RFE: no trading

[Archonsod]

HoneyBadger said:
Outlawing alliances would probably be the most powerful step that could be taken. I don't know how easily you could sniff out cheaters though-and monitoring everyone for cheating isn't really very fun, is it? and like Twan said, it's absurd to expect that particular "law" to be followed well by everyone.

If someone is going to cheat, there's not a thing you can do to stop them. As Gandalf said, even removing the entire diplomacy/trade system from the game won't prevent someone determined to trade. Even if you blocked that aspect of Dominions, there's nothing to stop them communicating via their personal email address or any number of methods with which they could co-operate.
I don't see the need of a toggle for that reason. If you agree beforehand there's to be no alliances and someone decides to cheat then turning off diplomacy won't prevent it, merely move it to less obvious methods.
I also don't think it should be removed from the game entirely. It should be up to me whether my God is willing to use other pretenders to achieve his goal or not

[TwoBits]

Remember, the Nazis and Soviets were "allies" (or at least had a non-aggression pact) once upon a time. They carved up Poland together, and even traded things like oil and weapons (= gems and magic items).

Just goes to show that even so-called "natural enemies" can make temporary bargains.

[DrPraetorious]

I think, in fact, that it is healthy and natural for people to gang up on weaker or stronger opponents. As the Hitler-Stalin example illustrates, this is the sort of thing different religions, even if they completely hate one another by dogma, would do for their own self interest.

The problem I have, so far, is with non-agression pacts. Players of dom3 have read too much game theory, or are too honest, or whatever, and are TOO TRUSTWORTHY.

As yet, I have never had the terms of a NAP betrayed - I've had wars after a NAP expired, but even those are rare. I feel kinda silly complaining about this, but the fact that everyone keeps their word makes non-agression pacts too attractive.

Maybe I just haven't played MP with a diverse enough crowd - but in ferion, for example (www.ferion.com), people trech (or bend the words of a non-binding treaty) all the time. Of course, ferion has built in, game mechanical, binding treaties - so these agreements are between alliances (i.e. alliance 1 and 2 agree to attack alliance 3 until it is dead, but alliance 2 attacks alliance 1 slightly before alliance 3 is finished off.)

To this end, I think game mechanical support for alliances, NAP etc. might almost be preferable, as players might then feel free to trech on non-binding gentleman's agreements etc. But this opens up an entire diplomatic can of worms that might ruin the (highly attractive) simplicity of dom3 politics, so I think it's probably more trouble than it's worth (coding difficulty aside.)

Anyhoo - if you have a gentleman's agreement to not communicate out of game, and if all in-game messages are suspended, that ought to be sufficient. You'll still get an occasional pre-arranged cheater, but approaching your neighbor and offering a NAP (if it is forbidden to do so) is probably enough of a risk that people wouldn't do it.