Anonymous Rituals and NAPs

[Xietor]

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]

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.

[Micah]

Here's a good one: Would it be considered an exploit to rename a mage to a default name for another nation and deliberately launch a mind hunt to get caught? I think that's kind of abusing the renaming function personally, but it could be quite effective at starting a fight.

[VedalkenBear]

People have problems with this? How odd. Sure, _if you get caught_ all hell breaks loose. But this is politics speaking. NAPs are all well and good. You shouldn't be trusted if you break one. But the point is that you have to be _caught_ breaking it for it to count on the world scene.

It's all about plausible deniability, and I wonder why the spells are anonymous in the first place if not to allow a little 'plausible deniability' in your actions.

[vfb]

Micah said:
Here's a good one: Would it be considered an exploit to rename a mage to a default name for another nation and deliberately launch a mind hunt to get caught? I think that's kind of abusing the renaming function personally, but it could be quite effective at starting a fight.

Good idea! But now everyone knows this trick .

Besides, you'd have to know whether to rename the mage (for example) Citlalatonac or s2h2 or sshh or CitS2, if the nation you're trying to frame is actually using renaming ... and then it's pretty obvious if anyone's on your border and sees your commander. ("The army appears to be commanded by s2h2 the Rishi" ... )

[sum1lost]

I engage in covert ops against someone I suspect of aggresion through similar methods, and if I am very, very certain, my ops go overt.

[DonCorazon]

Or now you can use Micah's strategy as an excuse when you get caught - "wasn't me I swear! It was someone else who renamed their mage to sound like me"

Also, I agree the anonymous spells puts a little spice into the game. In a VP game, I'd fire off Blights at enemy capitals that I wasn't sure who actually controlled. I just saw the VP marker on the map and pushed the button.

Not sure if it led to any wars but it was fun.

[Xietor]

I just do not waste my gems casting rituals on nations i am not at war with. While it may weaken them, i typically have better uses for my gems.

Instead of casting tidal wave on a neutral nation, i would rather have a water mage summon 15 water trolls etc.

On occasion, if i was paid enough to make it worth the risk, I would cast a mind hunt etc on a neutral nation. But my incentive there would be to be paid well over the spell's cost. In one game I got a runesmasher for 3 mind hunts. A good deal for me in that game because i did not have the paths to make a runesmasher.

But I would not cast it on a nation with whom i had a nap for any price.

[LDiCesare]

To me, suffering from a sneaky ritual which can only be cast by someone with whom there's a NAP means the NAP is broken but I'd first contact (pm/mail/whatever) the person and get things clear. I'd probably attack immediately if the spell was preparation for an attack, or ask for repairs and attack if that's not accepted.