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[GreatWyrmGold]

That assumes each independant only has the power to destroy his own worth. Unlike the current MAD situation irl, where I'm pretty sure any one nuclear power could destroy the planet by themselves.

That it inaccurate. On paper each of the 2 superpowers (indeed all 3 if you count China) has enough nuclear warheads to hit every major city in the world. In practice due to the way nuclear war works (there's jamming of communication, misunderstandings, shooting down missiles, people somewhere along the chain refusing to commit mass murder, etc.) most of those would actually be directed at the same places. If members of the Non Alignment League had decided to take part in a Russo-American war, most of them would be intact when the dust will have stetted, as the Superpowers would mostly try to take out each other. And then, arguably, they would become better off, on account of being able to 'pick at the carcases'.

Arguably. I doubt that any of them would appreciate much of the inhabited world being bombed or the collapse of world trade caused by destroying such massive powers in the world. More to the point, the leaders of any democratic powers who choose to do so would not be re-elected.

I think I can trust them all to understand MAD theory.

MAD only works for 2 players .

Explain.

Well in a 2 player scenario, if one of the players decides to go rogue, the other will have enough vengeance to make his victory pyrrhic. However in a scenario with multiple independent actors ("independent" being the operative word, 2 alliances are roughly the same thing as 2 players, even if they can be broken) it will actually benefit the players to attack whichever combatant is weaker, as they are unlikely to recive as much retribution, and they would get a (roughly) equal piece of the destroyed player's pie. The only other special case (aside from 2 players and the trivial 1 player case) is 3 players, where the independent will attack the stronger player, since he knows he's next, reducing the problem to a 2 player case.

That assumes a rather short-sighted view. Even assuming that each player is independent, a war with a weaker power will weaken the victor as well as destroying the loser, especially if the powers are all fairly well-balanced as in this case. This opens them up to destruction, which is idiotic and makes it the very definition of a Pyrrhic victory.

You realize they aren't doing this out of spite, right? Whenever an enemy falls, there's a power vacuum where they used to be, which the attackers are best positioned to exploit. It's just that when there's 2 of you, the amount of damage you will get in response makes this not worth it. When the defender is focused elsewhere however (and people do tend to focus on one target) the benefits start to outweight the costs (if that's still not enough, you have to wonder what was the initial attacker (suffering most of that cost) tying to do?)

War still carries costs. The attacker will lose ships; gaining planets only fixes this in the long term. Short-term, there's an opening which--by your own logic--other players would try to exploit. Besides, more than one player would presumably notice the weakness, either before or during the war, meaning that any given attacker would get only a slice and not the whole pie, so the benefits are even more less than you imagine.

[a1s]

War still carries costs. The attacker will lose ships; gaining planets only fixes this in the long term. Short-term, there's an opening which--by your own logic--other players would try to exploit. Besides, more than one player would presumably notice the weakness, either before or during the war, meaning that any given attacker would get only a slice and not the whole pie, so the benefits are even more less than you imagine.

Yes, but you can build more ships, where as you can't (or it's really hard) build more planets. If you lose 90% of your military and gain 100%  (double) your former amount of planets- you have lost (and will be picked apart by the other agents). Where as if you lost 20% of your military and gained 10% of your planets, you have won and are now 10% richer forever (or until the next war). That is the difference.

[GreatWyrmGold]

However, being 20% weaker is a death sentence by your logic, as all the other players will have been about equal in strength and will now be about 25% stronger than you. Thus, they will attack now, again by your own logic. Therefore, following your logic which states that people will attack weaker players provides an excellent reason to not do so! And that's ignoring all other reasons, such as not wanting to go to war, loyalty, trade, or the outside enemy. Adding this all together, you find that civil war won't be nearly as common as you claim.

[a1s]

However, being 20% weaker is a death sentence by your logic, as all the other players will have been about equal in strength and will now be about 25% stronger than you. Thus, they will attack now, again by your own logic. Therefore, following your logic which states that people will attack weaker players provides an excellent reason to not do so! And that's ignoring all other reasons, such as not wanting to go to war, loyalty, trade, or the outside enemy. Adding this all together, you find that civil war won't be nearly as common as you claim.

because of loyalty, trade and the outside enemies, not because of MAD. One of the best ways to know multi-MAD doesn't work is to look into Europe on the brink of WWI.

[Alexandria]

(( Your assuming that people will not be angry if somebody gets stronger then them. When has a politician ever been happy when a rival gained an advantage over him? Once things develop things are going to start to fall apart with those who have gained advantage being resented by those who are weaker and since it'd an RTD a weaker person could still easily defeat a stronger one.))

[GreatWyrmGold]

However, being 20% weaker is a death sentence by your logic, as all the other players will have been about equal in strength and will now be about 25% stronger than you. Thus, they will attack now, again by your own logic. Therefore, following your logic which states that people will attack weaker players provides an excellent reason to not do so! And that's ignoring all other reasons, such as not wanting to go to war, loyalty, trade, or the outside enemy. Adding this all together, you find that civil war won't be nearly as common as you claim.

because of loyalty, trade and the outside enemies, not because of MAD. One of the best ways to know multi-MAD doesn't work is to look into Europe on the brink of WWI.

MAD is still a consideration, as I explained before the sentence you referred to.

[Criptfeind]

Minor races/Dynasties are still open right? And they start with one general planet, and thus one Prestige and one vote right? Are they invited to the current session that in talks or will they wait for the next one?

Edit: Oh also. The laws and such that are made are not mechanically binding right?

[a1s]

Minor races/Dynasties are still open right? And they start with one general planet, and thus one Prestige and one vote right? Are they invited to the current session that in talks or will they wait for the next one?

Edit: Oh also. The laws and such that are made are not mechanically binding right?

Where are you getting that? Minor races are merely unique to the dynasty, they are not actually locked into a single planet. If spots are still open (and as far as I know they are), you get the full 5 planets.

[Criptfeind]

Oh. Wow. That's a lot. I guess. I dunno where I got that from. Whoops. I thought. Huh. Heh, sorry. I will pay more attention in the future.

[Leafsnail]

Looks cool, I'll try and make a dynasty tomorrow.

[monk12]

QUESTION!

What is the policy on negotiations between players? Can they be conducted secretly (via pm?) I'm guessing the GM would like to be informed of such things so successful espionage can be more interesting.

Speaking of secret actions, Intelligence budgets are secret, right? As would any illegal research or other skullduggery, I assume. Should game-related pms have a particular subject line (you can filter them to go to particular inboxes, to aid in organization if there's a dozen players submitting secret actions every turn )

[Alexandria]

Hah this game gets so funny with it's donation.

Every time one persons donates something other people copy them.

[monk12]

I was gonna make a crack about GWG going for a Prestige victory, but it looks like donating things doesn't lead to Prestige gain of any kind. There oughta be a law.

Also, ANOTHER QUESTION!

In the Prestige rules, how exactly is the importance of a world's production to galactic events determined? "Each specialist world contributes 2-5 Prestige; precisely how much varies depending on how important those worlds have been to galactic events."

[GreatWyrmGold]

I was gonna make a crack about GWG going for a Prestige victory, but it looks like donating things doesn't lead to Prestige gain of any kind. There oughta be a law.

Quite. Ah well.

[Criptfeind]

In the Prestige rules, how exactly is the importance of a world's production to galactic events determined? "Each specialist world contributes 2-5 Prestige; precisely how much varies depending on how important those worlds have been to galactic events."

I think the  players vote upon it.