Dirty strategy?

[Alun3th]

Hi guys. I'm new here on forum so easy on me

I just wanna know others opinion about the game I just played.

I first pick Alchemist without thinking because I just feel like to play it. Second Mermaids, third Witches and last is Cultist.

At the beginning of the game (as round 1), I feel like 3 of em try to block me with all cost. I placed my starting in east and surprisingly cult and mermaids went there also. Cultist is fine but mermaids?? The game went terribly, because the 2 of em just trying to block me while Witches play as usual. And of course, he won with almost 50 points margin with me which got second place.

I'm not trying to be toxic here (I didn't lose points in that game anyway), but I just wanna know if you guys think they're indeed using a dirty strat.

And if they were, is there any way to stop this kind of attitude?

The table number is 76037456, and I only take 1 screenshot of the map in last round.

Let me know what you guys think!

[sprockitz]

these 2 players are very low ranked and new to Terra Mystica, it is almost certainly the result of poor play and not some conspiracy to help witches win.

[PorkSocks]

these 2 players are very low ranked and new to Terra Mystica, it is almost certainly the result of poor play and not some conspiracy to help witches win.

Wouldn't those attributes (new, low-ranked) strengthen rather than detract from the likelihood they are someone's buffer accounts used to tilt matches? I'm not saying that is the case, but it would make sense that if you wanted to do this sort of thing, you'd make some off accounts you don't care about to help your main account.

[fafa-fr]

these 2 players are very low ranked and new to Terra Mystica, it is almost certainly the result of poor play and not some conspiracy to help witches win.

Wouldn't those attributes (new, low-ranked) strengthen rather than detract from the likelihood they are someone's buffer accounts used to tilt matches?

This is fairly easy to check: one of these two players has played 218 games on BGA, from which ... 2 games against the player that won. The other player has played 124 games from which 2 games against the player that won. So no buffer account here (or they would be extremely inefficient), and probably (I would say surely) no kingmaking for a friend.