Is this really that different than playing one person risk vs 6 robots?

Absolutely, risk. Human players play differently (a lot better). Also: I am not against temporary alliances when the map supports it. What I AM getting annoyed at, is that after two rounds, there's three people that share a nationality/language/familiarity or something other superficially nothing to do with the game situation, and they gang up and cooperate. Sometimes players will even arrange themselves for a worse position than they could have made on their own, simply with the prospsect of a) secure points for rankings and b) next round it will be reciprocated.

thats diplomacy sabhofer. love it or hate it you can't leave it alone.

Not convinced. People could still joing the same tables as each other and collude over IM. At least at the moment, if there are rumours of clans going round about particular people, we can avoid those people.

against.

Game is about tactics, so also about negotiating about a helpfull truce. So against!

You cant have tactics if people partner up and one 'team' ends up twice the size of the other players.

people tend to do this before you even show up.... and it tends to make it v. tough

However no chat wont help too much... u'll need to have 'no names' too!

Ha! anonymous games... nice.

As people are killed off it reveals who it was.