Can you please check MYSQL and see which player does this?

Jul 4, 10:00 Jul 4, 14:00 $19 $223 $131.74 1,614,786

It occurs every set. Oil @ $20. I hope you post the handle of the person who buys & sells it.

Lol I bought more than half a mil over $200

Celphie, I got like 700k at 19 I think this round. I do not know who is selling it though. And I am warring not netting. I am curious who is selling it as well. I doubt I was the intended recipient. (I also texted my friend and it was not them, they said they are not even playing anymore after what happened)

2.1 hours ago

You purchased 717,743 Oil Barrels at $19 for $15,000,829 via standing order.
677,052,768 Oil Barrels remain in your order.

Classic ebert.

I'm actually more curious as to who is selling it, and if it's the same person every set. Really anyone could have bought the oil.

I need to go back to setting SOs again. Nice profit with that.

Jul 5, 04:00 Jul 5, 08:00 $19 $323 $274.80 1,065,985
Jul 5, 08:00 Jul 5, 12:00 $199 $323 $243.84 102,561
Jul 5, 12:00 Jul 5, 16:00 $17 $359 $217.65 1,653,891
Jul 5, 16:00 Jul 5, 20:00 $17 $301 $204.40 1,768,335

Check out the volume differences when it's $17.

Like all investigations, just follow the money trail.

Its probably whoever got to benefit from the cheap oil. Probably allows them to not have any oil rigs and just keep pumping out troops. Probably a guy running multis and having one account do all oil and funneling cheap stuff to his main country.

It's going to be ebert, guaranteed.

Tired of losing to Vic, Ebert found a new helper?

Investigate all you want. It is NOT me. Nor is it any friend. I did get two standing orders in. But ask yourself ...what sense does it make for me to have friends or myself sell oil in a warring set? That would just be extra risk and I am not stupid. I do not cheat and have no need to cheat. I fully encourage all mods to investigate this. I did see 3 people purple this round.

It wasn't just Ebert00 buying it.., folks. Other players mentioned to me that they got some of the cheap oil too. So that's why I say, being a buyer doesn't make you guilty of cheating.

I'm more so interested in who is selling it. And like Ebert00 said, there were other players (4 total) who got purpled. So perhaps it was one of them.

Nobody would turn down an opportunity to buy any cheap goods, including the stone throwers, especially using SO's as many do. If oil or any other item is hundreds of dollars and someone sets a lower SO and is able to procure the goods for even less, that is just good luck. Especially if playing a demo.

As Celphi said, the interest should be in who sold it that cheap (and why they would). Once is an error, but additional occurrences are suspicious.

Yes, it could be collusion, but it also could just be someone's prerogative just as sometimes people screw with the food. Unless qz digs into it and finds someone cheating, you will see more of it for a few weeks due to the publicity.

There are a lot of copy cats in this game, which keep it interesting but also frustrating.

Celphi, did you PM qz or post this somewhere he is more likely to see it?

That logic doesn't make sense.

If you're warring, that is exactly when cheap oil is good for you. Using turn after turn to send hundreds of thousands of units to war takes a lot of oil. Between spending 100% on industrial complexes to focus on replenishing units or someone else who has to spend 60% IC and 40% oil rigs (or any combination), clearly 100% IC and cheap oil from the market is a better combo. But of course, only one guy could be cheating in that scenario.

Celphi: I disagree. There are two situations.

One. The cheater is funneling cheap oil from a multi to benefit his main account. In this case, clearly the likely suspects are the ones that are benefiting from the cheap oil. You'd clearly start there if there was any sort of investigation. Being a suspect is not guilty. But clearly anyone that benefits from the cheap oil has to be a suspect.

Two. Someone is trolling or just messing around in the round. Not playing seriously. Selling cheap oil and cheap units for the sake of it. For fun. To troll. If this was the case, then there is no case here. Case solved. This thread is pointless. So your initial complaint is a moot point.

Thats why I'm not understanding your perspective. Clearly you're pointing this out because you must think it is an unfair advantage someone is getting due to the former scenario. If it is the latter, it is not worth spending any more time talking about it. You'd have to investigate to know. But even if you knew who was doing it, there is nothing to gain. If someone is trolling or wasting time, there is nothing wrong here. Its only if they are cheaters that it matters for the mods.

Anyone planning a xfer would put their so at that exact price the first few seconds in the game.

Also, is it common for people to put a SO for a commodity at a ridiculous price? I don't think many people do that. Sure, it costs nothing. Maybe everyone should do that. Put a standing order for everything in the market for a ridiculous price hoping it fills. But that is ridiculous. Its like some stock trader who puts a buy limit order for stocks at ridiculous prices hoping someone fills the order and they make an instant profit. It never happens though, so nobody every does it. So you'd have to wonder what the motivation is, for this tremendous insight into putting a SO on a commodity at a ridiculously low price. That would be suspicious behavior also.

Now, it could also be a rogue bot that went crazy. Buying everything at whatever high price. Selling goods at whatever low price. Basically being retarded. That would deserve mod attention too.

But here are a few suspicious traits to look out for IMO.

-Anyone who bought the cheap oil is a suspect.

-Furthermore from the above, anyone who has an additional need for lots of oil, such as if they were warring becomes more suspicious.

-Anyone who's country makeup involves almost no or little oilrigs, knowing that they would be getting their oil via the cheap market route, so they have been focusing on developing their economy or building units.

-Anyone who puts a standing order for the oil at a low price is a suspect, unless that is a standard MO of that particular individual every single round, and he never normally benefits from the cheap oil.

When we had "oil-gate" last time, I had an SO for $90ish and it was filled at $40-50. I did not realize I had intercepted it. Then others picked up some cheap like this set. So, for several sets after that, I had an SO for $50 oil as did others.

I'd be looking at whoever sold 2.5m bushels at $20 at turn 200 and again at around turn 400

Damn....that is some cheap food. Good to see you in the forum again, Getafix.

I had the same thing happen alot as demo, made lots of money. I use the fluff out of ridiculous SO's all the time.

The thing about the early cheap food is that you can multiply the profit several times while you sit on turns. Food was selling at around $150 at the time the first batch of cheap food sold, though it dropped pretty fast as the supply caught up with the initial demand by the bots. (I started the set as a republic farmer to take advantage of the high early food prices, so I was watching the market quite closely)

Perhaps the country that was named "Twenty Dollars A Bushel (#36)"...He finished 88th place.

Let me try to phrase this right... You had two straight months of countries deleted for selling yourself cheap oil. And now, this set, you have an SO out for 700m barrels of cheap oil?

@id1028s:

I think you misunderstood me. Not everyone who buys $20 cheap oil is guilty of cheating; because, everyone has a chance of buying it. That differs from the person who is selling $20 oil.

It would seem more logical to trace the sales of the seller (this set & previous sets) and look for which player is benefitting from it the most.

As for the bot theory, we can eliminate it, because the bots do not buy nor sell oil.

I understood what you said.

My point is everyone who buys the cheap oil is an automatic suspect. Again, being a suspect doesn't mean you are guilty.

Someone is only cheating if the seller of the cheap oil is also benefiting from the cheap oil sale, which means he is also a buyer of the cheap oil because he was running a multi. There can be no cheating if the seller of the cheap oil is not benefiting from it somehow.

Coordination in a solo game is also not allowed. Even if someone is not running a multi. In the same token, the seller and the buyer are both guilty.

The only other case left is a solo troll out to mess around. He is intentionally, in his own free will, selling cheap goods to mess with the market. In this case there are no cheaters. It is behavioral action by an individual. It is not illegal and there is no wrong doing and this is a waste of time.

In the hunt for cheaters, finding the seller of the cheap oil is important. But only half the battle. The other half is finding the one benefiting from it. Both the buyer and the seller need to be punished. Whether that is one person running a multi, or two or more people coordinating in a solo game. You can't just punish the seller without punishing the buyer. They are both cheating.

So again, two outcomes should come from this. (1) Nothing happens because its just a solo person trolling and selling super cheap stuff to mess around. In which case case closed and this is a waste of time. or (2) both the buyer and the seller are cheating. This can be in the form of a multi (same person) or coordination in a solo game (two or more people).

So thats why looking at the buyers is important too.

Find the country with the EXACT same price SO and enough cash not to have it cancelled
and there's the benefactor.

I set 3 up for turrets, tech, food and oil on the first days. One or two at crazy low prices and one at cheaper prices to catch impatient people selling goods cheaper than needed.

anybody could have bought the oil or food out completely as its pure profit on the private market sale at that price buy/sell/buy/sell repeat until all is bought.