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Originally Posted by Peter Ebbesen
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You make good points, that I personally don't feel hold value in a game that happens to involve many strangers, and takes months to unfold. If people want to be evil scheming bastards, in a community such as this, that is their prerogative. However, you will find the community torn into two camps. The first camp, being the "honorable and noble men of their word", who will only only do business with one another, not wanting to negotiate with someone who, as you basically put it, is currently looking for the place in your back where the knife goes. Then the other camp, the "evil scheming bastards", will have no choice but to only negotiate with eachother, because no one whose word is worth a damn is going to want to deal with a liar, a thief, or a backastabber.
I've played in other communities where games took ~2 months, and in one of them, the general convention was that if someone broke a NAP without observing the agreed upon terms, they were generally subject to a game-wide gangbang. Unless people were embroiled in a life-or-death fight at that very moment, they would tend to drop what they were doing, to grab a piece of the one whose word was worth nothing.
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Do you really see no difference between "the opportune time to kick you in the balls" and "we might as well just go AI, because by the time the treaty is up, you'll be unstoppable"?
(I'm not in this game, so I can't comment on whether they'll be unstoppable by turn 60 or not, so I'm speaking generically.)
The first is obviously bad, the second is what we're disputing. Is it valid to break a deal when that's the only way to keep someone from winning? Or from achieving such dominance they can't be stopped?
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There is a price for every deal made, no exceptions. If no money or goods are exchanged, then the price is the value of your word, and your "honor", so to speak. When the terms of the agreement are fulfilled, you may redeem them for the full purchase price of the "value of your word", plus a small dividend in the value of your word. If you break it early, you will not be compensated by honor, sympathy, or admiration.
Also, this whole situation cracks me up. Such a big stink, about deciding 5 turns before a timed NAP ends, that giving 3 turn notice (that's not part of the agreement), is the answer between failure, and possible victory. I completely fail to see why it's better to attack on turn 58 with 3 turns notice, than to attack on turn 60 with no notice at all. This wasn't a "let's meet back and war ON turn 60" agreement, but merely an agreement not to fight before then. If the other party is hip-deep in another war, then silence is the best option, by far, especially if it only costs an extra 2 turns that can be spent building and preparing.
Obviously the moral here - Don't NAP anyone significantly smaller than you, or they are apparently totally justified in dishonoring that NAP. The converse of course, do not NAP anyone significantly stronger than you, or you will be tempted to break the NAP, and cause a giant piss-storm that could threaten your cornflakes.