Slitherine

I would argue at the very least, considering we're running on the honour system anyway, communications be limited to in-game unless players have publicly announced an alliance/achieved full co-operation (+50 relations) in-game or are at war in-game. This would reassure players that they are not disadvantaged in forming alliances and people aren't actively plotting against them without them being able to see it coming (i.e. their enemy just allied with another player, or a big alliance is brewing). But it would also allow co-ordination between allies and some more complex peace treaties. If I think my opponent is winning but can recognize that a larger threat is looming for him, it would be nice to be able to explain that in some detail, as a few lines in a public chat are unlikely to change my enemies mind about attacking me, creating fairly generic warfare and fairly standard outcomes.

In one game I am currently playing as Carthage I went the usual route of attacking Sicily. In hindsight, I think an interesting play could be to agree not to attack in exchange for a long-term alliance that would see Sicily become a buffer against Rome for Carthage (while freeing up their troops to deal with any problems in Africa quickly and secure a more stable foothold in Spain), in exchange for their ability to survive. This dynamic would be really interesting in a game and create cool variations in outcomes, but would be largely impossible to negotiate/co-ordinate without some at least limited private chatting.

Indeed in that scenario Sicily could probably rush Tarentum with fleet support from Carthage. This would create a very interesting map and situation for Rome. Now that I think of it, I really wish I could go back in time and change my choices

rs2excelsior wrote: ↑Wed Jul 17, 2019 1:46 am Ah, end of turn, got it.

I will also bring this up at the end of turn messages, then, but I'll go ahead and ask here: are y'all good with allowing forum PMs for private communication? I think the backroom negotiation adds quite a bit to the game, but if folks (even a significant minority) joined on the promise of public only chat, we'll leave it like that.

communications

I think that outside communications would make for a very interesting game but every player would have to know before hand, so they can prepare themselves to be attacked from 7 sides.

Discord would work well as you could send public posts out such as sending a messenger to every kingdom or PMs for private messages, you might also get a bit of role-play sneaking in (No need to dress up like Kahl Drogo behind the keyboard).

If we have enough interest another game could be created to test out of the concept?