Yet Another Dominions Game - Game Running!

[Alneyan]

You cannot give a specific name to your Pretender, as everyone else will see it, and they would probably complain. The same goes for the Prophet, though the idea about the scout is nice enough. Next time, switch renaming off.

Note, however, that naming your scout "Entente Cordiale" is unlikely to work: anyone from England would likely get the meaning of the name, and both entente and cordial can be used in English. Naming your scouts "Auld" should work better though... but it is not good enough. You should just look up examples appropriate to the history of the receiver, slightly alter the name, and that ought to work well... perhaps too well though.

[Jurri]

Not the complaints, but the resulting dogpile... Since if it's not against the rules complaints are but hot air for one who uses such tricks, right? It's against the spirit nevertheless, even with the scout and coded message.

What's entente cordiale called in French, then? Is there an expression for it? And what's 'Auld' (Oh, the shame... I deserve laughs and worse!)

[Alneyan]

Jurri said:
Not the complaints, but the resulting dogpile... Since if it's not against the rules complaints are but hot air for one who uses such tricks, right? It's against the spirit nevertheless, even with the scout and coded message.

Me no get the point; I cannot figure out what you mean, and even if you paid me real well... I still wouldn't get it. Must be the heat.

Entente cordiale is the same name in French, but I think it may be a bit less common. The Auld Alliance is the name given to the alliance made by Scotland and France against the perfidious Albion. (Auld is a Scottish word which should mean... well, "old, ancient")

[Jurri]

Aha, isn't this nice, two dudes, neither of which is a native English speaker discussing stuff. Learn Finnish, you, so I can express myself with more clarity!

What I tried to do is point out the dichotomy between playing by the rules and playing by the spirit of game. Arguably anything not banned by the rules is allowed (within the framework of the game, of course), so for a true hard-core player intent on taking advantage of this loop-hole the problem is not in the complaints that follow, but in the dogpile that follows the complaints (this assuming the other players are willing put their foot to where their mouth is, err, their money I mean.) Yeah, real relevant...

Ach, you shamed me with a fond abbreviation! Dude, that's DIRTY! (And funny, if you can get the meaning from just 'Auld'. Well, me not getting it only proves your point, I guess. Do they use that abbreviation in France a lot?)

[Alneyan]

Auld Alliance is, near as I can tell, a strictly English term. I do not know how the alliance is labelled in French... though I seem to recall reading a literal translation of the phrase.

It is not an abbreviation however, but merely a cunning way of getting a point accross with limited odds of being caught doing diplomacy. See, if you used the full name "Auld Alliance", everybody would see it is an alliance; on the other hand, a spy name like Auld might be mistaken as a genuine scout name, or even a name like "Mauldarie" (Marignon), "Mauldaska" (Machaka), and so on.

Of course, it might be such an effective way of hiding your schemes that nobody will get the point... including the intended recipient. I guess we will have to develop scouts named "Roger" (a proper Marignonese name) just to avoid that.

The only Finnish I know of is Suomi; everything besides that is beyond my understanding. I find that Finnish is quite different from most European languages too: while Välkommen till Sverige can be understood easily, the similar sentence in Finnish is another matter. I cannot find it again though... *Curses Google*

[Ygorl]

AI surely would have cast Burden of Time by now. Anybody? Anybody?

[Jurri]

Ah, C'tis always does that. Reverend, get to it!

I think, if Auld Alliance isn't generally referred to as Auld within the target audience it would be lost to others than me. The first thing that comes to mind is invariably Auld Lang Syne. If you named your prophet Auld Alliance, you might get a funny look or two but I don't think many would consider it a breach. If going by the scout route there's little need for code... In theory someone could spy the battle but that's about it. That, too, could be avoided by using assassins instead There's also the problem of getting the recipient to check the name of the scout, come to think of it...

Finnish is one of the most difficult languages in the world. It's part of the Fenno-Ugrian family, whereas most European languages are Germanic or Romanic, which explains in part why it's so freaky. Oh, and y'all: Tervetuloa Suomeen!