In a game and an opponent has 'announced' their defeat by dispersing and gifting their force/specialists amongst their allies and players who would oppose me. Sore loser or fair play?

This is not an uncommon move.
It might be quiet annoying but I would not call it to be a sore loser. Maybe you can steal some of the gifts for yourself ?

This game being about diplomacy, this can be explained as 'fair game'.

Apparently these player value the gifted drillers / specialists more than being allied with you.
Also, in real warfare, wouldn't a losing army join forces with a friendly army as well, to make sure their soldiers don't go to waste?

It's a hard thing to keep people on your side if they can inherit 25% of an empire for free though.

I feel like people should be playing to win, not playing to make specific people lose. If his friends win, he still ends up in last place. It just seems spiteful and unsportsmanlike.

Yeah its a possibility you have you keep in mind when invading someone. I've been in games where players who were giving up (even though though they werent being attacked at all) drilled free mines for their allies. that REALLY ground my gears. But what're you gonna do? Nothing in the rules or game mechanics to deter it so its a valid move.

Anyways, i will sometimes purposely ally with and give token assisstance to players that i suspect might be ganged up on or eliminated, knowing i might actually benefit more from it than if i jumped in to gang up on them. [maniacal laughter]

The code of conduct states no unsportsmanlike conduct, an argument can be made that's what this is.

I personally don't like it and I would never gift my own empire away if I were to lose.

Although, if I feel I am getting close to losing, I may gift a General or other offensive specialists to a friend if they were using them to fight whoever was attacking me in case it allows me to survive longer and divert my attackers attention away from my weakened empire.

But I wouldn't just gift everything before resigning.

I had a game where I was unsolicited gifted an entire empire before the player resigned. We worked it out in game where an enemy of mine hired a Martyr in exchange of me gifting one of the specialists to him, then we blew up a sub full of all the gifts so we could continue our game unspoiled.

jc27141 wrote:The code of conduct states no unsportsmanlike conduct, an argument can be made that's what this is.

Idk. Dont get me wrong, if your elimination isn't 100% inevitable, I find it pretty unsporting to just give up and give away all of your stuff. Buuuuut:

Code of Conduct wrote:-NO JERKS: Harassment, hate speech, abusive language, and any other unsporting behavior is not allowed.

That rule seems more targetted to people who are just generally being really nasty to other players.

jc27141 wrote:I feel like people should be playing to win, not playing to make specific people lose. If his friends win, he still ends up in last place. It just seems spiteful and unsportsmanlike.

This is a "Vote Who Wins" game. When someone gifts all their drillers to your enemies, they are voting for everyone but you. That's the main mechanic of the game. Your goal is to convince everyone else to let you win. Failing that, punish the people who didn't work with you.

bridger wrote:

jc27141 wrote:I feel like people should be playing to win, not playing to make specific people lose. If his friends win, he still ends up in last place. It just seems spiteful and unsportsmanlike.

This is a "Vote Who Wins" game. When someone gifts all their drillers to your enemies, they are voting for everyone but you. That's the main mechanic of the game. Your goal is to convince everyone else to let you win. Failing that, punish the people who didn't work with you.

That's a good way of putting it. As Pmoney said earlier, it encourages people to ally with a losing player despite the inevitability of their defeat. I think it's actually good for the game atmosphere when attacking a weak player isn't a guaranteed way to launch yourself to victory.