Board Game Arena

*Moderation Edit: please do not use the Forums to call out specific tables or players by name, this is what the Moderation Reports are for. The Forums should remain a general discussion.

If you say that they play a lot together, analyze at least two more games of them (the more the better - one game is never enough). If you find cheating there too then simply report them for "using multiple accounts to cheat the ELO system.

Be specific and clearly mention the fishy moves (with move number). Shaming them here on forum is not allowed - thus you better remove the game number within your original post.

GamerOne264 wrote: ↑20 June 2025, 03:14 These 2 players 2 players are friends and pretty much exlsuively play Catan at the same table. […]
And if I call them out for scheating and team play, I get penalized and censured.

I checked those players and will call them A and B here. There accounts claim that they are mutual friends.

Player A has an Elo of 214 in Catan. They played 65 games of Catan. 64 games were with player B, and A won 19 of those games (30%).

Player B has an Elo of 321 in Catan. They played 111 games of Catan. 64 games were with player A, and B won 35 of those games (55%).

That doesn’t look like a qualification for „using multiple accounts to cheat the ELO system“ to me. The Moderation Policy https://en.doc.boardgamearena.com/Moderationpolicy says: „You cannot report a player for Kingmaking“ and „BGA is fighting against multiple accounts used for cheating the competitive system (rankings, tournaments, ...), or to harass players and avoid moderation. Moderators only take actions in the previous cases, so this is useless to report a multiple accounts case for another reason.“

GamerOne264 wrote: ↑20 June 2025, 03:14 We need a way to opt out of games when 2 players who play more than 10% of their games together.

You already can, simply by giving them a red thumb.

cigma wrote: ↑20 June 2025, 11:53

GamerOne264 wrote: ↑20 June 2025, 03:14 These 2 players 2 players are friends and pretty much exlsuively play Catan at the same table. […]
And if I call them out for scheating and team play, I get penalized and censured.

I checked those players and will call them A and B here. There accounts claim that they are mutual friends.

Player A has an Elo of 214 in Catan. They played 65 games of Catan. 64 games were with player B, and A won 19 of those games (30%).

Player B has an Elo of 321 in Catan. They played 111 games of Catan. 64 games were with player A, and B won 35 of those games (55%).

That doesn’t look like a qualification for „using multiple accounts to cheat the ELO system“ to me. The Moderation Policy https://en.doc.boardgamearena.com/Moderationpolicy says: „You cannot report a player for Kingmaking“ and „BGA is fighting against multiple accounts used for cheating the competitive system (rankings, tournaments, ...), or to harass players and avoid moderation. Moderators only take actions in the previous cases, so this is useless to report a multiple accounts case for another reason.“

GamerOne264 wrote: ↑20 June 2025, 03:14 We need a way to opt out of games when 2 players who play more than 10% of their games together.

You already can, simply by giving them a red thumb.

If they win 85% (30%+55%) percent of their shared games they either play above average or they cheat the ELO system. Without analyzing their games you cannot say which is the case.

Please note that it is not necessary to prove that it is in fact only a single person with two accounts. If they share hidden knowledge of the game, share their ressources (i.e. they trade back and forth in a way not motivated by normal game play), only target the third players,... then you can report it under the assumption of multiple accounts cheating the system and they will be moderated (I have successfully done that several times)...

euklid314 wrote: ↑20 June 2025, 14:48 If they win 85% (30%+55%) percent of their shared games they either play above average or they cheat the ELO system. Without analyzing their games you cannot say which is the case.

Good point! Let me add, that those 85% games one of them won were 3 player games (with very few exceptions). So they won more than average (66.6%), but I am not sure if this is "showing an abnormal number of victories between 2 opponents", as the Moderation Policy defines it.

What I really wanted to say is that these win percentages don't look like constant kingmaking to me - since this is how I understood GamerOne264.

cigma wrote: ↑20 June 2025, 18:12 Good point! Let me add, that those 85% games one of them won were 3 player games (with very few exceptions). So they won more than average (66.6%), but I am not sure if this is "showing an abnormal number of victories between 2 opponents", as the Moderation Policy defines it.

What I really wanted to say is that these win percentages don't look like constant kingmaking to me - since this is how I understood GamerOne264.

100% agree.

If those players just didn't like OPs playing color/his avatar/... or just had a bad day and wanted to bully a player once - he just had bad luck, should red thumb them and move on.

But if they do it more often to different players it is an reportable offense and the moderators are very willing to punish such behavior. And I am absolutely sure that they will also do a moderation if the team players do it badly such that they win *only* 85% of all time.

Everything depends on a thorough game analysis of several of their games.

GamerOne264 wrote: ↑20 June 2025, 03:14 *Moderation Edit: please do not use the Forums to call out specific tables or players by name, this is what the Moderation Reports are for.

Are you kidding me? I played a game of CATAN this morning. The other 2 opponents had the same flag, which is suspicious considering Bulgaria is only the size of NYC. One playing PC the other playing on phone. The second I hit 3 points they stopped robbing each other and robbed me excessively with only a few "token" robber placements on each other to try to obscure the cheating (also because I frequently would end my turn with no resources).

Post game I opened their personal pages and saw they were friends and joined BGA on the same day. Still not overwhelming but ... I checked their game log. They ALWAYS play 3-player games and MOSTLY with each other.

So I tried to report one of them. In the end, BGA told me to "The best way to combat Kingmaking is to give the Kingmaker player a red thumb (public red thumbs). There is no use filling in a report here: please give a red thumb to the one who made the kingmaking moves."

Seriously? What does the red thumb do besides preventing them from queuing into YOUR games? Maybe I need a deeper understanding of the almighty "red thumb" They're cheating and they won't even investigate the IP's or anything??? They're just pushing the problem onto their next victim. I'm more than likely to get pushback from this post even though I'm not saying half the stuff I really want to say. They had a moderator jump in at lightning speed to edit the OP to remove the names but they don't care at all about cheating?? Sad, really. I'd rather they just implemented some software to scrub player names and "bad" words from posts and fire all the moderators because I see NO value in keeping the forums sanitized if the game play suffers from cheaters. Of course I won, but that's not the point. I frequently have to overcome 2-on-1 or 3-on-1 odds. It's that cheating spoils the fun, even in victory.

Unfortunately, the post-game report doesn't show the number of times a specific player robbed you and vice-versa. Maybe I need to suggest that enhancement.

All very interesting. I have seen the resource and die rolls to be coincidence too many times. There are obviously some game hacks being employed. Cheerios!

*moderator removed comment for contesting a moderation in the Forums

GamerOne264 wrote: ↑22 September 2025, 06:35 *

There is a process for contesting your moderation. Use it. Contesting it in the forums is an offense in itself.