[HoneyBadger]

This is another example of there being a "right" way and "wrong" way to play.

From the nature of the game, as the Devs seem to express it, no nation should ever be allying with another nation, but you can't prevent players from doing so, even though it's disruptive to the concept of a "Dom3 Multi-player" game.

I'm thinking one solution would be education. Broadcasting and indoctrinating as many people as possible about the "Dom3 Philosophy" could go a long way towards solving such problems.

This is a unique situation though, and I kind of question who's side I should be on. I'm all for the freedom to play a given game any way we want, and usually I would stand up for our right to do whatever the hell we want in a game (if you want to "win" at chess by punching out your opponent and then declairing "that's check mate, M*****F*****!", and you don't mind dealing with the consequences, that's your choice) but, this game functions based on principles which vary from pretty much any other game.

Usually, in an MP game, you will have many sides. You'll form alliances and fight against dangerous, aggressive, or weak enemies until all that remains are two sides opposed. "Role-playing" can never entirely preclude the possibility of alliances, because of unpredictability and chaos-theory (not to mention the ability to wear people down by sheer annoyance-factor).

In such cases of fundamentally natural enemies, the question will inevitably come up in one form or another, "well what if this were an alternate universe?"

All sides will function within the same universe, though, alternate or not, and this will be a matter-of-course with pretty much any game you'd care to name.

In Dominions, each nation basically is living in and coming from it's own alternate universe, and the spread of Dominion represents the spreading influence of that universe.

What do you do when each side represents an entirely different point of view on the nature of reality, an entirely different reality, for that matter?

I don't know. It's not like playing Starcraft, though.