I hear what you are all saying and I am awed by your analysis. I won't question that. The part I still disagree with is the unspoken alliance part of this.
You point out that they are part of a tribe, the Olympics have a tribe aspect to them, so of course people on the same tribe will help each other. I could agree with that if the tribe aspect were
made clear... like the same uniforms in the actual Olympics, bicycle races, or the NASCAR teams that one of you also mentioned. If it was obvious that they were on the same team, then Fuego and I could have made overt alliances in chat to counter the expected friendliness they would show each other.
Should I have known they would likely help each other out?
https://www.conquerclub.com/player.php?mode=autotournament&tourney_id=19247I look at the link for this event in the Olympics and I see the players... but there is no indication of tribe or clan. One would have to dig (imho) unreasonably deeply to see their linkage. One (I) would not normally do that, unless one suspected an unspoken alliance. Therefore, I don't think I should have been expected to know they would favor each other without them disclosing it. If you think I should have run a deeper background check on all the players, then that's on me.
The admittedly biased Donelladan says there was only one place where fairman said anything in chat. Actually, there was another exchange in [game]20039288[/game] where he replied to me thusly:
2020-06-10 15:28:06 - ESQuire: Fairman.... you're not claiming to be playing without a bias away from attacking dje, are you?
2020-06-10 17:42:54 - fairman: no, just saying that I attacked him in some other games
This implicitly admits his covert bias. I asked him to deny it. He said he didn't deny it. He just said that there were times in other games where he attacked his tribemate. A token attack here or there only serves to try to throw off suspicion.
This brings to mind games that I play with my father. We play on the same team in doubles games, so it is clear we are a team. If we ever played in a singles game of, say, 4 players, and he and I played as a pair without divulging our relationship, would that be fair? If so, I know how to gain him the rank improvement he so desperately wants. We'll play assassin and take out one or the other of our targets from out of the blue.
I'll take the bashing of my play. I'm not full of myself to think I'm a better player than these guys or any of you. I don't/didn't/wouldn't expect to win the event. I just hate to reward a partnership that wasn't visible to the other players.
I take particular exception to these:
there are times when you are toast but you still have an obligation to help to determine the outcome of the game. maybe someone screwed you early on and you have an opportunity to pay it back, maybe you like one player more so you hit the others, maybe someone tried to help you earlier so you repay the favor - are those scenarios game throwing or secret diplomacy? no. they're playing the game.
If that all happened in the same game, then, no, it is not secret diplomacy. It is just a matter of paying attention to who screwed whom and keeping a tally sheet till you can exact revenge. That's fine. But their collaborative play was not due to in-game or reasonably knowable actions.
in this case it's even more ridiculous - i'm not up on it but it seems to me if you're in an individual competition with a team scoring aspect to it, of course you want to do things to help your teammate win if you cannot. there is so much precedent for this, ANY team racing sport whether it be biking, running, car racing, etc employs this exact strategy. if cc doesnt want this to be a possibility, then either don't put on a competition that works this way or stop teammates from being in the same game.
This is why I say that it should have been clear that they were on the same tribe... wearing the same uniform. There was no such indication on the event leader board or in the game.
