Firstly I apologies to Tom in advance as I know I have already raised this point with Him.

Recently I feel that I was cheated by certain  individuals ( I will not name names as this is not the place ) who play together n the real time games of Wargear Warfare. By their own admission these individuals pop round each others houses to play. They then proceed to create real time games featuring several of the said players. My point is that at best this is against the spirit of the game and at worst blatant cheating. If several friends are playing in the same room it would be simple to influence the outcome of these games. If thee individuals wish to play against each other then they can create private games and play all day long.  

                Tom has ruled that they are not cheating however I wondered what others think. For My own part the lesson is learned and I will not play in games that involve these individuals 

If they are making premeditated alliances to makes sure any outsiders don't win then that is cheating. This is however very hard to prove. I feel as though only a very coy player could ever win in such a circumstance. 

Trust Me they are playing as a team from the start. Problem is as You point out it is hard to prove.

If Tom doesn't think they are cheating, then they probably aren't. I'd be happy to look at the games.  PM me with the game numbers.

And use the "report cheating" link at the bottom of the game page.

This one is tough for me.  I think I have played enough games that it's just a game to me, and I would not favor friends/family over strangers, and I would hate for someone to tell me I couldn't play in a public game with someone like that, whether they were sitting next to me, or across town or on the other side of the world.

On the other hand, I'd be reluctant to play against this group in this situation (especially in a fogged game), because it would be so easy for them to collude, and I think they would be more likely to make deals amongst themselves than with players they don't know.

I think to some extant this can never be solved.  I (assume I) get PM'd more by people because of my presence on the forums and because more players feel like they know me because of my posts and maps and therefore feel more comfortable proposing alliances, etc. And of course I recognize a lot of regulars from the forum and from public games in general. 

In the end I think it's a grey area, and has to come down to Tom's judgement.  He is as close as we will get to a fair judge.

M57 wrote:

If Tom doesn't think they are cheating, then they probably aren't. I'd be happy to look at the games.  PM me with the game numbers.

 +1  

Even if they may not be clearly cheating, if you are even asking the question they're probably people to avoid playing against.