Hi people,
are on-the-fly secret alliances in FFA games considered as a bad manner ? Or is it a common part of the game ?..

both, depending on who you ask..

Alot of people I play with put a non-collusion part into their settings, trusting on people not to truce, or turn off PM's to make those truces public, *presuming of course you're not dirty enough to circumvent it* personally, I don't see a problem with it, PM's are there for a reason, and in war, you use whatever advantage you can to win.. "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"

OK Thanks.

It's kind of always BS in a 3 player FFA though.

BS ?

Bullshit. Not cool. Acting the wanker. Bollocks. Etc.

I don't agree, Duke. What if there are 2 weak players and 1 strong one, is it then BS for the weak ones to band together for survival? What's BS in a 3pFFA is when 2 people ally together and maintain that alliance until the 3rd player is gone.

I love playing a 3 man ffa and talking the other two players into thinking I am the weakest opponent until it's too late for them to beat me until the end..

for the record, I am Strongly against full game alliances.. a Truce should only be withheld for as long as it is beneficial for all parties, logically.. if you haev a wall in front of you, and a tender ally to one side that you believe you can gain benefit from attacking, and give you an overall advantage in the game, then I *suggest* attacking them.. likewise, I suggest keeping your borders either with/near, your allies well supplied.. Act like you are a nation, with every other player being another nation.. words mean little when the armies are crossing your borders.. you need your own armies to make sure they stick to their words..

I see diplomacy as another way to confuse your opponents.. IE, you put armies behind your territories and move them forward to give the appearance that you have less income then you truly do, you move armies away just to stockpile away from borders, while telling the player whose border you are weakening that you are being torn in from that direction. all forms of misdirection which may or may not be true, which cause your opponent to have to re-evaluate his position towards you, and towards other players, so that he has to deem what is the most valuable use of his armies.. obviously If i am backing away, even if it is merely a ploy, that means I am less likely to attack you, so it might be beneficial for you to concentrate your armies elsewhere.

in short, I see short term peace as no different then income disguising, calculating income/bonuses of opponents, and calculating w/l possibilities of individual attacks.. merely a different faucet to be used.


and I agree with Duke in that a 2 man alliance in a 3 man game is BS.. albiet I disagree with some people in tournaments I have played, saying that a 2 man alliance in a 7 man FFA, *especially one with no fog* is BS.. they should have seen and re-acted accordingly, and if they don't, they deserve to lose, imho.


/rant off

Well I was asking, by the way : what does BS mean literally ? Bullshit ? Blocked shot ? Brendan Shanahan ? ^^

Oh, my bad. Can't even read XD
Thanks, then !

It would be really nice to have more diplomacy options. I'd like to be able to negotiate a binding truce between players or even teams for a given number of turns. Whether or not these alliances should be made public or not could be a setting during game creation.
This is probably against Fizzer's intent to keep the game simple as it is, but it would add a lot more strategic depth :-)

As for truces: Occasionally I offer them or agree to them when I see a benefit, but I always feel bad when it comes to the point where you either betray or be betrayed ;-)

Vote for it then. Truces is one of the top feature suggestions.

there is a uservoice with this, think it has 100+ votes.. I disagree with it, thinking that the Diplomacy should be on a more personal level, rather then a game implemented device.. It would take some of the strategy out, and would make it more about turning ffa's and multi-team games into massive 1v1's.

Imho, the better Uservoice idea, is the one that allows you to make notes in game, so that you can remind yourself, *especially useful in MD games* who you have a truce with fairly easily, and put down notes for key points during the game etc. it would also serve a use for variants such as the Hunt variant..

Diabolicus said
|> As for truces: Occasionally I offer them or agree to them when I see a benefit, but I always feel bad when it comes to the point where you either betray or be betrayed ;-)

I know. That is why I wait until I am the last person to finish, then say, for instance, ["I HEREBY RENDER THE GREENLAND TREATY NULL AND VOID."](http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer.aspx?GameID=1231434)

(Check chat.)

I feel bad about doing it right at the end of the turn prior to letting anyone respond.. I feel obligatory to let them know prior, presuming i told them I would let them know prior in the initial engagement.

but then again, I made a living off of breaking bonuses and saying it was an accident in risk type games.. truces are only as peaceful as the people on either side.

Treachery is a part of war.