stop playing your warlight game and stop black-listing others for no reason.
and devote some of your time to this 1 question {short} poll.





well , i did mistake during numbering those options...
so we will say them 2(a) , 2(b)

I follow 1, 2a, and 4. Always give 1 turn notice before breaking truces should be standard to any worthwhile player.

Free for alls are stupid. the only time i do them is with no PM. And people still make truces. the games that everyone plays it like a free for all is a fun one tho. so i pick 5 i guess

Oh, and my reasons are... if you are going to just play it like a "true" ffa, you might as well play against a CPU. The point of playing a FFA with humans is to not only test skills, but diplomacy. Again, breaking truces isn't real skill with diplomacy. Being able to win without betrayal is true skill.

*\*He who Won Fought Fair**

When it's messages allowed I always take that to mean diplomacy allowed.

If I and another player have a truce, but set no conditions or procedure for breaking it, then I just think one of us will backstab when it makes sense to.

If it's a truce over only one border, or a truce with specified breaking procedure (i.e. 1 turn notice, 5 turn notice, etc.) then I'll stick to that.

Truces from the beginning in any 3 entity (teams or players) game seem bad, but it almost defaults to a truce if someone starts running away with the game.

Slightly off topic: I find the only way to do ffas is to allow and encourage diplomacy. If you don't you're basically giving a huge advantage to whoever decides to bend the rules the most.

Example:a game I was in had no pms and had come down to myself and 2 other players. No one had said a word in public chat the whole game. I was fighting Player A and getting pushed back. Player B and I had just started to skirmish and we were starting to build up troops on our borders.

At this point I decided to focus on the guy who was beating me. I stopped attacking and adding troops to the other front. The next few turns Player B follows suit and we both gang up on player A.

No words were spoken! No communication at all, but clearly we had a truce.

We went on to beat up player A only attacking each other once he was dead. Player A surrenders and has some very unkind words to say to both of us including calling us cheaters as this was a no pm game.

My question for people who think like player A is: WHAT THE HELL WERE WE SUPPOSED TO DO? It was the only nonstupid option we had.

Back on topic: I feel its never a good idea to backstab. Reason being is that games aren't played in a vacuum. If you backstab and win in one game and then meet up with that player in another game then you have a readymade enemy before the game has begun.

I'm with Mjollner. I will make truces if I can, and break them when I feel the need. If there were no conditions set when making the truce ( eg 1 turn warning) then I will not warn them of my betrayel. If there were conditions, I follow them.

I usually host all my FFA's/ 3vx8s/2vx12s. Private messaging in those is always off. I'm not a fan of making teams, but I will do it on the rare occasion I join another persons FFA and have no other choice, and I backstab em without warning; using a dirty tactic already, why the hell not. In team games, I have never, and will never team with another team.

I never make truces or team up with my enemies, and I'm kinda surprised so many ppl have said that's a normal part of the game. Obviously you choose who to attack based on what gives you the best chance to win/survive, but someone PMing you shouldn't change that. If you ever know that someone's not going to attack you, then you're playing the game wrong.
I also don't know why anyone would trust their opponent in this game. How could you consider someone dishonest if they backstab you in a wargame? (all's fair in love and war) And if you only choose to play games with people who you know will honor truces, why not just start a team game so everyone knows what to expect.
I just don't think it should be a legitimate strategy to start PMing everyone to team up with you so you can gain an advantage over single players.
- little bit of a rant, but I think truces are outside the spirit of this particular game. It'd be different if we were playing "Diplomacy" or something.

I agree that diplomacy can be a legitimate part of the game.. as well as backstabbing.. as I stated before.. he who won fought fair.. I will backstab sometimes.. and sometimes I will hold true all through..
Expect your enemies to lie to you.. for they are your *enemies* treating them otherwise means you are being a fool
Expect your enemies to kick you when you are down.. as they are playing a ffa game with the end goal being to win.. you don't gain prizes for frienship
good players understand this is just a game, I'm not attacking you/lying to you/stabbing you, because I dislike you.. but because I feel it is the most valid and useful use of my troops and diplomatic relations in the current game to that point.
There is *very little* I hate more then someone taking revenge on me in another game because I stabbed them in one, all decisions should be based on tactical advantage, not revenge. stabbing and trucing are both tactical decisions..
I rarely actively truce, and generally when I do so have a good reasoning behind the truce, even if the trucee is unaware of that reason, or is led to believe another is true.
If a FFA has no PM's, I will just ignore anyone attempting to bypass that by talking to me about the game in another way, and treat it as gunboat.. ofc' situations like what emgzapper describes do happen.. tactical advantage dictates that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, without there actually being a truce involved..

/rant off

my favourate games are large FFA however the main thrill of these games is to try and make aliances and work as a team to progress further in that particular game. there is no way you can get very far without doing this. As for what is considered the correct protacal when breaking the truces (which will have to happen at some point if you want to win)

IT IS COMPLETELY DOWN TO WHAT ARRANGEMENTS THAT HAVE BEEN MADE BETWEEN THE TWO PLAYERS

and i cant stress that enough! and for me this arrangement is different each time. and certainly different with different players in the same game

and what i agree i uphold

if we dont put a turn agreement in place or a time to review the situation i fully expect to be stab in the back when the time is right for the other person, and i would do the same.

to be fair most of the time i try to firm up the agreement long term agreement with ones i want to go all the way with and then temporary agreements for them i dont.

to me if PM is allowed then to me thats a liecence to make aliances. if PMs are not allowed i respect that a play on my own

I don't play in games that don't allow private messaging, other than games where there is only one opponent. That opponent can be a person or a single team, but otherwise I want to be able to talk to people.

I negotiate with other teams, other players, and even my direct enemy. There is always information to be gained, counterintelligence to be sown, and truces to be made.

There are times, especially in FFA, where the numbers mean you are dead, no question about it. This can happen on the first move, and you wouldn't know it. But, that's not a very fun game to play, at least to me. If everyone just acted like the AI but better at tactics, the games would be very stale and uninteresting. Yes, it does allow pure skill in tactics to show up, but at the cost of some very troubling losses where two different opponents ganged up on you without either of them knowing they did it. Starting position can make as much or more difference than skill, and a lot of games are random distribution, meaning there wasn't a chance to do anything better.

There's an art to getting people to sign and keep truces with you. You need to know their motivations, and be aware of the global position. It also means giving them things that they need, in order to get things that you need. You have to appear strong enough to defend yourself, but not strong enough to necessitate ganging up on. You have to carefully regulate how many troops your opponents see you place, where you place them, and who will feel threatened/emboldened by your moves.

I've played some "no treaty" games before, and it's just so easy to get destroyed by random things and conditions outside of your control.

Some people probably consider truces to be cheap and easy, but they are anything but. Sure, somebody might be convinced to not attack when they really should, but that can happen without truces and treaties as well. There's nothing inherently cleaner about a game where people don't talk to influence each other. As Emgzapper said, natural truces happen all the time, because the board position dictates it. Verbal communication just facilitates that process.