Collusion, Part 1

Collusion - it's not a word I was familiar with when I was a kid, but it happened often.

The definition from my Mac: "secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy, esp. in order to cheat or deceive others"

You can talk about collusion in games such as Diplomacy. Actually, Diplomacy could just be renamed to be Collusion: The Board Game, because that's pretty much the entire game mechanic. But collusion is generally considered cheating, if not just really bad form.

1. It's generally secret, which means you established some kind of alliance even before the game started.
2. If it's not secret, it's illegal - if not by rules, by general game conduct.
2. It's generally an alliance, which is not how most games are played - one winner.

My friend JW and I were debating this topic over beers and pool the other night. He hates collusion, in most of its forms. Specifically, in Settlers of Catan - you know, the point in the game, where the last place player also has longest road. The person who has a solid shot at winning is closing in on longest road. Everyone makes "friendly" trades to last place, so that they can keep longest road away from the potential winner.

For me, the secret alliances bug me. They might even be secret to the players themselves, that they key-in on the same things in the same way. I remember my first game of Twilight Imperium - be the best aliens you can be! It's a longer game, with the standard (what I call) Risk-diplomacy. You know the kind - "Attack this other guy, not me, for these reasons..."

W & K were the primary gamers in this circle of friends. They knew what buttons to push, what they could get away with, and who they could wipe out. Sitting in on Twilight Imperium, was a clear game of "their sandbox". Imagine a table of 6 players...2 hustlers, 2 regular victims, and 2 outsiders (where the outsiders are not aligned together). It quickly evolved into 4 on 1 on 1, where W & K maneuvered their semi-willing tools into place. At the end of the game, there were only two possible winners - guess who they were?

I've called it Risk-diplomacy for other reasons as well. Risk was really my first board game exposure to how someone can play favorites inside a game. Secret alliances happen amongst kids, where they do it to find boundaries...or even just to mess with their friend(s). It's a practical secret, not the secret that has no effect.

Alliances don't even have to be secret, but they work better that way. If W & K had made a pact in the beginning of the game in front of the others, it could have changed the dynamic into 2 on 4. W & K probably didn't even have to make a secret pact, if they always play games that way - it could have become a regular habit in that group.

So there's the illegal part, the secret part, and the alliance part. Next, we'll talk about fighting collusion...this bit was short, but fighting collusion is its own thing!