[The Panther]

While I was in favor of the spirit of Prop 4, I did not like how it specified exact penalties. I think it should be left up to the Council to decide penalties (if any). No way can all situations be covered with a single specific rule. This is why I took out the 3-day attack window clause that was present in Version 1 of the rules. It was too specific and would likely not apply in all situations. Let the Council decide instead.

Certainly, any nation which is taking provinces by stealthy means (per the Ironhawk scenario) would likely have to be quite persuasive in Council to avoid being severely punished. Maybe he is simply retailiating for excessive assassinations or excessive stealth preaching (or whatever). Perhaps he is doing it for a very sound reason. Again, how good a case can you make in Council? This is the key point in all of this. For sure, many votes can be bought anyways, just like has always been true since the dawn of democracy. Remember President Bush and his pledge to reduce taxes during the 2000 election? He certainly bought my vote with that one, for I pay a heck of a lot of excessive taxes to the crooks in Washington!

Per the Cainehill comment above: Of course an enemy who is endlessly assassinating your beloved commanders is pretty much a heavy-handed hostile move. Certainly the Council would look favorably upon a request to retaliate for such an action (unless you have pissed off too many wyrms prior to said incident). I even doubt it would take much bribing to win such a vote.

As for the rules, I tried to make it as simple as possible: Attacking a province controlled by another nation requres a Council ruling. All other things revolve around this basic idea.

This means Ghost Riders are out (I saw that Prop 5 failed very strongly so other wyrms are in agreement with me here). This means assassinations are in, since it is not an attack on an enemy province. This means you can't automatically fault a guy with a stealth unit getting caught and being attacked, for the stealthy unit is not attacking the enemy province. In the end analysis, all grey areas mean a Council decision.

In fact, after reading all the thoughtful posts here, I have come to the opinion that tactical use of stealth might just be much more powerful in this game than in most games under normal FFA rules. And this is not necessarily a bad thing.