ucross wrote:With everyone for themselves you don't know for sure who is your ally. You leave drillers on your borders 'just in case' and so you don't look tempting. Your allies may turn on you at any moment. With real life friends you can often trust them implicitly and do combined 3 person attacks on someone.

And why is that? Because you forged diplomatic relationships with them. You can easily do the same with any other player in the group, and 90% of the people playing as friends are going to back stab each other anyway. Now there are certainly cases where friend A goes into the game for the soul reason of helping friend B win, but those are few and far between. And in that case you can only report and strategize, if enough people report them over multiple games the mods would probably step in.

A friend provides little benefit in a game that involves making and breaking friendships like their in and out of style.

Also, negotiate with your ally to have demilitarized borders, that way you can have ease of mind. This is a completely fair game in which your job is to create an unfair advantage. If someone is playing with a friend, then you need to forge relationships and hit him back with four. Its pretty easy to turn people against eachother in this game, especially if its open knowledge that their friends IRL.

kalzekdor wrote:And, while blatant violations of that rule would indeed be frustrating and damage "fun", minor violations wouldn't cause me to have less fun, even if I lost because of it. Do you only have fun when you win? Do you assume that when you lose someone must be cheating?

While I agree that it's not about winning, someone cheating almost always kills the fun for me. Fair play, imo, is what separates gaming from the real world. This is especially true in Subterfuge, where everyone starts with only 120 drillers, 2 generators, 2 factories, a specialist hire in 4 hours, and their wits. Ideally, the only thing that separates the winners from the losers is their wits.
Now outside alliances throw a wrench into that perfect equality. Now, all of a sudden, 2 players have a distinct advantage.
The only issue is that I don't personally think it's a problem that should be fixed in public play. Ranked games are another matter, but I learned to play by joining a game with my brother, and I doubt I'd have stuck with the game otherwise.

zerashi wrote:

ucross wrote:With everyone for themselves you don't know for sure who is your ally. You leave drillers on your borders 'just in case' and so you don't look tempting. Your allies may turn on you at any moment. With real life friends you can often trust them implicitly and do combined 3 person attacks on someone.

And why is that? Because you forged diplomatic relationships with them. You can easily do the same with any other player in the group, and 90% of the people playing as friends are going to back stab each other anyway. Now there are certainly cases where friend A goes into the game for the soul reason of helping friend B win, but those are few and far between. And in that case you can only report and strategize, if enough people report them over multiple games the mods would probably step in.

A friend provides little benefit in a game that involves making and breaking friendships like their in and out of style.

Also, negotiate with your ally to have demilitarized borders, that way you can have ease of mind. This is a completely fair game in which your job is to create an unfair advantage. If someone is playing with a friend, then you need to forge relationships and hit him back with four. Its pretty easy to turn people against eachother in this game, especially if its open knowledge that their friends IRL.

I know you think they are rare, but they are not. My friends in real life do not stab me in the back. I guess you're fine if I get my 2 friends to join every game and we ally for every game? Your solution to that is try to figure out we are allied early enough and then get everyone else to ally with you against us? I seriously doubt you'll have much success.

Perhaps the best solution is to just play with friends until either enforcement occurs or until random matchmaking occurs. Either that or not play. I really don't feel like getting ganged up on again so I guess those are my options.

ucross wrote:

zerashi wrote:

ucross wrote:With everyone for themselves you don't know for sure who is your ally. You leave drillers on your borders 'just in case' and so you don't look tempting. Your allies may turn on you at any moment. With real life friends you can often trust them implicitly and do combined 3 person attacks on someone.

And why is that? Because you forged diplomatic relationships with them. You can easily do the same with any other player in the group, and 90% of the people playing as friends are going to back stab each other anyway. Now there are certainly cases where friend A goes into the game for the soul reason of helping friend B win, but those are few and far between. And in that case you can only report and strategize, if enough people report them over multiple games the mods would probably step in.

A friend provides little benefit in a game that involves making and breaking friendships like their in and out of style.

Also, negotiate with your ally to have demilitarized borders, that way you can have ease of mind. This is a completely fair game in which your job is to create an unfair advantage. If someone is playing with a friend, then you need to forge relationships and hit him back with four. Its pretty easy to turn people against eachother in this game, especially if its open knowledge that their friends IRL.

I know you think they are rare, but they are not. My friends in real life do not stab me in the back. I guess you're fine if I get my 2 friends to join every game and we ally for every game? Your solution to that is try to figure out we are allied early enough and then get everyone else to ally with you against us? I seriously doubt you'll have much success.

Perhaps the best solution is to just play with friends until either enforcement occurs or until random matchmaking occurs. Either that or not play. I really don't feel like getting ganged up on again so I guess those are my options.

Pessimistic. You will never win like that. Your ideal of having "friends" that wouldn't stab you in the back in a game of stabbing people in the back are not actually "friends". At that point their nothing but your pawns. Even if you do get the magical friend who is only playing this game to help you win, then big deal all you did was score an early ally. If its known knowledge that you are partnering with a friend or of there is enough evidence for reasonable suspicion I can certainly turn the tables against you. Its as easy as getting 4 players into chat and convincing them they will certainly lose if we don't put a stop to you and your friend(s).

If your fine with those options then what ever. If you want to play against me with friends then I will enjoy the challenge of shattering your friendship. Especially if your convinced a friend wouldnt betray you. This is a game in which having a friend only honestly helps if you lack the skills to diplomatically create in game friends, so if you require that handicap then by all means play with friends.

If someone allies with two, then you need to hit them back with three. If someone has a solid alliance then you need to sow seeds of mistrust. If someone creates an advantage then you need to make your own, or your not playing the game right.

Im nit saying the Dev's shouldnt do anything when its clear that Friend A is only playing to support friend B and docent care about winning. But that's like 1 percent of the case. All the other friends are learning just how flimsy their friendships are.

Sorry, Im not trying to pick on you or troll you or anything. There's just so many problems with your argument that I have to take it point by point.

zerashi wrote:Pessimistic. You will never win like that.

Yeah, its pessimism that hurts his chance to win, NOT the fact that hes getting ganked by pre-made teams (cheaters) every game. /sarcasm

zerashi wrote:Your ideal of having "friends" that wouldn't stab you in the back in a game of stabbing people in the back are not actually "friends". At that point their nothing but your pawns.

I guess you don't see the strength BOTH people have when they have a mutual alliance. It doesnt require one person to mindless gift all his drills and specialists to the other player. A guaranteed safe border, or a guaranteed ganking partner is something that helps both player tremendously.

zerashi wrote:Even if you do get the magical friend who is only playing this game to help you win, then big deal all you did was score an early ally.

Or 2,3,4 allies early, depending on how many people you decide to do this with.

zerashi wrote:If its known knowledge that you are partnering with a friend or of there is enough evidence for reasonable suspicion I can certainly turn the tables against you. Its as easy as getting 4 players into chat and convincing them they will certainly lose if we don't put a stop to you and your friend(s).

That easy, huh? No chance someone among all the people you contacted to organize this alliance leaks this info to the friends and uses it to join their friendship alliance and secure an easy 3rd/4th place. No chance the people you contacted simply dont care that friends are playing together and just continue to do the things they had already planned on doing? No chance anyone you contacted is cowardly or newb and is too afraid to aggressively take on a bigger entity?

Of course, theres also the possibility that it isn't known knowledge. Like if the friends feel like playing smart rather than simply relying on their enormous advantage, and dont tell people they are friends. Now they have a powerful info gathering tool in that anyone who tries to form an alliance against the friends will quickly be known to them, and that info will be 99.9% reliable. (I left that .1 to represent the people who actually would betray their rl friend to help a total video game stranger)

zerashi wrote:If you want to play against me with friends then I will enjoy the challenge of shattering your friendship. Especially if your convinced a friend wouldnt betray you.

You got PayPal? I'd like to put some money on this proposition. Let me just call up my friends real quick...

zerashi wrote:This is a game in which having a friend only honestly helps if you lack the skills to diplomatically create in game friends, so if you require that handicap then by all means play with friends.

But you just said it isnt helpful to play with friends because only a pessimistic person cant see that all it takes to break up a potentially life-long friendship is good diplomatic skillz. So which is it?

Having a friend helps you in addition to having good diplomatic skills. Nothing about one is exclusive toward the other. In fact, the two work quite well together...

zerashi wrote:If someone allies with two, then you need to hit them back with three.

What if they have four? What if a group of five friends make a six player game, cause they just want to grief that random sixth guy? cause they know the rules are just words that no one enforces.

ucross wrote:Perhaps the best solution is to just play with friends until either enforcement occurs or until random matchmaking occurs. Either that or not play. I really don't feel like getting ganged up on again so I guess those are my options.

Pretty pathetic to see you rant in this thread, and then run an extra account in ranked games. I guess if you cant beat em, join em, huh?

Real life friends are probably less of a problem than the ranked players joining games together for the purpose of gaining ranks with less risk involved. I imagine that there are likely a few players out there that log in with more than one account.

Once, I with the help of two more random players in the game were able to overcome the situation, but it was difficult and involved a substantial amount of luck and errors on their part. I didn't feel like they were playing fair.

I know that it was not the first game for the pair, and I'm pretty sure that their other games went better.

Point is that it is not the RL friends that play together are less frequent, in my experience, than the easy-mode seeking rating-chasers.

If there are paid tournaments, the game has to include a randomized anonymous mode that doesn't allow participants to know what game instance or possible opponents they might be in. Otherwise there is opportunity for abuse, and no one will participate in pay tournaments open to abuse.

samborin wrote:Real life friends are probably less of a problem than the ranked players joining games together for the purpose of gaining ranks with less risk involved. I imagine that there are likely a few players out there that log in with more than one account.

Once, I with the help of two more random players in the game were able to overcome the situation, but it was difficult and involved a substantial amount of luck and errors on their part. I didn't feel like they were playing fair.

I know that it was not the first game for the pair, and I'm pretty sure that their other games went better.

Point is that it is not the RL friends that play together are less frequent, in my experience, than the easy-mode seeking rating-chasers.

If there are paid tournaments, the game has to include a randomized anonymous mode that doesn't allow participants to know what game instance or possible opponents they might be in. Otherwise there is opportunity for abuse, and no one will participate in pay tournaments open to abuse.

I actually just finished a game where I encountered rating-chasers. And it wasn't hard to rally players to my counter-alliance and even less difficult to beat them. Sure, it took superior numbers, but isn't that how all wars are in Subterfuge?
And before you say that, "One time doesn't prove anything," I think it does. Because, no matter how good a player is tactically, if you can outwit them diplomatically, you've already won. And rating-chasers are not well loved generally speaking.

The fact that you are able to outwit the cheater and win does not negate the fact that he is cheating.