[Warhammer]

I was unaware that "care bear" referred to anything outside of Diplomacy. That is where I learned and used the term. It was not necessarily derogatory, it was used to describe a method of play. I have never played a MMO and hope to keep it that way.

My point is that there is a time and place to keep your word, and a time not to. 99% of the time, you keep your word, or do not commit to anything. The other 1%, if it suited you, you broke it.

In Diplomacy, it you never, ever, ever, left your backside open. Here, if you do so, and someone moves in, they are called every name in the book. In Diplomacy, it was good play. You maximized your return for a minimum of time and effort.

Now, there was an opportunity cost to doing so. If you gained a reputation for not keeping your word, it was much hard to work out deals. In a game where everyone started with the same strength, that meant that you would have to give more than you received which put you in a worse position vis a vis the other players. The player I feared the most in Diplomacy was not the player who did not keep his word, it was the player that DID EXACTLY WHAT HE SAID.

To me, it is simple, you negotiate with the other player, if he stabs you, you make sure he does not win. You take him down with you. It is a valid tactic and makes sure that he does not reap a reward for his actions.

Someone who stabbed me and made a game changing play was respected. Sure, I hated the fact I got stabbed, but it led to him winning the game. Good for him, I should have made sure I was not a viable stabbing target. I think that is where people get upset is they do not like to think they did anything wrong. They want to point the finger at the player who stabbed and say he was not ethical, lied, whatever. For my line of work, the most important thing is your word. You never over-promise, you over-deliver. If I am on time, it means nothing to the customer. If I am a day late, I am garbage.

The flip side...

I have an NAP with country X, if I give three turns notice of cancelling the NAP, guess what happens... All of a sudden, I have a militarized border. If I just invaded, I get all these provinces for free! The reason why many people get upset when they are stabbed, is that they are putting all their eggs in another basket, and when they do not invest in any scouting activity to see what is going on somewhere else, in a presumably quiet sector, they get blindsided. In Diplomacy, if you saw someone massing on your border, you were talking to him constantly to find out his intentions. If you did not get an answer you liked, you took precautions against his potential moves.

The one game played with enforced diplomacy was not a fun experience. Had NAPs with several players, and then they all let them expire or gave the requisite notice and went after me. I tried several times to make deals and negotiate with them, all to no avail. A couple of them said that they could not call off the dogs on me because they had other NAPs, which were unbreakable, and had to keep expanding to keep up with X. To me, that is a bunch of hooey... But, by the rules of the game, they were correct.