Board Game Arena

I don't give a damn that they scribble their reports. I'm ready to ban.

You report "This player helps another player" didn't work! Error. Always

After reviewing game, I didn't see any convincing hanky-panky play going on between the two players, that cannot be ruled out by luck, or simple bad play that could be commited by a player with a low Elo rating of 176 ('average' player).

1. On first turn, Giza player picked East trading post pointing to the player he's going to pass the Clay Pit -- the Alexandra player. Questionable play? Maybe, but let's give some room for simple player error. Giza does not need clay or ore, it's not so shocking he passed Clay Pit, since he's taking ETP anyway and he could buy clay or ore for 1 coin.

2. Second turn, passed on Excavation (that got passed by Ephesos in 1st turn) and picked Press. Questionable play? Yes, but not a convincing proof either from an 176 Elo player who has played 800+ 7W games. That alone should tell you something.

On succeeding turns, Giza was actively trying to gain military advantage over Alexandra, hardly a proof of king-making here.

In games, some occurrences could look like king-making at initial glance but don't jump to the conclusion it is so because it might be luck or just bad play from a relatively inexperienced/weak player.

I haven't reviewed the game, but immediate thoughts are:

1. This is an Arena league game between 4 Elite players. It's unlikely the other 3 could reliably organise to be in the same game, let alone collude in it.

2. In 4 player 7 Wonders the grey resources are at a premium, whereas the brown ones are plentiful, espeically in age 2. If this player fancied playing Science (reaosnable with paper resource on the board) they might choose Cloth resource over a dual resource

3. This was only the third turn of the game - what happened later in the game? If nothing else odd happened its likely to be just good fortune for ALexandria to get those 3 dual resources and that's it.

frogstar_A wrote: ↑12 August 2020, 23:11 1. This is an Arena league game between 4 Elite players. It's unlikely the other 3 could reliably organise to be in the same game, let alone collude in it.

Just starting the search for an arena game at the same time will likely place you at the same table. I'm unaware if any limits, filters or sorting has been added in the meantime, but it is quite easy to join arena games together if you coordinate.

And this has of course been exploited...

N_Faker wrote: ↑12 August 2020, 23:20

frogstar_A wrote: ↑12 August 2020, 23:11 1. This is an Arena league game between 4 Elite players. It's unlikely the other 3 could reliably organise to be in the same game, let alone collude in it.

Just starting the search for an arena game at the same time will likely place you at the same table. I'm unaware if any limits, filters or sorting has been added in the meantime, but it is quite easy to join arena games together if you coordinate.

And this has of course been exploited...

It depends how many other people are waiting - for three of you to ensure you are in the same game there has to be 0 or 1 waiting - that's why i said that you can't RELIABLY organise to be in the same game. YOu can try, and succeed sometimes.

frogstar_A wrote: ↑12 August 2020, 23:49

N_Faker wrote: ↑12 August 2020, 23:20

frogstar_A wrote: ↑12 August 2020, 23:11 1. This is an Arena league game between 4 Elite players. It's unlikely the other 3 could reliably organise to be in the same game, let alone collude in it.

Just starting the search for an arena game at the same time will likely place you at the same table. I'm unaware if any limits, filters or sorting has been added in the meantime, but it is quite easy to join arena games together if you coordinate.

And this has of course been exploited...

It depends how many other people are waiting - for three of you to ensure you are in the same game there has to be 0 or 1 waiting - that's why i said that you can't RELIABLY organise to be in the same game. YOu can try, and succeed sometimes.

Many have already been quite successful in exploiting the arena matchmaking. While I would like to provide sources, I do not have easy access anymore. But the records are public.

N_Faker wrote: ↑13 August 2020, 00:25

frogstar_A wrote: ↑12 August 2020, 23:49

N_Faker wrote: ↑12 August 2020, 23:20
Just starting the search for an arena game at the same time will likely place you at the same table. I'm unaware if any limits, filters or sorting has been added in the meantime, but it is quite easy to join arena games together if you coordinate.

And this has of course been exploited...

It depends how many other people are waiting - for three of you to ensure you are in the same game there has to be 0 or 1 waiting - that's why i said that you can't RELIABLY organise to be in the same game. YOu can try, and succeed sometimes.

Many have already been quite successful in exploiting the arena matchmaking. While I would like to provide sources, I do not have easy access anymore. But the records are public.

Garyland in Love Letter (also a 4 player game), and DEROS111 and Florent69 in Yahtzee are a few examples.

In those case, you really should do reports.

But for OP : these two players only played together 3 times, I didn't watch the games but it doesn't seem suspect: https://boardgamearena.com/gamestats?pl ... finished=0