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[mainiac]

I warned all of you upon my appointment to Fleetmaster of the consequences of participating in further hostilities.

Yeah, that's why you tore Il Palazzo a new one for launching his invasion but left me alone by holding back from attacks at your request and offering Il Palazzo repeated peace offers.

[Il Palazzo]

Al-Malik did not break any agreements by landing forces on Malignatus. We maintained continuous presence on this planet and are de facto still defending it from Li Halan aggression.
There was no clause as to use of Stigmata units during last election, so I did not break any laws there.

It's not even my birthday!

You've got a birthday every turn(year), Chi Kao.

[JoshuaFH]

If it's such an issue, could you post the entire (hopefully signatured) agreement here on the thread?

[Il Palazzo]

There isn't one. The stuff went somewhat like that:
-vote for me or X will win the election and we'll lose our ministries!
-ah, ok.

[JoshuaFH]

So nothing's written down? Everything's all discussions and handshakes and friendly nods and scowls?

[Aqizzar]

And lots and lots of PMs.  Conversely, I don't think anybody has actually used the ingame messaging system.

[Il Palazzo]

Oh, I did, for a first couple times or something. Then I got an occasional message from mainiac, not too many.
One message per year is simply not enough for this game.

There can be binding deals, if both sides agree to treat them as if they were e.g.ministry promises. But this hardly ever happens, wonder why?
Then you can make some sort of "paypal"-like agreement, i.e. you take the third, neutral side and pay(lend) them some cash which would be forfeit, should one side break the agreement.
Of course, the neutral side might stop being neutral and run away with the money.

[Aqizzar]

Yes, for some reason we human players aren't particularly fond of using the ironclad contract system.  I guess so we can keep our options open, which of course is code for backstabbing.

It's funny, we all have reasons to hate and mistrust each other, yet we keep trying to form informal alliances, and yet dance around the crowning of the Emperor with no one thinking of declaring themselves.

[JoshuaFH]

I don't quite understand you Palazzo. Are you saying something along the lines of giving a third side some sort of deposit in order to stay in line?

You can't just have a regular, written down, good faith treaty of sorts?

I'm just saying Aqizzar, unless some measure of formal agreement is created, publicized, discussed, amended, agreed upon, and then finalized, there will always be room for the baseless attacks and "breaches" of agreements that may or may not exist. Peace, permanent or temporary, cannot exist otherwise.

There will always be another day for backstabbing, of course, but if you want to resolve the current conflict, creating a formal agreement known to all the players is what I suggest.

[Il Palazzo]

See, chaoticjosh, you're an idealist. You think that writing something down, publicizing it and loudly proclaiming that you are going to abide by it's laws will stop somebody from doing exactly what was forbidden in that paper.
Of course, it *could*, if losing respect, good name etc. is valuable to the party in question, but if gains from breaking an agreement are greater than loses, then, tough.
The idea with the deposit can work better, assuming that some heavy cash is more valuable than some hollow words like "rightousness" or "wordiness". Which is rather true for everyone in this game. Everybody here will agree with me, right?

[Il Palazzo]

It's funny, we all have reasons to hate and mistrust each other, yet we keep trying to form informal alliances, and yet dance around the crowning of the Emperor with no one thinking of declaring themselves.

Oh, don't trust old Aqizzar on that one. I'm sure he thinks about crowning himself as much as everyone else does. The thing is, these are only thoughts, as long as there is no sensible way of defending the claim in the vicinity.

[JoshuaFH]

Well, Palazzo, what I was thinking was, that if it were agreed upon, that whomever breaks the agreement would incur the full wrath of the Master of the Fleet, Aqizzar.

The deposit system reminds me of the canonical reason behind the Metal Gear Solid games, which was that all the allied nations of the world created a huge cache of money in order to defeat the axis powers in WW2, and afterwards, all the secret agents and stuff were sent by nations in order to track and steal all the accrued money for themselves. Or something to that effect.

[Il Palazzo]

Well, Palazzo, what I was thinking was, that if it were agreed upon, that whomever breaks the agreement would incur the full wrath of the Master of the Fleet, Aqizzar.

All I can say now, chaoticjosh, is that it's not that simple.

[mainiac]

See, chaoticjosh, you're an idealist. You think that writing something down, publicizing it and loudly proclaiming that you are going to abide by it's laws will stop somebody from doing exactly what was forbidden in that paper.

It stops me.  Not that anyone cares.

[JoshuaFH]

I'll just step back into the shadows now then. I look forward to seeing how this'll develop.