[Calahan]

I think the main problem people have is that they consider both the following types of NAP's to be governed by the same level of trust.

1 - An NAP you sign with another nation, and then have no further contact or dialogue with until 50+ turns later when one of the nations involved says "Hey, you just attacked me. But we signed an NAP 50+ turns ago!".

2 - An NAP you sign with another nation, and then have constant contact with throughout the course of the game, trading items, intel, maybe coordinating attacks.


I consider case 1 to be pretty much a joke. As how can it possibly be realistic to think... "How can I defend the huge 10 border province I have with my Eastern neighbour? I know, lets defend it all nice and securely with a little piece of paper with NAP written on it. As that means I can leave vast sections of my empire completely undefended, and I'll never have to put any troops there again what-so-ever. That is until my Eastern neighbour gives me a convenient 3-turn warning that he is going to attack me in that area."

To me, this way of thinking has no logic to it, or even a remote connection to the realities of any strategy game I have ever played. And anyone who thinks along these lines deserves to get backstabbed to death in every game they play.


Whereas case 2 above is a situation in which you will rarely see a back-stabbing incident occur. As there you have two nations who have agreed to not fight each other for the mutual benefit of both nations, but are in constant contact, and are both regularly benefiting from such a high level of contact.

So at least in my experience to date, a high level of respect builds up between the players involved in these cases, which greatly reduces the chances of any back-stabbing. It may still happen of course, but anyone who has worked closely with another player in a game over any reasonable duration of time, would find it very difficult to suddenly turn on their friend and ally.

Whether case 2 should be like that in the context of the game is another matter, but in reality that is how it does tend to work.