Rowain Wrote:Because they aren't really. They have so much meaning as those participating are willing to give it.
Look at the game Diplomacy. In this game negotiations and agreements are essential but also breaking said agreements. So those agreements are meaningless (noone can force the other to honor said agreement) but still are absolutly necessary and essential.
Diplomacy is rather different IME. The game as I've seen it played has a general expectation of backstabbing, weaseling and outright lying. Almost everyone I've gamed with does it in that game. What seems to matter there is predictability - nobody likes a loose cannon... a neighbour you know will or won't backstab you is probaby safer than one who might?
Wheras Pitboss Civ as played here seems to have a different set of expectations.
It often seems about as forgiving as the old Civ 3 AI about broken deals.
However, it feels to me like there's a whole other game played about whether someone was in the right or wrong in a given situation - that's a lovely arbitary subjective thing and seems to count in a whole load of complicated factors - the reasons for it, popularity of each party, friendliness, who the stab benefited/hurt, relative power levels, etc?
Makes for fun viewing though!