[archaeolept]

Giving gems or gold to a nation is an old and generally accepted practice, in most cases. I'm not sure i've ever seen it give a victory to a recipient, though that would certainly be possible. For the most part, gems are given to help fight a common cause, or to a combatant most likely to be able to halt the player deemed most likely to win, or to prop up some failing nation. Even then, it doesn't tend to have such over-weening effects. As such, only in very rare instances would it be king-making, as almost always no king is made. Claiming that giving gems or gold to someone is somehow worse than throwing a winning vp strikes me as pretty close to absurd. I would suggest that players will easily be able to consider their own past games as to this matter.

King-making as it does exist in Dominions is mostly when allies remain loyal to one side, even when that side (ie. the strongest nation on that side, most relevantly) is prevailing. This happens - but at least there is a long war, and the continual possibility that the allied nations might change their side.

When there is an agreement between two parties such that the one in effect grants his vps to the other, there is no realistic way to work against this, within the confines of the rules of the game. Hence, why it has traditionally been known as "throwing" the game.

These various scenarios are not at all equivalent, and have never been taken as being so on these forums, among hundreds of games that have been played. Surely it was not some stroke of genius that recently created the idea of one nation giving winning vps to another. Why has this not (to my knowledge, at least in a real game with experienced players) ever happened before on these boards? Is it really just the case that no one has ever thought of it, or that no one has ever had the amazing diplomatic acumen to have persuaded some other player?

Has any experienced player here ever even tried such a thing? Why not? No game has even felt it necessary to consider whether such actions are legitimate, and so either specifically deny or allow giving away winning vps. The argument seems to be based on the claim that any possible legalistic interpretation of what may be allowed to win has to be specifically denied in a games OP. Has it really come to this?

I would think that the majority of games listed in the HoF thread could just have easily been turned around if only a couple of the losing players had been smart enough to band together in doing so. Perhaps one player could do it for the other in one game, and receive his proper reward in an other - This too would be legal; certainly it has never been banned behaviour in any game's OP. This is clearly not how it is best for games of Dominions to be played.