Caster of Magic - Breaking Treaties

[Seravy]

When breaking a treaty, you receive a diplomatic penalty for all future rolls with that wizard, however, the original game also gave you a penalty against everyone else, which I removed in a previous version.

However, as it is now, there is nothing to stop you from accepting an offer from someone much weaker than you, then break the treaty and walk away with the gold/spell they offered without a penalty after defeating them anyway. At the time I removed the penalty, the AI was not yet able to offer the treaty himself, nor pay money for it.

I'm not sure if this change is for the better or the worse. In case of a Peace treaty, you could do this unpunished anyway, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from declaring war next turn and there are no penalties for it. You can even threaten the target for free gold and spells, without risking any penalties, besides the targeted wizard hating you as expected.

I think it's perfectly fine and reasonable to be able to extort stuff from weaker wizards in any of the above ways considering the game is all about becoming the most powerful, and it's fine if the penalty stays removed.

What does everyone think?

[Anthony]

Breaking treaties should probably give you a penalty to further treaties with any other wizard (as you are untrustworthy) or to maintain existing treaties, but shouldn't necessarily affect whether the AI actually declares war on you.

[Seravy]

Unfortunately, the penalty variable is used in all rolls : Treaties offered, spell trading, peace, war, threatening, requests for war and breaking alliances...it also makes lawful wizards raze your towns more and it increases the chance of lawful wizards attacking you without a war declaration by 40%, although this last one is not possible in the mod.

So yeah, it affects far more than just treaties.
Also, the AI breaks treaties as a "replacement effect" when trying to declare war and a treaty is in place. So "maintaining treaties" does not even have its own roll, it either gets broken when the player violates it, or when the AI wants war. (there are war declaration types that bypass this and proceed despite the treaty but most don't.)

Now, these effects are perfectly reasonable on the wizard whose treaty is broken, but definitely not on everyone else. Especially the lawful effects.

[Tiltowait]

The oathbreaker penalty is severe, for some sound reasons. It penalizes you with all wizards because the whole word knows you can't be trusted. It affects the CP decision making to make things tougher for you. And why not? I wouldn't trust a wizard who attacked when we had a peace treaty.

[Seravy]

The oathbreaker penalty is severe, for some sound reasons. It penalizes you with all wizards because the whole word knows you can't be trusted. It affects the CP decision making to make things tougher for you. And why not? I wouldn't trust a wizard who attacked when we had a peace treaty.

Me neither, but the question is, "Would I trust a wizard if they broke their treaty with someone else because it was no longer beneficial to one of the parties?"
Also, the entire thing does not apply to peace treaties, they are only a treaty by name, with no actual content beyond "Let's stop having a war for now."
The AI does have a random amount of turns while they won't declare war on you after the treaty, but the amount is random and the player isn't bound by anything like that, obviously. Also, the AI can still attack anything you own as long as they are valid targets, they just won't really care because there is no war going on.

On the other hand, breaking a wizard's pact or alliance, well...I'm not so sure about that. If I sign a treaty is it really meant to be for eternity? Is neither party allowed to say "okay, that was good while it lasted but times change, it's been 20 years now, let's stop?". Because you get the penalty even if you ask for an audience and officially tell them you want to cancel it.

Also, the treaty is far from even to begin with.
If you move near the AI cities, the AI will break the treaty, but the reverse is not true, they will still be allowed to move near your cities. Additionally if the AI breaks the treaty for this reason, both parties involved will be considered the one breaking it, and both receive the penalty. And of course the AI will build cities in your territory, near your nodes, and will complain if you are not moving away and let their troops take over the node. Unless you manage to upgrade to an Alliance immediately (and even then only in Caster or if I actually add this change to Raid ) the treaty will break or you have to give up your node(s), tower(s) or whatever you had there.

I think this is a bit of a grey area, considering the treaty is asymmetrical and unfair to begin with.