[Micah]

I posted because I felt that your characterization of the situation was, shall we say, oversimplified and subject to misinterpretation. "Where I was going with it" was making an attempt to clear things up, since you were presenting things as fact or consensus that I pretty strongly disagree with, and I didn't want other people to read it and assume that everyone was in agreement with how things work.

Your latest post makes a whole lot more sense to me than the one I initially replied to. You're now making reasonable arguments for why things should change, as opposed to just saying "it's the rule."

I still disagree with your conclusion, as well as the assertion that treaties are not inherited, but I can at least see where you're coming from.

IMO, if a player doesn't trust your sub (or the sub doesn't trust the player) he is, of course, free to break the treaty and claim extenuating circumstances. It's up to the other players to decide how much tarnish that would put on his reputation. But I think it would be pretty clearly a flat-out violation of a treaty if he just attacked with no warning whatsoever, or used the sub as an excuse to duck out of a NAP that had been given notice on and still had multiple turns left until hostilities commenced just to get an advantage over the former ally. That was the conclusion I got from your initial characterization of what happens when a sub takes over. Treaty-breaking is, of course, an option with non-binding diplomacy regardless, but I don't see why the sub should be able to get out of the political fallout from such a move just based on being a sub.

Reaffirming treaties is smart, but every time I've done it I assumed that it was in relation to the ongoing portion of the treaty, not the static part...so if my 3-turn warning NAP partner subbed out I would be confirming that the sub didn't want to give notice on the treaty, not that he could ignore the whole thing.

And yes, you're right about not needing to immediately disclose who the sub is, but again, I feel that the way you posted about it initially was subject to misinterpretation for long-term plans to do so.