How come there is no way to report potential cheating?

[RobertBr]

IMO, kingmaking is not cheating. I mean, it does not break the rule of the game.

You may have misunderstood what kingmaking is referring to here. Kingmaking is a term used to refer to three quite distinct things in board games.

A game with a 'kingmaking problem' refers to games with three or more players in which it is common for the actions of the player who will finish in third (or a lower position) to affect the position of other players without materially affecting their own position. This is a design problem but nothing to do with cheating.

When a player is 'kingmaking' this refers to making moves that improve the position of another player while providing no benefit to the player making the move. This is very poor sportsmanship. It is a breach of the social contract that underpins the play of boardgames and is akin to but not the same as cheating. This may be what you were discussing in which case you used the term correctly.

However, as boardgames have exploded in popularity in the last twenty years and sites like this draw in a lot of people with little of no experience of games and so 'kingmaking' is often used incorrectly to refer to collusion or compacts in which two or more players secretly arranged to aid each other in advance of a game. This absolutely is cheating, and a violation of BGA rules, but its very hard to demonstrate or police, and since it often looks like kingmaking the two get confused. It seems very likely that the person you were responding to had engaged in this common misunderstanding and was referring to collusion rather than kingmaking.

Cheating is much rarer on the site than posters of these sorts of threads believe. Such unsubstantiated claims of cheating, like unsubstantiated claims of hacking, or that the random generator is rigged stem from conspiratorial thinking, are significantly more detrimental than the supposed problem (its worth noting in the one clear case of cheating through an exploit, already linked above, the thread had serious issues gaining traction with the site, and thus being resolved, precisely because of all the false claims that had been made - a classic example of the boy who cried wolf).

[tboard]

Yes RobertBr, thank you for that distinction. I guess "kingmaking" is the wrong term here. What I have experienced in my games of Catan is two or more people playing as a team from the very beginning, in both 3 player AND 4 player games. That is NOT to be confused with games where maybe one player decided to make a move to benefit another perhaps one time throughout the entire game. Playing as a team in a free for all game is cheating. Period. How can it not be? In regards to what the previous poster said, I believe this person is confusing "hacking" with cheating in general. Sure, playing as a team is not hacking in any way. But that does not mean it isn't cheating either.

[Meeplelowda]

Yes RobertBr, thank you for that distinction. I guess "kingmaking" is the wrong term here. What I have experienced in my games of Catan is two or more people playing as a team from the very beginning, in both 3 player AND 4 player games. That is NOT to be confused with games where maybe one player decided to make a move to benefit another perhaps one time throughout the entire game. Playing as a team in a free for all game is cheating. Period. How can it not be? In regards to what the previous poster said, I believe this person is confusing "hacking" with cheating in general. Sure, playing as a team is not hacking in any way. But that does not mean it isn't cheating either.

It seems that Blacktango was very narrowly defining cheating as literally breaking the rules of the game. So if a game is correctly implemented on BGA, the only way to engage in that kind of cheating would be to hack the site to circumvent the programming that requires you to follow the rules. For example, if according to the rules you can only draw one card and instead you draw two, either it's a bug in the implementation or you somehow avoided the normal programming.

But of course there are other ways to cheat. As a general comment to all the threads you're participating in about cheating, there is no magic wand that BGA can wave to stop cheating (and saying "put something in place" is basically saying "wave a magic wand") and unless you want to pay 100 Euros per month it is too costly to have a thorough review of every single accusation of cheating. Just red thumb those players you don't like, report them if it makes you feel better, and move on with life. At the end of the day, the tradeoff of playing anonymously with strangers is that some people are untrustworthy.

[tboard]

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[tboard]

Yes RobertBr, thank you for that distinction. I guess "kingmaking" is the wrong term here. What I have experienced in my games of Catan is two or more people playing as a team from the very beginning, in both 3 player AND 4 player games. That is NOT to be confused with games where maybe one player decided to make a move to benefit another perhaps one time throughout the entire game. Playing as a team in a free for all game is cheating. Period. How can it not be? In regards to what the previous poster said, I believe this person is confusing "hacking" with cheating in general. Sure, playing as a team is not hacking in any way. But that does not mean it isn't cheating either.

It seems that Blacktango was very narrowly defining cheating as literally breaking the rules of the game. So if a game is correctly implemented on BGA, the only way to engage in that kind of cheating would be to hack the site to circumvent the programming that requires you to follow the rules. For example, if according to the rules you can only draw one card and instead you draw two, either it's a bug in the implementation or you somehow avoided the normal programming.

But of course there are other ways to cheat. As a general comment to all the threads you're participating in about cheating, there is no magic wand that BGA can wave to stop cheating (and saying "put something in place" is basically saying "wave a magic wand") and unless you want to pay 100 Euros per month it is too costly to have a thorough review of every single accusation of cheating. Just red thumb those players you don't like, report them if it makes you feel better, and move on with life. At the end of the day, the tradeoff of playing anonymously with strangers is that some people are untrustworthy.

If that is how you think BGA should respond, then the game will die. You can already see many people giving up on the BGA version for the very same reasons I brought forward. I am not alone on this, whether you like it or not.

To be honest, I am not really much of a Catan fan. But, I would like to see it succeed on this platform. I am hoping my posts can be used as constructive criticism to helping this site become even better.

[Jellby]

If that is how you think BGA should respond, then the game will die.

I don't think the fate of Catan (or any other game) has anything to do with what Meeplelowda thinks about how BGA should respond...

[Blacktango]

I confirm my definition of cheating
In real life, if I'm sitting at a table with 3 strangers and two of them are deliberately losing so that the last one wins, I won't say they're cheating, I'll say they're just... losers. I won't play with them again.

On BGA, the main difference is you can't know if they are communicating out of the chat during the game.
But even in real life, they could have normal discussions during the game, but they could decide before I met them who would win the game.

Many things are left in the hands of the community, on BGA : translations, game development, arena mode selection (guru), reputation system, …
I wish there was a tool to deal with such players, something better than red thumbs. But honestly, I don't have many ideas.

[Meeplelowda]

I am hoping my posts can be used as constructive criticism to helping this site become even better.

Simply complaining about something many people have complained about is not actually constructive. Please link to a post in which you actually proposed a solution other than "put something in place." What is the "something"? How much would it cost? Are you will to pay that cost (proportionally through Premium fees)?

[old_fart]

I had an issued playing with two people in hand and foot so I red flagged them and for some reason many weeks later I accepted a game without looking who the other players were. Because, Normally I don't care. Anyway, as the game was ending soon, our win was almost a guarantee, as long as my partner got into their foot. The opponents were lagging and were trying to catch up, and neither one of them were into their foot. This game was long melds, so once a suit was started, it was always there to play.
Basically, my partner was refusing to go into their foot. Not once, but 4 times in a row. Meanwhile, the opponents were roaring back, and luckily I was able to go out and win the game. I went to the log to see what my partner was getting. The log is the proof.

The suits we are building on. A K Q 10 9 8 6 5 4. everything but 7s. (black 3 is a non-playable - and becomes a discard)

My partner's cards after the draw: J 10, wild plays the 10 - discards the J - left with wild in hand
At this point, I didn't see anything wrong, because the J was not playable. But, the log showed that they could of walk to there foot with the wild
I added Jacks to our suits - so now Js are playable

My partner's cards after the draw - 9 Q with a wild from before, plays the Q - discards the playable 9 - and is left with a playable wild in its hand
My response - partner with have 9s - my partner should have ran to there foot - most partners apologize after an important mistake - but no response

partner draws 8 9 , with a wild from before - all playable - but plays the 9 , discards the 8, left with wild in hand
my response: Partner why aren't you going to your foot? - got no response

partner draws 4 wild, with a wild from before. all playable, but plays one of the wilds, discards the playable 4. Left with wild in hand
My response: At this point, I'm asking my partner why are you refusing to go into your foot. - got no response

At this point the opponents almost got out before me. My partner did get into their foot, after the opponents played all their power. And I was able to go out on my own and secure the win.

I wanted the admins to review the logs at the end of the game. because it was abundantly clear, that my partner was trying to throw the game to help the opponents. If an Admin reads this, I would love to give you the game details. Of course, I red flag my partner. But, to display such behavior is not something that should be tolerated. My partner is not new to the game. With over 70 games played. This was also my first game with this person.

In reading this thread. People asked for proof. there it is, rant over.