 3 person game then that option isn't too practical.

I agree with this.  I'm leaning more towards just doing what the community is currently doing and trying to alert people of known alliances.  I don't think it should be against the rules (I very very rarely make any sort of alliances in Public games).

WF had a Notes section that you could attach to a player which were private and seen only by you.  WG could potentially have something similar and expand it to where people that are your Friends could see the Notes as well if you allowed them as shared (I think that was something that was planned on WF but never implemented).  Although that doesn't necessarily solve the "problem", just potentially helps aware people.

I don't think these two goals are mutually exclusive. Allow legit in-game alliances and ban pre-arranged collusion.

asm wrote: I don't think these two goals are mutually exclusive. Allow legit in-game alliances and ban pre-arranged collusion.

The problem here though is decided which is going on in each case.

I'd think it would be much easier to just mark that player(s) as an "enemy" and then leave a comment on his profile wall that he is known to have a prearranged deal with so and so.

I agree with toaster. I read about that here and immediately added them to my enemy list. Problem Solved.

tom wrote: I think they are a fun tactical way to get an edge in a game that makes them a lot more like real life.

Tom is absolutely spot on. In my view, alliances can be a crucial part of the game, especially games involving larger number of people. They add a human edge to a game that would otherwise be almost entirely down to the role of a dice or, in other words, luck.

Alliances can be frustrating for those not involved but it's up to them to engineer a way to break that alliance, either by forming alliances of their own or by persuading one of the two partners that they would gain from breaking the alliance.

Also, alliances are not without risk. Of course it's advantageous to not have to protect some boundaries so you can concentrate your forces on other fronts, but ultimately one of the two alliance partners must betray the other... and the risk (and fun) of being in an alliance is trying to time it right so you're the one doing the betraying and not the one getting betrayed.

Quite right.

Frankly I don't have any idea how anybody would even attempt to play a board like Europe 1560 straight through without ever communicating with anybody.

asm wrote: Quite right.

Frankly I don't have any idea how anybody would even attempt to play a board like Europe 1560 straight through without ever communicating with anybody.

?Como se dice "Fuck You" en Cantonese?

http://tinyurl.com/ycvg69j

No just kidding (although I did learn something there). I can ask around, but not sure how many of my friends would be up on current mainland profanity/slang.

Doesn't Vataro speak a bit of Canto?

asm wrote: http://tinyurl.com/ycvg69j

No just kidding (although I did learn something there). I can ask around, but not sure how many of my friends would be up on current mainland profanity/slang.

Doesn't Vataro speak a bit of Canto?

Did you really just try to lmgtfy me? Come on now, brah, you know better than that.

No, I pretty much just didn't get whatever joke you were making, but I couldn't resist giving you a brief taste of your own medicine. I do have to thank you for introducing lmgtfy into my life, though.

It wasn't a joke so much as an explanation of how people might fail to communicate in a game. Sort of an offensive tower of babel comparison...

Hey, we're all citizens of the Global Villa now.

I mean, we dealt with it pretty well a couple months ago when we all had to explain to that guy in French - how to read a particular game's custom card scale.

asm wrote:

Hey, we're all citizens of the Global Villa now.

I mean, we dealt with it pretty well a couple months ago when we all had to explain to that guy in French - how to read a particular game's custom card scale.

Nonsense. I flex my ignorant midwestern American blue-collar-town one-language muscle at every possible opportunity. It doesn't even matter that I'm a grad-school-educated fluid-in-two-languages and clumsy in a third wanna-be-renaissance man. I'm a jerk of a Xenophobe, and that's just how I like it. You can take your pansy global villa and burn it to the ground. We speak American in my house.

Cramchakle wrote: I'm a grad-school-educated fluid-in-two-languages and clumsy in a third wanna-be-renaissance

...hyphen-ophile.

cram you need to clean up your icon. lookin like a fool wid your pants on da ground...

seriously tho, i have to go to your profile to read it!

Kjeld wrote:

Cramchakle wrote: I'm a grad-school-educated fluid-in-two-languages and clumsy in a third wanna-be-renaissance

...hyphen-ophile.

Shut up and get me another High Life.

Jesus spoke English in the Bible, right? (Obviously). If it's good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me!