Diplo game thought experiment

[Krill]

Damned misclicks are killing my recently.

[suttree]

Will - I think you have right read on the culture here - people really do make naps as if they were binding because they 'trust' the meta and want to believe in the 'trustworthiness' of themselves and their opponents. I think it would be fun to collapse the prisoner's dilemma without going no diplo.

The game description should read like this:

You are a prisoner trapped in a prison from which you cannot escape. You are a liar, a cheat, and a thief. Your opponents are all oath-breakers and cowards. They killed your father, twice, and you should neither give nor expect mercy. Your only goal is survival - good luck!

Also, everyone has to read this ffh2 lore from ellimist's pbemXXV thread:
For space, not actually a spoiler:

There is one great city in hell and it dominates this entire world of Mammon. The wastes of Mulcarn’s realm lead down into it and eventually the souls will be drawn to the city. As they get closer to the city they are transformed from ethereal spirits to a physical manifestation similar to their body in life.

As each petitioner enters the city he is given a coin, and the only way to progress through the city is to give seven coins to the Balors that guard the gateway at the cities heart. As such the entire plane is a trial to gather the seven coins needed to escape (little do they know that only worse lays beyond). Balors guard the city and maintain some illusion of order. This keeps wars from breaking out and makes for some safe areas where you can’t simply attack people to take their coins.

The point of this realm isn’t to teach the petitioners how to effectively get the coins, but to have them spend years, decades and centuries wanting them. Getting them to the point where they are completely subject to their greed and unbound by any morale constraints in getting them. They will lie, they will steal, but mostly they will become ruled by their desire in a city full of lies, false hope, and degradation.

Some few never leave this stage of hell and intentionally become permanent citizens of this city. They occasionally rise into powerful positions, slave traders, dream merchants, cult leaders, etc. Mammon may take those that seem stuck and wipe their memories, forcing them to restart their entry into the city, but sometimes he leaves them be. Mammon is quite proud of his city, and one of the few (along with Esus) who views it as something more than just a part of a great machine.

Oddly the city features a long street full of various temples. There are hundreds of gods represented, and temples are regularly switched from one religion to another. Most of the “religions” are unique to this city. Some worship various demons that may or may not be in the city, some worship petitioners pretending to be gods. All of the gods of Erebus are repre- sented except one are represented, though most in blatant parody of the real religion. There is a temple to Lugus, for example, that claims that Lugus is dead and they worship hideously disfigured statues of their fallen god.

The only god without a temple is Mammon. Mammon believes that the entire city is his temple.

[NobleHelium]

...Except you can't tell people that their opponents are oath-breakers and cowards when people know that they aren't to various degrees. Just as you can't force people to attack without pause in Always War.

Your sentence still doesn't make much sense to me, Krill.

[suttree]

That's true - the point is that it's possible to play a game (like Diplomacy) with trustworthy people but without stable agreements. Harder with civ4 because of the early meta pushing you to cooperation - but still a matter of mindset. Align "reputation" and "good play" with diplo shenanigans and start everyone with a spear and a chariot.

[Krill]

...Except you can't tell people that their opponents are oath-breakers and cowards when people know that they aren't to various degrees. Just as you can't force people to attack without pause in Always War.

Your sentence still doesn't make much sense to me, Krill.

You know the saying "fool me once, shame on your, fool me twice, shame on me"?

Basically, that. That's the distillation of what the players are supposed to just forget, right?

[Jowy]

...Except you can't tell people that their opponents are oath-breakers and cowards when people know that they aren't to various degrees. Just as you can't force people to attack without pause in Always War.

Your sentence still doesn't make much sense to me, Krill.

You know the saying "fool me once, shame on your, fool me twice, shame on me"?

Basically, that. That's the distillation of what the players are supposed to just forget, right?

Would that be the player drawing the wrong conclusions though? I'd imagine that usually when agreements are broken, it's because the player puts himself in a really vulnerable situation that makes it too tempting for the other guy to break the agreement. So the lesson to be learned would be to not blindly trust someone just because you have an agreement with them, rather than the lesson being that you can never trust that guy on anything or that you should never play with that guy.

[NobleHelium]

Uhm, sure. I don't even know whether you're agreeing with me or not at this point.

[Krill]

...Except you can't tell people that their opponents are oath-breakers and cowards when people know that they aren't to various degrees. Just as you can't force people to attack without pause in Always War.

Your sentence still doesn't make much sense to me, Krill.

You know the saying "fool me once, shame on your, fool me twice, shame on me"?

Basically, that. That's the distillation of what the players are supposed to just forget, right?

Would that be the player drawing the wrong conclusions though? I'd imagine that usually when agreements are broken, it's because the player puts himself in a really vulnerable situation that makes it too tempting for the other guy to break the agreement. So the lesson to be learned would be to not blindly trust someone just because you have an agreement with them, rather than the lesson being that you can never trust that guy on anything or that you should never play with that guy.

So to apply your point to NAPs: Player X signs an NAP with 2 players. Player A breaks it, Player B doesn't. Player A could benefit or not from breaking the agreement, that doesn't matter.

Who does the Player X sign future agreements with?

Uhm, sure. I don't even know whether you're agreeing with me or not at this point.

I agree with you.

[WilliamLP]

> The whole concept of not learning as diplomacy is carried, that there is a separation between reputation, trustworthiness and risk are contradictory.

So are you saying that if this game were tried, NAPs and other agreements would be broken as often as they currently are (i.e. basically never) because everyone would still be playing for their reputation and future games? Even if there were enough players who explicitly agreed in the beginning to make an effort to treat the game as a one-off, in terms of reputation?

It's a testable claim, at least.

[plako]

In principle sounds a good idea. In practice it hasn't worked. Even in Pitboss 7 there were players behaving honorably and making deals despite of the rule that no deal made in the public thread was binding. I've played in a full diplo game that was started with this same idea few years back. In practice it didn't work as intended. After using time and effort in the chat and binding yourself mentally to other players it is extremely hard to betray them, even if it would be nescessary to win.