Kiron Conqueror - Abuse or Legal play?

[Donelladan]

Josko, samejohn, go see this topic and come back saying there is hater speaking
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=187039&start=135

Otherwise, at the point of the game, if those 2 players had not been friend, even housemate, they would never have made the deal. So their is not mistake letting them both play last unless you know they are friends together, other player in the game are not supposed to know that. That's all along what has been the problem, they made that deal because they are friends, so the situation was unfair from the beginning of the game. xiangwang was leader on the game when he helped Kiron winning.... cmon....

[codeblue1018]

Josko, I understand you're busy but it is irresponsible to "briefly" read over this thread and make the determination you made without fully reading every post in its entirety. Secondly, you are blaming other players for ending early to give them the opportunity to make this deal?

" because others made strategic mistake and ended their turn early. They are guilty to even allow them to come in position for giving this offer".

Am I reading this correctly? Let me get this straight, so other players join a game perhaps not knowing the map or the freestyle strategy well and they are in some ways at fault? If I read your statement wrong I apologize, so feel free to elaborate. These two are shady and if you cant see that mate, I find that funny. Each time they speak on their behalf, more shady things evolve; the c/a thread puts that into perspective and this game you refer to is no isolated incident.

[josko.ri]

Josko, I understand you're busy but it is irresponsible to "briefly" read over this thread and make the determination you made without fully reading every post in its entirety. Secondly, you are blaming other players for ending early to give them the opportunity to make this deal?

" because others made strategic mistake and ended their turn early. They are guilty to even allow them to come in position for giving this offer".

Am I reading this correctly? Let me get this straight, so other players join a game perhaps not knowing the map or the freestyle strategy well and they are in some ways at fault? If I read your statement wrong I apologize, so feel free to elaborate. These two are shady and if you cant see that mate, I find that funny. Each time they speak on their behalf, more shady things evolve; the c/a thread puts that into perspective and this game you refer to is no isolated incident.

Ending turn early by others allowed to those 2 to offer "alliance" in chat which could lead either X or K to win, but would be made inside the game (not by outside game breaker). In that way other players are at strategic fault because agreement could easy be done legally inside that game and others could not stop it because they ended turn already. I explained situation in last post.

[Gabriel13]

Guys.. Think about it this way.. If this was an 8 player game with a bunch of low-ranked players, it either would've never been reported, or everybody would've laughed at the person who did report it. The only reason everybody is complaining is because he did it "to become conqueror", which he didn't really do, because he had almost 200 wins under his belt. He did it in ONE game, because it has happened to him before, so I don't really see a problem. Just think if some cook had posted this about another cook. Would you really care?

[Gunn217]

I've only glanced over the C&A thread and this one but I don't know what the big deal is. It is clear what's going on. There really isn't a decent defense. This whole thing is very similar to GenLeeGivinHead. While not overtly breaking rules they are damaging the character of the game. There are tons and tons of wordy denials and thin explanations as to what they've been doing but we all know it's BS. It's what got him booted and it's what will likely get these chumps booted too if they keep it up. I'll wager that the majority of the sight has little or no respect for the way these guys have gotten to Conqueror. It's just another example of why no one gives a shit about the Conqueror title.

This is written right under the "Rules" tab.

Unwritten Rule
Obviously any gross abuse of the game is forbidden. This includes but is not limited to: throwing games or deliberately benefiting from thrown games, intentional deadbeating, holding players hostage, serial teammate killing, hijacking accounts, systematically "farming" new recruits.

I'm sure someone will throw out the "no rules were broken" bit, just like GivenHead did. It makes little difference. The new regime has shown that they will not tolerate unethical behavior so I'm sure they'll put a stop to it. If they don't....well...they might as well invite the old Conqueror to rejoin the circus.


****I didn't read all the posts so if this has already been said, please forgive me.

[eddie2]

Guys.. Think about it this way.. If this was an 8 player game with a bunch of low-ranked players, it either would've never been reported, or everybody would've laughed at the person who did report it. The only reason everybody is complaining is because he did it "to become conqueror", which he didn't really do, because he had almost 200 wins under his belt. He did it in ONE game, because it has happened to him before, so I don't really see a problem. Just think if some cook had posted this about another cook. Would you really care?

gabriel i understand what you are saying. but the same if someone had reported this and they were lower ranked or cooks they would of been busted as multi's or blocked and had the book thrown at them. the only reason this case is not closed/busted is because of what rank they are and time on site, i had a clan mate who had a son on site and because he bought him premium he was busted as a multi he was not sent any pm from king a asking him to explain before they busted him like what has happened here he was busted then had to explain his case via e ticket and was allowed back on site...

so what you have said can we not say the opposite that they are only still on this site because of who they are.

[Bruceswar]

Guys.. Think about it this way.. If this was an 8 player game with a bunch of low-ranked players, it either would've never been reported, or everybody would've laughed at the person who did report it. The only reason everybody is complaining is because he did it "to become conqueror", which he didn't really do, because he had almost 200 wins under his belt. He did it in ONE game, because it has happened to him before, so I don't really see a problem. Just think if some cook had posted this about another cook. Would you really care?

Gab did you not see what COF posted. There are many many games where shady things happen.

[Rodion]

Otherwise, at the point of the game, if those 2 players had not been friend, even housemate, they would never have made the deal.

If you reckon your chance to win is 85% and someone offers you a deal that gives you 87.5%, will you refuse it?

As I tried to clarify earlier, the offering/accepting the deal is not the problem. The problem MIGHT be the refusal to backstab, depending on how you interpret winning/throwing. Read MC's post on the subject.

Am I reading this correctly? Let me get this straight, so other players join a game perhaps not knowing the map or the freestyle strategy well and they are in some ways at fault?

Knowing when to take your turn is an extremely important part of casual freestyle strategy.

Player lacks map/settings knowledge -> player makes a mistake -> other players capitalize on his mistake to reach a better position (in this case, a game ending one)

Well, it's their fault that they lost the game, yes.

[Chariot of Fire]

Rodion's last comment is correct. It is the fault of the players who lost the game, in particular the player who started his turn in the last round and allowed X or K to hold the objective while he was still online. So in instances where X or K play individually against 7 unknowns there is no problem. It is simply good play, good tactics, and poor strategy by the other 7 players.

Where the problem really lies is when they play together, because you can see in almost every case that X & K dovetail their last 3 or 4 turns so that one of them achieves the objective and the other one clicks 'Start'. The one of them who clicked Start is showing just as much poor form as any of the unknown players in their individual games - and we know that X & K are not ignorant, so why do they do that? To say "The game was won anyway" is a very lame excuse when the objective could have been broken once the other player was offline. Living together it is fairly easy to know when this will be. The other poor saps in their games do not know when they will be offline - but these two do.

So really it is deliberate game throwing in those games where X & K play together (one of them throws it to the other).

I see no reason these guys should be banned from these game types or from the site, but I do see a need to prevent them playing together for the same reasons Kiron & Drakeavril were banned. And people perhaps just have to be vigilant how many Canadian freemiums join their games given the large number of Risk-playing housemates they have.

[Funkyterrance]

If you look at this from a non-biased, common sense standpoint and just take a minute to digest it, it's obviously cheating and a direct manipulation/abuse of the point system as it is intended.
If I was going to respect Kiron as conqueror, I wont now and I never will. Nor will I respect the rank of any other players who use or have used this "method". As far as I'm concerned this issue warrants a complete disaccreditation of all those involved. I realize that a lot of players still respect the offending parties in situations like this and like to give the benefit of the doubt in respect to their honorable natures in general but I am a member of the group that raises doubt where doubt is due.
I feel that a stripping of the conqueror medal would be appropriate considering the factors which led to it's acquisition.

[Chariot of Fire]

I feel that a stripping of the conqueror medal would be appropriate considering the factors which led to it's acquisition.

Quite right. The manner in which it was obtained - in particular those last few games with xiangwang that took him over the threshold - was very contrived. I say 'obtained' as I cannot use the word 'earned'

[Mr Changsha]

If you look at this from a non-biased, common sense standpoint and just take a minute to digest it, it's obviously cheating and a direct manipulation/abuse of the point system as it is intended.
If I was going to respect Kiron as conqueror, I wont now and I never will. Nor will I respect the rank of any other players who use or have used this "method". As far as I'm concerned this issue warrants a complete disaccreditation of all those involved. I realize that a lot of players still respect the offending parties in situations like this and like to give the benefit of the doubt in respect to their honorable natures in general but I am a member of the group that raises doubt where doubt is due.
I feel that a stripping of the conqueror medal would be appropriate considering the factors which led to it's acquisition.

They took advantage of the fact that CC is not able to make a rule about playing in large standard games with a mix of real-life friends and other players. Those of us with a sense of honour refrain from doing it...

I would like to see them both banned for a gross abuse of the game. Not blocked...banned. Frankly, they should have been banned long ago.

I rarely call for draconian punishments, but I have always hated this kind of cheating.

[codeblue1018]

I disagree with a ban; I do think a block is in order between them to prevent this from occurring again. I'm not familiar with the events of Kiron and Drakeavril, but if it was similar in action , Kiron should be dealt with accordingly.

[Mr Changsha]

I disagree with a ban; I do think a block is in order between them to prevent this from occurring again. I'm not familiar with the events of Kiron and Drakeavril, but if it was similar in action , Kiron should be dealt with accordingly.

xiangwang has played 45 percent of his games with kiron. In my view that means 45 percent of his games have involved secret diplomacy.

I fail to see how anyone can argue against that.

[Chariot of Fire]

As ever, Mr Changsha does make an exceedingly good cake point

[a6mzero]

Kiron has achieved his goal so at this point preventing him from playing with Xiangwang is akin to throwing a paperball at an elephant in an attempt to hurt it. At minimum he should be stripped of his title. Based on his past history of abuse of this site he should be stripped of his title and banned. He is the Barry Bonds of CC. If the mods do anything less it is a makes a total travesty of the rankings in CC.

[Kaskavel]

This is a complex case. Instead of offering an answer to the accusations, I will emphasize to the roots of the problem
1. Freestyle setting combined with objectives. This setting by itself creates problems. I can hardly imagine playing 10 games in this setting with 7 of my friends and not us ending up angry with each other. Suspicions raise all the time, the boundaries between cheating and unfair become grey and people already friends to each other obtain superior winning chances without having to cheat, just by trusting each other
2. Friends playing together in non escalating games. I solved those problems a long time ago, by almost never joining non-escalating games with my friends. If I was playing with mc or sirJohn 8 player flat rate games, I would now have the same problems. I made a decision and it works just fine. You can have your fun with friends in escalating games or assasin games, but not in diplomacy based games
3. The real issue in the presented case is not if the agreement is legal. It is whether those two playes are intentionaly or unintentionaly (and this makes the case even more complex) cheating by playing together in this game from the first place. It is quite obvious that this cannot be answered or proven, no matter how many pages are written down in forums.
4. Kiron made a mistake. A mistake from a subjective point of view. He became conqueror through that moraly shaky game and I imagine he has already regretted it. No matter if he cheated or not and no matter if he deserves to be conqueror or not, the mere fact that his last game from marshal to conqueror was decided in a debatable way will now hunt him down. Fair or not fair, I dont know, but the fact is that people will tend to describe Kiron as "oh...that guy who cheated that game to become conqueror", spoiling his player career. This psycology of the masses is not fair, a player at Kiron's level does not have anything to prove to anyone (unless we believe he is cheating all his career), in fact no marshall or general has anything to prove to anyone. Any general is obviousy a powerful player who could become conqueror if he concentrates to favourable tactics for a period of time and it should not be that important what happened in that specific game. After all, he could become conqueror next game or become an "almost conqueror". Is that really so important? In that case, would he be a fair conqueror, but now he is an unfair conqueror?
5. Freestyle concept. Not all people understand freestyle in the same way. Some intercept freestyle 3rd crusade as a setting that makes games faster to play and some others like a game that you have to wait for the last hour to play, so as not to be left out of the "big deal". Obviously, from a cold objective point of view, the second category of players are correct and will win the game 100% of the time. Freestyle was invented as a way to play faster, but "scientists" of this site has evolved it into a heavily complex setting, where unexperienced players cannot possibly survive
As a conclusion, I repeat again that the simplest thing is to avoid friends in non escalating games and in diplomacy based games in general. I also just avoid multiplayer freestyles as well, it turns out that real life gets significantly favored by this tactic, but again, this is just me.

[Dukasaur]

This is a complex case. Instead of offering an answer to the accusations, I will emphasize to the roots of the problem
1. Freestyle setting combined with objectives. This setting by itself creates problems. I can hardly imagine playing 10 games in this setting with 7 of my friends and not us ending up angry with each other. Suspicions raise all the time, the boundaries between cheating and unfair become grey and people already friends to each other obtain superior winning chances without having to cheat, just by trusting each other
2. Friends playing together in non escalating games. I solved those problems a long time ago, by almost never joining non-escalating games with my friends. If I was playing with mc or sirJohn 8 player flat rate games, I would now have the same problems. I made a decision and it works just fine. You can have your fun with friends in escalating games or assasin games, but not in diplomacy based games
3. The real issue in the presented case is not if the agreement is legal. It is whether those two playes are intentionaly or unintentionaly (and this makes the case even more complex) cheating by playing together in this game from the first place. It is quite obvious that this cannot be answered or proven, no matter how many pages are written down in forums.
4. Kiron made a mistake. A mistake from a subjective point of view. He became conqueror through that moraly shaky game and I imagine he has already regretted it. No matter if he cheated or not and no matter if he deserves to be conqueror or not, the mere fact that his last game from marshal to conqueror was decided in a debatable way will now hunt him down. Fair or not fair, I dont know, but the fact is that people will tend to describe Kiron as "oh...that guy who cheated that game to become conqueror", spoiling his player career. This psycology of the masses is not fair, a player at Kiron's level does not have anything to prove to anyone (unless we believe he is cheating all his career), in fact no marshall or general has anything to prove to anyone. Any general is obviousy a powerful player who could become conqueror if he concentrates to favourable tactics for a period of time and it should not be that important what happened in that specific game. After all, he could become conqueror next game or become an "almost conqueror". Is that really so important? In that case, would he be a fair conqueror, but now he is an unfair conqueror?
5. Freestyle concept. Not all people understand freestyle in the same way. Some intercept freestyle 3rd crusade as a setting that makes games faster to play and some others like a game that you have to wait for the last hour to play, so as not to be left out of the "big deal". Obviously, from a cold objective point of view, the second category of players are correct and will win the game 100% of the time. Freestyle was invented as a way to play faster, but "scientists" of this site has evolved it into a heavily complex setting, where unexperienced players cannot possibly survive
As a conclusion, I repeat again that the simplest thing is to avoid friends in non escalating games and in diplomacy based games in general. I also just avoid multiplayer freestyles as well, it turns out that real life gets significantly favored by this tactic, but again, this is just me.

Probably the best summation I've seen.

I've come to expect that when I see Kaskavel post, there will be something worth reading, and once again this is true.

[Chariot of Fire]

I thought the same mate. Very well-constructed post.

[SaMejoHn]

This is a complex case. Instead of offering an answer to the accusations, I will emphasize to the roots of the problem
1. Freestyle setting combined with objectives. This setting by itself creates problems. I can hardly imagine playing 10 games in this setting with 7 of my friends and not us ending up angry with each other. Suspicions raise all the time, the boundaries between cheating and unfair become grey and people already friends to each other obtain superior winning chances without having to cheat, just by trusting each other
2. Friends playing together in non escalating games. I solved those problems a long time ago, by almost never joining non-escalating games with my friends. If I was playing with mc or sirJohn 8 player flat rate games, I would now have the same problems. I made a decision and it works just fine. You can have your fun with friends in escalating games or assasin games, but not in diplomacy based games
3. The real issue in the presented case is not if the agreement is legal. It is whether those two playes are intentionaly or unintentionaly (and this makes the case even more complex) cheating by playing together in this game from the first place. It is quite obvious that this cannot be answered or proven, no matter how many pages are written down in forums.
4. Kiron made a mistake. A mistake from a subjective point of view. He became conqueror through that moraly shaky game and I imagine he has already regretted it. No matter if he cheated or not and no matter if he deserves to be conqueror or not, the mere fact that his last game from marshal to conqueror was decided in a debatable way will now hunt him down. Fair or not fair, I dont know, but the fact is that people will tend to describe Kiron as "oh...that guy who cheated that game to become conqueror", spoiling his player career. This psycology of the masses is not fair, a player at Kiron's level does not have anything to prove to anyone (unless we believe he is cheating all his career), in fact no marshall or general has anything to prove to anyone. Any general is obviousy a powerful player who could become conqueror if he concentrates to favourable tactics for a period of time and it should not be that important what happened in that specific game. After all, he could become conqueror next game or become an "almost conqueror". Is that really so important? In that case, would he be a fair conqueror, but now he is an unfair conqueror?
5. Freestyle concept. Not all people understand freestyle in the same way. Some intercept freestyle 3rd crusade as a setting that makes games faster to play and some others like a game that you have to wait for the last hour to play, so as not to be left out of the "big deal". Obviously, from a cold objective point of view, the second category of players are correct and will win the game 100% of the time. Freestyle was invented as a way to play faster, but "scientists" of this site has evolved it into a heavily complex setting, where unexperienced players cannot possibly survive
As a conclusion, I repeat again that the simplest thing is to avoid friends in non escalating games and in diplomacy based games in general. I also just avoid multiplayer freestyles as well, it turns out that real life gets significantly favored by this tactic, but again, this is just me.

Probably the best summation I've seen.

I've come to expect that when I see Kaskavel post, there will be something worth reading, and once again this is true.

+1...if only some of these other users were as reasonable as kask and josko

[codeblue1018]

This is a complex case. Instead of offering an answer to the accusations, I will emphasize to the roots of the problem
1. Freestyle setting combined with objectives. This setting by itself creates problems. I can hardly imagine playing 10 games in this setting with 7 of my friends and not us ending up angry with each other. Suspicions raise all the time, the boundaries between cheating and unfair become grey and people already friends to each other obtain superior winning chances without having to cheat, just by trusting each other
2. Friends playing together in non escalating games. I solved those problems a long time ago, by almost never joining non-escalating games with my friends. If I was playing with mc or sirJohn 8 player flat rate games, I would now have the same problems. I made a decision and it works just fine. You can have your fun with friends in escalating games or assasin games, but not in diplomacy based games
3. The real issue in the presented case is not if the agreement is legal. It is whether those two playes are intentionaly or unintentionaly (and this makes the case even more complex) cheating by playing together in this game from the first place. It is quite obvious that this cannot be answered or proven, no matter how many pages are written down in forums.
4. Kiron made a mistake. A mistake from a subjective point of view. He became conqueror through that moraly shaky game and I imagine he has already regretted it. No matter if he cheated or not and no matter if he deserves to be conqueror or not, the mere fact that his last game from marshal to conqueror was decided in a debatable way will now hunt him down. Fair or not fair, I dont know, but the fact is that people will tend to describe Kiron as "oh...that guy who cheated that game to become conqueror", spoiling his player career. This psycology of the masses is not fair, a player at Kiron's level does not have anything to prove to anyone (unless we believe he is cheating all his career), in fact no marshall or general has anything to prove to anyone. Any general is obviousy a powerful player who could become conqueror if he concentrates to favourable tactics for a period of time and it should not be that important what happened in that specific game. After all, he could become conqueror next game or become an "almost conqueror". Is that really so important? In that case, would he be a fair conqueror, but now he is an unfair conqueror?
5. Freestyle concept. Not all people understand freestyle in the same way. Some intercept freestyle 3rd crusade as a setting that makes games faster to play and some others like a game that you have to wait for the last hour to play, so as not to be left out of the "big deal". Obviously, from a cold objective point of view, the second category of players are correct and will win the game 100% of the time. Freestyle was invented as a way to play faster, but "scientists" of this site has evolved it into a heavily complex setting, where unexperienced players cannot possibly survive
As a conclusion, I repeat again that the simplest thing is to avoid friends in non escalating games and in diplomacy based games in general. I also just avoid multiplayer freestyles as well, it turns out that real life gets significantly favored by this tactic, but again, this is just me.

Well said mate. Thing is, freestyle is a very fun aspect to this game; it does however, have an attribute to it that can be manipulated as you just mentioned especially in objective games I.E third crusade, oasis to name a couple. People have made an awful lot of points playing in this manner. I am certain Kiron and X are very good players and can win games by themselves. A lot of people lost respect for the number 1 spot on the scoreboard and I don't blame their reasons for that. We must remember that there have been several conquerors that do deserve the respect of holding that spot, including you Kaskaval and there will be more to come so we need not judge a few and lose sight of that. I hardly doubt Kiron will lose sleep over the fact that people lost respect for him if they ever had it to begin with so to me, that is irrelevant. What bothers me is the facts that COF brought to the communities attention; these facts if you will are hard to ignore. That in conjunction with the fact that Kiron and X utilize the same computer in the same household and Kiron writing in his words logged in on X's account is proof to me that shenanigans happen. X claims he forgot to log off, which is why Kiron assumed he was on his own account; I'm not buying that story. Nonetheless, it's over; the mods with make a ruling soon.

[Kaskavel]

And, In case anyone is interested in my opinion about whether Kiron and xiang cheated, the answer is yes
In Conquer Club, red is always cheating
In this specific case, Kiron and xiang cheated a bit more, since cheating as red and green is more cheating than cheating as red alone.

[Rodion]

Even though I agree with Kaskavel, I'm quite surprised that CoF and Codeblue also do.

people already friends to each other obtain superior winning chances without having to cheat, just by trusting each other

It is quite obvious that this cannot be answered or proven

and some others like a game that you have to wait for the last hour to play, so as not to be left out of the "big deal". Obviously, from a cold objective point of view, the second category of players are correct and will win the game 100% of the time.

Please make it clear for me: do you agree with those points?

[codeblue1018]

[quote="Rodion"]Even though I agree with Kaskavel, I'm quite surprised that CoF and Codeblue also do.

[quote="Kaskavel"]people already friends to each other obtain superior winning chances without having to cheat, just by trusting each other[/quote]

[quote="Kaskavel"]It is quite obvious that this cannot be answered or proven[/quote]

[quote="Kaskavel"]and some others like a game that you have to wait for the last hour to play, so as not to be left out of the "big deal". Obviously, from a cold objective point of view, the second category of players are correct and will win the game 100% of the time.[/quote]

Please make it clear for me: do you agree with those points?[/quote]

I believe I answered point 1 already; I have no doubt that Kiron and X are very good players when playing that particular map.

Point 2; their ways of playing with each other obviously cannot be 100% proven but reading all the evidence presented I think it clearly shows that shenanigans and suspicious activity exists.

Point 3; agree with that statement as well; I do believe if persons unknown to a map and freestyle concept, of course they have zero chance at winning.

How are you surprised by my agreeing with Kaskavals statement?

You seem to be limiting your judgement over this 1 game mate; do you not see the entire picture regarding all the facts presented?

[Rodion]

I do. As I said, some of those games in the C&A do seem fishy.

However, many points being risen against them are also flawed. For instance, someone HAS to win the game. If you agree with Kaskavel that many players that K and X play against have 0 chance at winning, you shouldn't be so surprised that their win rates are ludicrous.

You can't also complain about their winning percentages if you agree that friends can enhance their winning percentage by playing together without having to cheat (just because they trust each other).

To me, their winning percentages are not ridiculous and I don't even need to compare "K and X" games with "K only" games or "X only" games.

I do think there is a bit of malpractice when one of them is weak in a game and they have the chance to "lose to someone with over 4000 points instead of a striper". I'd say there is some throwing there, yes.

I'm not complaining on the "deals", though, which are the theme of the OP.