machination (n.)

• artifice
• cabal
• chicane
• chicanery
• collusion
• complicity
• confederacy
• connivance
• conspiracy
• contrivance
• counterplot
• covin
• design
• designing
• devices
• engineering
• finesse
• frame-up
• gambit
• game
• influence
• intrigue
• manipulation
• move
• pettifoggery
• plot
• ploy
• practice
• rigging
• ruse
• scheme
• skulduggery
• sleight
• stratagem
• tactics
• trick
• trickery
• wile