[cleveland]

Forgive the eavesdropping, but as a participant in the Rand Dawn game I'd like to chime in.

RAND is a great concept, but diplo is really a huge part of the game. SC nations rule RAND games because SCs rule the base game...and the base game makes great use of human psychology to nerf SC nations with the tagteam bat.

But excessive tagteam sucks, as mentioned.

There has to be a balance somewhere in the middle, where diplo can be utilized as a necessary game element, but dogpiling is discouraged/mitigated.

Here's an un-thought-out suggestion: how about a "No NAP" game? Alliances are fine, but formal Non-Aggression pacts with the rediculous "no attacks for X turns" are strictly forbidden as a house rule. Why? Because more than once I've gone to war because I only had 1 vulnerable boarder, and that boarder was being eaten up from the opposite end. Eliminate the security, eliminate the dogpiling.

Thoughts?