breaking a truce

[wolfpack0530]

I ask for truces when it is going to benefit................ okay ..........ready for this?......... ME!!!!

I end them when they no longer benefit me. I always give a 1 turn notice, and have never broken a truce. At times i have asked for 3 turn or 5 turn truces. At times i have said, truce is done in round XX.

The one i use the most however is the 'friendly border' truce, between 2 regions. That way, i can still attack that player in other areas of the map if necessary.

But one should never make a truce if he/she is already in the lead. It is a strategy to be employed when you are behind or dangerously close to losing.

just my 2 cents

[Donald Fung]

You must understand that truces can't last forever as there is only ONE WINNER/ OR TEAM WINNER in a game.

[natty dread]

But one should never make a truce if he/she is already in the lead. It is a strategy to be employed when you are behind or dangerously close to losing.

I disagree. Sometimes it's the best thing to do when you're in the lead.

When you're in the lead, other players tend to gang up on you. To counter this, making a truce of your own with someone, before he can make a truce with someone else against you, can be a smart move.

[Kris2476]

Someone above me made this point...Porkenbeans, I think... It's important to make small, single border truces, to prevent conflict in a single area, rather then make total alliances.

Whenever you choose to break a treaty, you have to consider the impression you leave on the other person (SInce it's online, I guess your rating..) Realistically, you can break the treaty at the time of your choosing, but your ally will not appreciate an abrupt back-stabbing. Therefore, you need to make sure you sre prepared for breaking the treaty, and if you don't benefit from breaking it right away, it's best not to.

If you prefer to play by your code of honor, then it is a good idea to let your ally know when you plan to end the treaty. But it all depends on the position, and what position your ally is in, and how much you care about your opponent's impression of you.

*Steps down* I think I said that all wrong...

[lunatic96]

But one should never make a truce if he/she is already in the lead. It is a strategy to be employed when you are behind or dangerously close to losing.

I disagree. Sometimes it's the best thing to do when you're in the lead.

When you're in the lead, other players tend to gang up on you. To counter this, making a truce of your own with someone, before he can make a truce with someone else against you, can be a smart move.

Exactly, a lot of times it's smart to make a couple turn truce with another player so you can set up a reasonable defense when he finally realizes you're in control of the game. A favored strategy of mine is to goad the other players into attacking each other while I sit back and build my strength up by dispersing my armies so as to not appear as strong.

[ustus]

it's not just your opponent's opinion of you that matters in breaking a truce. It's also your opinion of yourself. But I should discuss making truces first.

I almost never play games with fewer than 6 players. I've played a couple fours and one three, but I will never play a 1v1, just because it's too dependent on the dice for me. Just like I don't play spoils because I don't enjoy taking luck of the draw into account. Just like I've only ever played poker once in my life, same reasons. I realize there is a lot of strategy to using your spoils in escalating, but I prefer simple land strategy. but that's beside the point. My point is, in the larger games i've played, truces make a huge difference in how you play the game. I try to offer a truce to someone that it is to my benefit not to fight. I also try not to be rude and offer a truce to someone who won't benefit from that truce. This allows me to close off one of my borders and deal with another border. It makes sense to me, and I don't see why one would think this cheap or unfair.

When making a truce, though, you have to set terms. Just saying "truce" really means "don't attack me right now" but has no terms to it. You should agree on how to end it. As others have said in this thread, "ending in XX turns", and "until round XX" both work excellently, but I personally prefer "one turn notice" this allows the truce to change with the tides of the game.

But this has all been mentioned before. My main reason for posting is that somebody pointed out that you have to consider the person who's truce you're ending's opinion of you. In my opinion, you also have to consider your opinion of yourself. I mean, I don't understand how someone could bring themselves so low as to backstab. To tell someone you won't attack them until an agreed upon time, and then attack them before then is just so dishonorable and dishonest that I think the people who do it must be nuts. This, for instance:

Sneak up behind him and stab him hard between the shoulder blades, slightly off center to the left.

I hope is sarcastic, and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of other people hope the same thing. I personally won't play a second game with anyone who backstabs me, either, which brings us back to the statement I'm replying to, you do have to consider what your opponents will think of you. But you also have to keep your own opinion of yourself intact, and i'd think this would be the more compelling reason to be trustworthy.

[multilis]

"then attack them before then is just so dishonorable and dishonest that I think the people who do it must be nuts"

This is a game, there is nothing in rules about truces. It is fair game to backstab, it is fair game for the 'righteous avenger' to take revenge in future games. While I like playing the white knight, it is part of excitement to never know who may secretly be the black one.

I remember a different sort of game, where roleplay was much more important #2 backstabbed #1 after sucking up to him for months while secretly plotting (private messages were ok in that game), it was most interesting event in game. If he had been loyal would have been boring #1 complete domination.

As far as "fair play" goes, backstabbing can be fairer than using alliance network to give the outsider no chance to win. Complete trust with border of 1s should carry risk for its advantage.

So far in my short experience here, never had a truce offered, did a bit of very specific 1 turn trades to avoid 2 of us stopping each other from having a shot.

[Commander9]

This is actually a good conversation with a lot of potential. I am going to talk about a few things. First about truces or deals in general, about metagame and then about the spirit of deals.

Obviously deals in three player games are pretty unfair, but when the games involve seven, even ten players it becomes a part of strategy. One could argue that the numbers balance the game, but with my experience it is not the case. When someone takes a clear lead, it is not for granted for the others to go for the King. In my experience if the strongest player positions himself in a correct way, he can discourage the others so much that they end up doing nothing and he wins in a few turns. In this kind of situations however, it is quite easy to make a truce with someone when there is a clear leader. In my opinion that is the only logical thing to do.

Because we were talking about deals, sometimes it might be smart to set up some kind of border with one of your neighbors. If two equally strong players fight about an area in the beginning of a game, they will without a shadow of a doubt be in a bad position when they come to the mid game. This is true especially with games that involve cards, because you don't have any control what you are getting. Your neighbor might be getting 10-16 troops from flipping a set while you might be getting 4 and where's the fun in that. And what a feeling it is to be swept away by a stronger player that you haven't even seen one turn after finally stabilizing the border. Of course if you are the stronger player and can make yourself a good foothold, there might be no reason for deals.

Some of the players see deals as a lame way to play, but some see it as a part of the game. This is my opinion as well when it comes to bigger games. There is a game and there is a metagame and deals are part of it. If you can just by words you can guide the game to a direction where you want it to flow, why wouldn't you do it? Of course sometimes the metagame fails and if you have made your moves based on that, you might lose because of it, but in this case you lost because you played your metagame poorly.

If someone is playing metagame by talking to the others, it doesn't mean that the others would not benefit of that as well. It makes the game much more social experience and the others can benefit from the effects of deals and get a better feeling where the game is going to flow. However, if you play your metagame poorly and you might be finding that you offended the others and they are forming alliances against you. Am I making any sense here?

Now the question is how to make a deal with someone. Needless to say that breaking a deal or going against the spirit of a deal is going to raise emotions. An example about this is a game (World 2.1) where I made a deal in the beginning of the game that my opponent takes South Africa while I take The Horn. The others were already on the run and I noticed that we can fight for these areas for 10 rounds and get nowhere. I didn't have any other place where I could survive and the others were picking my 3's around the world one by one so the only thing I could say, how about you slip your troops to south while I slip mine to north and gave him some space.

I don't remember the exact wording about the border freeze we made, but the idea was a simple division between these two areas. A few rounds later the guy breaks from Egypt to Middle East which I had conquered. Well, that was pretty much ok because the deal was about me getting to keep The Horn while he keeps South Africa. Therefore his move was justified and I didn't hold it against him. Anyway, problems can be avoided by setting your words right. You could say:

"Let's keep our border the way it is." This is pretty strict and there is no way not to break this at some point unless you come from the other side.

"Let's keep our border the way it is at least until round 10." This gives you a chance to get out from the deal without damaging your reputation.

"Let's keep our border between X and Y the way they are at least until round 10." This gives you a chance to go for the other areas of a player while keeping a border intact.

Any others that come to your mind?

If you don't want to break your words and get a nasty reputation by breaking a deal, choose your words well. In my opinion, if you make a deal with someone, the deal is only as good as your word. Break it and people will certainly tag you as a backstabber and when it comes to me, I would not deal with one.

How do you deal against backstabbers? Keep only a few troops on your borders and a bigger stack within the borders. Don't tempt the other by having 1's all around.

I prefer bigger maps with a lot of players and fog of war. I feel that it is much easier to protect yourself from a possible backstabbers because they just don't know what is going on inside your borders, but I would say anyway "Don't trust deals too much". If you are playing without any kind of backup plan the only person you can blame for losing the game is you. Stack some troops within you borders to strategic points. There isn't a better feeling than your opponent stopping his attack when he sees a stack of 20 waiting for him. However, if you decide to keep some units behind the lines you cripple your advance in other parts, but handling that is a totally different discussion! Besides I have already taken enough of your time. I hope you enjoyed my 2 cents.

A great read and I totally agree with what you've said. You have to have a sense of honour when playing these games (unless you don't respect yourself), but you also mustn't forget that the main idea is to WIN. These two things are easy to balance as long as you play it right (I personally don't use truces much, but sometimes that's the only way to win and I have to do it).

[Fresno Fins]

The only thing I can compare a truce to is the show "Survivor". They only last until it benefits a player to break it. I think everyone knows that going into a truce. You can't have 2 winners.

[Fresno Fins]

I agree that you break the truce respectfully and you shouldn't get negative feedback, unless the other player is spiteful.

[Paddy The Cat]

if you could win on a given turn and a truce is in effect, break it. you'll get negative feedback but you'll win if you cant win the game with strategy, utilize psychology.

[natty dread]

if you cant win the game with strategy, utilize psychology.

This I agree with.

However if a truce is made it must be followed. The thing is, you shouldn't agree to truces just because someone proposes them. Think hard on the terms of the truce, and the time limit, before you agree to a truce.

If you must break a truce, then at least you should give the courtesy of announcing that you're ending the truce, a round in advance.

[GloryOfThe80s]

I struggle with this often too... wish there was a way to establish a truce for say rounds x, y and z of a game but so that the game doesn't actually allow the two players to attack one another

couldn't they work on something like that in the game mechanics?

[natty dread]

No, I hope they won't. Breaking truces is allowed by game rules. The catch is, you will be despised by most players if you do this.

If you want truces that can't be broken play a team game.

[Proupin]

"then attack them before then is just so dishonorable and dishonest that I think the people who do it must be nuts"

This is a game, there is nothing in rules about truces. It is fair game to backstab, it is fair game for the 'righteous avenger' to take revenge in future games. While I like playing the white knight, it is part of excitement to never know who may secretly be the black one.

I remember a different sort of game, where roleplay was much more important #2 backstabbed #1 after sucking up to him for months while secretly plotting (private messages were ok in that game), it was most interesting event in game. If he had been loyal would have been boring #1 complete domination.

As far as "fair play" goes, backstabbing can be fairer than using alliance network to give the outsider no chance to win. Complete trust with border of 1s should carry risk for its advantage.

So far in my short experience here, never had a truce offered, did a bit of very specific 1 turn trades to avoid 2 of us stopping each other from having a shot.

It's very easy to spot a black night, that is through their ratings... and after a while they have wasted their reputation and this technique will no longer work for them.

[Gaulamos]

This is an interesting subject.
Truces are allowed by the rules but there's nothing that forces you to keep them. However i believe that to be fair you must warn in advance the player (or players) you are dropping the truces with. So backsttabin is in the rules but given a notice when dropping truces will make you a more fair and glorious competitor! Also if you try backstabbin a lot i'm sure you will reach some point where you can't backstab more, because you'll get a rating so low that people will be expecting this type of cheap tatics.
On the notice subject, to me one turn is just enough, especially on the games where people can make unlimited reinforcements (making easier to position the troops for possible attacks from a former allie); in certain cases i would admit a 2 or 3 turns notice, but this should be agreed before making the truces to avoid future problems.

I also have been proposed truces in another way, that i believe can be more fair and easy to keep.
Players define in advance when the truces will end.
For example, players agree on breaking the truces on turn 10, arriving on turn 10 they can attack each others as they pleased because as agreed the truces will have ended.
On the other hand, if you arrive at turn 9 (truces will be broken on the 10th), you can agree on a extension for a few more rounds, let's say that you propose to the other player truces for 5 more turns, prolonging the truces untill turn 15 (in case he accept the extension).

[Prankcall]

I have had a truce going on with one plaer on the board for quite a few turns. The complexion of the game has since changed, and obviously now I need to break that truce. The other player knows this, and has invoked the Three Turn Rule. ie that you must announce that you are breaking the truce and wait three turns before attacking.

which is obviously news to me.

Anyone have any thoughs on this issue, and truce breaking in general?

Yes,next time be more clever in the way you word things.Don't ever agree to an actual truce,go along the lines of "Makes no sense for me to attack you since your not attacking me" this leaves the door open for your sneak attack

[Knight2254]

I have had a truce going on with one plaer on the board for quite a few turns. The complexion of the game has since changed, and obviously now I need to break that truce. The other player knows this, and has invoked the Three Turn Rule. ie that you must announce that you are breaking the truce and wait three turns before attacking.

which is obviously news to me.

Anyone have any thoughs on this issue, and truce breaking in general?

Yes,next time be more clever in the way you word things.Don't ever agree to an actual truce,go along the lines of "Makes no sense for me to attack you since your not attacking me" this leaves the door open for your sneak attack

Correct, in a lot of games -- at least when people know what they're doing -- there's no reason for an official truce as both of you should know attacking each other would only cause the others playing to grow stronger while you grow weaker.

[redpine]

I think that mantaining borders but not attacking is the best kind of truce, verbal or otherwise.

The second best kind of truce is making one with the weakest player. They are more willing to help, since they will lose anyway if things continue as they are. They will also not get strong enough to attack you as quickly.

I prefer short, one turn type deals. I move out of territory X so you can hold it and serve as a buffer between me and Y. You want territory, I want a neighbor, win win. I'll weaken territory X, so why not attack that instead of my precious territory Y? No promises, just changing the field so that the expected behavior serves as an advantage to the other player.

btw, I am a noob, and am playing my first games right now, so if you have experience that contradicts my current theories feel free to let me know.

[taco_man1]

truces are a part of the game.

decite, lies and subterfuge are part of trying to win.

The object is to win, if a truce increases your chances of winning, then it's a good strategy. Break that truce when it strategically favors you. Lie, backstab, lead on, whatever you want.

However, realize that if you BREAK a truce, or BREAK previously agreed upon details... that person, and probably others, will never truce with you again.

[Gaulamos]

However, realize that if you BREAK a truce, or BREAK previously agreed upon details... that person, and probably others, will never truce with you again.

Also you'll probably get a bad reputation and a bad Ranking, so people will suspect you of breacking truces and will not truce with you or, at least, if they do they'll get a special atention on you.

[Dauntless07]

I'm not a fan of truces, but wouldn't rate poorly against it (I'm in the minority there I believe)...it is a part of the game, just a part that most players don't care for.

I say if you want to delve into truces and such why not just play doubles or triples where the truces are clear from the start and are held throughout the game with all members of the team (truce) being rewarded at the end of the game.

Well, how else are you going to eliminate a player who's grown too powerful? By attacking another player? I know that wouldn't work for me; (unless I can take their cards.)

Players who don't like truces probably have no diplomatic skills, though it is hard to put together a truce I'll admit. I find it difficult to negotiate aggrements with players on this site, because it seems the only ones they trust are their own troops. I have seen games where the players put asside their greed and came together to defeat an aggressive player; it's pretty rare, but when it happens it's a beautiful thing.

[jrh_cardinal]

I'm not a fan of truces, but wouldn't rate poorly against it (I'm in the minority there I believe)...it is a part of the game, just a part that most players don't care for.

I say if you want to delve into truces and such why not just play doubles or triples where the truces are clear from the start and are held throughout the game with all members of the team (truce) being rewarded at the end of the game.

Well, how else are you going to eliminate a player who's grown too powerful? By attacking another player? I know that wouldn't work for me; (unless I can take their cards.)

Players who don't like truces probably have no diplomatic skills, though it is hard to put together a truce I'll admit. I find it difficult to negotiate aggrements with players on this site, because it seems the only ones they trust are their own troops. I have seen games where the players put asside their greed and came together to defeat an aggressive player; it's pretty rare, but when it happens it's a beautiful thing.

you gang up on a player by everyone else realizing that's the smart play
I completely agree with flexmaster here, there is absolutely no reason for truces, if everyone plays smart you don't need them
watch some 4 or 5 person speed game with all officers at some point, I guarantee there will not be any truces, yet the first 3 or 4 times someone pulls ahead he will be ganged up on (esc spoils is not necessarily included in this, someone could make a run and win in one turn, but my point still stands)

[jrh_cardinal]

in short, just because you don't officially make a truce in chat does not mean you can't gang up on somebody, a truce is not necessary for an unspoken agreement not to attack each other

[WorldCup4James]

I have had a truce going on with one plaer on the board for quite a few turns. The complexion of the game has since changed, and obviously now I need to break that truce. The other player knows this, and has invoked the Three Turn Rule. ie that you must announce that you are breaking the truce and wait three turns before attacking.

which is obviously news to me.

Anyone have any thoughs on this issue, and truce breaking in general?

I personally have never heard of this Three Turn Rule, but I know that especially online, truces are majority of the time broken. I've made maybe about 5 truce, only 2 actually remained until the end when it was 1v1. Take advantage of the opportunity.
Often times, there will be border treaties (informal agreements of ceasefire among borders) instead of all-out truces, as these can get complicated and impede progress.