Question about diplomacy

[Crust]

Don't agree to a NAP you can't live with down the road. Don't break a NAP without being prepared to be known as someone who breaks NAPs.

[Herode]

Huh, I voted "yep!" but after reading this thread, I see that I misunderstood the expression : "to break a NAP".

In my mind, if I have a NAP 5 with a player and if I say : "end of the NAP, I'll attack you in 5 turns", that I called breaking the NAP. Just a normal thing. I voted "yes" with that meaning in mind.

Now, I see that "breaking a NAP" would mean here me telling the guy : "Hello ! We have a NAP 5 but I'll attack you in 2 turns anyway because [whatever]".
Here, my answer is definitely : no, I don't break any NAP because it's useless to make promises if you don't respect your word. If you've been waiting for too long before putting an end to the NAP, then it's your fault and you deserve to loose

So : no matter what the context is : a pact has to be respected. If you don't, nobody will trust you later. Period.

And please count -1 yes and +1 no on your poll.
BTW, I am amazed and worried by the number of positive votes...

[Hoplosternum]

Originally Posted by Herode

BTW, I am amazed and worried by the number of positive votes...

So am I

[Poopsi]

In general I´d say that word is bond, but a NAP (not an alliance, mind you, a NAP)? in a game where "in the end, there can be only one"?

I´d say in these circumstances a Non Aggression Pact is not as much a guarantee of peace as it is of delayed conflict. Sooner or later someone will break it.

[ano]

Don't agree to a NAP you can't live with down the road. Don't break a NAP without being prepared to be known as someone who breaks NAPs.

I have nothing to add.

BTW, I am amazed and worried by the number of positive votes...

+1

[Ironhawk]

In general, I think that (any roleplaying games aside) a player should stick to all agreements that they make. The single exception is if the other party is going to win the game out from under you. IMO, this is the only justifiable reason to violate an agreement. And even then, it should never be done lightly.

[licker]

I think the difficulty is that people value NAP differently from Alliance.

If you sign an Alliance then that is until the end of days, or until the two parties agree to break it, but honestly it sounds like the people who expect these NAPs to be arbitrarily binding don't want to actually use diplomacy.

Its all fine and well to say 'don't sign a NAP you don't want to keep' but my guess is that unless you want to force rather cumbersome definitions and conditions into your agreements it's not really worth the head ache.

More likely you'd see someone agree to one of these NAPs once, and then realize how utterly ridiculous they are and never agree to them again, so the reputation issue probably isn't as much of a consideration as people here think.

It gets back to why you play the game though, if you think you have a chance to win and realize that your 'partner' (though there are no true partners...) is going to beat you to the goal what are your choices?

If that's your approach just go AI and be done with it.

[thejeff]

There is a difference between being completely untrustworthy where NAPs and other deals have no meaning whatsoever and breaking a pact to avoid losing the game.

Would I trust someone less who did this? Yes. Especially when I started to get too powerful.

Would I never trust them again? No. I have no reason to believe he'd break a deal under normal circumstances. Breaking a deal to keep someone from winning is different than breaking one just to grab some of their land (or whatever.) And he didn't sneak attack, but gave 3 turns of warning.

Personally, I suspect the main lesson is to avoid long-term pacts like this one. The game can change too much, too quickly. I have made deals for peace until a particular enemy is beaten, but that's much more situational.

[konming]

Breaking NAP when the other party grows too powerful reflects either his poor judgement (when signing the NAP) or his poor character. Either way, I personally would not sign anything in good faith with him ever again.

We offered you that truce because we felt f@$cking hopeless. Ask my teammate if you wish. We saw that your opponents fall one by one, we didnt see ANY way we can change that, so we decided - to hell with this game, lets just sign a treaty with them and have some fun against somebody else before its over.

I think this is a good example. One party seems desperate not to be an target and proposed a NAP so the powerful party will attack someone else. When the weaker party became not so desperate (maybe under the protection of said NAP) and maybe even has a chance to win, he finds his previous dealing inconvinient. Well, you be the judge.

[Dedas]

Ah, the good old NAP discussion. Just wanted to say I voted YES. If you want to know why just do a simple search on NAPs. There are plenty to choose from.