I am currently experiencing a situation that I am not pleased about and would like to hear some other opinions on the matter, which I will now describe.
I am currently playing a standard game on the Napoleanic Europe map. At one point in the game, I established a truce with another player whom I will refer to as "Blue". At the time this truce was made, I controlled much of the Italian lands along with parts of France and Spain while Blue controlled the Ottoman Empire along with parts of the Austrian Empire. Written below are the words that established our truce:
2010-10-29 20:44:27 - Paulus: "Blue", I propose a truce. What say you?
2010-10-31 13:47:06 - Blue: Agreed, how many rounds were you thinking?
2010-10-31 21:45:47 - Paulus: I am unsure. How about we go by 2 round notice prior to ending?
2010-10-31 22:31:56 - Blue: Sounds good. This truce will lapse in round 11. I would like one round prior notice before the truce ends. ie, if it ends on round 11 must notify on round 10 so that I have the opportunity to fortify my posistion because you would have the first
2010-10-31 22:32:09 - Blue: oportunity to attack after the truce ends.
2010-10-31 22:33:16 - Blue: sound fair?
2010-11-01 18:18:44 - Blue: Red- forget my mindles blather above. Must have been drunk when I wrote that. 2 round notice prior to ending the truce.
In my understanding, a truce is nothing more than agreement which prohibits an attack against any land controlled by the other player with whom you have entered into a truce. Most players also agree upon some way in which to end a truce. As you can see, Blue and I agreed that in order to end the truce one of us would provide a warning to the other player followed by two rounds of non-aggressive play. Nothing more was discussed or agreed upon beyond what I have already mentioned. That is my understanding of my diplomatic agreement with Blue.
Some time later, Blue and orange engaged in some brief back-and-forth fighting over lands in the Austrian Empire. At the start of one of my turns, I noticed that orange had control of Hungary and Vienna and that they were lightly defended. I decided to move in and take control of Hungary and Vienna because of the strategic "crossroads" location of Hungary and because of Vienna's value as a capital city which provides a +1 auto deploy. I concluded my turn and went about my business. I returned later to find that Blue had decided to attack me and take control of Hungary and Vienna from me. He followed up with these statements:
2010-11-07 22:59:45 - Blue: Sorry Red, but that was obviously my territory.
2010-11-07 23:06:58 - Blue: I intend to continue the truce, but I could not just let you come in like that and take my territory after I worked to get orange out of there for the last two rounds. I have to imagine you knew that.
I consider Blue's attack against me to be a violation of our truce. Blue tries to justify this by making the claim that Hungary and Vienna were "obviously" his by way of past ownership of those lands before orange had taken them and also due to the amount of units Blue had devoted to his two round struggle against orange over those lands. First, how can Blue claim that these lands were "obviously his when they obviously under orange's control at the time I took them? Second, what does Blue's past ownership of one or more lands and his usage of X amount of units towards them against one or more other players have anything to do with our truce and my not being allowed to take a land when it is controlled by some other player? The terms of our truce were clearly defined earlier in the game.
In my opinion, I have thus far lived up to the terms of the truce while Blue has clearly violated them with his attack against me in Hungary and Vienna. I also believe he is wrong when we tries to justify his actions because he is basing his argument on a point that is not included or contained anywhere in our truce. It appears Blue has unilaterally re-negotiated the terms of our truce into something more without any prior discussion or agreement.
I am interested in hearing other thoughts on this matter.
