why even have an apparatus to deter cheaters, when it is hardly ever utilized

Obviously they didn't think it was as open and shut a case as you do. And since I don't know the details, I'm going to take the mods word over yours. Also keep in mind that if they have record of your accusation, and another accusation is made against the same players, they will know that multiple people have complained, and maybe it needs to be addressed.

oh, after the accusation btw, player 2 mysteriously disappeared while player 1 continues to play, guess just another coincidence right? Take their word right?

I think you underestimate the difficulty in proving that two players are in fact cheating. And if player 2 is gone, at least be happy that they are no longer in cahoots, if that is what you thought they were doing.

yeah i would be happy if the dynamic duo didnt give me two losses, once after i reported the first time. I don't underestimate a thing, a guy has played 13 games out of 14 with a guy, allied with him every time, thats not proof?

if you want i could pm you the names and you can see how open and shut it is i dont believe that is against the rules

The mods thought it wasn't. Unless they look at it again and overturn it, I'll take their word for it. And you shouldn't worry about your record so much. Shit happens. Its only a game. Lots of people get screwed by multis. Not much you can do about it.

santa can i ask what email you used to contact us so i can review the case? i can't/won't comment till i see what youre talking about

i've looked into it myself... check your pms if you like.

suffice to say no one here is perfect and we do our best, and yes we do tend to err on the side of caution.

no one likes to get banned or punished if they didnt do anything wrong. not every case is cut and dry, though some are.

what you guys may not know is that when we do actually ban people we often get a whole bunch of supplications over email saying "PLEEEASE let me back on" and accusing us of being unfair and arbitrary, etc.

again, suffice to say we do our best. what more can be asked of us, i am not sure

+1 Thucy

I hate it when people come on here and bitch about the mods. Its hard to tell if people are guilty or innocent. Things aren't cut and dry. And these guys do this in their free time. They do their best. For goodness sake...

this was and still is cut and dry, I just looked through every game, the only time there was "dissonance" between the two is when #2 went CD and #1 attacked or when #2 supported #1 into his own territories. Im sorry, they may not be the same person but there is obviously serious meta gaming occurring.

The root cause of this post is I decided not to report more recent multis to the mods, ive realized its a waste of time, much like the near dozen games ive played on here where i have to patiently push ready every turn as a multi or meta alliance dismantles me.

Then either go bitch about it to your mother, quit the site, or man up and deal with it.

Or I bitch about it here and you man up and deal with it

Oh. I can handle your complaining. Its just that your mother would probably be more sympathetic to your case. In any case, I'll stop bumping this thread. I wish you wouldn't bash the mods though, and complaining on the forum isn't going to change anything...

So, if the mods don't agree with you on one decision, they'll never agree with you? You really like to pretend you're constantly being mistreated, but you really aren't. You can ask for a 2nd opinion (via email) or you can just move on with your life. And, if you think you're being a victim of cheating and don't report it, you really have no one to blame but yourself.

yeah I've realized nothing changes around here

if you think its a waste of time, thats a shame, because emails from users are our #1 way of being alerted to possible cheaters.

they often DO get caught and punished, you know. i do this about once or twice a week.

in more general terms:

the easiest way to avoid being victimized by cheaters is to watch what games you play in.

i havent been in a game with cheaters in over a year now. this is because most of my games are invitationals, created by myself, or league-based/variants

perhaps if you are getting frustrated with cheating you may want to think about joining a league or somesuch to avoid running into cheaters who tend to populate the lower-level no-strings attached casual anonymous games (anon here meaning there is no name recognition, not strictly "anon")

could help relieve some of this frustration

@thucy - if everybody only played invitationals then there wouldn't be any new members

@Maniac - I take the same approach Thucydides does for the most part. Let the noobs earn their stripes dealing with the cheats. I don't feel like playing with them.

"Let the noobs earn their stripes dealing with the cheats"

You're fucked.

Let me try to add something constructive.
Santa - your case may be firm, but just not solid enough for the Mods.
Since they give their free time to run this site for us it makes sense that we give our free time to help 'police' it. I know you've gathered a lot of data on these two players so far, but I think the no from the Mods should be considered a 'not yet'.
Track their games and note when it happens again. Also keep track of their other victims. If someone has been in a few games with them share info and add someone else to your formal complaint. I for one appreciate your efforts (and have sent a few suspicions in my self), but at some point it is a judgment call by the Mods.

Thu - would it be inappropriate to post the criteria somewhere? To 'prove' multi does it have to be the same IP? What number of games where player #1 throws the game to player #2 does it take?

We have many, many methods to check for cheating. Unless someone is taking an amazingly great amount of effort to cover their tracks and knows every method we use, they'll get caught. Unfortunately, it still is a difficult and long process most of the time.
But, as abge said, you can feel free to ask for a second opinion and even request a specific mod to look into it if you'd like. Just be patient so the other mod(s) can take a look when they have the time to do so.

And ass thucy said, all mods do this on their own free time and as a volunteer. We are human, we make mistakes, and a lot of the time we have to make judgement calls. It isn't going to be popular amongst everyone, but we do our best.

Did fortknox just call thucy an ass?

"And ass thucy said," Freudian typo there, me thinks. :-)

And I for one support the mods. It's a tough job and I'm glad I'm not doing it.

not to subtle, am I? ;)


(obvious typo of course)

lol. @Kalel

it's our policy not to talk about how exactly we track down cheaters, because obviously then cheaters could take advantage of that. you'll just need to trust us when we say we have more than one way of verifying if a person is a cheat or not.

^^ What he said. I know this is going to sound contrived, but I'd love to trust people enough to tell you all what we look for.
However, if you know what we're going to check, you know what to hide!
So no, were not going to tell you what we know/look at etc.
As noted, there are several mods, and in a number of cases the reason things take so long to get a response is because whoever looked at it has been unsure and asked for a second opinion.
When you suspect someone, feel free (and encouraged) to email about it, since that's the easiest way for us to build up a list of accounts to keep an eye on. This is particularly true for people who try and get round press restrictions. You might think you told them not to do it again and they agreed, but they may try and do it again after. We might not do anything the first time something gets reported (equally we might!), but that doesn't mean your email is wasted.