Interesting to read the comments about importance of diplomacy in NAP and non-NAP enviroment. I've played mostly multiplayer games (where communication and diplomacy are of utter importance) outside these forums, and the whole concept of NAP's has been slightly alien to me. My conclusion has been this: Enforced NAP's kill the diplomacy in the game. I think diplomacy and communicating is *much* more important in games where NAP's are not enforced.
Although, I've played exactly one game where NAP's were accrding to the game rules binding; it is the exact one game where I have had the least diplomacy and contact with the other players. You sign a NAP, after that you don't have to give a hoot of what the other thinks; if he intends to attack you, he will have to inform you ages before. NAP games are the lazy mans games and not very different from single play, if you ask me
Where NAP's are not binding you actually have to *play* the game as a multiplayer game: You have to be in contact with the other players, you have to rely more on intelligence gathered (both in game and outside the game in communications with the other players. Pacts and alliances are much more fluid, becaue you know you can talk yourself out from sticky situations if you just are able to prove the alternative to your destruction is the better one (while in NAP games that is not true; how can you can you possibly take advantage of a lucrative situation where your NAP partner is doing something silly and still expect you to still let him get to a winning position?).
Without enforced NAP's you have to build yourself a reputation. Do you want to be viewed as a windmill, who rotates allegiances all the time? Do you want to be viewed as a bonehead, rigidly following agreed plans even if they mean your own destruction? Or do you want to be viewed as a reliable character who still are not totally against the idea of changing direction if the situation so demands?
Of course each of us have our own views on not only the other players, but on our selves too. It would be interesting to know how close your own views on self correlates with the views others have on you