Playing (unwittingly) against friends

[SherlockC]

I have just had to quit a game very early on, because I questioned the last settlement choice of a player, and they admitted that they were friends. I proposed abandoning the game (before the first dice roll) but they did not accept. I then quit and lost loads of ELO points. I hate quitters as much as we all do, particularly late in the game, but I do feel the penalty is too punishing in these circumstances.

I would love an option that would alert me if there were friends at the table, and I could choose whether to join or not.

Interested to hear other players' views on this.

[Palini]

Well, just because some people are friends, doesn't necesseraily mean they are going to team up on you. Unfortunetly there are many ways to "cheat" or "help" other players. I don't know if I have been particulary lucky, but I have seen it very rarely here at BGA. If ranking and winning are that important to you, you will have to look up opponents yourself or only play two players games. I think it will be impossible to check all connections between players. And even if you do, they could still be friends and help eachother without announcing their friendship. Report obvious cheating, but other than that, there's not a whole lot you can do about it.

[HAL 9OOO]

I agree that a warning about friend playing together can be useful.

I often play with my wife (we are friend on BGA) on the same Catan table and despite the warning that we are sharing the same IP, I think that some player do not check that before the start of the game. It happen to us that after the other player realise it, every time we steal ressource from him it become teamplaying from our side (despite obvious proof against it). I had to abandon table just because the other player become agressive on the chat.

I would rather prefere to play with players that are aware of what they are getting themselves into.