Board Game Arena

can the devs please find a way to stop cheaters? maybe if enough people mark someone as a cheater, they get banned or something. This game is not enjoyable in the slightest

What board size are you playing?

Hello,
I checked your last 3 defeats and yes, the opponent match 100% the solver:

https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=528411574
https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=528182843
https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=528141451

I fear that you or developers can't do nothing to get cheaters banned, I don't even know if this is permitted by BGA rules or not.

As suggested by Mathew5000, if you like it, play with bigger board sizes. Cheaters are only on 6x7.

Another option is using some opening rule like the pie rule or the swap rule.

The cheating accusations are slippery in this game because 6x7 Connect Four is a game that can frequently be played perfectly through regular play, especially when you can review the games with an engine later. There are plenty of lines I could play perfectly in my sleep at this point.

That said, it takes quite a bit of experience to pull that off, newer accounts doing perfect games are more suspicious for either cheaters or someone's alts. Seeing some of the posted games being row 1 war games raises my suspicions more, I find those harder to play than when both players play out the center early, but maybe that's just my own personal biases in play. You'd still need to confirm the account is frequently playing perfect lines through various difficult positions.

I wouldn't rely on multiple account reports though, most players are clueless and report more out of salt than reality. There's plenty of threads demonstrating that, unfortunately. Makes it harder for the legitimate concerns to be taken seriously.

Just enjoy the game for what it is - there is nothing that can be done against so called "cheaters" because some players can actually play connect 4 perfectly. I spent a year studying the game for a project at university, so my skill level might not be too distinguishable from a solver.