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[Strongwill]

You played it exactly the way you should have. This is what vball posted, Anon is no communication, but players can infer as the above post noted, actions taken by other players as to their intent and direction of advancement.

I’m in this game too.. been kinda slow rolling, didn’t want to swamp any newbie players at first. Watching the regional reports it’s been a very active game for the most part.

[davekuyk]

Please let me apologize here. I should not have been accusing people of anything as that was not my intent; rather I assumed people did not understand the expectations of an anonymous game. The rules and expectations for an this game type are not as clear as they could be. So right up front, allow me to apologize for my tone and the accusations. They were driven by frustration, as I perceived myself to be fighting two kingdoms who were cooperating.

There is a bug in the entry program that allows people to see names even in anonymous games. I found it by accident, a symptom of playing several games. I'll forward those specifics to Brek. I don't have any other knowledge outside of the turns.

My belief that there were alliances made outside of the game is based on what I was seeing from my results:

*Atlanteans never take the BL town in the AT starting region
*Atlanteans and BL ally from early on
*They vote for every council issue for one another, I believe without fail
*Atlanteans gift the BL gold a few turns back (this requires a 15,000 threshold to trigger; I admit this is the moment that really made me start to wonder)
*In looking at two recent turns where they are operating in "my" regions, it appears the Atlanteans and BL have not had any "collisions" - no overlap of groups or emissaries - though I don't have perfect knowledge in this area

There were a few other things that raised eyebrows, such as an emissary of mine who was kidnapped and then escaped from the Free Trader's dungeon, yet the emissary was in a location I would not have expected the FT to have a recon of, but others would have.

Taken together, all of the above painted a certain kind of picture. Everything can be explained - alliances still occur and people can be friendly with council votes. A gift of gold is very generous, but can still occur.

Rargrim says he is not working together outside of the rules of this game, that is enough for me.

[Strongwill]

Ima gonna need a little more info on that Bug, after all these years I didn’t know about it?

[Rargrim]

I will definitely speak more clearly after the game is done, as I don't want to talk about the specifics but I can understand the frustration based upon the knowledge that you have.

[Pine Needle]

There were a few other things that raised eyebrows, such as an emissary of mine who was kidnapped and then escaped from the Free Trader's dungeon, yet the emissary was in a location I would not have expected the FT to have a recon of, but others would have.

I was the Free Trader. I just wanted to punish you (CI, I presume) for taking my village in Diamond Coast. I also wanted to steal that staff.

I know of the bug re identity of players. I didn't use it in this game, and can't remember really how it works. Something with the Ready screen, maybe.

I didn't receive any info from any kingdom regarding where your capital was. I think I divined it because I knew the number for the staff, then it was gone, so I wanted to know who took it.

Two interesting things for me to report, embarassing thing first: I have never been so thoroughly pantsed in this game as the Lycan did to me. I got absolutely destroyed. Tactically and strategically. I really want to know who LY was. Really, really well played. I can give details, but probably don't want to reveal his tricks- just crushed me, and the FT was very, very powerful. Some things I knew from other games but forgot or didn't consider, some new things. WOWOWWOW.

Second, the AT (again, I don't know who they are) started the communication using very creative means. Once AT allied the BL, I really wanted to make a friend, so I left the BL village in my region alone  and allied the UN. This was standard stuff- the UN reciprocated my alliance, but I still got a scandal on him but never used it. As far as I can tell, the UN left me alone except for some minor food stealing. The new stuff was maybe turn 12 an AT emi relocated to one of my sea villages that accessed both Azure and Tempest. Choice village. I was going to take it back but they also offered a trade the same turn (obviously did not go through) but I read the tea leaves and thought AT wanted to trade sea villages (even though mine had access to two seas, not quite a fair trade). So I took one of his villages in Diamond, and that all worked out (except CI took it from me as I said above).

I thought about allying the AT or BL, but the LY attacked me soon after and I was reduced to a quivering pile of guts quickly after that (while stealing all my artifacts and 400k food town, and emis and everything else get taken and used by the LY who I'm sure must have won this.)

Anyway, very creative by the AT. I really want to know who the AT and LY were. There was no outside the game communication beween me and any other kingdom nor did I know who they were.

Good game.

[VballMichael]

Hopefully not too clever. Just to remind folks, sending an emissary named "letsteamup" or "allywithme" is actually communication that is not allowed. So, it would be interesting to hear the clever method of communicating that does not actually communicate.

[Pine Needle]

Hopefully not too clever. Just to remind folks, sending an emissary named "letsteamup" or "allywithme" is actually communication that is not allowed. So, it would be interesting to hear the clever method of communicating that does not actually communicate.

 
No, it was not emi names, although I started naming mine Ouch and Oof after the Lycans started destroying me.

[davekuyk]

Did anyone else not realize the Underworld was still playing?

I don't know if that is good or bad

[Strongwill]

Did anyone else not realize the Underworld was still playing?

I don't know if that is good or bad

Just hiding in the shadows, watching everything.

Congrats to the winner, can we get a list of who played?

[Zolzar]

Thanks for the kind words Pine Needle, I was playing the Lycans. Claimed the victory, so I'm happy to discuss the game if anyone would like. Good game to everyone.

I'm curious about who else was in this game, since we didn't get the names of people who dropped and it seemed like there was a lot of them in this game.

Edit: Oh and thanks Strongwill for not spoiling the victory for me! I kept worrying the Underworld would explode out and remove me from Pellinor...