Hi,
I just wanted to have some clarification on the rules of this tournament.
In one of my games, Tafareeeeel declared war on me rather than a different player who had 15-30 less strength and was at the time identical in culture to me.
There were three options to declare war on:
P1 110 culture 30 ish strength at the time
P2 130 culture, 50 ish strength at the time.
Me 110 culture 46 strength at the time
In terms of ability to increase military I also had a much better position than P1, with more ore to spend as well as having a strong possibilitliy of having a tactics card which would give an extra little spike of military. This to the point where I would actually win the war and force P4 to have to use himaji castle to win.
Now to put things in context, P4 had like 50 culture and a worse economy in every way, than anyone else. So to catch up without a war was absolutely impossible. However declaring war one me would end up getting at best possible scenario 16 stolen culture (1 airforce sacrificed), and worst case scenario (I have modern army) 8 culture stolen (1 airforce sacrificed).
The war ends and we have Me with 112 culture and him with 86 at the end of his turn with a worse economy in pretty much every way. Maybe I'm crazy but I cannot see any way in which he can come anything other than last from this point and this could all be predicted prior to the war. Now if he had declared war on P1 instead he would have gotten an extra 15 culture at least stolen and would be approximately level culture wise or even greater than P1. Hence having an actual chance (maybe) to come third rather than last.
Now the reason why the war was declared on me was because on P1s turn he proposed a peace treaty to P4 so I was the only option. But heres the thing. This all happened on the turn he declared war on me. It would be extremely easy to see that the only chance of coming third rather than fourth was to declare war on P1. And the peace treaty would get a delta of 3 extra culture. Really? Someone level 44 making a decision this bad? Maybe it was an accident, maybe it was collusion, I do not know. Or maybe it has something to do with the overall tournament standings, and the hope to come 4th in the group. Where P1 was not a threat, whereas I was. Now looking at these tournament standings, I notice that even if Tafareeeeel won the next two games and denied me these points noting that me -5/-2 is better than him +1, it is actually impossible still to come 4th in the group.
So basically I am confused. It looked at first glance to be downright collusion, or an attempt to play based off knocking down a player rather than going from 4th to third in an attempt to beat specifically me in overall ladder. But when I look closer its actually impossible for him to come fourth in the group and also impossible for alibengoeroe (P1) to come 4th in the group as well. So if it was collusion the only person it could effect negatively was me.
My main question is, is it acceptable within the rules to play this way? To make decisions in a game which are overwhelmingly worse for chances to come first place, but might be better overall given who you are hoping to beat for 4th place in the pool? I never play this way and try to take each game individually, otherwise it can get a bit silly in trying to predict players moves.
And my secondary question is, can players be banned for making OBVIOUSLY stupid decisions at this level? Note: that in this question I am not asking for this guy to be banned because it could also have been an accident, or maybe a rushed turn, but I am curious about the general policy.
Its quite possible I would not have won that game regardless, nevertheless it is very frustrating when you plan ahead noting that one player is an obvious target and the best option for a war and then you get the war instead and even have a good possibility of finishing with a higher military than the aggressor.
