L22 #1 trulpen (X+6) vs ArtofWar1947 (A) P2V

[trulpen]

Regarding turn 27 I stated the facts in full disclosure and you had the opportunity to respond to them, which you did.

That issue we can solve easily, if you want to.

[gamerman01]

OK, I think I’m caught up and read everything. I go back to the thread where you guys first realized what had happened (round 21).
Art says he got 2 sets of MARTI messages, first with 7 hits, second with 6 hits, “why so?”
Trulpen says “don’t know, perhaps attack and defense?”
I’m wondering - did trulpen receive both MARTI messages as well?
Art then clarifies they both had the same subject line, were definitely both for the same side - roll.
trulpen said he’d check, that he didn’t see any double rolls.
trulpen then says he doesn’t know (about the double roll), that he didn’t make any re-rolls or seen anything like it when doing the battle.
Art offers benefit of the doubt and asks if trulpen maybe mistakenly rolled offline, then went online.
Trulpen responds, it’s pretty weird, perhaps I should report it? and tags me and P@nther. Then responds that he did not run local and then online.
So I have some observations to make here:

[gamerman01]

If trulpen had deliberately rolled twice because he didn’t like the first result, I don’t think he would have responded the way he did. Specifically, when you (Art) asked trulpen if he perhaps mistakenly rolled offline, then went offline, trulpen said that was not the case. If he deliberately rolled twice, that was his chance to get away with it - he would have said “oh yeah, I accidentally had it in local, then went online” (But now I realize there would be no dice e-mail if you were in local, but apparently you guys didn’t think of that at the time either)
Anyway, a cheater would have taken that opportunity to say, oh yes, that must be what happened.
Then trulpen says it’s pretty weird, and tags me and P@nther. I don’t think someone who intentionally cheated would make sure that P@nther and I would look into it.

Now neither of my observations proves trulpen is innocent and I’m not even saying that I’m sure he is innocent. I’m only saying that I don’t think his responses are indicative of an intentional re-roll.

If new or different evidence is brought to my attention, I would decide accordingly, but for now I’m saying trulpen passes my sniff test based on what I see in the thread.

[ArtofWar1947]

@gamerman01

I am tied up in meetings all day today and tomorrow. I will try to respond on Wednesday.

[trulpen]

How do you want to handle the present issue?

As a default I would go with a new roll according to previous stated principle, since there is a scramble now. You seem to oppose that, but to be clear I want to ask.

[trulpen]

And to be extra clear, I believe the final decision is yours.

[ArtofWar1947]

@gamerman01 said in L22 #1 trulpen (X+6) vs ArtofWar1947 (A) P2V:

OK, I think I’m caught up and read everything. I go back to the thread where you guys first realized what had happened (round 21).
Art says he got 2 sets of MARTI messages, first with 7 hits, second with 6 hits, “why so?”

/////In my 4:22 PM of 3 April 2022, I actually specified that the two sets of MARTI messages were “for the US round 2.” The mention of 6 hits was a typo; the US/UK got only 4 hits on the “second” roll–almost half fewer than indicated by the first message.

Trulpen says “don’t know, perhaps attack and defense?”

/////There are two tells here.
One is Truplen’s lack of surprise and concern. If he was not aware of the initial better roll by the US/UK, this message should have come as a shock, prompting a careful reading of my email and thoughtful questions. For example, if the police interview the husband of a murdered wife and he does NOT ask key questions (e.g., Are you sure it’s my wife? How was she killed? When and where did this happen?), the behavior is highly suspicious. In this context, key questions might be: Why do you think the two Marti messages are for the same Ally round? What is the subject of each of the emails?
The second interrelated tell is Truplen’s implausible question. Instead of asking questions that would solve the mystery, he asked: "perhaps attack and defense?” Irrelevant, distracting rejoinders are a tool of those with something to hide.

I’m wondering …
Art offers benefit of the doubt and asks if trulpen maybe mistakenly rolled offline, then went online.
Trulpen responds, it’s pretty weird, perhaps I should report it? and tags me and P@nther. Then responds that he did not run local and then online …
If trulpen had deliberately rolled twice because he didn’t like the first result, I don’t think he would have responded the way he did. Specifically, when you (Art) asked trulpen if he perhaps mistakenly rolled offline, then went offline, trulpen said that was not the case. If he deliberately rolled twice, that was his chance to get away with it - he would have said “oh yeah, I accidentally had it in local, then went online” (But now I realize there would be no dice e-mail if you were in local, but apparently you guys didn’t think of that at the time either)

/////I had a situation where an opponent initiated a battle and asked to disregard it, because he thought he was in local mode (and merely trying to simulate a battle) but was in forum mode. It was this type of situation I was trying to ask Trulpen about (i.e. did he THINK he was in local mode to test a combat move but was actually in forum mode). Another possibility just occurred to me: Like Round 27, he started the combat but (for whatever reason) skipped a scramble request and restarted the game (perhaps hoping no MARTI notifications went out, which is plausible–if as he claims–he received no emails from an initial battle).

////In any case, there are three major problems with changing his story.
One is that changing your defense risks getting caught in a contradiction. As any 3-year-old or politician will do: It’s better to deny, deny, deny (until confronted with irrefutable proof of guilt).
A second is that belatedly admitting he initiated a first battle would make him look bad. It would raise questions such as: Why did he not offer the excuse at my first inquiry? Why the initial cover up?
A third reason is that I could then legitimately claim the first dice rolls (highly unfavorable to him and highly favorable to me) should stand. In effect, he would be adopting an alibi that uncover the very thing he was trying to cover up.
In brief, it would have been incredibly stupid for Trulpen to change his story to “it was an accident.” No one is accusing Trulpen, who is smart and a strategic thinker, of being incredibly stupid.

/////Tagging you and P@nther is a smart move. It only backfires IF you (or an AA programmer/tech) check the metadata to see what actually happened.

/////A question that needs to be asked is: Does smell-test analysis or the present analysis align better with the strong circumstantial evidence that can best be explained by cheating. Note that Trulpen now agrees that it is unlikely that a third party initiated the problem, and he did not refute that a bug is almost as unlikely the explanation. In brief, the only way to resolve the disagreement fair to both parties is an objective examination of the metadata.

[trulpen]

How about you answering my question about the present situation instead of wrecking havoc with plenty of accusations?

[gamerman01]

You’re starting to lose me. If there is a way for an “objective examination of the metadata”, great, I’m all for that.

I just searched the site and found this thread. https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/3061/marti-issues/6?lang=en-US&page=1
It’s about problems with MARTI. Some of it is about the e-mail provider you’re using. Et cetera. Seems to be various issues, unfortunately. Many are about not receiving the e-mails at all, which of course doesn’t apply here, but if you read it all (which I have not) you may realize that MARTI isn’t air-tight.

What e-mail providers are you each using? Are either of them mentioned in this thread as having issues with MARTI?

[ArtofWar1947]

@trulpen

My position about the Round 27 has not changed.

However, what is done about Round 27 seems moot until the issue with Round 21 is resolved.

My point is that claims and counterclaims are not useful in deciding a fair outcome. We need real data to determine what happened.

[ArtofWar1947]

@gamerman01

I use gmail, which has had problems. Trulpen uses hotmail was also listed.

[trulpen]

I will be gone on vacation today for about 10 days. Will likely not be able to make any moves during this period.

[ArtofWar1947]

@trulpen

Thanks for letting me know.

[gamerman01]

Perfect! Thanks for being clear - I have only concerned myself with the round 21 mishap. I’m also quite relieved by what you said here.

Thank you for responding about the e-mail providers too. I suppose I could have seen them in TripleA opening your game as well - just realized that.

Anyway, I just scanned through that thread again, and searched by hotmail and gmail. All I can make out is, there are various MARTI issues with different e-mail providers, but it usually looks like it involves not receiving all the MARTI e-mails - I didn’t see anything about getting two different rolls for what should have been one.

Also noteworthy to me is that there are several posts from only 4 months ago.

But this post jumps out at me:

“LaFayette ADMIN 4 months ago
From an admin side we have not updated MARTI in some time (years). It’s on the bucket list to rewrite & update MARTI.”

So I still don’t know what happened for sure, and thanks for giving me some allowance for that. I’ll let you consider everything including what I wrote here. Ball’s in your court, Art. If you can find a way to investigate further and prove it wasn’t a MARTI vs. e-mail problem, great. Or if you want to let it go and assume it was a mix-up in cyber space, great. (seems LaFayette, apparently an admin for MARTI, admits it hasn’t been updated for years and might not be for a long time)

What’s not great is, as you said, claims and counterclaims. Obviously, I don’t want anyone to think they were cheated and I don’t want anyone accused of cheating who is innocent.

[ArtofWar1947]

@gamerman01

I went to TripleA Forum site you cited as having a Marti discussion. However, I did not have the option of making a reply to LaFayette (Admin). I tried to PM him, but got an error message that I did not have enough privileges. Any suggestions?

[gamerman01]

Yep, there are a couple ways to get to people. I’ll give you this link
https://forums.triplea-game.org/user/lafayette

Go to the dot dot dot and you should see the option to message him.
I noticed his latest post was just 9 days ago so luckily you should be able to rouse a response from him soon, most likely. Have a great day, both of you.

[gamerman01]

Trying to be helpful, you can also go to your chat bubble at top right of the screen, go to “see all chats”, then at the top left in a black bar it says “enter a username to search” (it can be hard to notice if not pointed out)

[ArtofWar1947]

@gamerman01

Tried both suggestions and got the same error message: “Error. You do not have enough privileges for this action.”

[gamerman01]

Ah, I guess I am a privileged one - had no idea that was maybe one of the added capabilities.

Did that link not work??

Thanks

[ArtofWar1947]

@gamerman01

Link did not work because I do not have enough privileges.