Mistaken Identity

In general terms spying is a thoroughly deplorable practice. I've no doubt, especially with the ability to have alternate accounts, that is is rife throughout the game. I completely agree with Bonfyr - leadership of all alliances must operate under the assumption that there is a spy in the alliance. To do otherwise is utterly reckless and does a disservice to those players who join your alliance in good faith and rely upon said leadership to ensure the safety of that alliance.

Spying is there  whether you want to be a part of it or not.  If you are an alliance of any decent size, you will most likely have at least one spy in  your midst.   I've known of several in Fairy over the years and know of two currently.   It's part of the game.  You can choose to participate in it or not, guard against it or not.




Edited by Bimoda - 03 Aug 2015 at 15:30

Very well put KP.

KillerPoodle wrote: A very open alliance only works if you are sure you'll never be in a war, never be fighting in a tournament and never have any information which gives you a competitive advantage over others in your game play style of choice. My experience is that most players (even those stridently self-righteous ones that talk about how disgraceful it is) are fine with spying while it's being done to someone else and especially when they are are benefiting from it. The mature folk accept it as part of the game, utilize it where they can, defend against it as best they can without letting it consume every waking moment and have fun burning spies when they get the opportunity.

KillerPoodle wrote: A very open alliance only works if you are sure you'll never be in a war, never be fighting in a tournament and never have any information which gives you a competitive advantage over others in your game play style of choice.

eCrow has yet to be in a war, but i think we've done rather well in the tournaments for our size. (Pongo disagrees, which is usually a pretty good confirmation.) an open process creates a certain osmosis of information, and i would argue that we have benefited from that structure more often than we've been damaged by it. but it is not compatible with every play style. as one appears threatening, one attracts spies.

Now that's funny. I was nodding my head in agreement with Poodle.

I have strong suspicions that eCrow has been burned by spies on at least two different occasions. When we were getting systematically robbed by that recent thief, the majority of the attacks happened after someone was gone for a few days. That suggests the thief was inside eCrow and had access to our member list with time offline. The day that I announced in chat that I had screen captures of the thief was (to my knowledge) the last day eCrow got robbed.

There was also the case of the suspicious tournament hit. Ghannima launched 85000 t1 spear troops to a vulnerable square. It was lamented in our alliance chat. She was going to recall them within moments of landing, and calculated out the landing time. Messengers were on the way. But when the troops landed, they were met within seconds by cavalry that had been launched from three regions away, destroying all the troops. No token occupying army was left behind the big hit to collect tournament points. That player never launched another army at that tournament square, and neither did his alliance. That's an odd coincidence, isn't it?

Spies are distasteful, but spies happen. It's one of the few places where I see a strong ethical distinction in video games.