MP Etiquette

[Nagot Gick Fel]

bleach168 said:
1. Emails. As far as I know, it's okay to contact and discuss things through emails even though there is no ingame mechanic to allow it. Is this true for all games?

Unless otherwise stated by the host, yes. There's no way to enforce no-comm rules. Anyway I've seen "no email, ingame Messages only" and "no communications at all" games.

2. Non-Aggression Pacts. When someone says "NAP" I know it means a non-aggression pact but does it also imply a 3-turn warning to break? Or does that have to be explicitly stated?

It should always be stated.

Also, what happens if someone breaks the treaty without the 3-turn warning.

I guess someone else will feel pissed off.

Does this ever happen?

Sometimes. Although most often, devious players will try to use some sort of 'magical time compression' to argue they didn't violate the NAP warning. Consider this: A and B agreed on a NAP with a 3-turn escape clause. Turn 39, A (who used only email so far) sends an ingame message to B to notify him he wants to cancel the NAP. Turn 40 A issues his armies orders to invade B's provinces. Turn 41, A's orders are effectively carried on. A will argue that the 3 turns-delay was respected (39-40-41, implying he sent his notice at the beginning of turn 39, and his armies invaded at the end of turn 41), while from B's viewpoint, only 1 turn passed since he received the message in turn 40 and was invaded in turn 41. Or even zero if he considers that the attack was actually initiated in turn 40. Sounds silly? Yet I've seen that happen, exactly as described.

3. Alliances. If you ally someone, is it your responsibility to announce it? If you want to prevent yourself or your ally from getting attacked, I would think you would want to announce it as a deterrent.

Whatever suits you.

4. War. Is it okay to attack someone without warning if there had been no previous agreements? Or should you give them at least a 1 turn warning?

Whatever suits you. Remember, you're a pretender god at war with every other pretender god, so by default your neighbours are your enemies, and enemies don't need warnings.

5. How common is it to gang up on the "supposed" leader?

Fairly common.

6. Do people carry grudges over from one game to the next?

Some don't, some do.

7. Trading. Is there a universal guide as to how much items and gems are worth in trades? Like how much a gem would cost in gold? Or does this differ in every game?

No universal guide, although most assume 1 gem ~ 10 gold. I you trade items for gold or gems, expect to pay an extra for the mage(s) who spent a turn to forge each of these items, and don't expect to get a discount because of a forge bonus.

8. If two of your neighbors start exchanging blows do you:
a) Help the person losing
b) Help the person winning
c) Don't do anything and let it resolve

Whatever I think will benefit me the most, in term of relative power to these neighbors.

9. At what point, in your opinion, is it okay to go AI.

(1) Both arms broken, and can't find a sub (and you tried hard).

(2) You just realized your opponent in this game is Norfleet in disguise.

10. Mutual victories. How common is it for an alliance to just be declared the winner and the game ends like that?

Not uncommon, if the host allows shared victories.

[Alneyan]

Nagot Gick Fel wrote:
Sometimes. Although most often, devious players will try to use some sort of 'magical time compression' to argue they didn't violate the NAP warning. Consider this: A and B agreed on a NAP with a 3-turn escape clause. Turn 39, A (who used only email so far) sends an ingame message to B to notify him he wants to cancel the NAP. Turn 40 A issues his armies orders to invade B's provinces. Turn 41, A's orders are effectively carried on. A will argue that the 3 turns-delay was respected (39-40-41, implying he sent his notice at the beginning of turn 39, and his armies invaded at the end of turn 41), while from B's viewpoint, only 1 turn passed since he received the message in turn 40 and was invaded in turn 41. Or even zero if he considers that the attack was actually initiated in turn 40. Sounds silly? Yet I've seen that happen, exactly as described.

Heh, that would be a classical example of "why the exact wording of your requests matter". Along the same lines, there would be quite a different between "I won't attack your province" and "I won't attack your provinces", or even "I won't attack provinces" (this one would be only for pacifists). And the same reasoning would go for requests such as "do not give away some information to Pythium"; though you would likely violate the spirit of the agreement when giving someone else this information, to be then transmitted to Pythium.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Alneyan said:
Heh, that would be a classical example of "why the exact wording of your requests matter". Along the same lines, there would be quite a different between...

[snip examples]

Exactly. Reminds me about the heated debate about the wording of UN resolution 242.

[tinkthank]

Great questions! And excellent answers too. I agree with most of them, but will add my newbie two Eurocents here:

- As I. Kant correctly noted, you can't really want to exist in a world in which *lying* was systematically present (in other words, you have to want to live in a world in which there is some form of valence system), IF you want your words to mean anything in a pragmatic context. Thus, NAP's as speech-acts (that is, NAP's that are not exactly complete hot air) must be filled with content, and that means they cannot be broken continually. My view of "etiquette" is based on this; an NAP which can and will be broken at any time is not a true NAP, there must be entry and exit rules. Thus I treat those people who break NAPs as system-breakers and try to defame them in-game and take an aggressive stance against them asap. Of course, this must be contextualized: I only do this for NAPs with me (since I have no idea of how others go about with each other), and since this is a WAR game, I know someone will HAVE to attack me sooner or later, and so if this someone had an NAP with me and basically indicates that it is time to go to war, this is completely acceptable. I try to do the same, for the above-mentioned reasons. That being said, Backstabbing is an important part of the game, but I do tend to try to remember who backstabs when, so I can trust them/not trust them in the future. People *will* remember you as being a trustworthy fellow or a hard-core utilitarian.
- NGF gave the rule-of-thumb that a gem can often be seen for 10 gold -- this will be veeeery different from turn to turn and depending on what you want.
- Keep asking. In an MP game I am currently hosting, I was unsure of the E-mail rule myself, so I asked everyone whether they would accept "magical insta-communication" (I got the basic answer: "yes"). I dont know how new you are, but you may or may not know who the character referred to as "Norfleet" is. In any case, to make the matter very short, Norfleet is no longer here because he got caught hacking the game to cheat, but before that, there was some thread in which he was accussed of cheating by exploiting out-of-game information. I personally did not see that as a "cheat", but others disagree: some want to keep the information flow as in-game as possible.
I think some of these questions and some of these answers should go to Liga's excellent archive.

[alexti]

Nagot Gick Fel said:
Although most often, devious players will try to use some sort of 'magical time compression' to argue they didn't violate the NAP warning. Consider this: A and B agreed on a NAP with a 3-turn escape clause. Turn 39, A (who used only email so far) sends an ingame message to B to notify him he wants to cancel the NAP. Turn 40 A issues his armies orders to invade B's provinces. Turn 41, A's orders are effectively carried on. A will argue that the 3 turns-delay was respected (39-40-41, implying he sent his notice at the beginning of turn 39, and his armies invaded at the end of turn 41), while from B's viewpoint, only 1 turn passed since he received the message in turn 40 and was invaded in turn 41. Or even zero if he considers that the attack was actually initiated in turn 40. Sounds silly? Yet I've seen that happen, exactly as described.

Interesting story... I was always assuming that 3-turn notice means that if the messenger is sent on turn 39, the armies can be sent on turn 42. Thus the messenger arrives on turn 40 and invading armies on turn 43, which seem to respect the pact conditions. For this reason I usually duplicate the termination notice in-game and in email.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

alexti said:
I was always assuming that 3-turn notice means that if the messenger is sent on turn 39, the armies can be sent on turn 42.

I guess that's what most players would assume too, anyway you'll eventually find someone someday to 'interpret' that in the most favourable way (for him) if you just 'assume' things without being more explicit.

Someone should define (with surgical precision) the terms NAP, escape clause, etc. in a 'Diplomacy in Dominions' article, so we could refer to it without having to repeat the tedious stuff everytime we try to achieve a deal with another nation.

[Alneyan]

Nagot Gick Fel said:
Someone should define (with surgical precision) the terms NAP, escape clause, etc. in a 'Diplomacy in Dominions' article, so we could refer to it without having to repeat the tedious stuff everytime we try to achieve a deal with another nation.

Hmm, let's see.

* Standard time measure (known as Nagot time based on the tale of the general who had expected reinforcements to arrive one turn earlier because of a different conception of time; his Last word when he realised his mistake was "Nagot". Modern historians believe he timed his Last words a bit too late, and failed to finish the famous phrase). The standard time measure is based on the viewpoint of the receiver, and all times are based upon this view. For example, a message sent on turn 39 and scheduled to reach the target by turn 40 will belong to turn 40 in the STM system. Likewise, an offensive launched on turn 51 will effectively happen on turn 52 STM. For all other purposes, the standard time is equivalent to the variable time.

* Variable time system. In this system, time is perceived through the viewpoint of the sender. A message sent on turn 39 will take place on turn 39 VMT. A rough conVersion between standard and variable time can be done with the following formula: VTS+1=STM. Note that all times must be given in the same reference medium to avoid creating further confusion; as such, if a message sent on turn 39 standard time warns of an offensive by turn 42, turn 42 will have to be standard time as well.

* Non-Aggression Pact. This treaty means two nations have agreed not to attack each other during its duration (see above for an explanation of the various time systems). None of the involved parties may attack the other, either through mundane or magical means. Likewise, it is forbidden to launch offensives against both the provinces and the armies of the other nation. If a player fears the other nation might attack her army by mistake, it is advised to explicitely tell the other party about moves in provinces belonging to a third party.

* Non-Interference Pact. This treaty encompasses all the provisions of the above, and also prevents the two involved parties from disclosing information with other nations. For all purposes, the two nations are prohibited from meddling in each other's business, and information leak would be regarded as a breach of this treaty.

* Trade Alliance. Under this treaty, the two involved parties agree to gather their economical strength against other nations. As such, the trade allies are to share all information regarding trades with other nations, and any trade can only take place if both nations will it. For example, if Marignon and Man have a trade alliance, they both need to agree to selling weapons of magical destruction to Ermor. This treaty is mostly useful to enforce a trade blockade on another nation.

This was a standard guide for apprentice diplomats within the Celestial Empire. For graduate students, please consult the twenty-seven tomes about "Diplomacy, Furthering the Cause of the Celestial City, and Splitting Hairs".

Did you have something like this in mind Nagot, or was I digressing once more?

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Alneyan said:
Did you have something like this in mind Nagot, or was I digressing once more?

[KroolDeath]

I've got two interesting MP scenarios (at least interesting to me), that perhaps I will share when I get home from work, as long as I don't reveal too much because they are games in progress, but I think it may reveal another side of the coin.

Krool

[KroolDeath]

Great post, I too thought about making a similar post when I started, but as Thufir said, I don't think I could have done it as well.

Diplomacy in this game is interesting to me because the fact that an enemy in one game may be an ally in another, or maybe an enemy forever. The fact of the matter is, you will see each other again, either in-game, forums, etc.

I think it is probably healthy not to carry grudges out of game.

Krool