Conquer Club

Accused:

fairman
djelebert

The accused are suspected of:
Conducting Secret Diplomacy

Game number(s):

Game 20039288
Game 20039289
Game 20039290
Game 20039291
Game 20039292
Game 20039293
Game 20039294
Game 20039295

Comments:
These 2 are friends. If one of them can't win a game, he will ensure that the other does. There is no indication of this in chat. I was wholly unaware of their unspoken alliance until it was made clear by their gameplay and after being brought up in game chat. This results in Secret Diplomacy.

My other opponent (FuegoFuego) in this 4 person Olympics finals set is actually the player that noticed this, researched it, and sussed it out. His evidence of their strategy and in-game decisions is compelling.

But even beyond their play, the ironically named fairman actually admitted it out loud in Game 20039291 and in Game 20039288.

For this particular infraction, since it happened in an Olympic Finals (an officially sanctioned ConquerClub Tournament), Management should disqualify them from this event and re-run the Finals with either just FuegoFuego and me, or bring in the 5th and 6th place contestants to re-run the 4-person finals matches.

I believe djelebert & fairman should be banned or warned/reprimanded, at a minimum, about this behavior going forward.

This is happening in the Conquer Club Olympics which has a tribe scoreboard. It makes sense to help a tribemate win if you yourself can't. Most people in high ranked clans/tribes value their clan/tribe results over their own personal results. That just the nature of competitive team mentality. I'd blatantly help a teammate win a game if I am not in a position to win myself, especially if it helps the team win the main event. No need to talk it out either, it is simply a natural move for a team first oriented player.

Tribe event results >>> personal event results.

This is my opinion, not an official Team CC or Community Team stance

Caymanmew wrote:This is happening in the Conquer Club Olympics which has a tribe scoreboard. It makes sense to help a tribemate win if you yourself can't. Most people in high ranked clans/tribes value their clan/tribe results over their own personal results. That just the nature of competitive team mentality. I'd blatantly help a teammate win a game if I am not in a position to win myself, especially if it helps the team win the main event. No need to talk it out either, it is simply a natural move for a team first oriented player.

Tribe event results >>> personal event results.

This is my opinion, not an official Team CC or Community Team stance

It's a natural feeling to help people in the same group as you win if you can't win yourself.

However, unless they posted in the game chat an alliance had emerged, it is definitely classified as Secret Diplomacy, and may also be considered Tournament Game Throwing, because they are specifically targeting the other players.

May be hard to do because of the number of active members, but what about making future olympics a limit of 1 Tribe member per tournament. But yeah in order for this to happen tournaments would be smaller, or more tribes need to be made. I see nothing but future C&A reports made because of this issue.

In case you don't know, I am also a clanmate of djelebert and fairman, so feel free to consider me biased.

You said fairman admitted secret diplomacy, he did not.
The only thing he said in the chat was that yes, he'd rather see djelebert win if he can't, which is not secret diplomacy, and even not saying he would actually act on this wish.
fairman and djelebert have been playing together since 9 years, you cannot expect fairman to not be slightly biased, but he is admitting it because he is an honest player.

Now being biased isn't the same as cheating. True enough, if you can't play without bias, you should not be playing multiplayer game together on a regular basis, that'd indeed be unfair.
Every regular player on CC have person he likes/respect/trust and some of their move might be, consciouly or not, different when they play against such person that they know compared to another regular player.
But this isn't cheating.

Now, looking at some of the games, I'd say you don't have a case.
For example FuegoFuego is claiming in the chat of this game Game 20039291that they are teaming up in that one Game 20039292:

Let's look together at the last 3 rounds

Round 7 :
fairman start, drop 11, attack djelebert ( take 3 regions)
FuegoFuego plays, drop 17, attack both fairman and djelebert - take 4 from djelebert, 5 from fairman
djelebert plays, drop 11, attack FuegoFuego.

Note : with a 17 drop and having taking 9 extra regions, FuegoFuego is clearly leading and therefore it is a very logical move from djelebert to attack FuegoFuego in a 3 player game as it is now that yellow has been eliminated.

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Round 8
FuegoFuego starts, drop 16. Attack djelebert. ( Start with 29 regions, takes 4 thus 33 regions, will the lose 8 in the turn bringing him to 25 regions)
fairman palys, drop 11, attack FuegoFuego ( start with 18 regions, take 5, thus 23 regions)
djelebert plays drop 9 attack FuegoFuego. (start with 17 regions, take 3 thus 20 regions).

Here agian, FuegoFuego is still the leader, logical move for fairman and djelebert to attack him.

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Round 9
From preivous turn we can know that
(1) FuegoFuego has 25 regions
(2) fairman has 23 regions
(3) djelebert has 19 regions.

fairman plays first, cash and attack FuegoFuego. Still seems pretty fair.
djelebert play 2nd, cash and attack FuegoFuego, there FuegoFUego wasn't leader anymore. you could say this move was questionnable. But with context it may not be.
Also djelebert did take 2 regions from fairman.
FuegoFuego plays take 1 from djelebert, 1 from fairman.

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Round 10
fairman play first, take 3 regions from FuegoFuego
djelebert play 2nd, and attack the leader, fairman.
FuegoFuego plays, and attack djelebert.

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Summary :
Round 7 fairman was attacking djelebert.
Round 7,8, and beginning of round 9, FuegoFuego was the leader and was attacked.
One attack on end of round 9 from djelebert might be deemed unnecessary against FuegoFuego.
Round 10, djelebert attack fairman who is leading.

I see no case in this game.
I took this one as example because FuegoFuego was claming they were teaming in the chat.

Actually, got some time.
I've quoted relevant passage on the first four games, that imho, discredit your accusation. When one of the accused was in a lead position, the other accused tried to stop him, even causing them to lose the game in some occasion.

If you didn't win any game Esquire, I think it's because you've been way too passive in those game.
FuegoFuego will win 2, djelebert 5. Last game is open.

Note: I skipped part where they simply took one region, I only quoted part that seems to be meaningul attack between both accused. Such attack as the one I quoted mean they aren't guily of secret diplomacy.


Game 20039289

Round 4 ( fairman attack djelebert)

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Round 5 Massive attack from djelebert to fairman

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Game 20039288 In that game Esquire only took one region each turn - nothing else.
For the first 4 rounds, FuegoFuego only attacked fairman. ( and fairman did more oor less the same).

Seems to me Esquire forgot to take bonus and let the game run away from him.

Round 5, fairman hit djelebert

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Round 6, fairman hit djelebert

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Round 7, djelebert attack fairman

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Game 20039290
Round 7, fairman attacked djelebert who I guess was leading at the time.
A bit later both fairman and djelebert are swiftly eliminated by you 2, despite you claiming they work together.

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Game 20039291
Round 6, djelebert hit both Esquire and fairman

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Round 7, fairman attack djelebert

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Round 9, fairman attack both FuegoFuego and djelebert ( 4 regions FuegoFuego, 5 regions djelebert)
then everyone attack fairman, including djelebert, who is then eliminated by one FuegoFuego

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Game 20039293

Round 7 : massive attack from djelebert on fairman

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Round 8 fairman reply :

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While FuegoFuego decide to go after Esquire...

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Then djelebert elimiante Esquire and FuegoFuego on round 9.

The only thing he said in the chat was that yes, he'd rather djelebert win if he can't, which is not secret diplomacy, and even not saying he would actually act on this wish.

yes. this. i'll continue to wave this dying flag but you cannot legislate the thoughts and strategies of players, whether you agree with them or not. you can legislate cheating, secret diplomacy, multis, actual game throwing, abuse and all of that but you cannot tell a player how to play the game. it seems that certain players (and at least one mod) would like anyone who they deem unable to win a game to simply stop playing the game, but not to deadbeat so basically just take your drop and don't do anything. there are times when you are toast but you still have an obligation to help to determine the outcome of the game. maybe someone screwed you early on and you have an opportunity to pay it back, maybe you like one player more so you hit the others, maybe someone tried to help you earlier so you repay the favor - are those scenarios game throwing or secret diplomacy? no. they're playing the game.

in this case it's even more ridiculous - i'm not up on it but it seems to me if you're in an individual competition with a team scoring aspect to it, of course you want to do things to help your teammate win if you cannot. there is so much precedent for this, ANY team racing sport whether it be biking, running, car racing, etc employs this exact strategy. if cc doesnt want this to be a possibility, then either don't put on a competition that works this way or stop teammates from being in the same game.

Jdsizzleslice wrote:

Caymanmew wrote:This is happening in the Conquer Club Olympics which has a tribe scoreboard. It makes sense to help a tribemate win if you yourself can't. Most people in high ranked clans/tribes value their clan/tribe results over their own personal results. That just the nature of competitive team mentality. I'd blatantly help a teammate win a game if I am not in a position to win myself, especially if it helps the team win the main event. No need to talk it out either, it is simply a natural move for a team first oriented player.

Tribe event results >>> personal event results.

This is my opinion, not an official Team CC or Community Team stance

It's a natural feeling to help people in the same group as you win if you can't win yourself.

However, unless they posted in the game chat an alliance had emerged, it is definitely classified as Secret Diplomacy, and may also be considered Tournament Game Throwing, because they are specifically targeting the other players.

As you said, it is a natural feeling. No spoken alliance is needed and without any spoken agreement it can't be secret diplomacy. Unless someone can prove they talked about this outside of game chat there is no case. As for game throwing, That is ridiculous. If you can't win the game you can't very well throw it. Once victory is no longer an option any logical player looks to see what they can still effect in the game that could benefit them in the tournament.

I hear what you are all saying and I am awed by your analysis. I won't question that. The part I still disagree with is the unspoken alliance part of this.

You point out that they are part of a tribe, the Olympics have a tribe aspect to them, so of course people on the same tribe will help each other. I could agree with that if the tribe aspect were made clear... like the same uniforms in the actual Olympics, bicycle races, or the NASCAR teams that one of you also mentioned. If it was obvious that they were on the same team, then Fuego and I could have made overt alliances in chat to counter the expected friendliness they would show each other.

Should I have known they would likely help each other out?
https://www.conquerclub.com/player.php?mode=autotournament&tourney_id=19247
I look at the link for this event in the Olympics and I see the players... but there is no indication of tribe or clan. One would have to dig (imho) unreasonably deeply to see their linkage. One (I) would not normally do that, unless one suspected an unspoken alliance. Therefore, I don't think I should have been expected to know they would favor each other without them disclosing it. If you think I should have run a deeper background check on all the players, then that's on me.

The admittedly biased Donelladan says there was only one place where fairman said anything in chat. Actually, there was another exchange in Game 20039288 where he replied to me thusly:
2020-06-10 15:28:06 - ESQuire: Fairman.... you're not claiming to be playing without a bias away from attacking dje, are you?
2020-06-10 17:42:54 - fairman: no, just saying that I attacked him in some other games

This implicitly admits his covert bias. I asked him to deny it. He said he didn't deny it. He just said that there were times in other games where he attacked his tribemate. A token attack here or there only serves to try to throw off suspicion.

This brings to mind games that I play with my father. We play on the same team in doubles games, so it is clear we are a team. If we ever played in a singles game of, say, 4 players, and he and I played as a pair without divulging our relationship, would that be fair? If so, I know how to gain him the rank improvement he so desperately wants. We'll play assassin and take out one or the other of our targets from out of the blue.

I'll take the bashing of my play. I'm not full of myself to think I'm a better player than these guys or any of you. I don't/didn't/wouldn't expect to win the event. I just hate to reward a partnership that wasn't visible to the other players.

I take particular exception to these:

there are times when you are toast but you still have an obligation to help to determine the outcome of the game. maybe someone screwed you early on and you have an opportunity to pay it back, maybe you like one player more so you hit the others, maybe someone tried to help you earlier so you repay the favor - are those scenarios game throwing or secret diplomacy? no. they're playing the game.

If that all happened in the same game, then, no, it is not secret diplomacy. It is just a matter of paying attention to who screwed whom and keeping a tally sheet till you can exact revenge. That's fine. But their collaborative play was not due to in-game or reasonably knowable actions.

in this case it's even more ridiculous - i'm not up on it but it seems to me if you're in an individual competition with a team scoring aspect to it, of course you want to do things to help your teammate win if you cannot. there is so much precedent for this, ANY team racing sport whether it be biking, running, car racing, etc employs this exact strategy. if cc doesnt want this to be a possibility, then either don't put on a competition that works this way or stop teammates from being in the same game.

This is why I say that it should have been clear that they were on the same tribe... wearing the same uniform. There was no such indication on the event leader board or in the game.

Yeah that first part you quoted of mine was not necessarily directed at you. More of a general statement steeped in saltiness. Don't worry, I'm probably in the minority with that thought anyways. As for your skill, I'm sure you are a fine player and I hope nobody called that into question. I am certain you would beat me. I'm overrated anyways, ask anyone who's played me.

ESQuire wrote:
This brings to mind games that I play with my father. We play on the same team in doubles games, so it is clear we are a team. If we ever played in a singles game of, say, 4 players, and he and I played as a pair without divulging our relationship, would that be fair? If so, I know how to gain him the rank improvement he so desperately wants. We'll play assassin and take out one or the other of our targets from out of the blue.

That is different. You're not trying to win those games, your trying to let your father win. That is game throwing / secret diplomacy. Now if you were in an assassin game for example and both you and your father's target are near dead, leaving it a fight between your father and someone else for the win. Then sure, you kill your father's target and help him win. Kinda dirty but your not breaking any rules on secret diplomacy or game throwing. Playing multiplayer games with family is generally considered somewhere between not cool and against the rules though.


We'll discuss this situation during the planning of future Community Team events. There may simply be no perfect solution though, we must balance the fairness of competition with the fairness of entry and total participating player base limits.

Guilty...
Guillotine seems like a just punishment

You're right MTI at least ....
Well ... I answered honestly that I prefer dje to win, I never said I'll help him to do.
I'm trying my best to win each games. Don bring you the logs, I attacked dje in many games and he attacked me. Breaking bonuses ...
But in the game he or I don't you think it's unfair.
Sorry for you.
By the way if we are teaming, why do I have 0 win (like you) ?
I won't write again here, I have a real life ....

At least you cant say that the french are waiving the white flag anymore

Basically, Im very biased - LOL. Seems obvious. I'm in a tribe myself, I completely understand dynamics that you prefer that player to win over the others. Very important part I like to stress: I am not saying they are cheating. I am asking about the fact wether its allowed within a tournament where tribe score is held, to help your partner. If so, congrats, I should have noticed earlier and formed an alliance going for doubles. If not, well... it's - in my opinion - clear that they threw games at each other.

However, Since its freestyle, you for instance miss the fact that in one game playerX takes a big stack of mine when its absolutely 100% clear that this messes his own game (no chance of taking me) but helps his "partner" win the move after. So thats especially to Donelladan; I see your point in "Hey a big attack since you take 5 area's". But the map is such that people having +3 bonus and +20 is both common. Its just weird that if for instance Djelebert moves last, he takes on me having just +4 and not his mate having +20 with an open place to attack a bonus. Or that Fairman takes a 23 stack for no reason but that Djelebert takes me out directly after. If they for instance would have said in the chat: Hey dude lets take FuegoFuego out and decide the game between us, that fine! If they, however, send a private message saying: "Hey dude let's work together so we beat those other two haha"- I don't think thats OK.

I gave those examples to admins - I have no idea if they can check log that specific of seeing turn per turn and having stacks. Btw, if I can somehow too - Let me know. I also have no idea if they can slide into someones personal messages. But IMO its very very hard for someone not in the game judge the moves from log. For me it just felt like 2 partners (yes for 9 years) felt like lets make sure we win these.

If (I don't know I don't post a lot) you guys would like to see examples for a public shaming (or shaming of Esquire and myself to stop whine) LMK. But I feel like without seeing the move per move, you can obviously always find example that they take on each other (just Esquire and myself a lot lot lot more).

Then again - and this is still very important - I'm not saying working together is not allowed, I am asking the question whether it is in this situation. I actually like their game, tribe and clan. But if this is not allowed - annul those games and let's have a beer.

Have a good weekend,
FuegoFuego

The admittedly biased Donelladan says there was only one place where fairman said anything in chat. Actually, there was another exchange in Game 20039288 where he replied to me thusly:
2020-06-10 15:28:06 - ESQuire: Fairman.... you're not claiming to be playing without a bias away from attacking dje, are you?
2020-06-10 17:42:54 - fairman: no, just saying that I attacked him in some other games

This implicitly admits his covert bias. I asked him to deny it. He said he didn't deny it. He just said that there were times in other games where he attacked his tribemate. A token attack here or there only serves to try to throw off suspicion

I have 2 problems with this 'confession':
1) You're asking a negative question. Depending on the language, this can mean that he is claiming to be playing without bias, and that he is not.
2) Assuming 1) does not hold, you can have both conscious and unconscious bias and I think fairman is smart enough to be aware that he likely has an unconscious bias, and unconscious bias =/= SD.

Thanks Extreme Way,and I've said this in my first post, having a bias isn't SD, and everyone have bias when playing with people they know.
Sure they might have been biased, but they weren't teaming or doing SD ( as far as I can tell ).

Esquire wrote:A token attack here or there only serves to try to throw off suspicion.

I don't think you can call taking 6-7 territory a token attack. Especially when like in one of the games, both accused get eliminated right after attacking each other.


@FuegoFuego. (I am not a mod thus whatever I say must be taken with caution.)
Short answer would be no, teaming up isn't allowed in public game.

And you're right, I wasn't in the games, but from an outside perspective, I believe they aren't guilty of SD at all, definitely not in all those 8 games.

FuegoFuego wrote: Its just weird that if for instance Djelebert moves last, he takes on me having just +4 and not his mate having +20 with an open place to attack a bonus.

That's right you can think it's weird. But it can be because fairman and you were fighting and he decides to just let play it out. If you are going to retaliate on fairman, why would he bother doing so in a 3 player game ?

Thus if it's just one occurence in the game, you can't say "they are cheating". And within the same game, because I guess you are speaking about the game I described in my first post, they also broke each other bonus.
If they were talking to take you out, why would have they broke each other bonus earlier ? Doesn't make sense. They may have done some nicer move towards each other than towards you, but that's the extent of it, but both were playing to win.

But well if you've sent your evidence to the admin, we'll know soon enough

Caymanmew wrote:Now if you were in an assassin game for example and both you and your father's target are near dead, leaving it a fight between your father and someone else for the win. Then sure, you kill your father's target and help him win. Kinda dirty but your not breaking any rules on secret diplomacy or game throwing. Playing multiplayer games with family is generally considered somewhere between not cool and against the rules though.

No that's breaking the rule. You would probably be blocked from playing multiplayer game together if it goes to C&A with such a case, or/and get a warning for game throwing.
No way killing someone else target in purpose in any game isn't considered game throwing.
Don't do that.

Also @Fuego, even though it's freestyle and lots of things can happen between snaps it would be great to substantiate Don's log-reading with your snaps.

what happened to 1 game being more important than 1 tournament?

Esquire wrote:A token attack here or there only serves to try to throw off suspicion.

I don't think you can call taking 6-7 territory a token attack. Especially when like in one of the games, both accused get eliminated right after attacking each other.

FuegoFuego wrote: Its just weird that if for instance Djelebert moves last, he takes on me having just +4 and not his mate having +20 with an open place to attack a bonus.

That's right you can think it's weird. But it can be because fairman and you were fighting and he decides to just let play it out. If you are going to retaliate on fairman, why would he bother doing so in a 3 player game ?

On both, my perspective is the following: 2 friends play together. You both want to win, but you decide to work together so both your chances are very high. But ofc during the game you both gain bonuses and only attack the others. You both grow (but not too much, you both want to win). In nearly all of the games they eliminate one of us first (only the ones where after some time we find out and retaliate). Whenever we have bigger bonus they take it (together or just 1) and when they have some bonus thats ok. I think both of these examples are because they both want to win in the end, but have made it clear to one another that they first target Esquire and myself. There are (for me at least) obvious moves that if you really want to win, you would target the one who is in such position that he will win. Not the one in last place to weaken him and yourself to be killed directly after (unless you can go for the kill and gain major spoils - that was not the case).

Then once its clear they win, ofc they fight for the win but most of them are pretty clear. Clearly this is a big advantage for both, and the others (including me) are in trouble. Since we also fight each other, we are screwed. If you just say at the beginning: Hi mate lets form an alliance, then Esquire and I can also do so. But if you do that outside of the chat, basically IMO that would not be okay. If you don't say anything at all but are just OK with your mate to win, well thats hard to stop and just bad luck for me I guess.

As said, I don't think its weird they prefer one another over for instance myself to win. But if there is some unfair advantage/SD, I would like to hear an admins opinion on it. Not to punish or anything, but more to void the games and avoid these troubles from now on.

I will finished at the 3rd ou 4th place in this tourney.
So I accept ESQUIRE proposal to replay all games of this final round
Seems pretty fair to me

So, apparently I need to answer, "who is silent consents"

First, sorry for my poor english, so to avoid misunderstanding, I 'm going to use simple words.
I will not repeat what was said, I just would like to explain it form another angle

We're accused of secret alliance. A secret alliance needs communication . And something I can tell for my part is that I'm not very talkative, as I'm not as available as I used to be. I'm really busy IRL nowdays(as many people in CC), and my game load, especially with olympics, does'nt allow me to be talkative in chat, even in team game. so in tourneys... This could be confirmed as I didn't post any chat msg on these games and in other recent games, in team game for example. It's not a lack of politeness, I didn't have a lot of time to play. If I did moves which suggest such accusation, sorry for this.


Each one of us played in order to win, as we used to do since so many years in this site. We were not playing together in this final. That's all I wanted to say.

Now we can continue to discuss about the bias which obviously could exist with players from same tribe or clan in tourneys, or friends, but this thing is not about a secret diplomacy.
A small way for solution could be that if in such tribe tourneys, tribes of each player were more visibles in game, as ESQuire tells, even if things are already quite clear on each player sheet.

I hope my words are not sounding disrespectful about Fuego and ESQuire, whom I totally respect.

ban them both! and the accuser! and fuego too. just remove all 4 of them. it's the simplest solution.

Without setting precedent, as the rules and guidelines surrounding Tribe events are under review.

We did not anticipate this type of game play might happen.

Tribe events play out differently from standard community events and clan events. (These are now subject to a review by senior moderators and administrators)

As it stands this form of gameplay is neither encouraged or recommended by the C&A team

While it is likely no secret diplomacy took place, there is obviously an unwritten and unspoken diplomacy between tribesmen.

With that being said this case is NOTED