Anonymous Rituals and NAPs

Hadrian_II · #1 April 24th, 2008, 05:58 PM

What is your position on casting anonymous rituals on nations you have a nap with? And how would you react on it?

I personally think that it is evil but somethimes worthy the bad karma, and if someone did it to me i would just attack him.

Saulot · #2 April 24th, 2008, 06:06 PM

Anonymous rituals are never as anonymous as they appear.

Ferrosol · #3 April 24th, 2008, 06:17 PM

Anonymous rituals are against the spirit of a NAP but if you can cast them anonymously and get away with it then good for you as you will have succeeded in weakening a rival without them knowing.However if I were to catch someone with whom I had a NAP with catching a ritual at me I would consider it an act of war.

cupido2 · #4 April 24th, 2008, 06:18 PM

As the stone oracle said:

Casting anonymous rituals is no breach of a nap as long as you're not caught.

DonCorazon · #5 April 24th, 2008, 06:44 PM

I did it in one of my first games against the leader while we had a NAP thinking anonymous spells were ok.

And I did get called out on it - gee, who could be casting murdering winter? Niefelheim, hmmm...

But it was more of a joke then a blow up.

After thinking about it, I decided not to do it anymore, mainly because the gains are not generally worth the loss of trust if you are caught.

But I can see the argument either way. When I did it, I considered it like the espionage that goes on between allies in the real world. If you get caught, it could lead to a blow up, otherwise, it is just an accepted fact of life.

Baalz · #6 April 24th, 2008, 06:52 PM

Hahah, here's the real evil/sneaky strategy (which I've successfully pulled off in the past): cast anonymous rituals where you have nothing to gain to start a war between two of your neighbors so you can move in on whoever gets the worst of their first fight.

Indeed, who suspects it's (ie) Sauromatia repeatedly casting murdering winter with their pretender?

DonCorazon · #7 April 24th, 2008, 07:03 PM

Baalz you are a stone cold killer. That is truly evil.

And quite funny.

Argitoth · #8 April 24th, 2008, 07:12 PM

Another evil strategy is to take provinces between two nations. I anger two nations, one nation is bound to take my provinces. However, that nation will soon be taking provinces that used to belong another nation, that's when all hell breaks loose.

Xietor · #9 April 24th, 2008, 07:25 PM

I am in the game in question.

We had a thread awhile back on what violates a nap. Many said any hostile act, including baalz. I am of the camp that if I am aware of a hostile act, the nap is over and it is war.

That includes stealth preaching, moving stealth armies through my lands, etc.

Baalz and I think K as well said boxing them in so they could not expand violated their naps, or taking an independent province that barbarians had captured.

So there is a range of actions that different players view as violating an nap.

In Fallacy, casting rain of toads so many times on Jotunheim's capital on the eve of war had to be you. Hadrian. Who else would waste the bloodslaves to cast 40 rain of toads on someone they had no beef with?

And with abysia and Mictlan already out of the game, the list of suspects grows thin(assuming Jotunheim did not cast them on himself.). So you knew you did it, and Jotunheim knew you did it. In fact everyone knew you did it.

So it was no longer a spell(40 of them) whose origin was in doubt. To me that is a breach of the nap calling for instant war.

As for future games, well i have had long naps with you in the Big Game and in EH II. In both of those games you were(to the best of my knowledge) a good neighbor.

So I would trust you, but I would make sure we were on the same page as to what the nap meant. To me a nap that does not ban all hostile acts is useless. I may as well go to war with that nation and make a nap with someone who is going to view the nap in the same light i do.

Ironhawk · #10 April 24th, 2008, 08:02 PM

Hahah Baalz, yeah I've done that too. Also, I like to use weak anonymous spells to probe provinces for domes. Gives you targetting information for your spells.

Personally I feel that if I can catch a NAP-bound nation casting an anonymous spell at me that it is considered a violation. However I will likely just forgive the nation in question if they promise to cut it out and/or I have no interest in war with them.

All this said, it is technically impossible to pin an anonymous spell on anyone. Thus the term anonymous. Normally if I suspect a NAP nation of casting at me but cant prove it I will give them a warning and if it continues I will acitvate the termination clause of the NAP, however long that is.