Me: The French are back. You have zero chance of taking my territory. Suggest you move back to Paris unless you want to lose it

Germany: i am best friends with france in real life..

Me: Yeah.. you *do* know people flip out about that kind of stuff around here, don't you? Just go read the forums for examples - and then I suggest you guys try to avoid playing in the same games if possible....

Germany: that's ok. there are about 8 of us in our little group.

Me: okayy....... dude, you need to either make private games or not play together. That's grossly unfair to people who are expecting a fair game

****
Now, in this particular instance, it doesn't appear that these two individuals are playing in any other games together, and the strategic situation for both France and Germany sucks, so all it's going to do is delay the inevitable.

However, the little 'clique' aspect is... worrying to me.

sorry, didn't see the timestamp on that one, should have given you more time to finish!

That does suck. I play with friends, but we play in private passworded games (and if we did find each other in a public game we would probably be just as likely, if not maybe MORE likely, to stab one another).

If they stay in private games, it is as you said, perfectly fine.

This has been the problem that has been argued about over the past few days. The general consensus is that people don't want this happening but people also are not interested in banning games with people you associate with in real life. A case of "don't amputate an arm because its aching".

Did Kestas come up with an efficient way to deal with it though? I think you need to provide a few names so it can be effectively worked out. I think the players need to give an accurate picture of what is going on as well.

I think we should put something like this in the Rules Section/FAQ:

Q. What if I want to play with my off-line friends?
A. That's fine, you should create a password-protected game for you and your friends to play in together. Playing with off-line friends against other on-line players is unfair to these players and is considered meta-gaming (see above). Alternatively, you can create a password protected game and invite other players in the forum, so long as you disclose who is friends off-line. Otherwise, don't play together.

Either that, or we just go to random game assignments, which cuts down 95% on a lot of the meta-gaming and multi-accounting (but doesn't eliminate it completely).

Wouldn't random game assignments eliminate your ability to choose game length and pot size?

Yup, that's the problem with it. Though I suppose if we predefined options it could be somewhat resolved.
Phase Length: 1, 12,24,36,48,72 hours
Pot: 5, 10, 50, 100, 250, 500, 1000, 2,500.
Or something to that effect. Even then, I don't know that we have enough active players to really randomize it. Most likely someone trying for an unfair advantage would still be able exploit the system as only one game of each type would be in the hopper at any given time.

Random-Game selection is like installing CCTV in everyone's house to catch criminals. It might produce results, but at too great a cost to non-rule breakers.

@Churchill Agreed.

I also don't think that friends playing together should be banned completely outside of pass worded games. Just don't treat your friends any different than you would any other player and there's no problem.

dear stratagos. germany here,
what....
is that totally neccessarry. i mean, does it really matter that people are friends? who cares. it doesn't matter. it just means that we know eachother better and we:

A. can psycoanalyze eachother
B. can talk during school

long story short, IT REALLY DOES NOT AFFECT ANYTHING

your was-ally, germany/p.Tea

p.s. yes i was the one who wrote those notes as germany. and it is also unlikely that you will find all 8 of us

Is it fair to discuss active games in the forum? Lying in negotiation, including claiming friendship, is a valid negotiation tactic. People don't have to admit to being friends anyway, so it's an impossible rule to enforce. Perhaps people who don't want to play with people who have friends should stick to passworded games, not the other way round.

This is obviously a much bigger problem than I thought. (and I imagine larger than most people on the site thought.) Again, I think we should limit players from joining more than one game with any one player. This will dramatically cut back this problem, and folks can still play with good people, just one game at a time with any one person.

I honestly doubt this is a large a problem as it may seem. There are an awful lot of active games going on (306 at the moment), and we haven't seen hundreds, or even 10 threads about such things lately. That's less than 3% of all active games with a complain. Unfortunately, we don't see nearly as much posted on the forum about how meta-gaming/multi-accounting/outside friendship effect free the rest of the games are because, well, it's just not worth posting about.

paulg, I think that is unreasonable to be honest. When I'm choose a game I know nothing about each player and want to be able to have a fair shot at negotiation and alliances with each one. If I am Turkey and Russia and Austria happen to be best friends who refuse to do anything but ally I cannot do anything if I don't find out within a few turns. It isn't not playing with people who have friends in the same game either. Its two friends choosing to act as one that is the problem - IMO its on par with multi-accounting.

I have looked through p.Tea's history and it doesn't look to be totally unreasonable. He has played with him in 3/8 games and neither seem to have allied from the beginning in any of the games. Besides, within the game in question p.Tea and Belgarath have been fighting - P.Tea opened with a move on Burgundy. By not ruling out an attack on each other they haven't crossed the very blurry line.

Also, IMO as a meta-gaming accusation it needs to be discussed on the forum. I don't know how else you would want it done.

Also to further thewonderllama's point it seems to be a 'hot' topic right now. We've not really drawn a clear line and people are unsure if they are being screwed.