MP: Multiera Mithril Might (Started)

[Baalz]

Yep, anyone who puts up the Arcane Nexus should definitely consider any NAPs void. Also anybody who thinks Hinnom is gonna be a pushover after sitting on the forge for several turns and now having the nexus up on top of a mature blood economy fueling never ending artifact laden SCs should definitely attack me immediately to keep me from winning. It should be practically impossible to stop my frost brand wielding kings...

[militarist]

I would defenitely respect your position, if you attacked immidiately after my castings. We thought it will bother you,of course (and it should!) so I asked you if you are ok. You proposed NAP5 2 turns ago, after I had both globals. And when one of globals is off (which brought me 12 cheap hammers, and not much more of use, just I had no time). And I really had no economical possibility to build blood economy and AN was needed mostly to prevent others from casting it, as I do the most of spellcasting and fill the arcane. And at this stage of the game it is still easy to win anyone saving your face, in bounds of dimoplacy - through forming alliances, etc.
I have no army, almost have no items, btw.
I would understend such NAP breaking in 1:1 (if in 1:1 would be any place for NAPS ), or if you was 4-5th in charts.

So, your attack is still a NAP-breaking preventive action,there is not heroic situation. Your economy is much better for warfare.
Oh, that's ok. It changes nothing, in my statements. NAP was broken, it was direct diplomatic lying 2 turns before. You, of course, have some words to justify it. Any aggressor has.
We will try to fight back, of course, but my army which consists of naked Ammi-es - random 2 magic pick researches, eating all my budget and not allowing to buy any real army, is not the strongest kind of the army, and all the world should be ready to face Fomoria with 80-90 provinces in a few turns.

I'm not complaining, I'm just explaining 2 things: the future of the world, and the fact that NAPs with Fomoria in this game could be ignored, as they broke diplomacy when there still were means for it. And, being second in charts did it to win the game, not to avoid loosing (there is a thin line between 2 of these but still it's exists and makes difference).

[anonymity]

For some people, even casting Forge of the Ancients or Burden of Time is considered a violation of NAPs. I limit it to the big 3 (Utterdark, Nexus, Corruption) myself.

Now, I can see that negotiating NAPs after casting to be the big point against Baalz's case here. But had he not done that, a few turns preparation wouldn't be out of place. No rule that even though someone has no NAPs anymore, that they must attack immediately.

[militarist]

2 turns ago Hinnom proposed Fomoria 2 choices, either signing long term peace, or, if it will not be signed, or our message will be ignored - to treat our NAP3 as ended and prepare for war (we were not ready for it just as now, but fomoria was not ready either and we at least had time to protect ourselves). It was done exactly because of AN cast. I had to understand -does it make our NAP void. Fomoria didn't like the idea of war, and signed NAP5. The only thing which has changed since that moment - we have lost Forge of ancients. It's OK to stop playing dimoplacy when some cool spell is on, but saying "no, I don't want war, let's sign NAP5" and attacking, it's something worth mentioning either in a new Baalz guide "winning dimoplacy game" - how to do it and remain good in eyes of others to avoid being targeted first in all MP games, or to "Baalz' good player pledge" - some amazing ground of people behavior, which added a lot of value to community.

I'm not complaining on Baalz approach to ethics, btw. It's my second game when I've met him and I have 3d one, where we also at war. Earlier he defenitely acted in bounds of his , quite high diplomacy standards, that's the only situation which is not flawless , just it would be cool to have them described in a new guide

[Zeldor]

militarist:

Spells like: Burden of Time, Forge of the Ancients, Arcane Nexus, Astral Corruption, Gift of Nature's bounty

are considered declaration of war against everyone and make all NAPs null and void. Of course it makes you really bad if you attack someone you had NAP with and cast one of those globals later. So yes, you had a NAP, you cast Forge, you cannot consider that your NAP with him is done, if you attack him, it'll be violating NAP and you will get bad reputaion. But anyone can attack you whenever he wants. And he may say whatever he wants to cover his tracks, even saying that he is not going to attack.

It's how it works with those globals, because some [Nexus and Forge] are like putting signs "I win, try to stop me if you can". And using it with one of the most powerful nations is not helping

[militarist]

Zeldor: community creates such rules like you described with one obvious reason - to protect games from ruining by OP players who turn the game into multi-month suffering of others. It's like a revolution in a country (the closed system), a thing which is very bad in general, but without one we still would have slavery. It happens when diplomacy just has no sense anymore. Everyone sees army size chart.

And, anyway, it's in bounds of the term "non-binding diplomacy ", so i don't say that some kind of game rules are broken. Just the diplomacy ethic in MY personal understanding is broken by the player who seems to have an understanding of ethics. And the NAP can be broken not because someone cast AN - that's YOUR PERSONAL understanding of widely accepted practice, again. And this opinion ,though formally can exist, doesn't add value to the non-written rules which are developed with the main goal - to keep the game playable and bring more fun. And you just ignore the context of things which happened. You could have right to be so formal in a case it would be a written rule in this game - "who cast AN should forget about after-cast diplomacy". If you are referring to a non-written rules, then you refer to player ethics. And if you refer to ethics, you should take the current context into account.

I.E. I understand what you say in general, but any situation has details. And we know, the saying "Devil in the Details". And we are discussing not justification of attacking the one who cast AN without waiting end of NAP. It's OK with it, it's widely discussed in forums in many threads. We are discussing situation when after-AN diplomacy was made, and this, at my humble opinion, should mean something.

Edited.

[Baalz]

I understand how it could be frustrating, but to be honest I didn't notice AN was up until last turn, I though it just went up (got a notification that some global was cast, looked at the list and saw AN). If it makes my actions any clearer I dropped everything I was doing immediately when I saw AN up and threw the kitchen sink at you.

In answer to your query, NAPs are rather loosely defined in the community and what people think violates them (or gives you grounds to ignore them) varies from person to person. My own view is that signing a NAP is akin to saying that we'll stay out of each others way for now...but that is violated by anything that is done to directly disadvantage me. You incite unrest with spies, cast anonymous rituals at me, assassinate my guys, fence me in by taking all the indies around me or put up a global that materially affects me and depending on the circumstances I will feel free to make the assessment that you have not upheld the requirement of staying out of my way. Not that I think there's anything dishonorable about doing that, I'm all for trying to squeeze the most use you can out of a NAP. Just don't expect me to sit around and throw the game because of it.

[Zeldor]

militarist:

I'm not in the game any more I just checked out that thread now, as I was rather bored.

I can surely agree that it'd be good to have all that community diplo rules written down. Maybe you can work with Baalz on that or other vet. There is a large grey aread when it comes to NAPs and what can break them. But it's always better to use wider approach when thinking what to expect. NAPs are about having secure border, so you can focus on other activities. But they are certainly not for letting you win or make an attempt at winning while enemies have to cancel NAP and wait X turns.
And yes, all NAPs are binding except when stated in OP. People [most of them] do not carry grudges over games, but if someone breaks NAPs he simply won't be trusted. And will be backstabbed too.

[militarist]

Baalz, I'm not saying you are bad guy because you did it. You are perfect diplomat and I knew you will find easily the reasoning, will mix it with charisma and will explain us that what happened has already happened. Maybe you did not intend to do it like that, but welcome to new the reality everyone, anyway. I'm ok with it (actually I have no much choice ).

I just say that did you it intentionally or not, but you did it and you are going to continue using it. When you continue using something, you wouldn't do in case you noticed AN earlier, can be understood from as a practical step, and justifies your actions as Baalz for future games, but as Fomoria, you broke after-AN agreement and can (and should) be punished by others, by ignoring NAPs with you without consequences for their own reputation. And for this game, it's also a justified game-saving throw even without looking into your unintentional backstabbing - in a few turns if no one will enter the war immediately ignoring NAPs with you, it will be obvious end of game. That's all I said.

[militarist]

That's from llamaserver:

Last updated at 13:40 GMT on Friday April 9th
Current time: 23:27 GMT


Something is wrong there with clocks and updates - it doesnn't update, so we can get some unpredictable things.