topkilla wrote:The most competitive start would be a start where all player bases are mirror imaged so that all players have the same travel distances depending on player location. All players would also have all the same specialist hires. And players would be completely anonymous. - If this were purely a strategy game. Which it's not.

I think this would remove the aspect of strategy and everyone's potential for bargaining chips. Then it would purely come down to who you like best.

Randomized start - and locking out inviting friends is best. But no way to discern who invited who so kind of stuck there....

It is a noble idea but there really is no way of preventing people from inviting friends and you might never know if they did invite a friend, or if they were using two accounts. I find more and more questionable games that I join and even if there is no shady stuff going on the fact that we know it CAN and HAS happened before makes us paranoid. That's why there is really no true way of making it purely anon and strictly competative/diplomatic. But that is the nature of the game and you just have to accept it.

I think people just are too set on trying to win in any way possible, plenty of cheaters out there trying to gain an adventage using shady tactics. I am honest to myself and i if I used such cheats I wouldn't consider the win as a true win due to skill or diplomatic abilities. That's why I am not one to be on the top 25 players of the leaderboard, that just takes too much work and stress, it is just a game. Checking previous games to see when those players were online in an anon game and figuring it out who is who that way? Hah, as if i have the time to go through my old games, forget it lets just see what happens

topkilla wrote:The most competitive start would be a start where all player bases are mirror imaged so that all players have the same travel distances depending on player location. All players would also have all the same specialist hires. And players would be completely anonymous. - If this were purely a strategy game. Which it's not.

topkilla wrote:My point was that this is a diplomacy game more than a strategic one. There is no such thing a fair, aka a 'competitive' start.

Well then your point is irrelevant... unless you are trying to say that we shouldnt even aspire for a fair/competitive start? Are you suggesting we should all use dirty advantages like repeatedly quitting to get the best possible outpost config, or only playing in games where we know at least 2-3 friends will be garunteed allies-- inviting them if necessary?

There is nothing unfair about randomization, so long as everyone gets the same randomization and cant back out once they see what their random draw is-- in fact that is the goal of my OP.

There is also nothing undiplomatic about anonymous games. In fact, it is non-anonymous reliance on friends that lacks diplomacy, because when you already know who your ally is, you dont need to do any diplomacy to seek allies. In standard games with friends from past games, they are built in and all you need to do is focus on the strategy of how you and your ally will best kill those around you. Maybe you add extra allies to your pre-made alliance, but that is superfluous.

pookiebear wrote:It is a noble idea but there really is no way of preventing people from inviting friends and you might never know if they did invite a friend, or if they were using two accounts.

I never made any promises that Start Now + Anon is perfect and has no way of getting abused. I'm saying its the closest we can get.

Do I hope the devs hide the online status of players in completed games? Yes.
Do I hope the devs prevent friend invites to public Anon games? Yes.
Do I hope the devs make colors hidden until all players have joined the game? Yes.
Do I hope the devs make an option to block private chat until all players have joined the game? Yes.
Do I hope the devs change the way joining/quitting rated games works? Yes.

But you and I are not devs, and we cannot change their game. And we already have a thousand threads in this forum asking for these features/changes. What THIS thread is about, is what we players can do to achieve the closest thing to fairness on our own, given the tools we have right now.

FYI, I wasn't trying to sound attacking or rude. I do agree with your suggestions and I think they are worth using. Unfortunately we are fighting against people who just don't care and will always look for ways to "gain an advantage" which is annoying.

I actually found that I get killed more often in anon games than ones where i know the people, and I am not sure if it is because people are joining these games as friends thinking that people will join quicker if they think that the game is really anon, or its just bad luck i had so far. I know a few players that played games together before and when I see those in a public game i don't join it since I know they are starting a team from the get go.

Anyways, I am not trying to mess up your post, I like your suggestions and I concur that they will at least limit the chances of giving unfair advantages to players.

Kevlar I like your suggestions to make anonymous mode more anonymous.

But people who want to join as friends can easily still do so and discover each other, either through a "code phrase" in-game or through out-of-game communication. And there's still multiboxing.

I do believe that good diplomacy transcends some of these problems. If two people are working together, the other players get wise to it and the diplomacy of the game is affected.

I was recently in an anonymous game where it became apparent that two players were working together from the start in such a way, with such a level of trust in an anonymous game, that it was suspected (whether fairly or no, doesn't matter) that they were at least friends from outside the game, if not a multiboxer. Those two players finished in 7th and 8th

pookiebear wrote:FYI, I wasn't trying to sound attacking or rude. I do agree with your suggestions and I think they are worth using. Unfortunately we are fighting against people who just don't care and will always look for ways to "gain an advantage" which is annoying.

Nah, I didnt think you were being rude, I was just trying to counter your argument.

At the end of the day, I think my suggestion fails or succeeds on one of two possibilities:

1. It attracts people who want a fair game and scares away people who are looking to game the system because they know the people who join will be on high alert trying to detect their dirty plans.

or
2. It could attract people looking to make dirty moves, because they know everyone else will be on even footing, making their dirty moves that much more effective.

In my limited experience of trying this, it seemed like #1 was what occurred. But I hope people reading this try it and test it more.

Also, btw the "Start Now" randomization can be done even in non-anon games. Its a great way to ensure a fair start if you dont like anon, but also dont like people who repeatedly quit and join to ensure a good starting position.