Join an Alliance!

[JonDoe]

I noticed it along with all the open council issues. But if you read the first post it does not explain what diplomacy within your team means. I can easily see how newer players or ones away from the game for awhile would only think that it means you can not talk to other teams.

[Acererak]

Gentleman,

In the last turn for this game, the Southern alliance declared kingdoms as allies outside of their alliance. This is not allowed by the special rules (player enforced) of an alliance game. Refer to the first post for this game. If you could correct this next turn it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Netstrider

I only see "no diplomacy", which means open discussion. Declaring allies is a well known and tried tactic in anonymous games where no diplomacy is allowed. As such I decline to change it. Are we not allowed to declare enemies either?

[Mad Hatter]

I noticed it along with all the open council issues.   But if you read the first post it does not explain what diplomacy within your team means.   I can easily see how newer players or ones away from the game for awhile would only think that it means you can not talk to other teams.

Not sure I know what you mean by 'open council issues'. Unless all council issues are supposed to be secret ballots.

[Calidor]

I think we all know the intent of the game is that you have three kingdoms against the other nine and the no-diplomacy rule is to enforce that. Just like naming an emissary "UNhiddencapat--" or "Letsattack--"would be against that spirit. It's to prevent alliances from teaming up.

Be that as it may, this just makes the struggle even more epic. It's probably been my favorite game to date as I am learning so much each turn.  

New players should absolutely play a team game with a vet after their duel!

[RELLGAR]

I think we all know the intent of the game is that you have three kingdoms against the other nine and the no-diplomacy rule is to enforce that. Just like naming an emissary "UNhiddencapat--" or "Letsattack--"would be against that spirit. It's to prevent alliances from teaming up.

Be that as it may, this just makes the struggle even more epic. It's probably been my favorite game to date as I am learning so much each turn.  

New players should absolutely play a team game with a vet after their duel!

Yes

[Netstrider]

Gentleman,

In the last turn for this game, the Southern alliance declared kingdoms as allies outside of their alliance. This is not allowed by the special rules (player enforced) of an alliance game. Refer to the first post for this game. If you could correct this next turn it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Netstrider

I only see "no diplomacy", which means open discussion. Declaring allies is a well known and tried tactic in anonymous games where no diplomacy is allowed. As such I decline to change it. Are we not allowed to declare enemies either?

Of course you are allowed to declare enemies. But the intent of the game is that each team is against every other team. There is no collusion (diplomacy) of any kind allowed between teams. This is not an anonymous game, and there is no rule against declaring allies in an anonymous game.

It's completely unclear what advantage you could hope to gain by declaring another team - which is still an enemy of yours - as an ally. I assume you aren't going to send them resources as a gift. Other than that the only thing you've done is improved their regional reaction in regions on the other side of the map. If the ally declaration was intended as a signal like "hey! come help us", then that is against the spirit, and the letter, of the player-enforced rules.

So it's entirely up to you to change your declaration. No one can enforce it. But I would assume that you would want to abide by the spirit of the game rules?

[Acererak]

Gentleman,

In the last turn for this game, the Southern alliance declared kingdoms as allies outside of their alliance. This is not allowed by the special rules (player enforced) of an alliance game. Refer to the first post for this game. If you could correct this next turn it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Netstrider

I only see "no diplomacy", which means open discussion. Declaring allies is a well known and tried tactic in anonymous games where no diplomacy is allowed. As such I decline to change it. Are we not allowed to declare enemies either?

Of course you are allowed to declare enemies. But the intent of the game is that each team is against every other team. There is no collusion (diplomacy) of any kind allowed between teams. This is not an anonymous game, and there is no rule against declaring allies in an anonymous game.

It's completely unclear what advantage you could hope to gain by declaring another team - which is still an enemy of yours - as an ally. I assume you aren't going to send them resources as a gift. Other than that the only thing you've done is improved their regional reaction in regions on the other side of the map. If the ally declaration was intended as a signal like "hey! come help us", then that is against the spirit, and the letter, of the player-enforced rules.

So it's entirely up to you to change your declaration. No one can enforce it. But I would assume that you would want to abide by the spirit of the game rules?

Understand your POV- I just disagree with it. I honestly didn't see or think that the intent of the game was to fight every other team- that is not in this thread anywhere. What I understood was you could only talk with your teammates, and try to win the game. That's it. If the "spirit of the rules" included apecific game mechanics being outlawed then they probably should have clearly been indicated upfront.

I have no issue retracting the declaration, but I'm not willing to waste an order on it now. I'm not going to delve into the intention of the declarations because that would certainly be against the spirit of the game.

I would point out that you've done a good job of explaining the various ways it could be interpreted- of which none are a real certainty. That reinforces to me that it's not breaking any rules.

I didn't intend to break any rules so apologize to anyone who felt our team did so.

[Ohman the heartless]

The way I see the issue is that they lowered the status points and raised the reaction of a non team player in THEIR regions. If it is an appeal for help, then all 4 team are equally aware, and should plan accordingly. I don't think any of the declaring kingdoms plans to gift anything, and can't see those kingdoms that were allied with spending any orders to protect another team.
Just makes for a nice forum discussion!

[Netstrider]

"I honestly didn't see or think that the intent of the game was to fight every other team"

Not all at once, of course, that's bad strategy in a team game. But yes, you are competing against all of the other teams. It might be that it works out that you don't have to fight one particular team because it gets crushed by another team and is eliminated before it becomes an issue. Team games often work out that there are early contests where pairs of teams fight exclusively against each other and then the survivors end up competing after they have secured that first victory. Sometimes it's messier than that and a team has to fight two teams. A non-optimal strategy is to pick a fight with all 3 other teams from the beginning

So, I would say the player should think in terms of competing against every other team and try to "fight" as few as possible - at a time. But trying to avoid those additional fights by deal making, or calling for help in an existing fight, is exactly what the "no diplomacy" rule is all about. Either in-game or out.

It's just a game and what was done doesn't really bother me since I see no real advantage to the move. I hope my explanation is helpful. And I'm sure there is someone who disagrees with my characterization of the issue.

Good luck!
Net

[Son of Conan]

So how can the DA vote to help the AM? Lots of gray areas. Now that team is helping another team and therefore working together. The vote went through, but if it had failed, this would have been one team actually helping another team.