One of the main shortcomings of this game is, that there is no neutral referee in games. I have now two example games, where a player from the beginning has at least two accounts/nicknames and uses them both in one game. In this case one pseudo-player in the game accumulates troops and transfers them over in the decisive phase of the game to the other pseudo-player. The one who gifts troops has no intention to win it from beginning of the game on. Without a referee this kind of faked game is annoying for all the other players.

There had been some ideas about how to prevent it, but none is really feasible (and your doesnt IMO sound too good either); you should just avoid joining games with weird players or settings.

Now i know what player i have to avoid, sure. I found out after 37 turns of the game that i m cheated on, a bit frustrating. A referee is something lots of real world games have. Whats then so bad about a referee function, maybe automated? There a certain formal criteria that could be checked. I.e. if a player just accumulates troops without attacking for many turns and then transfers to another player. Something like that could be easily checked automatically.

mosquitero, please share the game and players names. when we out the cheaters, we can blacklist them and prevent the cheaters from continuing.

You could avoid games with the gift card too and then this specific incidence of collusion wouldn't occur. The problem with trying to automate against it is that it could be considered a legitimate strategy sometimes, like if you had an agreement that you would transfer your troops over in return for half of the world and then duel to the death at the end of the game, giving you a guaranteed 50% stake in the world in the end-game if your collusion partner holds up his end of the bargain. Whether this is honorable or not is a matter of opinion, but it could well be a legitimate and high percentage path to victory.

As to having an actual player ref, well - refs in the real life get paid for their time. Otherwise, who'd want to do it?! :)

As a fellow player in the match mosquitero is talking about, I can tell you that 30 rounds with players who deliberately play poorly/spew racial slurs/play on two accounts/all of the above can be tiring.

Maybe not a referee but a more transparent way to report players (rather than simply blacklisting them). A few demerits/reports should be enough to suspend their account/email, no? Or does this already exist?

Ooh! A report abuse option would be useful.


Aside from the rudeness mentioned, what is the difference between one player using two accounts and two players using a total of two accounts? I could, and have when necessary, pumped all my guys into my teammates before.

Unless you are booted, I believe, if your teammate wins the game after you are eliminated (or surrender?) it will count as a win for you, too. So there isn't any reason not to do it, if it would help your team win the game.


As for the report abuse option, the only problem I can think of, aside from misuse, is that the game creator is only one person (I assume) so with reading all the forums and implementing all the features I would imagine that addressing all the abuse reports as well would be quite a bit of work, considering this is something he does in his spare time.

In a team game you naturally strengthen your teammates, if your own position is lost. But what i am talking about is a game with 11 players, all vs all, private messaging disabled. There really are guys just stockpiling troops in some niche knowing they cant win the game any more. Other fighting parties dont want to attack because it weakens them. These inactive stockpiling players just try to eventually play god and begin to team up with some party for some reason, i.e. revenge, in order to determine the winner of the game. Such players should be removed automatically from the game, or an option in the game settings should allow so. There are criteria that can be easily checked for these players: Their income vs the income of the other players, size of territory, kind of activity.

link to game please

by that standards, if i have 2 borders and decide to attack player A, but player B is attacking me and i am not defending i would be kicked from the game... such an implementation would decrease my odds of continueing to play the game personally, as i prefer to play the game the way i prefer to play the game, and when defeat is immininet, then you either surrender, or play spoiler..
I have had many occassions when someone is practically dead, but because they *stockpiled troops* in a small area *1 territ, 1 bonus, etc.* while the remaining players fought it out, they ended up being able to grow, and in turn WIN the game.. so kicking someone for using a legit strategy is just fail, imho.

Perrin:
"by that standards, if i have 2 borders and decide to attack player A, but player B is attacking me and i am not defending i would be kicked from the game"

Where was a precise strategy to get rid from zombie players given in this thread? Lets assume you have just a base bonus, just an army you saved from some battle where you have been defeated of, say 50-100 in one niche territory. And you just move around a bit to accumulate reinforcement and the base bonus each turn. A player who would have to eliminate such a guy can easily lose the game. And dont tell me that this guy can win the game. He can just spoil it. WHOEVER plays in real world games like this would be disqualified. Why different here?

It's not fair in general, but it's not enforcable other than through community response to a player with a bad reputation. And as to your assumption that "this guy [can't] with the game" I reply that you are dead wrong - it ain't over til it's over, I've personally seen people go from being almost eliminated to winning a game or at least having a good shot at it. There are no real world games like this, it's a video game. In the real world, you can have more than one participant in a war come out of it more powerful than they started, and anyways there's certainly no referees to "disqualify" the combatants.

i just remembered.. army cap, it can be kind of used to solve this problem.

Mosquitero, stockpiling large amounts of troops in a small area is exactly how to beat the crazy challenge 1p-3v3v1,there is no way to win outright, but by making yourself too much of a nuisance you can eventually win the game by making the other guys fight each other. In a game, especially one with a small map,it is always best to get out of the way.
Besides, haven't you heard of, say, a sports team playing spoiler? They cannot win anything, but can make sure a rival does not win-its the same here, and nothing to be frowned upon.

friedricer, so you don't believe that Buffalo should forfeit their next game just cause they are 2w-10l? :P lol

What i propose is the implementation of a referee function that can be activated or not when the game is created. It would be the decision of the maker of the game to include it or not. The army cap option is a possibility, but its not exactly what i m talking about. There also is the option, that private messages between players is disabled, thats something that also was made to keep players from teaming up, but it can not really inhibit communiction between players. An automated referee i.e. could check for example for teaming up and prevent it with some kind of penalty. I explicitely dont say that ALL games should make use of a referee function. But it would be a 'nice-to-have' option. Especially games with many players/teams in one game that all fight each other, what is something like a tournament in a nutshell, this would help to keep the game fair.

I'm curious exactly what you propose the automated referee do/checks for...

http://warlight.net/App.aspx?GameID=1115909

turn 7, 4 territs 7 armies.. with just enough attacks for cards and stockpiling i won in turn 52

http://warlight.net/App.aspx?GameID=1120229

he massively stockpiled to let his opponents fight it out to give him an advantage, not teamed up, but since he did attack uploadfun almost exclusively once his borders were at their height, it might be seen as teaming despite the obvious fact he is merely trying to win.


http://www.warlight.net/App.aspx?GameID=1000123

The game creator stockpiled troops for.. 700 turns? and nearly won.. he would have if troll hadn't managed to dominate so much of the world before they fought

http://warlight.net/App.aspx?GameID=1081174

Crazy stockpiled troops for about half the game, and if he had kept at it, i truly believe he would of in truth won instead of lost, since me and IB were still nearly even at the point he attacked.

...

never join a ffa game with gift card, and generally blacklist people you are absolutely certain are teaming... but a non aggression pact isn't teaming. some people don't fight when MAD is ensured and put if off til later.
but again.. i want to know precisely what you would like an automated referee to check for, and how it would implement it.. and sadly.. it would be an annoyance to actual strategies, while those teamers would stay just within the limits to not be caught..
ie, building and no attacks for X turns.. teamers go X-1 then attack, rinse repeat. same result, save for someone like Fizzer in the Pandemonium game would be booted for using a legitimate strategy. Fail.
Forcing you to attack people whom are on your borders.. ie, to prove your not teaming w/them. Exploiters build to you, keep a short border full of armies w/barely attacking you, making the auto-ref boot you instead of having to fight you. Fail.
Booting people that use a gift card in a ffa match. Everyone *in* the ffa match is Fail for joining one with a gift card!


and as Emperor said, please link the games of said examples when you get a chance so we can better understand what you perceive as the problem.
Thank you.

Ok, what rules could be checked? I already mentioned some points:

- stockpiling troops
- border activity (attacking/being attacked) in relation to other players
- relative income vs other players over number of turns

No one of the criteria above itself is of value, but alltogether they are. A player without significant territory and base income when all/most territory is given to players with more/much more bonus than base income for a number of turns can be viewed as defeated.

Somewhere deep within the depths of the forums there is a post I made about how to force people to not team up in FFA's using automated rules - In a nutshell, territories along borders across which there was no fighting would start to have their standing armies destroyed every turn - "border attrition". This would eventually destroy the last army and cause the border to revert to neutral. This would of course be quite complicated to implement in terms of Randy's time, and would very much change the nature of the game, as simply adding more troops along a border would be enough to eventually defeat your enemy on the other side if they couldn't match your deployment there, and many of your troops each turn would go into simply maintaining your standing armies where you were at an impasse with an opponent.

When I suggested it, I actually intended it to be an illustration of how necessarily kludgy any system to automate anti-collusion would be, since I was an early proponent of allowing private chat to take place under the philosophy that you wouldn't be able to stop determined people from colluding in its absence in any event. Still, it's at least a theoretically workable system to avoid the problem you speak of..

http://warlight.net/Forum/Thread.aspx?ThreadID=158

Other notable Devilnis suggestions in no particular order:

http://warlight.net/Forum/Thread.aspx?ThreadID=396

http://warlight.net/Forum/Thread.aspx?ThreadID=111

http://warlight.net/Forum/Thread.aspx?ThreadID=153

wooooo Devilnis: Thinker, Player, Amazing.