Question about diplomacy

[Kuritza]

Originally Posted by konming

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.

Fail. We were not going to be their next target, absolutely. We just knew they are going to win game, I was worried about Agartha/Tien Chi combination since turn 1, and we wanted to have our share of fun as well. And we had.
But other parties asked me to reconsider the truce, urgently and repeatedly. So I did what I though will be right - proposed to break the NAP that allows them to win this game unchallenged, and even give them 3 turns to prepare as if we had a standard agreement.

Anyway - screw this, I'm waiting for turn 60. Not worth the nerves, I have already been called a liar by a liar in this thread.
Oh, and of course as someone's said, I'm not entering long-term agreements anymore. Something to be learned out of this game.

[Edratman]

I love these MP threads that make it to the main forum. ALWAYS interesting.

I voted No.

You agreed to a set of conditions and they didn't work out in your favor. So what. As you said, "It's just a game".

Learn and go on. It is more honorable to keep your word. And that is life honor, not game honor.

Ask yourself what your thoughts would be if you were on the better side of the agreement. How would you feel if somone proposed to renege on an agreement because it was futile for them to continue?

"It's just a game." I'm guessing here, but I'm willing to bet that the entrance exam at heaven doesn't ask about your won/lost record in Dom3 MP but probably will ask if you ever broke your word.

[Crust]

Originally Posted by licker

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.

Any agreement that lasts a fixed amount of time is dangerous since you don't know what the future brings. If the agreement is for a long time it's pretty much guaranteed it will begin to hurt one party before it ends. I'd avoid such pacts.

[licker]

As would I, but I'm thinking more that there are two camps of people, those who assume NAPs as permanent unbreakable restrictive walls, and those who don't look at the fine print (even when it doesn't exist).

Obviously to get around this you have to either be willing to accept a somewhat underspecified NAP getting broken (so long as reasonable reason is given) or you have to hammer in all the clauses you are worried about.

In the case specified here I would be fine (though unhappy) with the NAP being broken as outlined (with 'fair' warning). Its not as though the breaker is doing a surprise attack.

Diplomacy should be more than just NAP to turn 60 and then stop talking.

[Aapeli]

I think people should include some information about the meaning of naps in the game in to the first post when they post about the game. Meaning that they should tell what naps stand for him, the host, and what everybody should think about them in that game. I tend to think it makes the game more interesting if agreements are nothing but mere words, as in real life. But of course its just my opinion.

[WraithLord]

Enter dominions III the game of high fantasy and bloody wars, Err the game of pen and paper and crafty lawyers

Just kidding though it would seem dom community is much too honorable, given that we're talking about a game, and that we're not talking break a NAP+3 or something. We're talking about breaking a long term NAP that gives one side a victory and the other a sure loss.

But anyway, as a player who never broke a NAP in the past I'm probably not a good indication of the un-honorable.

[licker]

Honestly back when I was doing MP Dom2 I don't remember NAPs being this big of a sticking point. Then again it may have just been the group of guys I normally MPed with. NAPs were occasionally broken early, but rarely with a surprise attack, unless the surprise led to an immediate victory (and in that case more power to the winner...).

Seems to me if you rely solely on the NAP to defend yourself and your NAPper can basically crush you out with a coordinated strike that's on you, not him. Of course if all he can do is poach a couple of provinces then its pretty stupid of him to break the NAP.

I don't know, maybe I'm more paranoid than most, but at some point in the game you have to figure everyone who has a chance is going to try to actually win and not just wait around for someone else to do it.

As I said earlier, if that's your expectation play in defined team games, or exercise more care in your diplomatic dealings with your neighbors.

[Darkwind]

I skipped the whole argument which seems to be about the MP situation that preceded this thread and say that yes, if you're about to lose (or think you will) I think you should go for it and break the treaty. They're words, nothing more, and this is not real life but a game. From a role-playing standpoint, no wannabe god is going to let someone (or something) else take his (her, or its) fame. From a game standpoint, well, it's much funner to lose fighting to the bitter end in an epic war full of many SCs, powerful mages, and massive aermies (massive armies optional) then to lose because your enemy could defeat you within a year due to you not having the cojones to break your NAP and save yourself. Not that there's anything wrong with honor; the diplomatic ramifications of breaking an NAP are generally going to be far and wide and possibly involve being steamrolled by elephants within the first year of another game because you broke an NAP once (maybe with someone else).

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by Kuritza

>> It was proposed by Kuritza's team because they thought they could grow very, very fat by the time turn 60 is reached.
You try to put words in my mouth, dont you? 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.

It still begs the question "why make a NAP with someone who sees it like this?".

So, if you had approached Ano, and instead of saying, "Hi, we would like a mutual NAP until turn 60 so we can focus on other people", you had instead said, "OMG please leave us alone until we find the opportune time to kick you in the balls". -- Do you think that he would have accepted.

Erego, if you arbitrarily break the agreement that had a set ending point (this is why people favor ordinary NAP3 BTW, 3 turns notice is given, and honor is preserved), then it becomes harder for others to trust you later. There is a bit of "suspension of disbelief" involved in diplomacy in games like this. It is foolish to claim that anyone thinks they are not benefiting from their diplomacy - even when violently forced, they enter that agreement because it is a more promising option than death. So again, why should anyone spare you from death, if they know you will just strike back from the shadows?


People like to fall back to "RP reasoning" for all of this. It's bullocks. The pretenders would not toss NAPs around like people do, so if you play 3/4 of the game out as a person, with human reasoning, then it's quite unfair to in the late game suddenly say, "But my pretender hates you vile scum, and will do anything to see you perish!". Well, THAT entity likely would never have signed a peace agreement, or vice versa. You just can't have it both ways. Thematically, diplomacy should be almost nonexistent in this game. So by objective reasoning, 90% of all agreements you make, have no basis but your human, gameplaying machinations. So if you break a treaty out of hand, it is you doing it.


So to sum up - if you make a treaty, you bought the results, it was your choice. If you break a treaty, you can also hardly complain about the repercussions, it was your choice.

[ano]

WraithLord

Just kidding though it would seem dom community is much too honorable, given that we're talking about a game, and that we're not talking break a NAP+3 or something. We're talking about breaking a long term NAP that gives one side a victory and the other a sure loss.

I still don't see any difference between these agreements. Once again, it was their suggestion and decision to enter such agreement and if they did enter it they should be responsible for the consequences.
Btw, I understand everything but saying "sure loss" is a bit early and you overestimate our powers. It is only turn 52 now and 13 nations alive. Some are stronger, some are weaker but there's no absolute and unquestionable leader who is higher as all the others. Yes, we have power, yes, we have some sc's but we are not THAT powerful now as you try to describe.