Conquer Club

Accused:

stealth99

The accused are suspected of:

Other: Intentionally throwing game to other player

Game number:

Game 13180891

Comments: "Obviously any gross abuse of the game is forbidden. This includes but is not limited to: throwing games or deliberately benefiting from thrown games, intentional deadbeating, holding players hostage, serial teammate killing, hijacking accounts, systematically "farming" new recruits and colluding with other players in any way to manipulate the scoring system."

In this game, orange got upset and declared that he was going to suicide into me and another player. That would have been fine, except that he was in a winning position and indicated to the remaining player (blue) that despite having the most income/territories he was going to allow blue to win. He repeatedly offered to move away troops if blue wanted to take territories of his, and chose not to attack him at all.

Like I said, it would have been fine if he got his panties in a wad and just suicided into me, that would be legal. But he deliberately threw a game he was winning, which is not.

Statements indicating plan to throw game:
2014-01-02 21:02:36 - stealth99: and by the way, the rest of the players in this game do not have a single worry about me. I am no longer playing to win.
2014-01-04 20:56:14 - stealth99: RED, BLUE AND SILVER, i strongly suggest you watch breman. He's sneaky and will take advantage of this move and he will provide disinformation. He is your only concern now. I will not win this game even if it's handed to me; i have only one goal.
2014-01-22 00:58:19 - stealth99: Sprechen this is your game dude. As i have said, if it comes down to two of us and i have 100 terts and you only 1 it won't matter, i will still stand down. However, i'm cool if you are uncomfortable accepting that. You can attack me as you see fit....
2014-01-22 00:59:24 - stealth99: ....and i still won't attack you back as i'm not playing to win anymore. If bremen has any reserves and has held anything back, you risk giving him the game when it was handed to you. Regardless, it's your call. You won't make an enemy of me in this one.

Absolutely not. I have not thrown this game to another player.

let's be completely honest here and establish that Lord Bremen and I have had a lengthy ongoing dispute over truces. Our dispute began when I discovered that Lord_Bremen's general strategy is to solicit diplomacy that he doesn't intend to honor. He should have been upfront regarding his motives in submitting this complaint.

The situation in the game in question occurred weeks ago. Why is Bremen waiting until now to submit a complaint? The reason is that he was hanging on waiting, hoping and even trying to goat me into breaking a site rule. I had to eliminate two very strong players AND then still be strong enough to be able to run the game home. Then I had to follow through on a game chat promise, to actually be in violation of site rules. I knew all of this to be an impossible outcome thus i never even put myself in the position of having to break my word to avoid breaking site rules. The promise was to stand down after bremen was eliminated. I'd have to be strong enough at that point for it to matter. I wasn't even strong enough to eliminate bremen. The game never got to the point where I was even supposed to do anything. Basically i made a promise in the game chat that could never mathematically occur. When it isn't supported by any actions in the actual game, you end up with nothing more than game chat bantor.

I stated the following in our game, regarding my upcoming intentions,

2014-01-08 19:15:48 - stealth99: I also have no desire to continue playing a game that i consider meaningless and pointless after someone gains an advantage that way. If we aren't all playing by the same rules then i am not interested in playing.

Stopping my effort to win a board game does not equate to "throwing a game, or deliberately throwing a game.....".

I did not promise to assist any particular player for helping me. I had no interest in the outcome and that was made clear to everyone. There were multiple players in the game at this time and I did not suggest I would favor one in particular player at the end. I merely stated that regardless of what any player did in this game that winning the game no longer mattered to me.

Bremen states:

he was in a winning position and indicated to the remaining player (blue) that despite having the most income/territories he was going to allow blue to win. He repeatedly offered to move away troops if blue wanted to take territories of his, and chose not to attack him at all.

When you read Bremen's account, it appears as if there were three players and i made a deal with one guy to give him the game if he help me kill the other guy....AND Bremen is using pieces of quotes made over different times to suggest that when Bremen was eliminated and this game came down to two players, that I could have won but repaid the other player by throwing the game.

1. At the time all of this occurred, there were 6 players in our game. There was no single"remaing player", as Bremen suggests, there were six in total!!

2. I never once held a lead that I handed away. I would not have required help if I was that strong. Regardless, it's my strength after the truce breakers are eliminated that's relevant here, and whether or not i threw the game at that point.

3. Bremen himself stated in our game, On Jan 8, Round 28, when we still had 6 players, "youre just butthurt you got your ass kicked, get over it". From that point to the end, in Round 46 on Jan 30, I did nothing but go head on at the two truce breakers in an all out war, getting obviously weaker and weaker. Now Bremen is suggesting to you all that I completed my mission of eliminating both truce breakers with enough strength left to win the game. This guy will say whatever advances his goals, even if the things he claims to be truthful conflict with each other.

4. Here's a shocker: Bremen was never eliminated!! That's right, I never did eliminate Bremen!

Here is another game fact that will surprise you given Bremen's deceitful accusations; No other player accepted any deal or agreed to help me. Help never came! Blue, the player who eventually won the game, the player I supposedly made a deal with, attacked me significantly while I was trying to eliminate Bremen. I owed blue nothing. Blue never did trust that I would stand down when Bremen was eliminated. As a result, I never ever got to eliminate Bremen and when our game ended by blue holding the game objectives, Bremen was as much alive as i was.

Since I haven't written enough already, here are a few quotes from existing games I still have ongoing with Bremen. All of these quotes are from Bremen and none of them are directed to me or about me or have anything to do with me. This is his interaction with others:

orange, we can do a truce on the border.....or you can be a retard and die[/color]
this one was not precipitated by any game chat, i suspect a simple attack caused this chat entry, " and red f*ck you too little bitch."
everyone else is playing fine. but youre being a retarded suiciding noobfuck. and youre about to see what actually fighting me involves. (again, he isn't talking to me here)
teal can have the king back, i just took it because he was hitting me. (here he is helping two other players and giving up terts to one of them to appease the other, exactly as he has accused me of doing in this complaint)
and green f*ck you suiciding bitch (just about every game involves multiple accusations of suicide to multiple players. In fact just one game can have several dozen suicides, despite the fact it is an oxi moron)
seriously green? you lost the fight, dont be a bitch and suicide now too.
i have twice your armies and FIVE TIMES YOUR INCOME. stop being such a noobfuck, youre just helping pink.
again you noobfuck? seriously green, its sad. at least try to win. (that wasn't directed at me either, despite the familiar ring it has)

I have to stop. this is just a sampling of quotes from a couple of existing games. I didn't have to go looking.

I'm not getting into a back and forth here with Bremen. I trust that if anyone from the site has any questions, i'll hear from you. Other than that, i won't be back to this thread.

None of stealth's posts respond to my accusations at all, which I still believe are valid. He makes no effort the justify (or even acknowledge) his numerous statements indicating an intention to throw the game. I didn't post until the game was over because I assumed he was just bluffing in order to prevent blue from hitting him.

He was in a winning position, but chose instead to hand the game to another player (in this case blue - but the fact that he didn't care which of the other players it was is irrelevant, it's still handing the game to someone else). He made it very clear that regardless of the outcome of his attacks on me he was planning to hand the game to blue. This is a blatant violation of the site's rules.

I don't see how the ad hominem stuff about my posts from other games is remotely relevant. Maybe he thinks when someone is mean the rules get suspended for them?

It is quite common to suicide into someone if you believe that they have broken a truce with you. And yes sometimes that may hand the game to someone else. Also often I see people attack a low-rated player "because it is cheaper to lose to the high-rated guy". That is definitely handing the game to someone else. And sometimes people hang on to their truces even if they can no longer win the games, but they will rather stick to their word than break it. That can also be seen as handing the game to another player.

If all of these incidents should be reported and involve a punishment, there would be very few players left on the site.

So yes if one player does this in a majority of his games, there may be a case, but if you lose your temper a little in just one out of many games, I see it as part of the game.

And yes, the quotes are not really relevant for the dispute here. But Bremen, you do indeed seem like a very bad loser and a very annoying opponent. Someone that I can understand others would want to suicide into, even if it means throwing the game away. I think you should let this case go, and look yourself in the mirror before you accuse someone else for having bad ethics.

Have a nice day!

Well, I am sure Lord Bremen has a case here.
I read all the log of the game. Lord Bremen and stealth99 didn't make any truce in that game. So stealth99 had no reason to suicide on Lord Bremen whatsoever.
Suiciding on Lord Bremen because he broke a truce in another game seems terribly wrong if that is the justification stealth99 is giving for his behaviour on the game.

stealth99,it seems to me you have been doing wrong in the game. Here is the situation how I see it :

You had a truce with yellow, he broke it for some reason, no need to debate if it was wrong or right, it's irrelevant to the case I think.
Then Lord Bremen give support on the game chat to yellow, and you decided to throw all you have to both yellow and Lord Bremen.

So, not taking into account any history and past game you have with Lord Bremen, it seems you decide to focus on him simply because he gave his opinion in the matter between yellow and you. If you indeed play that way, you did throw the game. - I did not check the game log so maybe your words weren't follow of action but the end of the game seems to prove you did what you said.

"gross abuse of the game" -you would need more than 1 example. I have not looked through his games but to say 1 game is abuse does not qualify.

JOHNNYROCKET24 wrote:"gross abuse of the game" -you would need more than 1 example. I have not looked through his games but to say 1 game is abuse does not qualify.

That doesn't make any sense. That would mean a single instance of lots of banned behavior would be allowed. This is the reason there is a warning system - one instance gets you warned (so you don't do it again), multiple ones get you banned etc. It's not like he's going to be removed from the site, I just want him to be aware that his behavior was unacceptable and that if he continues doing so there will be consequences.

Donelladan, he was new to the map (King's Court) I think. All I did was point out that most people don't consider truces to apply to nobles on there (which is a true statement). But it's not the suiciding that bothers me, I deal with that all the time, it's the fact that he gave the game to another player rather than trying to win himself. It's one thing to suicide when you don't have a chance of winning, but that was not the case here.

The rules ban game throwing, and this is a clearly documented instance of it. Nothing else is particularly relevant.

There is no game throwing in this case... just usual way how games with diplomacy end

I see one line deliberately excluded in order for the accusation to be valid

2014-01-08 02:36:22 - stealth99: blue and red, i will only attack yellow and pink the rest of the game and regardless what happens, if i am alive when this game gets down to two players, i will forfeit unless the other player is one of them.

For me this is cooperation proposal to blue, red or both for elimination of yellow and pink, where orange offered his potential victory for elimination of yellow and pink.
After this there were 2 ways the game could have ended:
1. yellow and pink are eliminated and blue, red or both are alive the victorious would be one of them but not orange.
2. blue and yellow are eliminated and victorious is orange or maybe yellow or pink. Most likely the first candidate was orange.
The game ended with option 1.

Probably orange(stealth99) was not able to win on his own when he made that proposal so he made an offer that could have put him in much more favorable position. He never throw the game, he made a proposal and stick to it. So how can this be game throwing when there was active option for orange to achieve victory?

@Lord_Bremen I guess this will be hard lesson for you, you pushed orange way too much and you expected he to not react, but surprisingly for you he reacted and you ended losing although you expected others to fight for you and win the game for you, which didn't happen. For the end I will use your words:

2014-01-09 01:14:19 - Lord_Bremen: youre just butthurt you got your ass kicked, get over it.

GoranZ wrote:There is no game throwing in this case... just usual way how games with diplomacy end

I see one line deliberately excluded in order for the accusation to be valid

2014-01-08 02:36:22 - stealth99: blue and red, i will only attack yellow and pink the rest of the game and regardless what happens, if i am alive when this game gets down to two players, i will forfeit unless the other player is one of them.

I missed this quote or I would have added it, because it's absolutely evidence of game throwing. Just read it:

"I will forfeit unless the other player is one of them."

I don't know of any alliances in which one of the winners forfeits. Offering to lose on purpose for any reason (even to get someone to be a temporary ally) is by definition throwing a game. Which is exactly what he did.

Lord_Bremen wrote:

GoranZ wrote:There is no game throwing in this case... just usual way how games with diplomacy end

I see one line deliberately excluded in order for the accusation to be valid

2014-01-08 02:36:22 - stealth99: blue and red, i will only attack yellow and pink the rest of the game and regardless what happens, if i am alive when this game gets down to two players, i will forfeit unless the other player is one of them.

I missed this quote or I would have added it, because it's absolutely evidence of game throwing. Just read it:

"I will forfeit unless the other player is one of them."

I don't know of any alliances in which one of the winners forfeits. Offering to lose on purpose for any reason (even to get someone to be a temporary ally) is by definition throwing a game. Which is exactly what he did.

I know many alliances in which winner forfeits only to get a chance to be in a position to win... Now lets look at at the important things that happen in round prior to the quoted statement:

round 27 regions count and troop deployment, I don't have time to count the troop drop but it should be similar:

2014-01-06 22:24:20 - Incrementing game to round 27
stealth99 received 3 troops for 47 regions
stealth99 deployed 16 troops

deathcomesrippin received 3 troops for 14 regions
deathcomesrippin deployed 4 troops

Sprechen received 3 troops for 38 regions
Sprechen deployed 11 troops

Order of Chaos received 3 troops for 11 regions
Order of Chaos deployed 16 troops

Lord_Bremen received 3 troops for 47 regions
Lord_Bremen deployed 19 troops
Lord_Bremen eliminated ogro from the game
2014-01-07 16:56:59 - Incrementing game to round 28

2014-01-08 02:36:22 - stealth99: blue and red, i will only attack yellow and pink the rest of the game and regardless what happens, if i am alive when this game gets down to two players, i will forfeit unless the other player is one of them.

orange troop deployment = 16
yellow + pink troop deployment = 35
16<35

He was in a position to win you say? Numbers say otherwise... oranges force without support of red and blues was no match to yellows and pinks combined. How did yellow and pink lost the game is another question but I guess its connected with strategy.

P.S. Universal truth in CC world: Numbers do not lie, People DO

GoranZ you are watching wrong round. Look at round 36 for example

Orange ( stealth) deploy 38 and 49 auto deploy
Blue deploys 10 ( +10 with a set) +24 auto deploy
Pink ( Bremen) deploys 16 ( +10) with a set +25 auto deploy
Red, deploys 3 troops and 4 auto deploy

So it seems at round 36 orange was deploying enough to win the game alone. ( I don't know total troops at that time).
Then for the next 10 turns, without any exception, orange will hit pink, letting blue win the game.

GoranZ wrote:I know many alliances in which winner forfeits only to get a chance to be in a position to win... Now lets look at at the important things that happen in round prior to the quoted statement:

How exactly does forfeiting put you in a position to win? I suppose you could offer to forfeit in order to win another game, but that would be just as illegal. If illegal behavior is common, that doesn't justify it. If you're going to join a game, you have a responsibility to make some effort to win.

You're looking at the wrong rounds, as Donelladan has shown. Orange had the entire nobles and King while I was fighting blue, he could easily have taken it. Plus once I was finished orange didn't make any effort to fight back, he just sat there and let blue take him out (as he had promised to do).

@Donelladan: I'm looking at the correct round, around there the game escalated into fight of the kamikazes And we all know how many milliseconds of training for landing a plane they received.

2014-01-11 23:20:39 - Lord_Bremen: blue, im not going to hit you because i dont want to hand the game to this little bitch.

Bremen according to your words you were fighting for blue and when blue actually won you whine about it

P.S. This is the way standard games with diplomacy usually end up... Some truce is made, it isn't honored, few people suicide into each other, the one that wasn't involved into that spaghetti circumstances wins and some of those that suicide cry at the end. CC has foe feature for this reasons.

Yep, diplomacy took a turn for the worse of the OP and now he can't handle it. This is an extremely good example of how diplomacy can work. You should be grateful to have experienced it in a game you were in.

GoranZ has made all the good points needed and there is no way stealth99 is gonna get a warning.

Do you guys really think I don't know how diplomacy works? I probably add 1-2 suiciders a game to my foe list, this is not about that.

If you're going to weigh in, at least take the minimal time to look at the actual game (or even just read my post).

I am not complaining that Orange suicided on me. That's perfectly legal. The issue is that after he attacked me and I was basically dead he was in a position to win but made a conscious (and explicit) choice to give the game to a different player when he could easily have won it himself. Once I was eliminated, he just sat there and let blue take him out. That's the definition of game throwing.

@GoranZ, no you are not.
It doesn't matter when stealth decided to play kamikaze. The question is, did he throw the game?
If at one point he could have win the game, and decide instead to not win it, then he threw the game. Obviously at some point he clearly had the advantage.

According to Lord Bremen last post, at this point, when he had the best position, he deliberately did nothing to let blue win.
I think we need to make a more careful observation of the log but I don't have so much interest in the matter and time to waste to do it myself.

Yep, diplomacy took a turn for the worse of the OP and now he can't handle it. This is an extremely good example of how diplomacy can work. You should be grateful to have experienced it in a game you were in.

GoranZ has made all the good points needed and there is no way stealth99 is gonna get a warning.

I am surprised by your statement, also I am surprised that Lord Bremen you don't argue about that.
I read the chat and Lord Bremen did not do any diplomacy with stealth. The truce was between stealth and yellow. It still doesn't make any sense to me that Lord Bremen ( pink) became the target after yellow broke the truce with stealth ( orange). Even if Lord Bremen did bring support to yellow in the chat discussion.

Btw, as far as I know, making a suiciding threat is totally in the rule, but carrying the suicide isn't because it is game throwing.

The accused and the accuser had a lot of dispute in the game chat and it is not surprising that it resulted to one of them no longer mindful who wins as long as those he had a disagreement with won't win. This is not a shocker. This is not the typical strategy "in order to lose less points" but more on as a result of what transpired in the game chat. If there were no game chats, would the same result still occur? Both players seem to have a different way in looking at things and how things should be done, and unfortunately, no one wants to budge and yet headstrong to prove the other guy is wrong.

This report looks like an extension of the game chat.

I do not condone the irrational act of giving the game away just because another player got into your head. You always have the option of putting irritating players in your foe list. This is noted.