ive played a few games with people and when ive found them honest, i like playing with them again

ive played a few with rush here and despite his aggressive nature and messages, enjoy being his ally and enjoy it more when i beat him

:D

That is surely meta-gaming what you are doing Cockney. And how can you enjoy Dr Rush?He's an idiot to play with..

It depends if they can treat the other person relatively the same as they would in another game.

Given that we do not impede players from discussing the game outside the game (just not on the forum and not in restricted press games), IM and phone calls and real meet ups are all your own prerogative.

Thus the argument that "they can talk about it outside the game" is not valid.

However, inserting out of game concerns like "let me watch you enter the orders" or "I won't have sex with you if you don't support me into Belgium" are meta-gaming and will be punished if we here about them.

At the end of the day this is what I as a mod tell people who are walking the line with metagaming - make sure you avoid looking as though you're metagaming, because if you look like you're doing it, you probably are, even if you don't think it is metagaming.

Thus if you and your girlfriend just happen to ally up 80% of the time you're adjacent.. well, that's metagaming even if you are not intentionally doing that shit. We tell players that seem not to be able to be egalitarian in that respect after several tries that it is probably better just to stop playing with that person.

fair point thucy....

I just wanted to see what people thought. Ive played a game or two with Lopt and have enjoyed beating him and teaching him a lesson- in a way, that influences him to attack me in other games or not trust me

thats not "meta gaming" but the same effect is still there surely?

Thucy, I won't have sex with you if you don't support me into Belgium.

what about a blow job?

The price for that is a ENG DMZ.

Hah, surely when I see your name I will not attack you, because you would just all-in go against me. And please don't call these victories in these broken games you talk about a lesson..

hehe

but seriously, i just wanted opinions.... i was interested. I know the rules of meta gaming (frowned on) and as u can see above, there are two guys who have played with me and both have reactions to my playing

in a way, every game, unless anon, has influences from previous games does it not?

Influences are not metagaming (well, not in the bad metagaming sense). We all come into any game involving someone whom we've played before with preconceived notions of how that person plays and will do our bets to use that information to our advantage. They key to keeping metagaming "acceptable" and maintaining your friendship is don't let the fact that you are fighting the person in game or just got stabbed by them (or would like to stab them) affect your friendship and don't let your freindship affect the way you play the game. If you can't do that, don't play with that person. It's simple.

Example: I like fortknox. He's a really good guy and I will be inviting him to my home poker game once the new house is in order and I get it started. But right now, I guarantee he is steeming about some in game stuff in one of our games and I'm ticked about a preemptive stab he just performed in the same game. But I trust him not to take that outside the game beyond remembering what I did and not letting himself be put in that position again and I'd go have a beer with him right now if he were around here and I'm not going to go easy on him or keep him in the game unless it provides a strategic advantage to me.

Our "friendship" is for the non-game related chat and for outside the game,. In the game, we are opponents the same as any other players and we both play to get us the best strategic position.

@Thucydides
So: systematically preferring a certain ally over another is metagaming? Even if you think that person is rightout trustworthy? Weird, especially if you manage to get the alliance going with negotiations.
I thought metagaming meant: the act of cooperation, with "outside-of-game" benefits. Let's apply argumentum ad absurdum: say your game is defined as "get as many as possible %" or "get as much fun out of live as possible". In these cases, your exaple does not hold.
For myself every board is a different game, and I expect others to think the same about that. i.e. a stab by a person on one board won't break an alliance on another.

Friendship should have nothing to do with how you treat another player in a game. Having knowledge of their tendencies and playing style is another story. In game situation trumps everything. If I have the opportunity to make a worthwhile stab on an ally, I will take it. It doesn't matter if I've never played with that person or it's my best friend. At the same time, if I know someone to make a habit of wrapping themselves in pointless conflicts that end up with both parties getting eliminated, I will use that info to form part of my strategy.

i disagree with carpenter

if someone has stabbed me in 2 games, im going to expect them to do it a third time and dont trust them

carpenter's point is that you shouldn't allow the stab in one game to drive you to stab the stabber in another game out of revenge. Yes, be aware of how and when they like to stab and use that info;. But don't go to another game and just stab them for the hell of it. That's metagaming of the unacceptable type.

@Draugnar
Exactement, I won't trust the guy, but I won't stab if there's no need.
Though now I'm interested if what Cockney discribes called metagaming or rather reversed-metagaming: not cooperating with someone, though it will be profitable for both of you, because of outside-of-board events?
I'd say yes. I'm trying to think about a situation right now.

if someone has stabbed me in 2 games, im going to expect them to do it a third time and dont trust them

this is legitimate.

Although, I would also look at those stabs and see if it was a stabbity player or if they were well justified and my own fault for letting myself be opne to the stab.

mmmm

depends on what they said to you in chats/messages

im more inclined to remember people for lie and stab too much

Define a lie. If you say "I have an idea..." and I respond "OK" or "That's an idea..." then ignore it, I've led you to believe I'm going with it but never said I'll do it.

@Thucydides
I won't go into the benefits of being stabbed, but I don't seem to get your point. I rephrased two of your comments into 1 sentence, so they're better comparable.
Now you say: "distrusting a person, just because you've met him/her before and (s)he did stab you (on multiple occasions) is allowed."
However, you stated earlier: "trusting people, just because you've met them before and he didn't stab you -and you somehow start to like the guy/girl- is not allowed."
To summerize your two comments: you're only allowed to cooperate with people you don't trust. Because, as soon as you trust the guy --or girl but somehow I expect the ratio not to be 50/50, thus guy will be more occuring-- and somehow might get to know him/her, your behavior is considered meta-gaming. Of course, I'm not so naive to think that every alliance will end up in a friendship of some sort. But my point is this: I'm not planning to prevent becoming a friend on this site from happening, ergo this could happen. If it happens, you're labeling me as being a meta-gamer (I couldn't find the rules, but I guess it's as severe as multi-accounting), even if this friend and me are cooperating because we both see benefits in an alliance.
@Chockney: with this many games going on, I doubt that mods are able to keep track of everything that's said and that this merely depends on whether or not fellow players consider the on-board events as meta-gaming, which might also just be a 'normal' stab or a 'normal' change in alliances.
@Draugnar: I couldn't help it, but I agree again: that what might be percieved as lying, stabbing, telling the truth, meta-gaming, etc.. depends to a large extent what your (on-board) advantage is. I think it's highly dubious to label some-one as a meta-gamer, and I honestly can't see the difference between a cocktail of (1) a bit of luck in guessing the right defense, (2) good negotiations and (3) a well-payed swindle; and the concept described here as "meta-gaming".

Then I have several related questions: What if I know a player missed the last two phases in game A (1-day deadline), am I allowed to make a move against him in game B (25-hour deadline)? What if I'm in a full attack against him? What if I though (beforehand) this was the right time for a stab? What if my alliance partner asks my opinion about a plan of attack?
I would consider them all meta-gaming, even if you would not use the information acquired from any outside-of-board events, but I somehow sense not everybody will agree with me on this.

BTW, in real-life diplomacy spying/trying to overhear others/stealing orders -as long as they're not in their final place- is allowed, is there any chance this might be implemented in online-diplomacy? :)

@carpenter - There is two types of metagaming: allowed and not allowed. Allowed metagame are all that you described before and can´t be prevented and enforced. You can look people stats (or not). You can´t forget what happened in your previous games and don´t trust someone that stabbed you 5 out of 5 games. You can notice 1 minute before the turn ends that someone didn´t entered orders so you take his centers.

The unaceptable metagaming is to use what is happening in other games to influence one game (I help you in game 1 if you help me in game 2) or to enter a game with pre-arranged alliances or enemies (I will ally with player A no matter if this is good to me or not or if he is Turkey and I am England).

I would consider the use of info gleaned from a parallel game to be metagaming, but to look as the deadline approaches and see no checkmark is fair game.

Listening in or altering someone's orders would require hacking the account which is not only against the rules bit against the law I'm some countries. I don't expect anything like that would be implemented.

@rdrivera2005
I hope I'm not annoying to you all, but this clarifies a bit. Though the difference between the 2nd type of unacceptable meta-gaming and being plain stupid a fine line. Unless the whole map commits to this, which means you convince people to do that. Ergo: acceptable in my opinion. Ooph, wanted to say that for a very long time.
Furthermore is the 1st type of unacceptable meta-gaming a little more tricky. The mods of this site are the only ones that actually have a say in that: e.g. modifying the current country-assignment algorithm in order to prevent current neighbors to be neighbors again. But in most cases such kind of meta-gaming is marginally better than the 2nd kind.
@ Draugnar
there's also the possibility that people could get a PM (with a part of) an order of one of your opponents on the board as long as the orders are saved, but the "ready" button is not yet clicked. Something similar to being a "witness of a kill" in some browser-based mafia-games. Furthermore, I never said anything about altering the orders, you're right that such behavior should not be allowed. I'm not really proud of it, but it's a proven method and it works out quite well. However, leaking information (or orders) on purpose is often a part of the strategy to put opponents on the wrong track.

Leaked info by others happens all the time and has to be weighed as to its truthfulness. But listening in where neither party knows it is happening would require hacking PR the software to randomly send bits of the conversation. The former is as I said before against the rules and illegal in some places and the latter would lead me and probably others to find a new site.

What I would rather see is anonymous and faked press like the judges have.