I and several other lawyer friends of mine have been playing risk-based games since law school, previously online Risk and warfish.net (which is a far inferior forum to wargear.net) and now here at wargear. After many hours debating and adjudicating about the proper ways to fulfill and end agreements in this game, we have managed to fashion a pretty fair set of rules and standards for making truces and alliances.

At the outset, let me tell you that these standards are simply defaults. If you agree to do something different, do something different.

Take them for what they're worth, but I would hate for the years of study-hours and time we should have been paying attention in class to go to waste. Feel free to supplement this thread as you like. If you agree with these rules, I recommend you paste a link to this thread into any dimplomacy agreement you make.

1. Beginning an agreement:

A truce is a no-attack rule. An alliance is generally a truce combined with an agreement to work together on something (i.e. take down the strongest player on the board). There is no agreement unless both parties confirm. One party offers. The other party accepts. Now both parties are bound. It is not an agreement to simply say "Hey can you stop attacking me?" without confirmation. Even if the other party stops, he can begin again at any time without being a truce-breaker.

2. Ending a truce:

This is probably where the most bitter fights come in, but they should not.

The person who wants to end the truce gives 1-turn notice, so that the other party can attack first. This is important. Foremost, it prevents sudden, unilateral dissolutions of a truce, which deafeat the purpose of having a truce in the first place. The best way to prevent this is to require that the person who wants to end it gives the other person the opportunity to attack first. Secondly, it forces people to think twice about entering into a truce.

To be clear: You cannot suddenly end a truce just because your truce-mate got big and became a threat to you. You cannot end it just because he put a bunch of troops on your mutual border. You are not giving "1-turn notice" if you give it after they have already taken their turn and their opportunity to attack first has already passed. It is not enough to say "If you do X, I will attack you," because that does not give them the opportunity to attack first. Man up and stick to your word. If your word hurt you, reasess how freely you give it.

The exception: When you are down to 2 players, the purpose for the truce no longer exists. We have not developed a hard-and-fast rule about whether you still have to give notice because it is inevitable that the two players will attack each other. This can get complicated in fog games where it is difficult to tell whether you're down to two players. As a rule, if I think I have killed all the other players and I am pretty sure I am going to win, I let the other person take a shot at me first when we're down to 2. If we are down to 2 and I am not so sure I am going to win, I don't take chances.   

3. Manning up:

Man up. You are expected to see a truce through until you or your truce-mate gives notice. The purpose of making a truce is so that each player can rely on not being attacked by their truce-mate. If you attack without notice, you collapse the purpose for the truce. Call it 'cheating,' 'backstabbing,' or 'truce-breaking,' someone who violates these rules deserves every bit of the flame they get on the in-game chat and every one of the nasty things that are posted on their wall. 

To enforce people abiding by their word, I advocate that everyone on the map assaults someone who clearly violated their truce. Of course, nobody is required to join in, but it keeps players honest.  

Suck it up and go down with the truce you made. If it turns out to hurt you in the end, that is reason to reasess your strategy and think twice before you truce, not to backstab someone who played the game better than you.

4. Localized truces:

Localized truces are usefull on big maps where you may need peace in one area, but you may need to fight in another. There are two kinds of localized truces that I have seen, the border truce and the recognition truce.

As its name implies, the border truce agrees not to attack across a specific border ("Hey can we have a truce on the russia-poland border?"). This does not bind either player to truce on other parts of the map. It does not even bind the other players with regard to the same countries from different angles. In the example above, for instance, the Russian could still attack Poland from Scandanavia, etc.  

I think the recognition truce is superior, but suit yourself. In a recognition truce, the truce-mate agrees not to attack an entire country. ("Red: Hey Blue, if I do X for you, you will recognize that Germany is mine, ok?").

An IMPORTANT aspect of this agreement is that the recognized country is recognized as the truce-mates', no matter how well he is holding onto it. If in the example above, even Red gets invaded by Yellow, Blue still recognizes Germany as Red's so long as Red still holds a single territory within that country. Blue can attack Yellow in the recognized country, but he cannot attack Red and he cannot inhibit Red's recapture of the country by leaving more than 1's in the territories within. Furthermore, Blue recognizes Germany as Red's until Red shows a complete incapacity to take the country back after one turn. If Yellow is holding all of the country and collecting bonuses off of it, Blue now has a right to invade.  

5.  Hybrids

There is nothing wrong with a hybrid agreement. "If you attack Yellow in Scandanavia, I will recognize Germany as yours." etc.

Problems occur when parties agree to smaller truces that roll into larger ones and then they want to end those truces. For instance, Blue and Red agree to a truce in Poland and Russia at the beginning of the game and then agree to a truce between France and Spain later- or an overall truce later.

I am a believer that truces should be ended just as piecemeal as they began because it eliminates arguments. If Blue wants to end the France-Spain agreement and gives 1-turn notice, the Russia-Poland agreement is still binding. Red cannot attack from Russia to Poland, etc. If Blue and Red agreed to a map-wide truce after agreeing to a localized truce, they can repeal the map-wide truce without repealing the localized truce. Sound weird? Try to do it any other way and watch the arguments ensue.  

6. Multilateral agreements and selling out your truce-mate:

Just because you have a truce, you do not own the other player's heart and soul. They not only have a right to make truces and alliances with other players too, but they also have a right to plot against you with those players. A truce-mate deserves to get the benefit of the hard work and energy put into a game and the more intracately he strategizes, the more he deserves to gain or lose by his work. It may be nefarious for a person in a truce to actively encourage others to attack his truce-mate, but there is no reason why it should be prohibited. Watch out, though. Too much plotting can annoy other players, hurt your credibility, and backfire! If you're overly sneaky, you probably have it coming.

An alliance is different. When you make an alliance in an effort to achieve a mutual goal, you ask your partner to stop watching his back and start helping you. It is a violation of the spirit of the alliance to ask someone to help you attack another while encouraging an assault upon him. 

7. Prohibiting dimplomacy

If a host does not want diplomacy in his game, he should say so in the title or elsewhere. All players should respect this. Nobody made you join that game, so respect the rules of the game or don't join.

Like I said, these are defaults. If you agree with them, paste a link to this thread into your agreements. Many lawyers almost killed each other to make the fairest system possible! Enjoy!

Nice set of guidelines.  I sometimes find it useful to keep things purposefully vague 'encouragements'. i.e. "Let's stop attacking each other for a while so blue doesn't run away with this".

Also, occasionally I will make treaties/alliances that have some other well defined terminator - like "until the first player is taken out" or "for 3 turns" or something.

This is a high contribution you did, Generalissimo. Thanks a lot. No doubt I will paste the link.

I also thought of doing that but it is so hard for me to write in proper english...

My (quite long) experience is indeed that ending the truce is the most difficult thing. Whether you have agreed on a 1-turn or even 2-turn notice, you always have to explain again and again what it means precisely.

IMO the best would be, after it will have been discussed here, to set a few standard truce agreements so you will be able to say : "Hey Red, what about a truce G3 (G for Generalissimo) between us ?" then "Ok, if you prefer a truce G2, it's a deal".

Toto wrote:

My (quite long) experience is indeed that ending the truce is the most difficult thing. Whether you have agreed on a 1-turn or even 2-turn notice, you always have to explain again and again what it means precisely

That's one reason I think it would be cool to have the truce enforced by the game engine.  No question about what the terms mean.  I know that's not a popular enhancement around here.

Ozyman wrote:

Toto wrote:

My (quite long) experience is indeed that ending the truce is the most difficult thing. Whether you have agreed on a 1-turn or even 2-turn notice, you always have to explain again and again what it means precisely

That's one reason I think it would be cool to have the truce enforced by the game engine.  No question about what the terms mean.  I know that's not a popular enhancement around here.

I agree it would be nice to have it enforced but I don't know how it could work. I believe it would be too complicated. Even in a truce you often need to attack your truce-mate territories if it's not one of his continents for example. Or even go through one of his continents (especialy on boards where spme bonuses are worth 1 army)  to reach the common ennemy.

I'm just going to play devil's advocate:  I agree that the above listed rules are best if you're trying to play nice.  If I can paraphrase the great BlackDog:  "The key to truces, is knowing when to break them."  Since when is the game of Risk about being cordial?  It's part of the game to make a truce, knowing full well that anyone can break it at any time.  No?

BorisTheFrugal wrote:

I'm just going to play devil's advocate:  I agree that the above listed rules are best if you're trying to play nice.  If I can paraphrase the great BlackDog:  "The key to truces, is knowing when to break them."  Since when is the game of Risk about being cordial?  It's part of the game to make a truce, knowing full well that anyone can break it at any time.  No?

It's also a slippery slope of an argument.. If anyone can break it at any time, was it ever a truce in the first place?  ..I'm agreeing with you Boris.

I'm finding the whole exercise very humorous, and especially because lawyers are involved. When I've play against some of the best players on this site, never has one of them offered me a truce.  Now that may very well be because they always conspire against me, but I doubt it.  I've said it before, but I think the best players on this site have a keen sense of where the balance of power is, and for them truces are implied, and never explicitly stated.  To re-paraphrase the great BlackDog..

"I'll never make them, but I'll take them ..and woe to me if I'm not the first to break them."

1) There is nothing great about a player who names himself after an inferior Led Zeppelin song and then uses the wrong album cover as an avatar. Just saying...Black Dog was the beginning of the end and the embarrassment of it was undoubtedly what caused John Bonham to drink himself to death.

2) Boris and M57, I agree that you need not engage in diplomacy to be a great player and, considering how much time it takes, I would rather not do it.

I disagree that it's OK to agree to a truce and then backstab the person you agreed with. For the same reason that it's not OK welch on debts. It's the differnence between being a boy and a man. Nobody said you have to be cordial. You just don't have to be a douche.

Then it's probably good thing I don't enter into them..   (I couldn't find a douche emoticon)

just my 2 cents, but a truce should be made public. i realize this is a online game, but if you were playing at home i don't think you would sneek in the bedroom with someone and discuss a truce, you would just say it out loud at the table. but then i remember a link to a blurb with hitler playing risk and he was ousted by a private truce from his commrads. that was a funny link.

tl;dr

This is ridiculous.  This is War Gear, not Lace-cuffed Diplomacy Gear.  You have fun with all of that, and keep turning your nose up at all of the 'cheaters' when you lose.

edit: I should also say I don't offer truces, but I will go along if someone offers me something worthwhile.  To me the best truces are implied by mutual understanding and don't require acknowledgement.

I make use of private negotiations generally only when a game is tactically very complicated, as in a recent 3-way slog on War of the Ring with Attila and SquintGnome where I had ceasefire agreements with one or the other at key points in the game, often over particular borders or regions of the map. This was necessary for the sake of coordination to keep the balance of power in the game.

The other time I will make use of private negotiations is when a particular player seems to be too obtuse to quit suiciding against me despite the fact that it will only result in mutual destruction -- some players have to have things spelled out for them to get it!

On the whole, except for these isolated cases, I tend to avoid private messaging for strategy. It's usually not worth it, and you can get yourself in a firefight if there's a misunderstanding of some sort, which happened to me in a game of Infection once. That was not fun, so I avoid that sort of thing now.

+1 to Kjeld.  Plus, I would like to add that I think truces add a lot of substance to the gaming experience because it allows you to have a chance to compete in a game where perhaps bad luck put you in an untenable position.  It is also reflective of the real world where diplomacy always exists.  What is also neat is that truce breakers also exist in the real world so they add flavor too. 

As I mentioned before I will occassionally make truces and will never break them. But deciding to break a truce is a legitimate tactic, although in my opinion it is not an ideal strategy because once others learn your tactic you will not be able to employ it and you have prevented your ability to make truces since no one will trust you. 

There is nothing great about a player who names himself after an inferior Led Zeppelin song and then uses the wrong album cover as an avatar. Just saying...Black Dog was the beginning of the end and the embarrassment of it was undoubtedly what caused John Bonham to drink himself to death.

I can only assume you are being sarcastic?

To re-paraphrase the great BlackDog..
"I'll never make them, but I'll take them ..and woe to me if I'm not the first to break them."

If only I was poetic, I would be unstoppable!

Generalissimo wrote: Many lawyers almost killed each other to make the fairest system possible!

Well, at least some good came of my actions ;)

I don't think I need to echo most other's here, but your reaction to someone breaking a truce is hilarious. I'll remember next time to give you a 2 turn notice I plan to stab you in the back...

Generalissimo: I gotta say, sometimes making rules so that things are safer, or more enjoyable for people -on the whole- is a good thing.

In a competitive board game like risk, where you are - by design - supposed to kill the other guy, it depends on dice, and you have no other options than to be "not fair" all the necessary rules are built in.

A savvy player would cut through your added bureaucracy like a Hot Axe through Zym.

However, there is a place for structured alliancing, but it's in a different game. I'm going to try to make a board based on the game diplomacy for you, so that you can use your gifts for fun.

Law exists only to prevent justice :P