by MeDeFe on Wed Mar 28, 2007 3:28 am
I don't mind if people discuss by PM, as long as I know they're doing it and know the general nature of their agreement once they've come up with it. For example, is it an alliance against one or all other players, is it a complete NAP, a NAP over one border, limited to a certain number of rounds, to a certain round and so on.
Once that is known you can act accordingly against it together with the other players or start a propaganda offensive in the game chat.
So a line like "Player X and I are negotiating a pact" in the game chat would be sufficient for me, because the other players can hold back on the attacking until they know what's up.
And then when they've reached an agreement a line where they tell the others what they agreed to.
If they came up with an agreement to carve up the world between them, ok, just tell the others so so they know not to attack each other.
The rules are somewhat ambiguous there, some people say it's ok, others say it isn't, I once got a negative when I asked another player whether he wanted to discuss the finer points of a pact by pm (I asked in the game chat) and a third thought I wanted a secret alliance, we managed to resolve the issue peacefully though and he removed it.