[llamabeast]

I think that diplomacy's one of the most fun parts of MP as well, but if you decided that a tournament should be based strictly on how well players fight and exclude the diplomacy part of the skill, that doesn't seem unreasonable to me either. It might be an interesting change to have no diplomacy options (personally I tend to rather rely on it).

I don't think you need to worry about cheating though. It seems to me that this community is exceptionally fair and mature. If a couple of new people come along with a cheating attitude, they probably won't be as good as the experienced players anyway, and frankly I don't think anyone would try to cheat in the first place. I think just trusting people creates a much nicer atmosphere.