Anonymous Games and working with another person

[Atuan]

I was under the impression that anonymous games were one not supposed to be known who each player was, but two not supposed to be coordinated. I know it is supposed to be on your honor. But what can we do to prevent people from working with one another and sharing information? I have enough in one of my games to know two kingdoms are sharing intel and my write up is not going to be pretty for them. I don't mind the 2 on 1 but I have an issue with the kingdoms cheating. So how do we go about stopping this practice?

Atuan

[Ry Vor]

I was under the impression that anonymous games were one not supposed to be known who each player was, but two not supposed to be coordinated.  I know it is supposed to be on your honor.  But what can we do to prevent people from working with one another and sharing information?  I have enough in one of my games to know two kingdoms are sharing intel and my write up is not going to be pretty for them. I don't mind the 2 on 1 but I have an issue with the kingdoms cheating.   So how do we go about stopping this practice?  

Atuan

Well, that's disappointing.  But as I have always said since players requested the Anonymous format, we are not the NSA and can't monitor communications.  It is on honor.  I have also dozens of times asked players to join Alliance games and not join a solo game, even Full-On diplomacy if they have intentions to work with another player from the outset. 

From my perspective, the only practical way to enforce this stipulation is to not have non-diplomacy games.  If someone "outs" another player/players, we will likely have that player or the accused dropping. 

Even if you have friends in the game, it is a game and not your friendship on the line.  Why not be on different sides in this small part of your lives?  Like I said, I have seen this coming miles away but generally the community has done well with its honor and they enjoy their anonymous formats.  We've never had an actual accusation, though their have been some suspicions.  Let's hope this message is warning enough.  Play fair.

[VballMichael]

I have been on both sides of kingdoms who seem to know too much. And I appear to be on the wrong side of one now. I received an emmy at my town in 542 and the emmisary's name calls me a cheater.

I am not sure how someone knows what kingdom I am playing. 

I am guessing the accusation comes because someone has domed my town when someone else was attacking. I did not share info, so I don't know how or why they domed for me except to harm a common enemy. In any event, such accusations do not sit well with me, so I have dropped game 542 and my other games as well. Games are not that important to me. I will stay in the team game so as not to let down my teammates for now, but will seek a replacement.

[Ry Vor]

Please, no one over-react.  Again, in Anonymous we can't do much to enforce, but we certainly don't want to lose our Champion to an accusation.  Making accusations is seldom a good idea.

[Drogo]

It would shock me if this was really happening. What is the fun in cheating? Coordinating with another kingdom in Anonymous would give the kingdoms a huge advantage, it would be hard to lose, what would the fun be in that? Possible it's just a rush to judgement?

[Mad Hatter]

Really VBall???? I was hoping to beat you some day, or at least put a dent in your armor. If you leave, then it's Imperial Tark I have to set my sights on and that wouldn't be any fun. If nothing else....think of how this will affect ME!!!

[Ry Vor]

Having done this in the Resurgence for four years now, I can tell you accusations never turn out well, for either the accuser or the accused.  So for the time being, we have lost the reigning Champion and a really promising Commander in Son of Conan.  Knowing these personas just through forum posts, I would never suspect them of anything against the intent of the game, including house rules for things like Anonymous.

I'll leave it at that for now, but I think people get my drift. 

We need more players, not less.

[DuPont]

I am not in the game in question, so I have no dog in the fight. I will say in other games, I have observed actions and intervened simply to cause chaos or keep a war between enemies going on longer in order to advantage myself.

[unclemike]

I've been in a situation like this before where people thought I was collaborating with another but I really wasn't. For example, in an anonymous game, I invaded a region at just about the same time as another kingdom made his move. No cooperation between us at all but my plan of action was to hit villages first (since winter was coming around) and the other player concentrated on towns because I guess he wanted control of the region.

The two of us had no idea of what the other was doing but the victim must have thought that we were communicating with each other because of our separate game plans of invasion were just too perfect together. I didn't notice myself until after a few recons and trails of the other kingdom who was invading because I wanted to know what he was doing (for the sake of self preservation).

It didn't take long to finish off the victim who probably was ticked off about the "coordinated" plan but there really wasn't any between us. After taking out the victim in like 2-3 turns from this combined invasion, I left the region with my newly acquired villages because I didn't want to tangle with the other invader at the time. He didn't take my villages away probably for the same reason so it worked out for the two of us.

So from the victim's point of view, we had to appear as a coordinated attack by two "lousy cheaters" but that wasn't the case at all. I think Drogo (Trolls) was the other kingdom invading. Since I didn't care about controlling the region, I allowed the Troll have Oakendell without contest. The Elf (Lord Thanatos I think) got hammered though but he took it in stride...