[hrs111111]

Dear mod,

I played a 4 player game as themanfromearth(me), linda, socialstealth, and carrapicho. On 2:30 am GMT, 1st Aug,2011.

linda and socialstealth made it clear initially itself that they knew each other and it was good to play with friends. But they agreed not to collude (in chat logs). However, several trades made indicate that socialstealth was helping linda win.


Initial trades, where I was not very suspicious but linda got the better end of the bargain:

Social stealth owned two extractors, and linda the other two. Social steath bought both from linda at a slightly higher value that we thought it was worth. Nothing very suspicious here. But it seemed later in the game (from chatlogs) that socialstealth did this because she thought linda was helping her.


My suspicions became very strong at this point:

me (themanfromearth) and carrapicho were down on cash due to recent upgrades.
socialstealth was having 2 reds.
linda opened up the third red, and allowed socialstealth to buy it for around 800 without bidding any further. (later in the chat logs, socialstealth indirectly says that she though linda did this because she thought linda wanted to help each other [not just as a fellow player, but as a friend])
Actually, just a while back, the second red was opened and at that time also, linda did not bid and allowed socialstealth to buy it for around 800.


The action that nailed my suspicions completely:

Both me (themanfromearth) and socialstealth were about to go bankrupt.
socialstealth had all three reds (not upgraded as she did not have money). I had two light blues, and linda had the other light blue.

Currently, it looked like carrapicho would be first, linda second, and me (themanfromearth) and socialstealth would go bankrupt.

I offered both light blues to linda so that i'll be placed ahead of socialstealth, and linda can win. However linda traded all reds with socialstealth at a much higher value, instead of buying the light blues from me, even though the offer I made was very much better for linda than the trade she did with socialstealth.

If you look at the values of the trade, it is very evident that linda made this trade because socialstealth was her friend and she wanted to help socialstealth beat me. The chat logs might also indicate that socialsteath indirectly begged to linda to make the trade.


Kindly look into this game,
Thank you

[socialS]

i said hello to lindaa, because shes an old member of galactic, and over the past years, we've played a few games together.

I play while I work to help pass the time on weekends, you can check our past games, I don't think I've played with lindaa for months.
We also have no history of 'cheating' together.
And she speaks incredibly poor english, so i've never held any indepth conversation with her.

I bought the 3rd white for $1600, and the 4th later on @ $1500.
If you want to check all of my previous games, you'll notice that I pay up to $1700 for whites early on, and then drop the price slightly as the start lowers.

I bought the 1st red for 800, when everyone in the game had enough money to bid higher, if you look at the game, there was nothing suspicious about me buying the 1st and 2nd red.

Lindaa had been opening properties that other people had the entire game. She was not just opening things that I needed. Her strategy seemed to be to get money from the 20%.

I bought the 3rd red for 1000$ very late in the game. Everyone had properties upgraded and after buying red, I had only a few hundred dollars left. I also had whites, and if I had gotten a little luckier, I could have upgraded the reds.

In the chat logs, you can see that themanfromearth was complaining that I had got the 3rd red for what too cheap, and that lindaa was helping me because she opened it and let me have it for only 1000$.

Well, turns out that I was never able to upgrade the reds. So it seems that $1000 was not too cheap for the 3rd red at that point in the game, infact, it was TOO MUCH, because I was never able to upgrade it.

But suddenly themanfromearth thinks that we've been cheating all game, because i said hello to her at the start.
From the chat, i saw that Themanfromearth was trying to sell 2 cyans to lindaa for $1000. Linda had a lot of money, about $2500 and some income as well.

The funny thing is, I had the 3rd cyan, so if lindaa spent the $1000 on buying the 2 cyans from Themanfromearth, she would then have to spend even more to buy the 3rd cyan from me. But I guess Themanfromearth was so convinced that me and lindaa were the same person that he thought I would give the 3rd cyan to lindaa for free.

I believe the economy was around +20, but a lot of properties were upgraded on the board, Carrapicho was doing good in the game.
It was clear that I was probably going to be in 4th place, and themanfromearth 3rd.
He was trying desparately to trade his 2 cyans to Lindaa to get a little more ahead of me (this would have not helped lindaa at all, because I had the 3rd cyan, not her...
I traded lindaa my 3 reds (which I was never able to upgrade because I spent all my money buying them, but somehow themanfromearth is telling you I got them for too cheap) for about $1800.
This put me ahead of themanfromearth, and into 3rd place.

I lasted a while after that, when I lost, linda had fully upgraded reds and carrapicho and lindaa were pretty healthy when I went bankrupt. IDK who won but when I left either of them could have placed 1st.

Its clear that, #1 I did not pay too much for the whites.
#2 I did not unfairly purchase (From auction at a time when everyone had money) the 1st 2 reds.
#3 although $1000 is usually cheap for red, at the point in the game when I bought it, and considering how much money I had, it turned out to be a bad purchase, and I did not get it 'unfairly cheap'.
#4 it would have made no sense for lindaa to pay top dollar for 2 cyans that are useless without the 3rd.
#5 me selling my 3 reds to lindaa benefited both me and lindaa.
#6 I never said me and lindaa were helping eachother win, I never tried to help her win, and like I said, I dont understand 90% of the things she says.

Before I offered the reds to linda, I tried to trade them to crrapicho for his blacks.
Its pretty clear that I was simply trying to get the best deal possible to get into 3rd and out of 4th.

So, if I was strictly doing this trade to help lindaa, then why would I have tried to trade the reds to the other player in the game before i offered it to lindaa?

Please look deeply into the game.

[trace567]

I've checked both the trades log and chat, and I see no signs of teaming or cheat trading between social and lindaa. The only area that "could" be questioned is why social chose to offer the reds to lindaa over carrapato, but he had to start some where if that was his intention to sell red. One of them would get first offer, and if they took it that's that really. Plus lindaa did have slightly higher cash at the time so this was likely the reason for choosing to offer her first.

The offers made by you, themanfromearth both to lindaa and carrapato regarding cyan were actually very bad, both of them would need to still gain the 3rd off social but you were leaving them no cash to do so. I can only see the cyan offers as being in your favour and not in either of theirs at that time. If they were actually accepted then I think it would be you in trouble here!

So to conclude, I see no sign of teaming or colluding between social or lindaa in this game. Also there has been no previous reports of such. As soon as they say hello to each other at the start of the game you start on about "colluding", so to be honest I am wondering if maybe you believed right away they "might" and this perhaps influenced how you felt about the entire game. The thing is many players do know each other here when they have been active players for years, or even just weeks. Just because 2 users appear to speak friendly to one another is no indication that they are teaming or even plan to team. Please bare that in mind.

HOWEVER, of course if there should be any future reports suggesting teaming by lindaa and social then we will of course take a closer look at the matter.