I think any form of communication is fine. If I am not mistaken, 2 of the players are actually brothers(forget which 2, which is dumb on my part and likely why i find myself fighting uphill numbers most of the time).
The only thing I ask, and I have no mechanism to enforce it, so it is just an honor thing, is that no players make alliances or "deals" before the game starts.
For instance, I am friendly with Llamabeast. Never met him in real life, or even instant messaged him. But we teamed up in a mp game once and it worked out well.
So say I am playing a strong research race like MA Ctis. And say he is playing a race with lots of n gems like EA Pangaea. And I say to llamabeast before the game , I will take a 5n pretender and race straight to alt 5 and cast mother oak. if you give me 50 n gems I will split the return with you(or something along those lines).
That is a type of pregame deal i think is unfair to other players. And it is banned-though as i said I will not make any effort to enforce such a ban as it is beyond my ability.
So it will just have to be an honor type thing, and if you are a type of player that can feel a sense of achievement winning with an unfair advantage over other players, then that is between you and your conscience-and you have my sympathy.
Of course if you are really treacherous, you make a deal with llamabeast's neighbor to kill him off, so you get the gems to cast mother oak and have no one to split the spoils with! How would an honest guy like me even think of something like that?
