> I'm still a relative newbie to the PBEM format.
> I recently resigned from a gunboat no-press game because I felt that
> two powers were either being run by one player or that the two
> players were colluding .
It's an easy mistake to make. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from a rigged demo." If you don't understand
communication in no press games, it would be easy to suspect
collusion where none exists. I had a similar question come up in a game
that recently finished that I'll be posting for discussion here.
Suffice it to say that two players who know what they are doing in no
press are almost indistinguishable in their actions from a couple who
are cheating.
> Prior to resigning I sent a press to the GM expressing my concerns
> but he/she couldn't be bothered to respond.
Does the GM speak English? I almost always reply to "press to m" but,
candidly, there are times that I shouldn't - at least not the same day.
Even though I read a little French and Spanish, I'd be unlikely to
reply to a non-English press unless I understood enough to agree with
the urgency.
> Is cheating in no-press games widespread?
I've run a few hundred games in the past couple years. I've had some
password-hacking cheats in 1901 and I have caught several attempts at
duplicate position cheating before game start. Nobody since Scott
Marshman has been a sufficiently dedicated cheater to get past that
point given some of the more recent improvements to the judge. (Recent
in terms of years.) My experience seems to be typical of other
judgekeepers.
> Are there GMs that do a
> better job than others in vetting players when signing on?
The USAK, USAZ and USAL judgekeepers run a good number of games on
their own judges and are very aggressive about monitoring for cheats.
Judges older than USAK and USAL (listed prior to them on the DipPouch
openings list) are harder to monitor because they already had a
significant installed base when most of the security features were
added to the judge. I'm not accusing the judgekeepers of doing a less
than adequate job, I'm only saying that those who actively monitor
their judges had a harder job of it until the majority of active
players began to come from newer registrations. In particular, USAK and
USAZ were started by GMs who wanted to be able to be in personal
control of security in their games.
> The game in question is Turbo34 on the DEUS Judge and the two powers
> concerned are Austria & Italy .
> I'd be very interested to know what dippers more experienced than
> myself think.
DEUS runs a lot of no press games, which wouldn't continue to fill if
cheating was epidemic. The judgekeeper is GM of the game, which means
that he is active and has the tools to *****s the situation as quickly
and accurately as the system permits.
You should admire the Austrian for being able to diplomatically deflect
the Italian attack despite the limits of no press. Opening moves from
Italy and Austria were bold, but uncoordinated. Austria gambled on an
alliance with Italy. Italy gambled on a direct attack on Austria.
Scissors beats Paper. Both openings were aggressive, but standard. What
follows is an efficient example of making peace, but it is not
unexpected for a couple experienced players.
Austria's subsequent defense was complicated by the fact that he
guessed wrong on his potential ally. Russia did not bounce him in GAL.
That left VIE out of position to defend TRI. Any Austro-Italian
collusion could not have predicted that. An Austrian army in VIE would
have made Italian occupation of TRI an obvious violation of Austrian
self-interest.
Using one power as a feeder for another is a very clumsy cheat. The
play reflects a level of skill that is not likely to cheat and even
less likely to do so in such a manner as you suspect. I think that you
should join the game as an observer, use babelfish.altavista.com to
compose a bi-lingual apology to the GM/JK, and watch how this game
plays out.
I'm sorry if you were expecting sup****t or sympathy. It's not often the
best policy to disregard press from players, but you have to consider
other alternatives. You may not have received a reply because of
filtering in your mail client or host. The recipient of your message
might not have gotten to your message or might have checked the
situation and been satisfied that no further action was required. It's
frustrating not to receive a reply within the time frame you expect,
but do not in any situation expect a judgekeeper to explain the
operational security of a judge.
Chris
USAK Judgekeeper
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