Wow, that's the most incredible display of multigaming I've ever seen. And it really annoys me how many games I've played with one or more of those multiaccounts. I hope you've reported it to the mods.

Cheaters on this website are really pathetic. Cheaters in online games in general, or any sort of competition where virtually nothing is at stake are miserably pathetic as well.

There's no pride to be gained amongst the community since cheaters are so obviously detectable. There's no self-pride to be gained since they know that they haven't earned anything.

To be motivated to cheat, a person must have such a pathetic life, where they can win anything, or have anything of value go their way, that the only thing they can do is create an artificial sense of success by "winning" a game, or in the case of some cheaters (that suck so bad that they can't even reliably win with *3* puppet players in their control) induce draws to marginally increase a meaningless point tally. Can you imagine how pathetic an existence this person must lead if their only escape, their only respite from their daily misery is to grab at some false sense of victory in an online game?

Either that or the cheater simply enjoys wasting other people's time. The cheater shouldn't feel good for "winning", and the other players shouldn't feel bad for "losing". The only thing to feel bad about is having your time wasted, and hence the only thing the cheater could legitimately appreciate is satisfaction of wasting the time of some random strangers on the internet. Trying to take anything more from a cheated win is a pure delusion. The convoluted task of cheating in games to waste people time is not any less pathetic as well.

I am not too upset with cheaters. I pity them for what must be their very pathetic motivations. They are people who are unsuccessful and unhappy in other pursuits in life, and their meaningless endeavor of cheating in an online game is only a self-destructive cycle that will keep them unsuccessful and unhappy in their other more worthwhile pursuits in life.

I'm working through all the reports I've got. drop it into the mod email account and it will hopefully now be seen to within a week.

@ Bob - Pretty damn egregious.

@ Ghost, check your PM box.

Those guys don't seem to have been very successful.

Some of it is just bizarre: look at http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=37597#gamePanel - an ancient med game where 4 out of 5 players are one person, then they go for a 5 way draw..I guess one opponent wasn't enough of a challenge, but more than, say, 50% of the players on the board being your opponents was too much to handle?

My suggestion is to stay of that Panduras. It seems to me that he's got 3 other accounts: suckerpunch, killme, and pissonme

yebellz said it rightly about what those multiaccounters are. I don't know.....some people will cheat at anything.

acmac - it's OK, he's already banned. Thanks Mods!

UN believable.

A 100 point stake WTA game pretty much screams "multi" from the rooftops. Stick to low stakes games and you hardly ever encounter cheating :).

The pathetic piece of crap, Pandarus (userID=28225) has been banned.
Here are his puppets
userID=28592
userID=28683
userID=28684
userID=28696
userID=28697
userID=28720

His MO was to use 3 puppets in game, plus himself, play them like a 4-way alliance, then CD them when he thought he could try to go for the win. The real pathetic part is that he struggled to barely ever get any wins with this method. Often he had to just settle for draws to marginally increase his point total. Really pathetic that he sucks so much at this game, he can't even reliably win with 3 puppets.

I sure hope that Ghostie is getting some help from the other mods. It sounds as if this multi was both busy, and utterly transparent.

This is a case where his multi-gaming hilariously backfired on him
gameID=37598
I watched it unfold live. I was perplexed to see it happen, then outraged after in realizing that it was a multi-attempt, but now I just find it hilariously funny since he got the exact opposite result that he was going for.

Pandarus was playing England and initially AIT was controlled by his puppets. AIT all CD around the beginning of 1906, once Russia had been eliminated and France and Germany were reduced to 2 and 1 SCs each. Seemed like it should be an easy win for England now, but Turkey was left in a powerful position and some random observer picked up that CDed country and played it into a win. In the end, Pandarus was asking for a draw before eventually just resigning. Hahaha, what a pathetic loser. This guy sucks to an unbelievable degree. Can't even win win 3 puppets in his control!

Ghost can you tell us where he lives so we can all beat on him? Thanks

You gotta feel a bit sorry for someone who cheats with 3 or 4 nations and still can't win. Would assume that it's a kid and the kid is frustrated with always losing. It wouldnt be nearly as bad if the handicap was known and not hidden, but still.

Makes me think about myself growing up. My older brother is nine years older so a game of basketball one-on-one had to have some handicaps to make it fun for either of us. I was allowed to take three-point shots without interference. But I was also taught as a child to play fair and honestly. I imagine those that cheat here were never given such a benefit, and that's the real shame.

Maybe he's the real genius here -- he knew that he'd attract the attention of the mods if he actually won the games, so he just settled for draws to increase his points while staying under the radar. It certainly seemed to work for a good amount of time.

Try to avoid Non-WTA games also. While I sure have experienced my fair share of multis as well, I think they are less frequent in non-wta games..

Either play very small pots, private games, or larger than 100 point pots. 50-100 point pots draws the multis.

Join the GFDT! No metagamers there!

That almost sounds like a challenge . . .

Perhaps the reason people do this (besides intrinsic doubts about self-worth, as yebellz nicely explained) is because they believe erroneously that the real game is not the game of Diplomacy, but the system and community here. They are trying to win/break THAT game, instead of just enjoying themselves with a great pastime. You encounter spoiler-people like this in many arenas. They are the folks who leak the endings to TV series on the Internet, who create preposterous minmaxed characters in roleplaying games and go rampaging across campaign worlds to annoy their GM and fellow players, who use cheat codes in video games during their first playthrough or in competitive settings. It's a sad phenomenon.

Gunboat game-22 right now I have suspicions that Turkey and Italy may be multi, or else extremely well coordineted for a no messaging gunboat game -- we'll see

http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=37773&nocache=903

gunboat game-22, just ended, andrewlee won, helped by first time player frankybye, soandrewlee wins all 70 , when frankybye could have easily won the game but made no move to do so

http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=37773&nocache=903

@Rancher, Don't post cheating accusations in the forum. Send them to [email protected]

Rancher, I was also in that game, and sent you a PM before I saw your post here. Know that you're not alone in your suspicion.

http://webdiplomacy.net/profile.php?userID=28144

this guy is pretty pathetic too.

You know what's funny? Both the multiaccounter that Rancher called out and the multiaccounter that trip called out participated in gameID=37560. To the best of my knowledge, with none of their multis. And they both lost handily.

Guys, maybe we set this in the wrong direction, but do NOT post cheating accusations in forum. The moderator email address is [email protected]

I know it must seem a bit hypocritical since I was outline the MO of a particular cheater, but that was done AFTER they had been banned. I kept my observations off the forum until after the mods had taken care of it.

I'll do so in the future, my apologies, I get it

So here is a related question.....Experienced players here are speaking of password-controlled games as a method to avoid multis. And perhaps 60 - 70% of all new games seem to be passworded. How does one break into the rarified air of those "allowed" to participate in passworded games? It's not your ghost rating (I'm around #280), it's not your points (at 200, I'm past the beginner stage), and with all due respect, I don't even get responses when emailing folks in those pre-games and asking to join. So..... do I need to clique (ouch) my heels?

Posting on the forum is a good way to get games of that kind. Alternatively sign up for a tournament.

Hey Indy, I have 5 other accounts, I will set up a game for us. You, me & all my other "friends". How about this, start a game & post it asking for people to join. You choose who joins, this is the point. If you get 1 going with at least a 36 hr phase I will play.

@ike: Sounds good. hopefully you and your friends will do better than "that other guy" :)

@ghost - thanks

@Indy set up a game, I'll play. I like live games though. I need instant gratification.

@Indy

Join the GFDT. It will build your webdip cred.

http://www.webdiplomacy.net/forum.php?viewthread=633182#633182