Hi everyone,
I wish I wouldn't feel the need of writing this message.
I just wanted to share something with you (in English so our foreign friends can know about it too).
This week I started a few 3-player games. After a few turns, in some of them I begun to grow suspicious: the other two players seemed to be in league. Whenever I got to choose my character in between them, the first player chose the Thief and always guessed right as to what character I had chosen. Maybe if I had no money the Thief chose a character that wasn't in play (Oh!). The sorcerer also had a tendency to pick on me for some reason. Of the other players, one seemed like he was getting the edge across the different games.
I grew a little paranoic and started to investigate. I share with you what I found so you can be aware of it.
First of all, I noticed that there were two combinations of players: for now A/B and A/C, and in a few of my games I was playing to either one combination. Player A is a high ranking player, players B and C haven't won a game yet.
Looking at the logs, I noticed that they had joined my games within a very short time interval (sometimes less than a minute) and that when their turns occured one after the other (meaning my turn had been before theirs or was to be after), it usually didn't pass too much time. Sometimes they played one shortly after the other at awkward times like at four in the morning.
I think by now you see where this is going.
I kept on investigating and searched through all completed games, looking for games played and won by player A, specially 3-player games. What I found confirmed what I thought. I had not been the only player being "sandwiched". Because, alas, as you've already guessed by now, players B and C are alter-egos of player A.
The alter-egos of player A haven't always been the same, he used to have two other alter-egos. Sometimes he even played with his two alter-egos, finding no trouble to win the games by far, of course.
In the past there was some controversy with a player called Metal Logic. This player had been created by NimofB (to whom we all dearly miss) for testing reasons. It affected the ranking but it didn't make other players waste their time. Achiles defined the policy of the site which could be basically described as "non-intervention".
A player cheating by himself to climb up the ranking table is one thing.
But a player cheating on other players by having different accounts is very dishonest to say the least. It's very, very frustrating to play a game against such odds. And I am (was) playing 6 of them, with the same combination of characters, which helped on comparing between the games and getting a bigger picture. Fortunately, then, I've realized what was going on soon enough.
I want to share with you this so you can avoid playing with this person (I'll say who he is in a second). As for my games, I will explode them. I won't give him the victories and the points he was pursuing.
Ok, so here's the name of the player: Gaspi.
Current alter-egos: XxX and Zorith.
Old alter-egos: Berserk and Gatts.
Who knows if he has even more alter-egos.
You can take a look at games like
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ciudadelas.frenopatico.net]
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ciudadelas.frenopatico.net]
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ciudadelas.frenopatico.net]
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ciudadelas.frenopatico.net]
[
ciudadelas.frenopatico.net]
[
ciudadelas.frenopatico.net] <--
[
ciudadelas.frenopatico.net]
[
ciudadelas.frenopatico.net]
[
ciudadelas.frenopatico.net]
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ciudadelas.frenopatico.net]
[
ciudadelas.frenopatico.net]
[
ciudadelas.frenopatico.net]
[
ciudadelas.frenopatico.net] (with shijin)
[
ciudadelas.frenopatico.net] (with shijin)
[
ciudadelas.frenopatico.net] (with shijin)
...
There were a few more games like this, after seeing the same scenario over and over I got tired of looking, copying and pasting.
I suspect player shijin was also sandwiched like I was to be in my current games (in other words, I don't think he's another alter-ego).
I think Achiles won't do anything on this issue, I have already contacted him. I don't share his views but I respect it. He's developed a too great of a site to be grumpy or something about it.
But I will certainly not make any more turns in my sandwhich games, and I will explode them at the proper time.
It's a pity such behaviors make us all waste our time and energy.
Yes, this is all tiresome. I don't expect an apology or even ask for one. I don't ask for boicotting the games where this player is, either.
I just hope this message helps other honest players on knowing who they're playing with. I know with whom I won't be playing any more games.
I don't want to put an end to this message in a sad mood, so I will finish congratulating Achiles once again for his great job on making it possible to play Citadels with friends across the world, friends we don't regularly get to see.
agh
Madrid, Spanish Republic
October 9th 2004