Question about diplomacy

[WingedDog]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

The "no break" napper puts a lot of time and energy into one of these games

If by "time and energy" you mean buying a lot of province defence, sending scouts everywhere, putting effort in magic intelligence, studying the scoregraphs to know what's going on in the world, and having a plan B (C,D,E,F, etc) if something goes wrong - YES, seems like a PERFECT target to me. Try to backstab someone with this description, I'm sure you succeed.

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

hoping to get a good ally, or at least a reliable neutral.

Oh, the victory condition was to find a good ally? Why didn't anyone told me about that? So much time down the drain...

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

Even if the attack does not succeed, it leaves such a taste in ones mouth, he really doesn't want to play the game.

Thats the spirit wars are usually won with!

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

People that are "hohum" nappers have written about how much fun it is looking for the right opportunity to backstab. Great. Fun for you. Not at *ALL* fun for a lot of us.

Don't say a word, it's really upsetting when someone strikes on you in the wargame with "destroy them all" objective.

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

I don't want Nap or No Nap games - I just want to know what standards OTHER people are playing under.

But seriously, what is wrong with a sticky thread where handles are registered something like

1: will break a nap in a heartbeat.
3: Will break a nap in duress
4: Will break a nap to prevent game loss
5: Won't break a Nap


So then all that would be necessary would be to rate -

SnowWhite 4
Gurmpy - 5
GlointheDark 1

A good suggestion indeed. I would also suggest to add a special victory condition for nations played by people with tag 5: "Build a spaceship and fly to Alpha Centauri".

Just play and consider everyone is tag 1, it would save you some nerve.

[Dedas]

Just how I feel WingedDog.

Please stop this silliness that we all should obey your rules when the game (yes, it is a game) says otherwise.

Oh, and if anyone wants to play a game with different objectives than the default ones, that is fine by me, just state it before the game starts so that everyone can agree upon it.

[konming]

Well, no one is forcing you to obey "their" rules. There likely is nothing they can do in game for your liberal breaching of NAP. The real silly thing is, there are those who breach NAPs and then hate other people for talking about it.

The real funny thing is, despite all the excuses, no one in this thread is acknowledging he will freely break NAP when it suits him. After all the "intrigue" talk that is quite a strange thing.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Dedas

Just how I feel WingedDog.

Please stop this silliness that we all should obey your rules when the game (yes, it is a game) says otherwise.

Both you and winged dog have just demonstrated the attitude and sarcasm I spoke about in the original post.

Almost half of the shrapnel community feels differently than you do: rather than respecting their opinion and agreeing to disagree you deride it as "silliness".

My suggestion would increase the enjoyment of about half the people - and do nothing to impede the satisfaction of the other half, and take little effort.

Your suggestion leaves a sizeable perentage of the population unhappy.

Look: Case in point. I picked up a position in Jotunland, where the original player was in contention for either the first or second place.

He was backstabbed by Winged - when he thought he had a NAP. It upset him so much that he dropped out of the game.

Now, everyone in the game loses, as they had to find a sub, and the sub had to get familiar with the position, and probably played inferior to the original player.

And no, I don't think its silly to try to avoid situations like this arising.

Lastly, just to correct an error of fact...

"Please stop this silliness that we all should obey your rules when the game (yes, it is a game) says otherwise"

The game does not say otherwise - the game is silent on the question of what is socially acceptable, and what is not. Indeed, there has been considerable discussion about what constitutes cheating; what constitutes an exploit; what should and should not be allowed in a game.

That consensus was formed here. Its why things like MoD mods were made; while copying Bogus's order is usually banned; etc.
And its a significant issue enough that I think it probably should be part of the game setup for every game - just like bug exploits.

[licker]

Well the 'back stabber' crowd (though I think that's an inaccurate description, but whatever) wants you to do exactly what you are seemingly trying to do.

That is come up with all the rules and regulation *YOU* expect in your NAPs before anyone has to agree to something which you (generally, not personally) then decide later isn't what you thought everyone understood it to be.

Its simple, make the caveats in your NAPs iron clad, or accept the fact that they simply are tools of temporary convenience. I would imagine it is rare for someone to sign a NAP with the full intention of breaking it, rather as events transpire in the game which forces them to have to reconsider the value of the NAP they make their decision as to whether or not its worth 'breaking'.

Again, all of this is rendered moot by not agreeing to these ultraridiculous limiting NAPs in the first place, and yes, that means that even if you want that kind of NAP you need to be sure that the other party understands exactly what you think he's getting into.

But yes, there is always a price to be paid if you break any agreement, no one disputes that, however, the notion of some master list of who's a 'good' player and who's a 'bad' player is going to be so completely subjective and fraught with arguments over who broke what when that I think it would be more distraction and hard feelings than its worth.

[Dedas]

@chrispedersen
The only part of the community I do not respect is the part that tries to force their social rules down everyone's throat. If you want to add social rules to the game rules you are free to do that (as I've wrote above) and if I join such a game I will of course respect those rules. But don't try to tell me that specific social rules is needed to play the game "right". The game has its own rules and boundaries clearly stated by the code. Breaking those rules however, is not acceptable and is to be considered cheating.

On this forum there are social rules, we are not "in-game" here if not otherwise stated.

[Szumo]

My question is, why did you even warn the other team you were going to break the NAP? If you're going to, go ahead and backstab them fully so you get the most advantage out of it.

[Agema]

It's a middle way.

Respecting or breaking NAPs is about a scale with honourable conduct and good reputation at one end, and game effectiveness at the other. Cutting short a NAP but still giving some warning trades off some of the effectiveness to recover some of the damage to reputation. Obviously, you'd need a long (5+ turns) NAP to make a middle way viable, which is a position most players wouldn't be in.

[Archonsod]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

Look, "hohum" nappers have a tactical advantage in the game - but I think they should at least be willing to meet the "no break" nappers half way. Just say up front in the game I'm a hohum napper.

You could apply the same to the no break nappers. Again though, it's all about setting out the expectations for the game before you start playing. If I'm in a game where NAP's are unbreakable then I'm going to have a different criteria for signing a NAP than I am in a game where I'm free to break a NAP at any point, for obvious reasons. It's no fun for any player to suddenly find out the rules are different to what they thought mid-way through the game.

I would say the anger is compounded because efforts to compile a list of either "ho hum" nappers or "no break" nappers have been disallowed (aka threads frozen).

If nobody has stated beforehand that NAPS are unbreakable then you can't blame a player for thinking otherwise; after all there's no recognition in the game for diplomacy. The same applies in reverse naturally. In both cases the fault isn't necessarily with the player, it's the fault of all players involved in the game for not agreeing beforehand how diplomacy would be handled. Of course, in a case where the rules have been agreed and a player still breaks them then the host should take action, but I'm not sure that would be a matter for the forum.

But seriously, what is wrong with a sticky thread

Too much bait for flaming. We can't verify whether someone should be pilloried for breaking a nap or whether it's a case of sour grapes or a simple misunderstanding. You'd have nothing but arguments and accusations as a result of it.

A better solution would simply be to ask the person hosting or looking to get the game together to state in the description what level of political intrigue is expected. As long as everyone is aware when joining the game whether to expect NAPS to be broken, permanent or not then they have no cause to complain.

[llamabeast]

I've never broken an NAP, and probably never will. Nevertheless, I'm not sure it's really fair to get angry at NAP-breakers when it's never been explicitly stated that people have to stick to agreements made.

I expect that last statement will annoy people - surely you don't have to have it explicitly stated that you'll stick to agreements? That should be a part of normal human decency, you'd say. Well, you have to view this in the context of a couple of points:

1) This is essentially a role-playing game. You're role-playing a power-hungry god (or perhaps a benevolent god, or perhaps an insane god). Such a god might well make agreements and then break them. Not all players play in character, but you have to have respect for those that do, not least because they generally contribute a lot of fun to the game.

2) Almost all other wargames take it as read that agreements may be freely broken. In some games, like Diplomacy, the constant threat of back-stabbing is an integral part of the game. Many players come here from those other games and have no idea about the unusual conventions that exist here. They may well break an NAP, and then be startled and upset when people get angry at them.

KO himself was quite surprised to hear that NAPs are often considered inviolable in Dominions. When he found out, he commented, as I remember, that he didn't think it was a very good convention.

Now, I must admit that I don't really mind either way between games where NAPs must be adhered to, and there's where there is no such requirement. Well, probably I prefer the ones where NAPs are binding. However, I think it's very important that people start stating explicitly what kind of game each game is going to be. If it wasn't stated in the first post that NAPs were binding, I'm not sure it's fair to get angry if you are backstabbed.

So people, next time you join an MP game, make sure to ask what the NAP policy is if it hasn't already been stated. This way, everyone can play in games of the type they like and there'll be no more need for any upset.