I agree with all the posts. It really depends on how it happens. I had gifting my subs before knowing that I couldn't get 1st but since I was allied with two other players if I gifted them troops and specialists they would eliminate the competition and secure 3rd place for me. BUT I did not plan this from the start, we started out playing normally and all trying to win, we allied up and figured we could take top 3 spots, nothing wrong with this situation. And I think if you join the gsme (even with 2 friends) automatically knowing you are allies you will always start out by playing to win but if one of you falls behind without a chance to catch up you will support your allies. I would never join a game with allies and then just gift everything from the start, that's not fun at all and frankly unfair to others. To me, doing that would be just so you could get your rank up and get medals, unfortunately those are empty wins and show no skill, therefore they are meaningless.

As for multiboxing, that's just plain cheating, no respect for that.

All in all its just a game and you are dealing with human players and each had their own thoughts. The key is knowing who are your allies and who are the enemies and enemy alliences and try to anticipate such a situation. In the OP you say there are two other people helping this one player overtake you, honestly talk to your allies and stop him from doing that, and if it is just you without any allies then you took a wrong turn somewhere, can't win by yourself.

dybdalli-lama wrote:The problem with free will, people can do what others don't like.

Words of wisdom right there. I've always said, "Freedom means having the right to be a dick, if you really want to."

My opinion on Kingmakers is that they are being smart. Why wouldn't you? I dont like it happening against me but it happens. I don't/wouldn't mind being king personally. If your good at diplomacy why not use it.

Yes, they're annoying, but generally hard to officiate, so you might as well deal with them and see if you can rally everyone else in the game to take them down.

Hey guys figure I should update this though the game ended quite a bit ago.

In the end, I actually ended up taking first in this game.

Brown, one of the ones trying to help Tan win, ended up making two mines and then basically offering them up to tan. However, due to poor playing on Brown's part and rather good playing on my ally Light Blue's part, Light Blue was able to not only take both mines, but also overtake one of Brown's larger gifts (50+ drillers and 2 security chiefs) leading to Light Blue receiving the gift.

From here, the game proceeded quickly to its conclusion as Tan turned and tried to attack Light Blue instead of me, Light Blue fought back, and I quietly took a chance I saw to attack the heart of Tan's territory. (Given that I'd spent over 24 hours beforehand preparing to attack Tan and then this happened, I decided to go through with it anyways.

Brown resigns, Red resigns as well (the 2nd player who was gifting Tan drillers)

And as I strike at Tan's territory, he throws drillers in a counter assault, but then hours later decides out of the blue seemingly, to gift them all. I ended up turning those gifts back around and taking 3 more of tan's outposts with them, and this won me the game altogether along with a gold medal.

So at the end of the day, I guess Tan ended up being the Kingmaker and I ended up being the recipient of the very thing I was complaining about. Without tan deciding to gift those drillers to me, I believe Light Blue would have won by just a couple points, though Tan was also still attacking his territory.

But yeah, the game finished with me in 1st, Light Blue in 2nd, and Orange in 3rd. Tan took 4th like I originally planned as soon as I saw players kingmaking him, but it wasn't really due to my attacks lol.

It was to say the least, an interesting game. I certainly learned a lot.

I think its fine as long as they had an alliance

The worst type of kingmaking you can have is slightly too OP.
Basically you have player A who gifts everything to player B at the very start of the game, but keeps one outpost at the heart of their territory so they don't get attacked. Player B now has twice the outposts, twice the resources, twice the hires, and twice the global ability effectiveness. Now the 2 can easily get first and second.

However, there is a way to counter all types of kingmaking. I'm sure that if you aren't in the kingmaking group of allies, you'll want to attack them for kingmaking. Everyone else probably feels the same way. Try to get everyone else to attack them, it isn't that hard and I've done it before.
Of course, you can't do this when the number of kingmaking people outnumber the number of other people, though of course, you CAN still win, its just a lot harder.
I remember being in a domination game, where I was in a 2v1 (the other 7 people had resigned). The other 2 players were kingmaking. I should have lost, but thanks to my 4 kings (I would've had 6) and map-covering double-sentry range I managed to just squeeze out a win (they both resigned before I won).

I think the game is best when everyone is trying to acheive the highest rank they can within a given game.

Contrary to this sometimes is the mess of diplomacy, that requires feinged threats and bluffing. If I say "betray me and you'll regret it"... and I'm betrayed, I want to show my teeth and prove that my threat was credible, so that the player learns the hard way. This is complicated, because its looking outside the immediate game environment. But maybe next time my threats will be treated with more respect.

I've forced someone who was 2nd who was allied with 1st to get third as punishment for not betraying his master. I got 4th. Not quite kingmaking, but I offered him a choice (betray your master or you'll regret it) and I had to follow through. Maybe I could've got third otherwise.

I prevented a player from getting 2nd by building mines for 3rd place. I was in last place. The 2nd place guy that I forced into 3rd had allied with me and attacked me but that wasn't the reason I did it. It was mostly because I would of killed him with a queen hunter but a bug with a pirate made it go in the wrong direction so he would of been last place anyway. In my opinion he should be happy he got third because of a bug but we had no hard feelings with each other as far as I know of.

The game was kind of weird in a way. I was last place attacking a 2nd to last place neighbor who was attacking first place. First place funded fourth player neighbor who said he wanted to be an ally but attacked me. Seeing as how I couldn't get out of last place, I switched to helping the neighbor who was second to last place that I had attacked so he can resume his attack on first place. That way I would only have to defend against my ally and not my enemy. 1st place then maybe faltered due to me supporting 2 players to disrupt the status quo. Then it became an all out war for first place with the ranks changing often. I couldn't see non of it but was just puzzled by all the rank changes throughout the game.