sometimes you can truce with out actually trucing. To help explain better I've been in games where i've built up and could easily attack the person next to me but was to busy working on someone else, the other person was doing the same so without saying a word to each other we because truced for the entire game (until the end of course where I got my ass handed to me). This doesn't happen much as many things would need to fall into place but I'm just saying that is can and you'd never know it. You need to think like the person in first or second would to understand why they're doing what they're doing.

this game is all about luck. there is little skill involved. the only reason why aiden thinks she is better is because she plays all day every day. If I did that I could be in the top 25 every month. just be happy that you have a life outside kdice. some people do not

Aiden proudly announced that she was pga-ing with snews in the last game I played with her. Not sure why she is denying it now...

Ok youagain, here's my last attempt at being the devils advocate ;-)

the big gap between unspoken but honest ingame truces and actual pgas is so clear to some but so similar for others, it's a neverending discussion. The problem is that real pga players (except some duos that don't hide it but nevertheless, their rank never seems to imp prove) don't reveil their truce either so to the untrained eye it looks the same.

However, in your case, being able to post game replays would come in handy because I am 70% sure i could point you out several small hints during your game where snews and aiden hinted at each other they wouldn't mind trucing and going for 1 and 2. It was probably no use but it was your job splitting the potential alliance up before it was forged.

Another thing: you can debate on how the points are gained by the players with more points than you. I won't go into that discussion, it can be playing more games, being better, cheating, whatever. However, there is one certainty, they are able to take more 1st/2nd places than you. You can't do that by always flagging 3rd or playing safe to secure a 4th. If odds are good, you have to be aggresive and take on 1st. You have to admit games where 3 small players take on 1st are much more fun then games where one conservative 3rd flags when nothing is settled and 2nd is forced to flag too since otherwise he risks being picked on alone by 1st.

So to end this, I advise you to work on your unspoken truce detecting skills. You probably had tons of unspoken truces offered to you ingame that you missed. However, there always is a danger with unspoken truces since you can also missread certain moves. To take snews as an example, i recall a game a few days ago where i had a good shot at a safe 2nd or 3rd but got some mixed unspoken signals from snews that he might wanna take on 1st (f.i.: he attacked 1st a few turns before in a corner fight). So i gave it a go without trucing in chat but snews attacked me and flagged for a good safe 2nd. I got a lousy 4th. I took a risk and failed, snews made the right descission to play safe since if he joined me 1st would have probably focussed on him again. 1st and snews were also both smart in being able to get over their previous attacks because stopping that fight ensured 1 and 2. LOL, in fact at that moment it became an unspoken 1-2 truce. Actually during that game, 1st was very smart in stopping the fight with snews in order to prevent the forging of my alliance with snews. Like I said, I was getting mixed signals, i also sensed their battle was being paused so I should have flagged 2nd.