How is cheating possible?

[Stormbinder]

I took that to mean that all of their income for the start of the game as accumulated to the point they were given.

So Stormbinder may have meant this when he wrote it.
It is certainly not evidence of plot (much as I wold like there to be one)

Pickles

Aye. Both Pickles and Zapmeister are absolutely correct, that's exactly what happened. Of course other nations started sending me gems only after we formed an alliance, but since they were newbie players and dind't actually spend any of their gems, it meant that they perry much send me all thier games accomulated from the start of the game, as I wrote earlier.