Anonymous Rituals and NAPs

[cupido2]

As the stone oracle said:

Casting anonymous rituals is no breach of a nap as long as you're not caught.

[DonCorazon]

I did it in one of my first games against the leader while we had a NAP thinking anonymous spells were ok.

And I did get called out on it - gee, who could be casting murdering winter? Niefelheim, hmmm...
But it was more of a joke then a blow up.

After thinking about it, I decided not to do it anymore, mainly because the gains are not generally worth the loss of trust if you are caught.

But I can see the argument either way. When I did it, I considered it like the espionage that goes on between allies in the real world. If you get caught, it could lead to a blow up, otherwise, it is just an accepted fact of life.

[Baalz]

Hahah, here's the real evil/sneaky strategy (which I've successfully pulled off in the past): cast anonymous rituals where you have nothing to gain to start a war between two of your neighbors so you can move in on whoever gets the worst of their first fight. Indeed, who suspects it's (ie) Sauromatia repeatedly casting murdering winter with their pretender?

[DonCorazon]

Baalz you are a stone cold killer. That is truly evil.

And quite funny.

[Argitoth]

Another evil strategy is to take provinces between two nations. I anger two nations, one nation is bound to take my provinces. However, that nation will soon be taking provinces that used to belong another nation, that's when all hell breaks loose.

[Xietor]

I am in the game in question.

We had a thread awhile back on what violates a nap. Many said any hostile act, including baalz. I am of the camp that if I am aware of a hostile act, the nap is over and it is war.

That includes stealth preaching, moving stealth armies through my lands, etc.

Baalz and I think K as well said boxing them in so they could not expand violated their naps, or taking an independent province that barbarians had captured.

So there is a range of actions that different players view as violating an nap.

In Fallacy, casting rain of toads so many times on Jotunheim's capital on the eve of war had to be you. Hadrian. Who else would waste the bloodslaves to cast 40 rain of toads on someone they had no beef with?

And with abysia and Mictlan already out of the game, the list of suspects grows thin(assuming Jotunheim did not cast them on himself.). So you knew you did it, and Jotunheim knew you did it. In fact everyone knew you did it.

So it was no longer a spell(40 of them) whose origin was in doubt. To me that is a breach of the nap calling for instant war.

As for future games, well i have had long naps with you in the Big Game and in EH II. In both of those games you were(to the best of my knowledge) a good neighbor.

So I would trust you, but I would make sure we were on the same page as to what the nap meant. To me a nap that does not ban all hostile acts is useless. I may as well go to war with that nation and make a nap with someone who is going to view the nap in the same light i do.

[Ironhawk]

Hahah Baalz, yeah I've done that too. Also, I like to use weak anonymous spells to probe provinces for domes. Gives you targetting information for your spells.

Personally I feel that if I can catch a NAP-bound nation casting an anonymous spell at me that it is considered a violation. However I will likely just forgive the nation in question if they promise to cut it out and/or I have no interest in war with them.

All this said, it is technically impossible to pin an anonymous spell on anyone. Thus the term anonymous. Normally if I suspect a NAP nation of casting at me but cant prove it I will give them a warning and if it continues I will acitvate the termination clause of the NAP, however long that is.

[Micah]

Here's a good one: Would it be considered an exploit to rename a mage to a default name for another nation and deliberately launch a mind hunt to get caught? I think that's kind of abusing the renaming function personally, but it could be quite effective at starting a fight.

[VedalkenBear]

People have problems with this? How odd. Sure, _if you get caught_ all hell breaks loose. But this is politics speaking. NAPs are all well and good. You shouldn't be trusted if you break one. But the point is that you have to be _caught_ breaking it for it to count on the world scene.

It's all about plausible deniability, and I wonder why the spells are anonymous in the first place if not to allow a little 'plausible deniability' in your actions.

[vfb]

Micah said:
Here's a good one: Would it be considered an exploit to rename a mage to a default name for another nation and deliberately launch a mind hunt to get caught? I think that's kind of abusing the renaming function personally, but it could be quite effective at starting a fight.

Good idea! But now everyone knows this trick .

Besides, you'd have to know whether to rename the mage (for example) Citlalatonac or s2h2 or sshh or CitS2, if the nation you're trying to frame is actually using renaming ... and then it's pretty obvious if anyone's on your border and sees your commander. ("The army appears to be commanded by s2h2 the Rishi" ... )