How is cheating possible?

[Zapmeister]

Well that sure contradicts what you said in the thread. You said: "I have been receiving all of their gems since the start of the game."

Bummer. You should not have let that slip.

Hmm, very odd. I searched the forum for the string "gems since the start of the game" and was only able to come up with your post above. So maybe, despite the quotes, you were actually paraphrasing his words. I went back to the thread to see if I could find the actual quote, but only found:

Add to this the fact that Arco, Pythium and Jotunheim have been sending *all* their gems to me, since I was spearheading and coordinating our anti-Ermor efforts

...which clearly places the start of the gem-pooling at the start of their alliance. Perhaps you could provide a reference to the quote that mentions the start of the game.