Is it just me or has there been a whole lot less messaging and alliance talk going on in the last few months?

I think it's just you. Who would want to ally with a back-stabber ?

 http://www.wargear.net/games/view/289332

I maintain you were a sissy on that one.

Extension to the thread thanks to Toto....if you have an alliance with someone who is obviously going to win in a couple of turns is it wrong to break it? And is the offended person who wins anyway a total whiner if they complain about it and then make you an enemy?

I hope there is less alliances forming.  I think they are distracting and dislike the drama that surrounds the making and inevitable breaking of them.

How could you backstab the mouse xray? For shame, for shame!

Xrayjay wrote:

Extension to the thread thanks to Toto....if you have an alliance with someone who is obviously going to win in a couple of turns is it wrong to break it? And is the offended person who wins anyway a total whiner if they complain about it and then make you an enemy?

#1 I would say you should make truces with ending criteria like (1 turn warning), three players remaining, etc. so you don't have to break them.  

#2 I guess you should ask which is more important to you: the slightly increased advantage in that one game or your permanent reputation?   Intentionally break your word to me and you'll never get a 2nd opportunity.  

itsnotatumor wrote:

#2 I guess you should ask which is more important to you: the slightly increased advantage in that one game or your permanent reputation?   Intentionally break your word to me and you'll never get a 2nd opportunity.  

 

+1

Someone who breaks an alliance once is very likely to do it again.

I think it would be cool to have the option of playing with site-enforced structured truces. For example, you might send a request for a no-attack truce for 3 turns to a player who decides to accept or decline. The truces could be very specific (across a border) or more general. Upon acceptance, the site engine would simply not allow attacks violating the truce. This suggestion is off-topic and even a bit weird, but I like to throw it out there every so often.

Even though I rarely use alliances, I do like the unstructured nature of them, even with all of the backstabbing and whining.

+1 Hugh.  I mentioned this a long time ago, and got little response, but I think it's an awesome idea.   Could interact with fog in fun ways too & maybe even have territories that provide view to others treaties.

+1 But that one, I'm afraid, would seem like a rather large undertaking for Tom.

Xrayjay wrote:

Extension to the thread thanks to Toto....if you have an alliance with someone who is obviously going to win in a couple of turns is it wrong to break it? And is the offended person who wins anyway a total whiner if they complain about it and then make you an enemy?

I would say that generally speaking the breaking of an alliance depends on how you originally wrote your agreement.  Since yours with Toto looks to have been written in a concrete manner then you have to stick it out till you're down to the final two and hope you are in the better position, or give that dreaded 1 turn notice.  Considering you offered a 1 turn notice, then broke it, you were in the wrong in this case.  Personally, I'm not into 1 turn notices as if you get to a point that you need to give it, either you're so far behind that the other person will take the first strike after you give notice and crush you or else you are so far ahead that it was just a formality to complete your run of the game.  This is unless you also very specifically say that whomever calls the one turn notice also gets first strike and the other can just brace for it.  But, with 1 turn notices I'm never sure which way that is unless I clarify and usually just avoid them all together.  It's also not so fun to win by simply holding your "ally" to a rigid agreement and expect them to play the martyr.

I find it's usually better to make alliances a little more flexible and conditional upon the state of the game.  For instance, if someone is clearly dominating the board then it would be good for the next two strongest players to make an alliance so that they can both retain a shot at winning the game, a mutually beneficial alliance.  In that case the alliance can be broken fairly once the the original board leader is no longer leading.  This way you also don't get too complacent and leave your borders with your "ally" too weak... I find with flexible alliances you'll mutually agree (by word or by action) at a certain number, or whatever, but, you're not going to leave a string of 1's along your border and you might even stack one territory in for some insurance, especially as the leader starts to topple, then the new arms race begins as you are both constantly evaluating the board state to try and determine the right time to make your move, at which point, an alliance might form elsewhere against you if you've now become the clear board leader, and, if I were the one taking the lead, I would expect my old ally now to be free to turn on me.  I think alliances should be fluid and dynamic based on the game state and I don't expect people to fall on their own daggers to honour a treaty when written in a flexible manner.  Every player should always be playing what they perceive as their best chance to Win!  I find such games whether the alliances are written or even simply just implied to be pretty fun as the game leader might shift a few times in the game and makes for an entertaining up and down game.  The only caveat here is that sometimes players somehow interpret a flexible treaty to be concrete, usually right after you are forced to attack them because they have become the leader and they were hoping to lean against that alliance to victory, but, no quote will be forth coming to say otherwise to your actions ;-)

I'm not sure of when you made the alliance with Toto in that game that is linked, but, more to the point, I don't really understand why?  He looked to have a pretty well defended position in the South West of Europe, you in the South East, but, I wasn't seeing a clear leader worth allying against, and it's never good to lock yourself into an alliance with someone who might become the strongest guy on the board as that just leads down the road to playing the traitor or the martyr, which is exactly where you found yourself.  I know sometimes the two strongest players might ally to crush the rest of the field, but, that's a tough alliance to enter into unless you can be sure that you have an edge somehow that will put you ahead after the field was cleared and I wasn't seeing that.

Best thing to do though is just to be very careful in how you write em and how you read em and ask for clarification at the beginning if either party is not clear.

Oh, I totally stabbed in him the back without warning after I had proposed a concrete one turn warning. Me = guilty. But I was surprised by how emotional (private messaging) his response was and that he immediately made me an enemy. Its called WarGear, not FuzzyFriendGear.

Sadly - every alliance has to end, you're only hope is that the other player can understand that. 

Xrayjay wrote:

Oh, I totally stabbed in him the back without warning after I had proposed a concrete one turn warning. Me = guilty. But I was surprised by how emotional (private messaging) his response was and that he immediately made me an enemy. Its called WarGear, not FuzzyFriendGear.

+1 to it not being FuzzyFrindGear.  I avoid alliances.  Any alliances I have are implied/obvious I.e., "We will all die if we don't work together."

That said, I don't have problems with players who use them.  I may be at a slight disadvantage because of this approach, but I wonder that it evens out in the wash.  If you enter into an alliance, expect surprises, expect drama, expect to be angered and disappointed ..and to be the recipient of same.  I even suspect that sometimes players who enter into alliances get so hyper-focused on the terms and the potential for back-stabbing that they actually end up giving others the advantage.

The making an enemy after one such occurrence does sound like an overreaction.

But...you know what they say about mice? They have a memory like an elephant.

Thingol wrote: +1 But that one, I'm afraid, would seem like a rather large undertaking for Tom.

True. But on many an occasion, he has busted out some feature that sounded like a large undertaking. I think we keep our expectations realistic, but post our crazy large-project ideas for fun.

In other words, don't underestimate the Kobra, eh?

we should get this idea onto the wiki list.  If no one else gets to it, I'll write it up when I have time in a couple days.

I am sure I annoy some with my constant offerings of alliances an deals, but it's what makes the game interesting for me. Just silently rolling the dice would bore me to tears.