Re: is feeding acceptable or not
 

if everyone was jumping off a cliff, would you do it too?

Re: is feeding acceptable or not
 

Revenge is for me thematic, and I see no problem to justify it in a roleplayer perspective.

If my pretender is losing and must renounce to his hopes to become a god, he don't want to offer this power to his ennemies. Prefering to help the ascension of a friend (or even any other pretender than the one destroying him) is logical. If he can't be god himself, he wants to be the god-maker, it's the last expression from his ambition.

Re: is feeding acceptable or not
 

You could also bribe the next pretender so he doesn't kill you outright when he ascends. I certainly understand that someone would rather serve than die.

Re: is feeding acceptable or not
 

I don't think it's fair to demand that people play the way you want them to either. I know that it can be annoying when someone goes AI but in the end this is a game and if they aren't enjoying it they should stop. It would be better if they found a sub or were more polite about it, but you have to understand that most people don't care about what is perceived as 'honourable' by a few.

I wouldn't give my stuff away when dying unless part of an alliance that had been declared to everyone (not some secret NAP 3 or something). In that case you should expect resources to be shared.

Re: is feeding acceptable or not
 

My experience with other multiplayer games makes me leery of any rules that don't have an in-game enforcement mechanism. Otherwise, you just get endless arguments between the people who voluntarily follow them and the ones who ignore them.

Re: is feeding acceptable or not
 

Well the mechanism would be kicking people out who don't follow the rules. There's no automatic rules for non-computer games and not all of them need dedicated referees.

I think explicitly stating NO DIPLOMACY would probably work. If some people choose to 'cheat' well it wouldn't keep me up at night or anything, I'd just think they were lame.

Re: is feeding acceptable or not
 

I think it's fine.

If your kingdom is so knackered you can't get much out of it, you may as well just quit, and why not hand everything you can to your enemies' enemies? The going to AI could be roleplay rationalised as the God having given up and gone off in a sulk, leaving a semi-competent mortal to oversee the collapse of the nation.