you are allowed to carry in biases about players that you learned from other games but you can't do tit-for-tat moves where you trade concessions in one game for benefits in another.

Or how about you know a player favors reproductive rights. Is that a valid basis for muting them from 1900?

Okay, so no "help me solo here, I'll help you solo there" kind of stuff. Does that extend to vengeance? Like "you ruined my last game, I'll destroy you in the next one!"

I believe gamey meat is already being disc- oh... nvm

Ogion shhhhh, let's not lock this thread

I dont think I have any meta biases.

If you can ignore all press from a country because you don't like the country, I don't see why you can't do the same for a player.

But there must be a difference between not liking a player's diplomacy style and not liking a player for external reasons right?

I would prefer not to lock this thread, since there's obviously an appetite for this discussion, so let's set some ground rules.

1. No cheating accusations.
2. Follow the site rules about personal attacks, etc.

@Balduran that would still be illegitimate.

There's more then one type of "meta gaming".

There's the black and white kind that's blatantly against the rules, and these include things like:
- You and your roommate player in a game together and teaming up
- Making cross game deals (help me here and i'll help you over there)
- Joining a game with a preconceived arrangement or intent ("i only want to go in and sabotage that guys game because he stabbed me in our last game" or "i always end up 2wd'ing with Jonnie when we play, he'll totally do it again because we like each other")

But then there's also implied rules in place that sounds great in theory but tend to bump against human nature a little bit...

- Don't allow personal biases or past history to affect your game
- No referring to past games in a current game

Do we all try our best to turn off past experiences every time we walk into a game? We want to, we mean to. We know how a person played in one game isn't necessarily the same approach they'll take in this game. Everybody deserve a clean slate while past experience, personal knowledge, past emotions, and all that available information ought have no bearing.

Realistic? Not particularly, at least not once you've been around for a while.

I freely admit on occasion I've let past games bias my judgement on wanting to not ally with players due to past headaches caused by personality conflict. I've specifically sought out games with strong players i want to challenge myself to beat. I've had reluctance to put trust in players with very high solo rates and I've been drawn to ally with players with high draw rates assuming them more loyal. I've research players to study their strategy, loyalty, temperament based on public press, and level of competition. It's not easy to choose to ignore knowledge. Try being a top ranker and expect to be treated like every other player in a public game, there's a reason we often choose to play anonymous game.

At the end of the day it's a relatively small community of active players with a good deal of accessible history and personally i really love this dynamic of this site. I like that players have to take into consideration their reputation beyond a single match-up, i find it an extremely interesting twist. History matters here and it impacts how you have to approach the game. I enjoy the homework aspect of preparing strategy and i highly respect for those who do homework when playing against me, it elevates the game and forces you to constantly evolve.

Am i saying meta-gaming is a concept too abstract to govern? Emphatically not, there's absolutely lines not to be crossed. Do homework, just don't use history as an in-game influence on others ("hey, check out game #... you can see that dude is a proven liar). Have opinions on players, but try to keep an open mind in new games anyways (more fun that way anyways). Try not to hold onto grudges (good life philosophy as well). And really it's just a good rule of thumb to try to avoid games blending together, I generally pass on "rematch" games or requests from players i just played to participate in a new game just starting. A little distance of time goes a long way in keeping games fairly separate in your head.

Knowing someone's reputation as a player and either taking advantage of that reputation or countering it are the only legitimate forms of metagaming, I'd think.

"Don't allow personal biases or past history to affect your game"

This is silly if in my opinion. If I'be played with someone before and they are a lying stabby sneaker I'm going to be weary of that and look to stab them first.

I don't believe this is meta or should be discouraged. Personal bias outside of games shouldn't impact play, but game experience is impossible to forget.

I've*

Improving the anonymity on the site will help decrease impacts of this type of meta as folks won't be able to really nail down who each player is. This will allow notorious liars to reinvent themselves.

All true regarding it being not 'bad' meta that should be discouraged.

That said i'd also suggesting trying to keep a somewhat open-mind in that some players simply are chameleons from game-to-game and can very easily be a super aggressive stabby-pants in one scenario while a decide in the next it's much better for him to be super loyal guy in the next. I generally use it as a consideration when keeping guards up a little more but unless i know they're just chronically one way and completely unworkable i'll probably at least look a little deeper into their history before completely writing somebody off. It's just generally not a great idea to narrow your options so much and sometimes it's even helpful to have a "devil you know" by your side who knows they can't get away with as much with you based on credit alone.

I think PlayDip does a good job of defining what falls under “bad” meta-gaming. Nuances may differ from site-to-site but i think most of this would be considered pretty universal.

1. Entering a game with a preset or arranged alliance.
2. Entering a game as a replacement with the intention of helping another player in the game, whether by invitation or not
3. Treating another player or players specially because of your relationship with them, or because they are friends off-site or from past games
4. Entering several games with the same player(s) and regularly forming the same alliance
5. Playing as a team across several games
6. Forming alliances in several games based on the fact that players are sharing these games and can co-operate in them (“We’re in three games together, let’s work together in all of them.”)
7. Exchanging favours between games (“If you do this in game A, I will do this is game B.”)
8. Exchanging information across games including discussing events from other active games and sharing secret information on another player from a shared active or archived game (eg Player A warns Player B about Player C using a copied and pasted message from a game Players A and C shared).
9. Inviting players in one game to join you in other games, where this is linked to an existing alliance or a possible alliance
10. Negotiation of actions and alliances outside of the game
11. Entering a game with the preset idea of attacking a specific player, based solely upon events in other finished or active games, or in response to events or knowledge outside the game
12. Threatening actions, reprisals or retaliation in a game for events that have happened in other finished or active games or in response to events or knowledge outside the game
13. Threatening actions, reprisals or retaliation in future games for events that have happened in a current game or other active games
14. Blackmailing players with reporting them for cheating unless ‘such-a-thing’ happens in the game.
15. Joining a game and taking malicious action in the game against another player, sending malicious messages or posting malicious Public Press, then leaving the game – when in response to events or knowledge outside of the game

Hopefully this helps clear up some things in peoples minds.

If you email that to our mods I'm sure it'll help them out a lot.

I agree in theory, but at some point usually early on you will be faced with a decision where you must decide who to trust, reliability and consistency are major determining factors. There are some players they prove themselves over and over again, so all things being even why take a gamble if you know what you're getting the other side.

For instance I don't think THM has ever lied on this site, this is my favorite player right now.

Yup, i'm a play-the-player homework kind of guy myself so i completely agree. My warning was more towards anybody who would make any decision based on a single personal experience.

And yeah, THM is a pretty awesome player who i've personally used as one of my sources of inspiration form when shaping my own game style. Great player if you're on the right side with him.

Oi hang on, is this thread about me?

Oh snowy. You're so vain. You probably think this thread is about you? Don't you? Don't you?

Also, I agree that getting rid of the online indicators would be a huge step forward to preserve anonymity in games. And to truly remove metagame influence requires anonymous games.

I for one enjoy playing non-anon games, its just a different dynamic that you have to be aware of. Of course knowing players leads to information that is available that can be exploited. The key to me is using common sense - if you are doing something that doesn't make sense from an in-game standpoint, you need to reevaluate your motivations.

We need to have some integrity - we are all here for competitive fun. The mods work hard to deal with multiaccounters etc, the last thing they need is to deal with 100 metagaming issues every day.

@village idiot
Would it be ok for me to look at a game with 3 players left, see that France is about to solo but could be stopped with reasonable defensive play, and decide to join it specifically with the intention of stopping France's solo? It seems like that could fall under "joining a game with intention to help another player"

Balduran literally just confirmed that this thread is about me. I, for one, feel very poorly done in that I was identified by my speech pattern by Balduran in an anonymous game and promptly betrayed after firm assurances of alliance as England by his Germany. This is clearly an ignoble act probably made in the natural state of jealousy which is invoked in everyone not myself by, well, not being me, and should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.

@Ezio - Perfectly cool so long as you're not doing it to carry favour with one of the players in another game or because you have a personal relationship with them.

@snowy801 - You'll have to take that up with the mods, but if this is a current game probably best not to talk about it here any further or else you're just going to get this thread locked too and some harsh words from powers that be.

Oh, I was being facetious. More evidence that I should leave the comedy to the comedians.

This site doesn't have comedians. Especially not funny ones.

^^ Prado's right.

@Ezio--joining a game with intention to help another *country* =/= joining a game with intention to help another *player*.