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[Geronimoo]

I was going to post this on the main blog directly, but decided I'd give the community a chance to comment first and hopefully add some example games and/or more strategy:

How’s about some multiplayer?

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
The three laws by Asimov

How’s about an intro

A few months ago I decided to try a little experiment so I activated my second nick on isotropic. The plan was to prove it’s possible to reach level 20 by playing like a robot whose programming only allows it to play Big Money variants. The nickname “I, Robot” seemed appropriate (I meant no harm). I would stick to buying one action card, then money and green for the rest of the game. Once I, Robot reached level 20 I’d write an article where I prove that big money is really that good…. Wow, did that fail!! Lower level isotropic players are actually quite smart. Even level 0s beat me to a pulp by playing a decent albeit far from optimal engine. I abandoned the experiment to conclude pure big money is only viable at the kitchen table with your mum and sister who felt sorry for you and ok, we’ll play ONE game of Dominion, Kevin, now stop making that puppy face….

My poor little robot was put on the shelf to rust until I saw one of WanderingWinders videos playing multiplayer (TODO: add link). It looked like fun so I rebooted my mechanical friend and anxiously clicked the 3 and 4 player boxes. I waited and waited, but eventually played a few 3 player games and fun was had.

How’s about some strategy now, Geronimoo…

Let’s move on to actual multiplayer strategy and how it differs from two player Dominion. Most of what you learned on this blog about two player Dominion still holds true for multiplayer. Wharf is still bah-roken, Jack will still lead to boring games and King’s Court-King’s Court-Bridge-Bridge-Bridge is still going to end the game right now. But there are a few subtle things that will make you a better multiplayer player if you’re aware of them. I’m not going to go into mechanical details like Tribute and Smugglers not targeting the same player, you’ll figure that out yourself. Let’s get to it!

The best defense is a good offense
Vs
The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy

I’m going to illustrate this with a simplified and very artificial game where players open $5/$2 and are only allowed to open Witch and/or Moat.The rest of the game they may only buy money and VP. This game can be played close to perfection by the simulator. In the two player game it’s obvious that going pure defense with Moat/Moat is awful because your opponent’s Witch/nothing opening will eventually get a few Curses in your deck while suffering no downsides himself. So both players are going to open Witch/Moat because any other choice will hurt their win rate.

The 4 player version of this game is a very different beast. The pure defense option is good for two reasons: fending off an attack is huge, no Curses instead of 3, and the attackers are being attacked themselves even if you don’t have a Witch. The simulator shows that if three players open Witch/Moat, the fourth player will dominate with a Moat/Moat opening! On the other hand if three players go Moat/Moat (not bloody likely) the fourth can safely open Witch and dominate. So, one attacker dominates three defenders and one defender dominates three attackers. Further simulations show two attackers will dominate two defenders. This results in the following optimal strategy for the player in the first seat: open Moat/Moat!! The second player can’t open Moat because player 3 and 4 will open Witch to dominate player 1 and 2. So player 2 goes Witch and this means player 3 and 4 will need to open Witch as well or get dominated. The other scenario where player one opens Witch is not optimal because it will result in player two playing the dominant strategy of being the only defender (player 3 and 4 will be forced into Witch to avoid getting dominated). Does this mean you should open Moat/Moat in a real multiplayer game of Dominion? Maybe not, but this artificial game shows that pure defense is very strong if all the other players are attacking. In this isotropic 3-player game (TODO: add link) I just buy Libraries while the two other players try to get something going with Torturer. These were  low level players playing pretty terrible strategies, but it should be obvious that a few Big Money Torturers will get dominated by Library Big Money.

Ignore the elephant in the room
Vs
Man, that’s a lot of faeces, give me a bigger shovel

It’s close to optimal to get a Gold and then start greening for a Smithy big money strategy because it’s your fastest route to 5 Provinces to win the split. If your single opponent is a Village idiot, you’ll probably need to buy all 8 Provinces and one Gold, then green is no longer optimal. But it won’t matter because you’re going to win anyway so you can stick to your strategy if you wish and basically ignore the elephant in the room. In the three player game ignoring the Village Elephant can cost you the game. It becomes very important to build up the economy some more before greening because you’re no longer aiming for 5 Provinces, but 7 and the Smithy player who builds up a little more, like one or two more Golds, is going to be in better shape to get to 7 before choking.

Kings and beggars
Vs
All are created equal

Quite often one card or combination will dominate an entire kingdom in a two player game. eg Minion and Fool’s Gold will cause a race to win the split. On the other hand there are cards that never get bought like Thief, Pirate Ship and Saboteur because they are just very weak in two player Dominion. Compare this to the 4 player game where winning the Minion split is hardly going to be decisive (3 Minions, whee) while Pirate Ship can be very strong because the odds of missing are close to zero. In multiplayer the cards are more balanced and the entire kingdom is more likely to play. This better balance is probably one of the reasons 3 is the recommended number of players on BoardGameGeek (TODO: add link). This is only true if the skill levels are close together. Minions are still going to dominate if you’re the only one who knows how strong they are.

Aim for the moon
Vs
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush

Two player games will mostly end with “All Provinces are gone” and it’s probably wise to build your deck/economy to reach for those big scoring green cards. Multiplayer games often end on piles and you must take that into account. This is especially true on engine boards where players are collecting multiple components. Piles are going to run out very fast and you might need to transition to greening instead of building up to a mega turn. This makes engine multiplayer games more complex than their 2-player counterpart. As if engines weren’t hard enough already! (TODO: really need some example games here)

It’s not easy being green
Vs
Green is the new Red

Here’s a game (TODO: add link) where a player opens Cache/Estate and pretty much goes green the entire game. I literally lol’ed when I saw it, but look at the final score. She almost won! In a two player game greening this fast will choke you up far before the the game is over, but in multiplayer games three pile endings are much more common and (extremely) aggressive greening can pay off. ehunt used this strategy with success in the multiplayer portion of the Isodom tournament (TODO: add link)

Me, myself and I
Vs
Follow the leader, leader, leader

You’re in a two player game and you’re the better player. Your opponent opens Moneylender. You know Moneylender is ok, but Baron is better, so you open Baron. Nothing special here, moving on. Now imagine you’re in a 4-player game. You’re still the best player and you know it. The first three players open Moneylender. Everyone’s staring at you. Groupthink starts to play and did that Moneylender suddenly blink at you seductively!? Depending on your personality you might give in to it. City is another card where groupthink is very likely to play, but while you can safely ignore the City idiot in a two player game, you’ll turn out to be the mentally challenged if two or three players empty the Cities and you don’t participate. So be aware of groupthink, but mostly try to be confident of your plan and stick to it! I’ll admit it, groupthink has gotten to me before, but then I’m a shy little bunny…

Pursue, kill, and completely destroy them
Vs
Give, and it shall be given to you

Being the fourth in player in an attacking game can be brutal. Now imagine you’re the starting player and play Swindler. You have a chance to turn the poor fourth player’s Copper into yet another Curse. You might want to give him a break and replace it with a Copper instead. He’s no threat to you, so when the end game comes around and the fourth player has a chance to finish the game on piles you might be able to persuade him not to do it so you get an extra turn to win. This won’t come up often and it might even cost you games, but it’s something to keep in mind.

Mind collision
Vs
Mind collusion

Multiplayer games can suffer from collusion, but it’s far more difficult in Dominion because the game is not that interactive. Attacks for instance don’t target single players (you can be selective with Spy, whoopie…). Kingmaking can occur, but it’s always at your own expense as in the previous chapter. Certain boards will allow multiple players to conspire against a single opponent. Here’s an example: player one opens Smithy to go Big Money. The three other players can now open Woodcutter aiming to rush Gardens and outrace the Smithy player on piles despite Woodcutter/Gardens being easily dominated in two player. All in all, collusion in Dominion is never going to be as big an issue as it is for other board games (Here’s a debate about it on the forum http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=2443.msg38189#msg38189)

How’s about ending this
If you’ve ever played multiplayer on isotropic, on purpose or not, you might have been put down by any of these: multiplayer players are weak, MPPs are slow, MPPs disconnect for no apparent reason, MPPs will buy the last Province to finish last and say “oops” which is even more annoying if you had a chance to win, MPPs just aren’t there and you start a two player game against Geronimoo out of desparation…

Despite all that I’m asking you to give it another try! If enough decent players do, we might have some fun with this multiplayer game called Dominion!

[timchen]

Sorry, but this is one of the worse article I see from you. Maybe a major reason is that my English is not good enough to understand the artistic taste of your chapter titles.

Anyway, a few points:
1. How is your robot alias related to the article, expect introducing yourself to multi-player games? Reading your intro I was expecting some simulation goodness specifically on multiplayer games... instead I only read general vague advises. Which is disappointing.

2. I don't like the analysis of the witch-moat scenario. I am not convinced it's right. For example, as the 4-th player if the first 3 player goes moat-witch-witch, both of his choices are losing propositions according to what you said. I don't see why he should prefer witch to moat.

3. About the collusion/king's making stuff. I don't want to argue any more, but I don't agree it is always at your own cost. Especially since you mentioned this witch moat thing, if we just talk at the win-lose level without going into percentages (as you did in the article), the 4th player is indeed at a position to determine whether player 1 or player 2 and 3 are going to win, with himself always on the losing side.

4. And also, the chapter above collusion is directly proposing how you should collude...

[DStu]

2. I don't like the analysis of the witch-moat scenario. I am not convinced it's right. For example, as the 4-th player if the first 3 player goes moat-witch-witch, both of his choices are losing propositions according to what you said. I don't see why he should prefer witch to moat.

At least in simple sims, Witch is still better than Moat given 1Moat-2Witches before you. (13.8:11.4) for Moat vs. Witch.

[WanderingWinder]

Here's a link to my multi-player vids:
3-player
4-player

A few notes from my own experience:

3-player and 4-player are WAY different. The biggest thing is that you're changing the number of provinces per player when you make this jump. And because of that, the games are going to be significantly shorter in 4-player than in 3-player, and plan accordingly. Also 3-pile endings happen faster yet, and the copper pile is shorter, so you have to watch for it running out more (I'm looking at you, Mountebank).

You really have to watch what your opponents are doing and adapt. In 3-player, engines tend to be a little bit weaker, prima facie, but it one of your opponents is doing something particularly bad/weak, this can flip and engines can be really good, even much better than 2-player. This is down to engines tending to be better the longer the game is - the engine is generally better than BM, if there's much engine potential at all - if the game goes long enough, but it's less likely to do so in multi-player, because those piles will run, and the excess of "well, I'll pick up more of the cheaper VP to compensate" is less likely to work. On the other hand, attacks coming from more places CAN make engines MORE viable - but it really depends on the attacks. Cursers, eh, not so much. Not without some really heavy-duty trashing anyway.

This engine-vs-BM effect gets further magnified in 4-player. These games are sprints, and most engines do not sprint so well. I guess apothecary engines are the big exception that comes to mind. But in general, with as fast as the games end, you really don't have time to come back out of the early VP hole by building an elaborate and awesome engine. There won't be enough stuff left, if the game hasn't just ended on you in the meantime. 3 other players greening will not stall out nearly as much as 1 will. Generally, they can each take on a LITTLE more green.

Having said all this, green early, green often. And engines do not like this advice.


Attacks. They tend to play a lot differently. Some attacks stack, and some don't, but almost all of them are actually both stronger and weaker in multiplayer. What I mean by that is, they have more effect on someone receiving the attack, but there is less efficacy for any individual actually getting them. You make a great example here with the witch/moat example, but it's actually not just limited to curse-givers or games with moat. If 3 other players are grabbing witches, me getting one does not have nearly the big swing impact as in 2-player where me getting a witch to combat yours is ESSENTIAL. In particular, with things like these, especially cursers, you don't need that 2nd witch near as much as in 2-player; 1 is much more often enough, because you just don't get that much bang out of the 2nd one, i.e., it just doesn't raise the expectation of how many curses you give out nearly as much as most any other scenario you're contemplating buying witch in. On the other hand, if everyone else is ignoring it, you probably want to get MORE. Well, this isn't actually so different from 2-player, but who reasonably ignores witch in 2-player? Mountebank in particular is also a lot weaker. With so many curses flying around, I'm pretty sure that the 4th guy should get gold over mountebank, which you really don't want to do in 2-player for the first 'bank any way. But everything is getting curse-moated....
Then, look at say your militia kind of attack. It doesn't stack. With more people, you're much more likely to get hammered every turn, and that's a big adjustment to make - and one you'd better make! But also, everyone else is already pretty likely to get hammered, by each other, so it's not SO big a deal that you need to get one.
Consequently, if attacks against you are stronger, (and for you are weaker), reactions that stop attacks or give some benefit against them go WAY up in value. Which means those moat and lighthouse pile are going to empty. Yes, empty. So be prepared.

You need to know what the payout structure is. What I mean by this is, are there points for getting second place? Or is it all about winning? Because if it's all about winning, then you need to take more risks. To come out on top in an evenly-skilled matchup in 2-player, you need decent-ish luck, generally. By the time you get to 4-player, you need pretty darn good luck to be 1st. And so, if you're playing where you need that luck, you can take strategies where you need to get a bit lucky more. So play that TM-BM, because you need to get lucky anyway... Of course, if it's not just win vs not win, and intermediate places matter, well, those strategies are a lot less appealing, because whereas you're more likely to hit it really really big, you're also quite a bit more likely to hit a dud.

Seating order matters a lot more. The big thing here is actually the attacks, which you will get slammed with very often in 4th seat, and less so a little in 1st seat. Well, you might get attacked once less, and in such a short game, that's actually fairly significant. But especially because the snowball effect of 'early luck trumps later luck' is still in effect. Even without attacks though, the extra turn is much more likely to come into play (the tiebreaker is, too, but this is still less of a factor than the extra turn), which means you get slammed even more. To win as 4-player, you need to have better luck/skill than 3 other dudes. As 3rd player, it's better than 2, equal to one. As first player, you only need to 'hold serve'.

Cards that you race to splits: In 2-player this can be pretty big. I really want to win that fool's gold split, so I race for it. Minion is preferable to gold when I'm going for that minion deck, but I can't make much of a minion deck out of 3 minions, so in 4-player, I'm going to take gold more. But on the other hand, if everyone does that, then somebody has an opening to go at the stuff totally uncontested. And if someone does go after a pile like this... well, who's going to stop them? Because if I go down that path, there's a big risk that I end up hurting my own chances, and helping a third player win. So there's a lot of game theory going on here, brinksmanship and bluffing and such. Well, you know, going for the fool's gold isn't SO bad anyway, because the reaction bit will go off a LOT in a four-player game. And for minion, you probably just want to grab some on $5. And if there's an engine they complement. But you know, this game theory stuff is real - and you really really have to take it into account. Even moreso than in 2-player, there's not one pre-conceived strategy that you can just blindly follow on any given board (well, there are on some...).

[DStu]

3-player and 4-player are WAY different. The biggest thing is that you're changing the number of provinces per player when you make this jump. And because of that, the games are going to be significantly shorter in 3-player than in 4-player, and plan accordingly.

The other way round, or?

[WanderingWinder]

3-player and 4-player are WAY different. The biggest thing is that you're changing the number of provinces per player when you make this jump. And because of that, the games are going to be significantly shorter in 3-player than in 4-player, and plan accordingly.

The other way round, or?

Sometimes, I make the simplest mistakes.... fixed now.

[DG]

I think some of your sections could be explained better by considering 'unpredictable opponents'. When you play a game you don't know exactly what each opponent is going to do, how they are going to play, or what they want from the game. In two player this isn't such a problem since an opponent who deviates from a good strategy should lose and you should win. In a multi-player game that opponent should still lose but there are other opponents at the table as well and you still need to beat them despite the unpredictable play.

As an example, an opponent in a 4 player game sees their deck expanding with rubbish very early and they will probably lose whatever they do. You can't then predict what they will do however it makes a difference to your strategy whether they just resign, buy estates every turn, buy curses every turn, do nothing, empty piles for the fastest finish, or anything else. You've just got to read the situation, prepare your deck well, and commit to your strategy at the right time.

[pingpongsam]

I can say that when I started playing on Isotropic I had only ever played IRL with 3-4 players so I began on iso 3-4p.

Occasionally I would play 2p and get creamed every time despite being reasonably good in 3-4p. I finally switched to pure 2p until i was a decent contender at it and going back to 3-4p found I was weaker than before.

The playstyles, timing and card strengths are totally different.

[Geronimoo]

Sorry, but this is one of the worse article I see from you. Maybe a major reason is that my English is not good enough to understand the artistic taste of your chapter titles.

I like to liven up my articles a little to give people a break from dry analysis. Maybe you prefer dry, maybe my English isn't good enough to write lively, maybe both...

Anyway, a few points:
1. How is your robot alias related to the article, expect introducing yourself to multi-player games? Reading your intro I was expecting some simulation goodness specifically on multiplayer games... instead I only read general vague advises. Which is disappointing.

The intro isn't really related to the rest, true, but it's short. Does this bother anyone else? I did do some simulation to check certain things (most notably the defense>offense), but realistic multiplayer games aren't easy to simulate. You're right, the advise is vague, but the purpose of the article is to become aware of the differences between multiplayer and two player Dominion. Later articles can focus on specific aspects.

2. I don't like the analysis of the witch-moat scenario. I am not convinced it's right. For example, as the 4-th player if the first 3 player goes moat-witch-witch, both of his choices are losing propositions according to what you said. I don't see why he should prefer witch to moat.

Player 4 in a bad spot either way, but Witch will give him the highest win rate. Remember this is an artificial scenario to illustrate the potential of going pure defense.

3. About the collusion/king's making stuff. I don't want to argue any more, but I don't agree it is always at your own cost. Especially since you mentioned this witch moat thing, if we just talk at the win-lose level without going into percentages (as you did in the article), the 4th player is indeed at a position to determine whether player 1 or player 2 and 3 are going to win, with himself always on the losing side.

4. And also, the chapter above collusion is directly proposing how you should collude...

For me the most important thing to remember about collusion in Dominion is that it's just not very important and focusing on the other aspects of the game will have a much bigger influence on your win rate.

[Varsinor]

I really like your article overall except for one paragraph which I strongly disapprove with:

Pursue, kill, and completely destroy them
Vs
Give, and it shall be given to you

Being the fourth in player in an attacking game can be brutal. Now imagine you’re the starting player and play Swindler. You have a chance to turn the poor fourth player’s Copper into yet another Curse. You might want to give him a break and replace it with a Copper instead. He’s no threat to you, so when the end game comes around and the fourth player has a chance to finish the game on piles you might be able to persuade him not to do it so you get an extra turn to win. This won’t come up often and it might even cost you games, but it’s something to keep in mind.

I strongly dislike that you propose this as a legitimate tactic.

I would consider this behavior very close to cheating from both players - from player 1 if he intentionally gives out a Copper instead of a Curse to only one player as an incentive for later collusion and from player 4 if he agrees to collude with player 1 later on as a reward.

I mean, we probably agree that playing with a partner with which you agree before the game that you'll collude by masquerading Colonies is damnable cheating.

If I were to encounter someone playing like this, I would publicly denounce them (or at least the one giving away the Colonies) as a cheater on this forum and never play with them/him again.

What you propose isn't that much better in my opinion.

I regard intentional collusion in Dominion as ethically bad no matter what. (That does not include ending the game in 2nd place to defend that place - that is not collusion but legitimate self interest.)

We can't really prevent that some people will colllude against their self-interest (most of them probably without actual collusive intent) or even with immoral deals motivated by self-interest before the game. (Such as in "hey, we'll play two 4-player games with Masquerade and in one of them, I'll make you win by masquerading all the good stuff to you whereas in the other, you'll make me win in that way - to hell with the fair chances for the other players".)

But we can at least discourage intentional collusion by stigmatizing it as an unfair way to play.

If I saw you talk to player 4 saying "hey, I didn't give you a Curse on turn 3, please finish / don't finish the game now so that I can win, you're stuck in last place anyway" I'd certainly criticize you for that (not only if I was player 2 or 3, but also if I was player 4).

[Fabian]

The "persuading" part is super out of place and is definitely cheating. Not the first time Geronimoo considers cheating behavior normal though, which is disappointing for sure (referring to the consulting of simulators in the beginning of games discussion a few months back).

There are definitely real tactical reasons for giving out a copper when Swindlering a copper though, which I actually did in one of the Isodom semifinals. Don't remember against which player specifically, but basically I needed one of the players to finish last in order to advance, so with only one curse left in the pile I gave someone else a copper, and then flipped a copper for the person I needed to get 4th place too. As I recall, the first player (who got a Copper from my Swindler) wasn't a big threat* in the specific game either, though I could be misremembering that part.

* Pretty sure I got last place in this game so obviously everyone was a threat I played a pretty high rish strategy though so it's fine.

Edit: I guess this kind of behavior exists in other board games so I maybe shouldn't categorically call it cheating. It absolutely has no place in Dominion in my mind, though, especially since I only approach it as a competitive game, not a casual one. In any competitive environment, it's definitely cheating.

[Varsinor]

There are definitely real tactical reasons for giving out a copper when Swindlering a copper though,

I obviously agree - you could even construct examples "close to the end of the Curse pile" when you are not concerned about a tournament context outside of the actual game - such as when you can play two Tricksters this turn and one of the opponents is no threat to you in this game whereas the other is.

But these situations should be very rare overall and very likely never occur on turn 3 or 4 (far from the end of the Curse pile) as in the example.

[Geronimoo]

Is the persuading thing all that different from let's say Settlers where I'll make a favorable trade with theory who's a friendly guy, but deny trading altogether with Artjoms because I don't like his attitude? Is that colluding? Sort of. Is that cheating? Don't think so.

[Fabian]

I don't know what the rules are specifically in the Settlers tournament community or whatever, but a situation in a game which is designed specifically for trading is not in any way comparable to a situation in Dominion for obvious reasons.

[jsh357]

Is Outpost/KC/Masq cheating?  No, because the game allows it.  If you're not breaking the rules, you can't be cheating.  Is it a jerk move?  Sure.  Those are blue dogs and pink elephants, though. 

[chwhite]

Sorry, but this is one of the worse article I see from you. Maybe a major reason is that my English is not good enough to understand the artistic taste of your chapter titles.

I like to liven up my articles a little to give people a break from dry analysis. Maybe you prefer dry, maybe my English isn't good enough to write lively, maybe both...

Your English is better than most native speakers.

Good article- I have the same objection that Varsinor does about collusion and politicking, but aside from that I can't think of anything else to add or object to.

EDIT:  Actually I do have one thing, and that's what WanderingWinder said already about 3p and 4p being as different from each other as they are from 2p.  For what it's worth, I enjoy 3p as much as 2p: possibly not quite as good in a competitive tournament setting, but many cards are much more balanced (c.f. Minion/FG less important, Pirate Ship actually playable), and you still have the same ratio of VP per player.  4p, on the other hand, I find to be a worse game, because being in the fourth seat is just such a disadvantage, and there just aren't enough cards (VP and Kingdom alike) per player to develop a coherent plan and see it through.  I'm still happy to play it in causal IRL settings, though.

[WanderingWinder]

Is Outpost/KC/Masq cheating?  No, because the game allows it.  If you're not breaking the rules, you can't be cheating.  Is it a jerk move?  Sure.  Those are blue dogs and pink elephants, though. 

Yeah, but in that case, the rules specifically allow it. If the rules don't specifically allow it, they deny it. Which you get with the collusion thing.
Now, I must say that I apparently didn't read the indicated section closely enough my first time through. I am strongly against this, though I think Fabian is being a bit unfair in smearing Geronimoo's name as he is. I *thought* that he was going to have been referring to: I swindle player B's copper. Player B is in second place, fairly close to player A, who is in first place. I go copper->copper, because this will mean that player A can't end the game with such impunity on his next turn, i.e., I'm keeping there scores close enough to each other that they have to keep on playing. Which gives me a chance for me engine to kick in and my mega-turn to go off. Which gives me the best chance to win. Which I think is legit - I'm playing off their game theory, hurting one more than the other, but without collusion, and most importantly always with an eye towards my own winning. In general, in such competitive settings, I don't think persuasion should be much of it - which is why I don't think I'd play settlers competitively (though I've never actually played it), or play risk competitively... etc. 

[Varsinor]

Is the persuading thing all that different from let's say Settlers where I'll make a favorable trade with theory who's a friendly guy, but deny trading altogether with Artjoms because I don't like his attitude? Is that colluding? Sort of. Is that cheating? Don't think so.

Yes, I also regard that as unfair in Settlers. In any case it is a huge source of quarrel in the online Settlers community at COW and many people agree with my opinion there. The problem is that in practice, most of the time you can't really tell if someone stole from you because he doesn't like you or because he thought it was best for him.

The fact that this isn't (or can't be) as clearly outlawed in Settlers but has a huge impact on the games (because stealing from and trading with only one player comes up so often) is the main reason I don't like all the Settlers variantes with more than two parties.
[On the other hand, I love the Settlers Card Game / Rivals (2 players) and the Settlers Team Board Game (2 official teams of 2 players against each other).]

Therefore I am very glad that in Dominion, situations like this are very rare intentionally* and when they do still come up, it is easier to identify and stigmatize the intent. (For instance, in your example one can be pretty sure that player 1 is trying to collude after he pulled this off far from the end of the Curse pile for, say, the second time (the first time it might simply have been a misclick).)

* I read a post by Donald X. where he explained that he intentionally designed Dominion this way because he doesn't like people whining "don't put the robber on me" etc. - exactly my opinion, loved to read it from Dominion's designer!

[Varsinor]

Is Outpost/KC/Masq cheating?  No, because the game allows it.  If you're not breaking the rules, you can't be cheating.  Is it a jerk move?  Sure.  Those are blue dogs and pink elephants, though.

I don't quite get the significance of playing KC and Masquerade on an Outpost turn. Could you spell it out for me?

[DStu]

Is Outpost/KC/Masq cheating?  No, because the game allows it.  If you're not breaking the rules, you can't be cheating.  Is it a jerk move?  Sure.  Those are blue dogs and pink elephants, though.

I don't quite get the significance of playing KC and Masquerade on an Outpost turn. Could you spell it out for me?

Your deck is: KC-KC-Masq-Outpost-nothing. You play

Code: [Select]

repeat
  KC-KC-Outpost-Masq
  KC-Masq
until opponent ragequit


[WanderingWinder]

Oh, one more thing. There are some cards that have significantly differently power levels with more players. The most obvious offenders are the jester/thief/pirate ship/noble brigands of the world. Noble Brigand, by the way, is insanely good in 4-player. INSANELY good.
But there are other cards with some more subtle differences. Swindler gives weird decisions where you can mess with other people's scores, apart from making games much more slog-fests which are very likely to end in 3-pile endings. Indeed, most cards which trash form other people's decks and/or give out cards have much more potential to 3-pile here.

[cherdano]

I enjoyed the article, but I also have to say that I learned more from WW's reply. I would think removing the "group think" and "collusion" paragraphs and adding most of WW's advice would make for a great article.

[Geronimoo]

I enjoyed the article, but I also have to say that I learned more from WW's reply. I would think removing the "group think" and "collusion" paragraphs and adding most of WW's advice would make for a great article.

Yes, WW made some very good points (but I bet he's played more multiplayer than my 100 or so games). Especially that 3 and 4 player games are very different. That definitely needs to be added to the article. I will probably delete the "persuasion" paragraph and add a bit of simulator data (graphs probably). My only concern is that the post will become too long. Maybe split it up into multiple articles?

[Varsinor]

Your deck is: KC-KC-Masq-Outpost-nothing. You play

Ah, thanks DStu. So in a 3 player game it turns out like this: Player 1 trashes player 2's deck at a speed of 5 cards per (player 2's) turn and hands the win to player 3. It is unclear if he himself finishes 2nd, tied 2nd or 3rd: If the game is already close to ending (which isn't implausible by the time player one has arrived at KC/KC/Outpost/Masquerade), trashing 5 cards per turn probably won't be fast enough to trash all green from player 2's deck before player 3 wins and thus player 1 finishes last. If player 1 has time to trash all green from player 2's deck, they will tie for 2nd place with 0 points both. If player 1 even has time to rebuild his economy with Coppers after having annihilated player 2's deck, he'll probably finish ahead of player 2 because with his King's Courted Outpost, he can green sooner than player 2 can re-green.

So with that in mind I'd like to take a closer look at jsh357's question (although he may have intended it to be rhetorically ):

Is Outpost/KC/Masq cheating?  No, because the game allows it. If you're not breaking the rules, you can't be cheating.  Is it a jerk move?  Sure.

I'd say it depends:
1. If you do it to deliberately finish 2nd in a 3 player game - either because the game went in a way it looked likely that you'll only finish 3rd otherwise or because you need that 2nd place to achieve your goal in a multi-game tournament - I'd say it is a completely legitimate move.
2. If you do it because player 3 bribed you into it (be it with money or the promise of collusion in another game), I'd certainly call it cheating.
3. If you do it just because you can and think it's cool without any regard to how you finish in this game or who the other players are, it may not be cheating but it is certainly a jerk move as you say (worthy of criticizing it in any case).

If you're not breaking the rules, you can't be cheating.

That depends on what you see as part of the rules. I don't think that it says somewhere in the official rules that it is forbidden to play with two accounts in a game and masquerade good stuff from one to the other. Or have a human partner with which you share victories from game to game by masquerading.

But I hope you agree both are definitely cheating even if not specifically prohibited in any written rules so far, or don't you?

[jsh357]

Clarification: I only brought up the Outpost pin because it's a shady tactic, as is handing another player a good card on purpose.  Analyzing the Outpost tactic too much is getting off topic; I'm mostly citing it as an example of a shady (yet completely legit) play in 2p.

I don't really see forming an alliance as cheating.  I hate it, sure; I avoid 4 player+ games because of it.  It's one of the reasons I don't play Catan too much.  The game allows for it, and I've had collusion happen to me IRL where it was completely obvious due to the chattier nature of the game.   

Making an alternate account to Masquerade yourself good cards is obviously cheating no matter what you're doing with it; I don't think that has anything specifically to do with the case I'm referring to, which is stuff along the lines of Swindling one opponent a Counting House and one a Witch.  Sometimes the enemy of your enemy is your friend, and I can respect that as a tactical decision.  (Again, I'm not a huge fan, but fortunately Dominion is mostly free of such scenarios)  No matter how much I dislike it, though, I don't consider it breaking the rules.

[ehunt]

A quick rule of thumb in multiplayer, which is mostly useful in third and fourth seat:

If you'd be roughly indifferent between strategies A and B, and three people are going for strategy A, then go for strategy B.

Corollary in four player: if two people are going for strategy A and one person is going for strategy B, go for strategy B, or else you will have caused that person to follow the rule of thumb. Example: in two player I would certainly open sea hag here; in four player I would be giving Djokovic the win if I did so:

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120518-120044-fce03ffd.html

There are many exceptions (most importantly: rush strategies like ironworks/gardens get BETTER, not worse, when more players join in), and I don't have a compelling explanation for why the rule of thumb works, but I find it to be quite good. Sometimes it's even worth picking a strategy that's clearly non-dominant in two player, just for the sake of being different. For a silly example - if all your opponents buy bishops, you're suddenly at near-chapel levels of trashing. Unsupported treasure map in such a game can start to feel somewhat... supported.

Also, Geronimoo, while I appreciate the shoutout, I didn't ever play in the multiplayer isodom tournament! (I wish I had known about it - I love multiplayer.) I did use the strategy you mentioned once in a pickup game against WanderingWinder, djokovic, and michaeljb, but there was duchess and silk road on the board, which made it significantly better than just literally buying green on the first turn.

[DG]

Anyone want a four player simulation contest?

[WanderingWinder]

Anyone want a four player simulation contest?

This is really really difficult to do, because you REALLY need to react to what your opponents are doing. A LOT.

[dondon151]

I'm going to echo the opinions of others in this thread and state that expecting altruism in multiplayer Dominion is not nearly guaranteed to work.

I'm also getting a couple of mixed signals from the article. On one hand, greening fast and early is good. On the other hand, building a strong engine is good. So which is it? We all obviously know that it depends on the kingdom, but the article never explains why greening fast and early is good in multiplayer, or why building up a strong engine is good in multiplayer.

In 3 player particularly, though, I'm going to argue against the statement that it's better to green fast. Greening fast really limits your strategic options once you commit to it, because it's nearly impossible to transition out of a clogged deck into a less clogged one. If you notice that both of your opponents are racing to 4-5 Provinces plus change, you can transition into an engine that can pick up smaller VP denominations and squeeze out a win with only 3 of the Provinces. There's more Duchies to pick up, too. Granted, your opponents are now only racing to 6 Provinces each instead of all 8, but if you can't get your engine to go off before the Provinces split, then you weren't going to win, anyway (and, let's face it, if you let your opponent get to 6 Provinces in a 2 player game without alt VPs, you've lost most of the time as well).

The position is even worse if you're the 1 guy going for BM+X. You don't have the 43 VP win threshold to fall back on anymore. It's so easy to lose against an engine opponent whose engine goes off at the right time.



Next thing I want to say is that the first point Geronimoo stated needs to be expanded on. There are different, possibly more practical scenarios to touch on than just combinations of Moat and Witch. Trashing in particular is a good place to start on. Most players, in 2-player, pick up a single Upgrade, or a single Lookout, and getting rid of a couple of Estates is enough to give them an advantage. Or, you'll forgo Upgrades with your $5s until you get 2 Witches, and then you might be preferring Silvers afterwards. In a curse-laden slog, you definitely want those trashers. In fact, you may prefer trashers to cursers! I've played several games in which opening Silver/Lookout and then grabbing a second or a third Lookout trumped Sea Hag/Silver or Sea Hag/Lookout. The thing is that trashing cards from your deck means that you'll also see your trashers more often, and you'll end up with a huge momentum advantage over your opponents, whose decks are bogged down with useless cards.

[DG]

I'm also getting a couple of mixed signals from the article. On one hand, greening fast and early is good. On the other hand, building a strong engine is good. So which is it?

There isn't one golden rule. You've got to keep an open mind as you play the kingdom. Even promising advice such as "keep your options open throughout the game" might be wrong for a kingdom if you actually need to start rushing for key cards from turn 1.

[shMerker]

The point of the question is to find out what sorts of things one watches out for to decide between these strategies. Saying that "sometimes greening early is good, and sometimes going for an engine is good" is ultimately not saying much.

[Markov Chain]

A quick rule of thumb in multiplayer, which is mostly useful in third and fourth seat:

If you'd be roughly indifferent between strategies A and B, and three people are going for strategy A, then go for strategy B.

This really depends on the strategy;  this thread is a 3P game I played where the single strategy had an advantage, while this thread is an example which worked the other way.  (Both were games in which I faced two mega-Goons players; Cartographer/Tunnel was able to three-pile the game on its own before the Goons got too dangerous and benefit from lots of Goons played against it, while Jester/Fairgrounds scored a lot of points but couldn't force the end.)

[ShuffleLuck]

The "persuading" part is super out of place and is definitely cheating. Not the first time Geronimoo considers cheating behavior normal though, which is disappointing for sure (referring to the consulting of simulators in the beginning of games discussion a few months back).
....
Edit: I guess this kind of behavior exists in other board games so I maybe shouldn't categorically call it cheating. It absolutely has no place in Dominion in my mind, though, especially since I only approach it as a competitive game, not a casual one. In any competitive environment, it's definitely cheating.

Furthermore, that kind of behavior exists in Dominion itself in different playgroups. The line between cheating and fair play is socially constructed to some extent (there are always gray areas), so implicitly questioning Geronimoo's morals is very poor form, in my opinion. In both the examples you cite (multiplayer persuation and consulting simulators), Geronimoo has been fairly upfront and straightforward, so we should give him the benefit of the doubt. Different groups have different norms.

It's perfectly fine to argue that these behaviors should be prohibited in our online community (or in dominion tournaments in general, or whatever), but please don't go accusing someone of being a cheater when they are making a good faith effort and believe they are following the rules.

[Fabian]

You'll have to point out to me where in that paragraph I call Geronimoo a cheater, I guess. I'm not seeing it.

Regardless of whatever social dynamics may or may not exist in certain playgroups, I absolutely stand by that this is cheating in Dominion, and until you find me a (real, competitive) tournament where that's not the case, I don't see myself entertaining any other notion.

I will also point out that if I had called Geronimoo a cheater (which I did not, and am not), it wouldn't matter how upfront or straightforward he is about it. If someone cheats, he cheats regardless of those things. See Mike Long.

Edit: I see you edited it out, so my post only half makes sense. Oh well.

[WanderingWinder]

You'll have to point out to me where in that paragraph I call Geronimoo a cheater, I guess. I'm not seeing it.

The "persuading" part is super out of place and is definitely cheating. Not the first time Geronimoo considers cheating behavior normal though, which is disappointing for sure (referring to the consulting of simulators in the beginning of games discussion a few months back).

Indeed, it's not so much the first sentence there, but the second one.

Regardless of whatever social dynamics may or may not exist in certain playgroups, I absolutely stand by that this is cheating in Dominion, and until you find me a (real, competitive) tournament where that's not the case, I don't see myself entertaining any other notion.

While I agree that this is cheating, this is a bad metric. Find 1 "real, competitive" tournament... yeah.

I will also point out that if I had called Geronimoo a cheater (which I did not, and am not), it wouldn't matter how upfront or straightforward he is about it. If someone cheats, he cheats regardless of those things. See Mike Long.

Again, agree, but... what do you do? I guess you complain.
And now I've just read up the wikipedia on Mike Long, and I'm not entirely sure how it's relevant.

[Fabian]

Dunno about "relevant", WW. He's a pretty famous Magic player who's mostly famous for being a cheater, and everyone knows it and he's like "yeah well, whatever". Doesn't make him any less of a cheater.

WW, if two people could show up at one of the Regionals or Nationals or World Championship (why are these not real and competitive btw?) coming up and openly be like "yeah when we're on the same table we're definitely softplaying each other and passing Colonies to the one who's behind and stuff", and were met with a "damn these guys are playing a really strong strategy " rather than "lol what is wrong with you guys, you're not playing gtfo" then I'd definitely have to rethink collusion in Dominion as being cheating. I don't see it happening though; do you?

[WanderingWinder]

Dunno about "relevant", WW. He's a pretty famous Magic player who's mostly famous for being a cheater, and everyone knows it and he's like "yeah well, whatever". Doesn't make him any less of a cheater.

Well you say he cheats, what I read is that he's been suspected of cheating and made what some people consider to be an unethical psychological ploy. I don't see any problem with the psychological ploy (which I would say is part of the game). Certainly you saying he's a cheater doesn't make him so. But the bigger point is, I don't see anything anywhere about him being 'up front' about his alleged cheating, which makes it not relevant. I mean, I guess the point about relevance is, why would you say something that's irrelevant - it doesn't add anything to the discussion, basically by definition. And I especially dislike it if you present as if it were relevant. And I don't see how Mike Long is any more relevant here than Vesselin Topalov or Marion Jones or Shoeless Joe Jackson or The Turk or Rollie Fingers or Lance Armstrong or... hundreds of other cases that just don't make sense to bring up.

WW, if two people could show up at one of the Regionals or Nationals or World Championship (why are these not real and competitive btw?)

(because they're very very not competitive. Just check out the rules. Or Donald's posts that explain how Jay is more concerned with having things be fun than any kind of competitive aspects. They are, of course, real).

coming up and openly be like "yeah when we're on the same table we're definitely softplaying each other and passing Colonies to the one who's behind and stuff", and were met with a "damn these guys are playing a really strong strategy " rather than "lol what is wrong with you guys, you're not playing gtfo" then I'd definitely have to rethink collusion in Dominion as being cheating. I don't see it happening though; do you?

No, I don't. But people saying that that's just strong play is not going to make me re-think the thing at all either. There are plenty of stupid people, and lots more people who make stupid arguments. Why would you be swayed by them? I just don't see how that's relevant to the larger issue that ShuffleLuck is bringing up. Well, really, that's two issues. First is calling Geronimoo a cheater. Second is how social dynamics of playgroups play into the collusion issue. Funnily enough, I would not call a tournament a playgroup. I'd call it a competitive environment. And if you want to make sure that there's no collusion in your play-group, more power to you. I probably will try to as well. But I mean, the point is to have social fun, so it's not like I'm going to start cursing at these people either, as you suggest. This seems like a real good way to lose friends to me. But if it works for you, great.

[Fabian]

You really pick the weirdest things to come down hard on, especially so when you admit you don't know anything about it. I just mentioned his name in passing as an example I figured a lot of people here would be familiar with. I haven't read his wiki page (Magic players have wiki pages? I had no idea), but I guess it's not surprising it's not mentioned there. In the Magic community, he's a well known cheater though, I promise I'm not making this up or "just saying so". He also acknowledges it, it's again not something I'm making up or "just saying". That said, I don't understand why examples of known cheaters who admit they've cheated aren't relevant to a discussion about whether being upfront and straightforward about being a cheater makes you any less of a cheater? I mean, again, I don't know what you even mean by "relevant" though.. it's just an example man. Marion Jones admitted she cheated. This doesn't make her cheating any better. Just an example.

Now for the actual content of the post. If a tournament organizer allowed open collusion in a tournament (I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on the "competitive" aspect of them; I consider them competitive because they're playing for something (in my mind) significant, the world championship title), it would absolutely mean something to me with regards to what's allowed and what's not allowed in tournament Dominion. Tournament rules are imo very signficant indeed for what goes and what doesn't go. I hope you appreciate that I'm talking about competitive/tournament Dominion in my posts, right? I even clarified it with a little Edit thing in my first post. I'm not too concerned with what people do as far as house rules go, from my limited reading of the Variants & Fan Cards subforum it seems all kinds of crazy things go on. Like you say, more power to them.

As for calling Geronimoo a cheater, I'm going to say again that I haven't done that. I said he considers cheating behavior normal, which might have been a poor word choice maybe? "Acceptable" or something, I dunno. If I played him in a competitive/tournament environment and him and his friend started colluding, I'd call him a cheater. This hasn't happened, and I strongly doubt it will.

[WanderingWinder]

You really pick the weirdest things to come down hard on, especially so when you admit you don't know anything about it.

I'm not 'coming down hard' on the Mike Long thing. I really don't know, and I'm explaining 'well gee, that example doesn't help me much, because I don't know so much about it. 'From what I can find, which I assumed would be pretty good, given that you reference him like he's a great known example, it seems like X, which doesn't seem to fit with what you're saying.' Which is basically inviting you to chime in to expand on your extremely short, supposed to be informative post. Maybe it's just my ignorance, but I am guessing that Mike Long does not mean a ton to most of the people on this board.
What I'm coming down hard on is 2 things, but we'll get to those later in the post.

I just mentioned his name in passing as an example I figured a lot of people here would be familiar with. I haven't read his wiki page (Magic players have wiki pages? I had no idea), but I guess it's not surprising it's not mentioned there. In the Magic community, he's a well known cheater though, I promise I'm not making this up or "just saying so". He also acknowledges it, it's again not something I'm making up or "just saying".

Okay. I don't really have reason to doubt this. It seems like an admission of cheating would be something worthwhile to put on the wiki page, but, those things probably don't get so much quality control.

That said, I don't understand why examples of known cheaters who admit they've cheated aren't relevant to a discussion about whether being upfront and straightforward about being a cheater makes you any less of a cheater?

Because none of those people were upfront about cheating. There's a big difference between admitting to something when faced with conclusive evidence (which some people still fail to do), and being upfront about it going in.

I mean, again, I don't know what you even mean by "relevant" though.. it's just an example man. Marion Jones admitted she cheated. This doesn't make her cheating any better. Just an example.

From OED:

Bearing on or connected with the matter in hand; closely relating to the subject or point at issue; pertinent to a specified thing.

I'm saying that it's not pertinent, for the reasons I outline above. Again, not a huge deal. Is it ok for me to disagree with you without you thinking that I'm 'coming down hard'?

Now for the actual content of the post. If a tournament organizer allowed open collusion in a tournament (I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on the "competitive" aspect of them; I consider them competitive because they're playing for something (in my mind) significant, the world championship title),

Gonna break in here to say that that title means nothing to me, given that the tournaments they're won in are, well, more or less a farce. From reports I've read (and yes, this is just hearsay), the judging is not super-professional (not that they're dishonest or not trying), it's all big multiplayer, with things like VP tiebreakers being important, and very very few games determining everything. But whatever, you can think they're competitive, that's fine.

it would absolutely mean something to me with regards to what's allowed and what's not allowed in tournament Dominion. Tournament rules are imo very signficant indeed for what goes and what doesn't go.

Yeah, but tournament rules are very different from social conventions and even moreso from what people say.

I hope you appreciate that I'm talking about competitive/tournament Dominion in my posts, right? I even clarified it with a little Edit thing in my first post. I'm not too concerned with what people do as far as house rules go, from my limited reading of the Variants & Fan Cards subforum it seems all kinds of crazy things go on. Like you say, more power to them.

But the point is, ShuffleLuck ISN'T talking about competitive/tournament Dominion. He's talking about social dynamics of a playgroup. And you just say 'lah-dee-dah, this doesn't matter, you're totally wrong for dominion'. Well, the problem here is, if he cares about social dominion, you don't need to come down on him for not conforming to competitive dominion standards. I mean, you say you don't care about what people do at home, but my question to you is, why do you say this then? This is one of my two big problems, for which I'm coming down.

As for calling Geronimoo a cheater, I'm going to say again that I haven't done that. I said he considers cheating behavior normal, which might have been a poor word choice maybe? "Acceptable" or something, I dunno. If I played him in a competitive/tournament environment and him and his friend started colluding, I'd call him a cheater. This hasn't happened, and I strongly doubt it will.

Yeah, who's splitting hairs now? I mean, why is calling someone a cheater a bad thing? Because it is an attack on their character. If you want to be really strict about it, thinking that cheating is acceptable is WORSE than saying someone did cheat, because just cheating by itself isn't really that bad, if you didn't do it purposefully. Not thinking that there's a problem with it more serious. So I guess, technically, you didn't say he cheated. You said something worse. Which is the biggest problem I have here, especially since you just slide into this area where you move the conversation to just PRESUME that the behaviour in question is cheating. Now, I agree with you that it is indeed cheating, but I would not go around impugning Geronimoo's character about it, as clearly the issue he has is WHETHER it's cheating, and I'm not going to get on someone so hard personally fro not seeing totally eye-to-eye on a relatively irrelevant bit of sub-ethics in a game. And this is the thing that really gets my goat.

[Fabian]

I'm going to summarize the discussion so far and you can tell me where I've gone wrong. It'll be paraphrased, but hopefully no more so than "lah-dee-dah, this doesn't matter, you're totally wrong for dominion".

1. I say collusion is cheating in any competitive/tournament dominion.

2. ShuffleLuck says that in some circles it's more of a gray area.

3. I say I stand by my opinion that collusion is cheating.

4. You come down on me for coming down on ShuffleLuck, saying he's wrong about Dominion, when what I've done is express my opinion (?)

I don't know what to say at this point except that I disagree that I came down hard on ShuffleLuck and I disagree I said he was wrong (or indeed totally wrong).

[WanderingWinder]

I'm going to summarize the discussion so far and you can tell me where I've gone wrong. It'll be paraphrased, but hopefully no more so than "lah-dee-dah, this doesn't matter, you're totally wrong for dominion".

1. I say collusion is cheating in any competitive/tournament dominion.

2. ShuffleLuck says that in some circles it's more of a gray area.

3. I say I stand by my opinion that collusion is cheating.

4. You come down on me for coming down on ShuffleLuck, saying he's wrong about Dominion, when what I've done is express my opinion (?)

I don't know what to say at this point except that I disagree that I came down hard on ShuffleLuck and I disagree I said he was wrong (or indeed totally wrong).

This is about half of a good summary. The other half is where you crash down on Geronimoo. Indeed, I don't think I really 'came down hard' either.
But the problem is that when you say 3 in response to 2, it makes it seem like you're saying that this includes what he's saying. Let me give you an example"
Jimmy: "I think that the offsides trap is a really innovative and exciting new way to play football."
Bob: "Cheating is bad."
---This makes it seem like Bob is saying that what Jimmy is talking about - in this case the offsides trap - is cheating. And that's what I saw going on here - you saying that it's cheating in dominion, meaning all forms, specifically including the casual playgroups, as that is what he's talking about in the post you are obviously replying to. I mean, you'd already made your 'collusion-is-cheating' point; I don't see any reason why you would make the point you do in reply 33 except to do this.
But still, the bigger thing is the attacks on Geronimoo. And then combine the two, and that gets me posting five times.

[Robz888]

I don't really see how the situation Geronimo outlined about the guy not giving out the curse so that later he might get a favor... Would ever occur. If this person is so out of the game that you don't risk anything by not giving him the curse, why does it even matter? Would the other person say "gee thanks that was so nice ! Now I am still miserably out of this game but I have one fewer curse! I will repay this kindness!" If he's so out of the game that you can safely not give him
A curse, he has no reason to thank you for not giving him a curse.

[Geronimoo]

As for calling Geronimoo a cheater, I'm going to say again that I haven't done that. I said he considers cheating behavior normal, which might have been a poor word choice maybe? "Acceptable" or something, I dunno. If I played him in a competitive/tournament environment and him and his friend started colluding, I'd call him a cheater. This hasn't happened, and I strongly doubt it will.

I don't find cheating normal. I absolutely despise cheating and cheaters. BUT I am always looking to find any edge I can in a competitive game as long as I can stay within the rules. The consulting of simulators during a game didn't seem like a problem to me at all until I saw how the community reacted and I immediately stopped doing it.

[O]

As for calling Geronimoo a cheater, I'm going to say again that I haven't done that. I said he considers cheating behavior normal, which might have been a poor word choice maybe? "Acceptable" or something, I dunno. If I played him in a competitive/tournament environment and him and his friend started colluding, I'd call him a cheater. This hasn't happened, and I strongly doubt it will.

I don't find cheating normal. I absolutely despise cheating and cheaters. BUT I am always looking to find any edge I can in a competitive game as long as I can stay within the rules. The consulting of simulators during a game didn't seem like a problem to me at all until I saw how the community reacted and I immediately stopped doing it.

Question: Is consulting F.DS (not by posting, but by reading previously made posts) equally cheating to consulting simulators? I would say moreso, personally.

[Lekkit]

Oh! This discussion again. I have another question on the topic: When is isotropic going down?

[Fabian]

WW, I understand you're bothered about what I said about Geronimoo. Like you say, you've posted about it a lot by now. You're being silly when you attack me for other stuff that's only in your head though, and it detracts from what is (apparently) your main point.

Geronimoo, I'm sorry I said you find cheating behavior normal based on these two topics.

[bozzball]

Just to throw in my tuppence, I am very surprised that this is characterized as cheating in Dominion. I consider it to be a standard part of how 3-or-more-player games are generally played, regardless of which game you are playing (Settlers, Carcasonne, Ticket etc.) and sort of what makes them more interesting and better than 2-player versions of the same game.

[DStu]

... and sort of what makes them more interesting and better than 2-player versions of the same game.

for suitable definitions of "better"...

[WanderingWinder]

WW, I understand you're bothered about what I said about Geronimoo. Like you say, you've posted about it a lot by now. You're being silly when you attack me for other stuff that's only in your head though,

This other stuff isn't only 'in my head'. Certainly you're not in any more of an objective position as I am. I think the other stuff is important, too. Not as outrageous, which is why I didn't like that you were seemingly just ignoring the Geronimoo bit, but also problematic. The larger part is, I'm not attacking you. I'm certainly not trying to. What I'm doing is (vehemently) disagreeing with (I guess you could call this 'going after' or 'attacking') what you're saying. Now you're probably going to say that it's a semantic difference, but it's a very important distinction. Attacking people is injurious to them. Going after the arguments is fine - if you disagree with the thing, you disagree it, and you should be able to say that.
And the reason I keep saying it is that I feel like you haven't responded, until this post just here that I'm quoting.

and it detracts from what is (apparently) your main point.

I can have multiple points, and I ought to be able to make them without them detracting from each other, unless I am somehow making some kind of contradictory arguments, or something along those lines. I have also posted lots of stuff about dominion cards, and I don't think that detracts either. It's just not on the same topic, and I feel I ought to be able to talk about different topics without having them detract from each other.

Look, I don't have a problem with you. You're a strong player, you have your opinions, you voice them, and that's all fine and good with me. The problems I'm having are when you seem to me to be attacking other people, or trying to impose some kind of artificial restrictions on people.
I'm sorry if you feel I've been attacking you. This was certainly not my intention.

[bozzball]

... and sort of what makes them more interesting and better than 2-player versions of the same game.

for suitable definitions of "better"...

Yep. Meant to wrap that whole message in a "in my opinion"

[gman314]

I have to say that the principal online boardgame I play is Diplomacy and so, when it comes to collusion in multi-player games, I have a much more open tolerance than some others. However, getting a second account, in my opinion, is straight out. Also, collusion between games, is right out in my books. And, discussing an ongoing game is totally bad behaviour.

But, in my opinion, if the interface allows you to do it, go for it. Sure, in a face-to-face game, you won't be consulting a simulator or reading articles, but online, if you can spend the time to do it while not delaying the game unnecessarily, go for it. But, don't post a question; that is seeking advice of an on-going game. The interface also allows you to collude and talk to other players, so do it if you want to.

That being said, if talking to collude becomes a normal thing in multi-player games, I'll just start each game by asking players not to do so. That would be an honour rule, but it could perhaps eventually be implemented as a variant with no chat.

[Morgrim7]

If anybody reading this has not played any (or very little) multiplayer do not let long games drawn out by Ambassador or Torturer or Mountebank warp your perspective of multiplayer. Many multiplayer games can be very quick, not all are long and drawn out.
I'm playing a multiplayer Mountebank game right now... it is not pretty.