Season 17 is completed!

[Vicotnic]

The first game Darkh surrendered I controlled well over 70% and had done for many days, he had two-three cities while I had over 20+ (can't recall the exact numbers). So I would have beaten you no matter if he surrendered or not. The second game was a closer call with me holding around 70% of the resources (probobly slightly under to be fair, one has to watch the replays to make sure), however I was clearly winning and he had stalled the game for long, when it was clear that he would not catch up to smursh he surrendered it.

I would have beaten you without the surrenders even thou you had 3+ games paused out for over a week on the turn before you went under 30% AND you won a 7 turn game vs Solo on a huge map where he surrendered before encountering you the final day.

[Igor]

This supposition that those 2 games was going to be won with 70% rule, this is only supposition. This is not proved. When discussion is about collusion then that's necessaru to prove such thoughts by facts. But there are no one of them.
Facts are: Darkh surrendered both games manually. Nobody stopped Darkh to try to survive til the end of the season. May be one of 2 games would pass through the end of the season to the next one, or may be even both would pass.
If to put a look at this picture this will be very probable that no 70% rule was near this game:

Vicontic vs Darkh 2.JPG (88.58 KiB) Viewed 3270 times

Anyway if Darkh tried to get 3rd place should be keep this game to the end. If they would both ended with 70% rule - let this be, but if not - Darkh would get 3rd place. Even if one of these 2 games would ended with 70% rule and the other one would not - then there was a chance for Darkh that Smursh also can lose one of his games with 70% rule and then Darkh would get 3rd place.
Darkh should try, but he didnt.

Another thing I would put on a light here.
When Darkh surrendered 1st game, I also won a game in real time mode and the difference was only +3 for Vicontic.
Then I started to open a row of real time games in thinking that somebody would join. Unfortunately Vicontic joined all these games and after they were started Vicontic paused real time mode. Not the best way, but legal one.
Main thing is that I continued to create new real time games with password which Vicontic couldn't spoil. And I spoke with some players to start a game, and even though I hadn't success in that time I continued to try because difference was only +3 and just one won real time game can bring me 4-6 ladder points and 1st place.
But as soon as I saw that Darkh surrendered 2nd game to Vicontic and the difference was increased from +3 to +25, I unerstood that even if somebody will joined my game and if I won that changed nothing on ladder, +25 was too much to reach it in last 2-3 hours.
Thus the second game which Darkh surrendered, decided the situation. And as this good seen on the picture above, no reason for this game to be ended with 70% rule.
This was gift from Darkh for Vicontic to give him top place.

There was some chances for me which I didn't use.
I had a game with B16 where I was very close to win. And I jocularly wrote to B16 in game mail something close to this: I beated your heroes and my mighty armies go to you aong west line and east line, I'm close, be affraid of me. I supposed that B16 would be affraid and surrendered. He didn't of course.
But I never had even single thought to ask B16 to surrender. This would be not kind step to the opponent, and this is not fair to ask a win in a game to win a ladder.
If somebody can't win with fair play - he shouldnt be a winner.

Vicontic, should be, thought another way.

[Vicotnic]

Okey, this is simultaneously being discussed in two threads now and I feel that the tune is quite hostile and the whole thing has a risk to devolve into something quite nasty. But I feel quite attacked and it seemed necessary to respond (maybe the middle of the night is not the best time for it but finding time when you have small children and a partner that thought you spent to much time by the computer at end of season is not easy).

Let me start by saying that maybe I should not have asked Darkh if he wanted to surrender the 'Dara' game but it did not seem like a strange question given he expressed thought about surrendering a bunch of games earlier (this is the game the picture is from, the one where my estimates was that I controlled slightly under 70%). During the season I learned (mainly from Igor) that fighting for ladder slots is as much about managing your games as your in game performance (I actually planned on writing a topic about how to improve ladder integrity when I calmed down from the end of season rush and finished off the games that are dragging). Knowing that ladder positioning is about game managing and that Darkh was a player that stalled* games and that he previously mention that he considered surrendering a bunch of games if he could not catch up to smursh I wrote him.

Let me take a break here and explain for the ones that are not as aware of how the ladder works why this makes sense for Darkh (skip this paragraph if you understand why I thought he wanted to surrender). When a new season begins your record is whipped clean however games from last season that are not over (there is something called the 70% rule that automatically ends game with a really big inbalance) effects your next season. So if Darkh did not get third place (something that seemed unlikely) it is better for him to surrender sure loses before the season end so they don't drag down his score next season.

You see I thought I was in a strong position with a chance of winning with the 70% rule, this chance would however decrease if I past the turn since he would get more gold and units as well as possible a chance to take other actions and I would not get past priority again this season. So I had a dilemma, hold priority and hope to win with 70% or pass and hope that he surrenders (you can for some reason only surrender during your own turn), not knowing what he would do if I passed the turn I thought the best idea would be to ask him if he wanted to surrender, which I did.

Let me now adress the other game (not the one called Dara), Igor claims that it is not proven that the 70% rule would end this game. Well this is a very easy matter, the replay exist and anyone can watch it, it was played on daradon valley with me as yellow and Darkh as green, by the end I held ~77% of all cities on the map while Darkh held 2-3 cities all surrounded by my armies. I never asked Darkh if he wanted to surrender this one (although I think he might have misunderstood me), in fact it was not in my interests for this to end before the season ends since I much rather get the points then so Igor would not know I was about to by pass him till the season is over. When I'm on a computer I can provide a screen shot of the game state (not sure why Igor did not bother to do it for this game). EDIT: the replay: http://www.warbarons.com/ver102/replay/ ... h_Vicotnic Screenshot from the end: https://pasteboard.co/GJ5hNkQ.png

Now before I adress the 31st, I will say a few words about Igor since he brought up the speed games. I had encountered him before, he started playing at the end of the season (not the very end) and made what I understand is called a ladder rush (seemes to me to be the most effective way to win the ladder season cos of how the elo system is used in warbarons) to quickly claim first place. I was very pleased to get to test my steel vs him (by then I think I held second place and he first or if he was on his way to first) when I finally got into two games with him. Both those games went my way but when I trapped and destroyed his heroes in one of them he let me know he would paus and think for awhile, I told him it was fine and I do it all the time (which is true) however I was quite eagerly waiting when the clock ticked down for his final day (was 2.5 days game, the type I prefer since I don't like feeling stressed about my in game decisions and being forced to make them with a baby on my arm) it did not become my turn instead he kept getting more time. Soon I started to suspect he would paus out the game till next season, learning about the time out system I realised this was just about possible. I asked him about it and he confirmed that was his intention. While certainly possible within the system (something I think should be adressed for next season) I considered this quite unsportsmanlike and it would make it very hard for me to catch up to him. Being very likely one turn away from being able to win with the 70% rule in two games vs him and knowing he would likely do the same vs other (he did, atleast vs smursh, probobly vs Solo to) players so he would not lose any more games this season was frustrating. I did start quite abit too many games in an attempt to catch up.

On the evening of the 31st Igor came online, by now Darkh had surrendered my sure win game vs him and I was in the lead (the games I had played up until now had gone above expectations and the last days I had spammed Hammer mountain) Igor started creating speed games and I was trying to finish of more of my hammer mountain games. The first game Igor played was a pw protected game on a huge map with high K value, the game was vs Solo. Now I don't know if anything fishy happened and I hope not (Solo is a player I played a lot and respect and during my two seasons of warbarons I learned a lot from battling him) but it did look suspicious for a couple of reasons:
1) The game ended with a surrender after 7 turns before the players encountered each other. Now this is by no means proof of something fishy, Solo had lost both his griffon and Sorceress, the later quite reckless I think but that might have been cos of the late hour and the nature of speed games so he could have legit reasons to surrender.
2) It seemed like Igor was already timing out other games vs Solo. Why did Solo agree to this game when he was already stalled out in others? Ofc maybe he just felt like playing a speed game and got fed up with it when it was not going his way.
3) They are both Russians, something that made it seem more likely they knew each other.

This win granted Igor quite a few points and put him within striking distance. He created more speed games, wins here would take him ahead of my current score while it felt quite unlikely he would allow losing game to finish this season, kind of a very good deal. I joined the games he created to prevent him from getting free shots at by passing me. I had no intention of finishing them this season. Had the situation been different I would not have acted this way, if it had not been a person using credits to stall multiple loses vs me I would either not have joined his games or I would agree to duel him for first place. But given how Igor played out the season stalling him seemed reasonable.

Igor now tried to create pw protecred speed games and time was ticking down. It was about this time Darkh told me he would surrender the 'Dara' game cos he would not catch up to smursh (like I said I had asked him if he wanted to surrender it earlier that day or maybe the day before) and I passed priority in that game and he surrendered. Shortly after that the season ended, I did not manage to finish my other Hammer Mountain game in time and Igor did not manage to find a final game.

So season ended with me 25 pts ahead of Igor, 22 of which came from the surrendered game 'Dara'. Shortly after the season ended Igor surrendered 3 games to me and two to Solo as well as some to smursh.

Sorry if this turned into a long rambling story of my end of season but the hour is late and I wanted to post soon rather then wait a couple of days for a time when I could produce something more neat.

*by stall I mean purposefully wait out your turns time to delay the game from finishing or use credits to buy extra time delaying the game for possible 10+ days. From what I know both me, Darkh and smursh (but smursh only did it vs players that stalled him) did the first while the only one I know who used credits (which turns the ladder into pay to win) was Igor.

[Igor]

One additional thing can also show that this was collusion:
When Darkh surrendered one game but didn't surrendered second one, he needed get only 4 ladder points to get 3rd place.
In this moment I offered him a real time game on Central Sahara map whrere he always was strong player, I supposed that this could be interesting for Darkh because if he won he got 12-16 ladder points that was over than enough to win 3rd place for him.
But Darkh didnt agree to get his chance, opposite in short time ater I offerd this game he surrendered the second game for Vicontic.
What is this if not a collusion?