Excellent observations roadkiehl, I agreed wholeheartedly. I played in a game recently where my good intentions but poorly utilized messages made me enemies with everyone in the game. Communication is a huge aspect of the game and you have to make sure you're doing it right. Chat really messed me up that game and alliances just would have complicated because none of my "formal" allies would have helped me, even if there was a formal alliance system.

Generally, follow this simple rule/dogma:
People will ALWAYS do what's best for them.

Therefore, you must make incentives to keep an alliance. An alliance with no other purpose than to just keep borders empty/low is usually a bad incentive unless the person who you are proposing an alliance/DMZ to must already be in a war or more with another.
An empty outpost is always an open invitation to take it - he who strikes first in Subterfuge usually gets the advantage (usually ~4 hours + travel time).
Have backup plans ready - have a player who you do not share a border with attack your backstabber - but remember to offer them incentives like extra outposts in case of victory, or gifts of drillers/specialists.
Funding is a good alliance maker - if your potential ally has no reason to attack you over someone else, funding will help you solidify your alliance - but don't just give out funding like free food samples; but conditions on them, like having them attack someone else.
Your best way to avoid backstabbing is making yourself look less inviting to attack than your potential ally's other neighbors - weakening another neighbor can make good incentive for your potential ally to join in.

pandasecret wrote:Generally, follow this simple rule/dogma:
People will ALWAYS do what's best for them.

So much truth.
Playing Subterfuge always reminded me of a certain quote.
"You can always trust a dishonest man to be dishonest..."
-Captain Jack Sparrow

Every time betrayal is discussed on the forum there are posts that try draw a line between what is a "necessary freedom for players to not cripple the diplomacy aspect of the game" and "that's totally wrong and should be forbidden". You can't have security and uncertainty at the same time. Diplomacy is what makes this game so great because it adds a layer to the game beyond driller counts and specialists abilities. Any game mechanic that enforces treaties will take away from this uncertainty and makes the risk assessment more mundane.

From my experience people seem to struggle with the following points regarding alliances:

• Implicit Alliances: Several players felt betrayed when I launched an attack because we had some nice small talk in the beginning of the game. Don't assume being allied with anyone until it was explicity agreed upon.
• Magical Alliances: Alliances are no magical bonds between players that stand above medals and ranks. They serve a purpose to bring players ahead in the game. Loyalty might feel nice and some players will prefer that feeling over getting a medal but you shouldn't rely on it. Some players will quit the alliance as soon as they see fit especially when time runs out.
• Silence: If you agreed upon an alliance but never talked again afterwards you can assume there is no real agreement.
• High Expectations: Some players seem to expect that all their allies come to help as soon as they get attacked no matter the circumstances. To start war with an additional player is usually a big commitment. If your allies are already at war with someone else you can't expect them to reschedule all their drillers and rush to your aid. Not getting the help you expect isn't necessarily a breach of trust. Sometimes it's just logistics.
• Emotions: For some players being backstabbed results in a lot of negative emotions. It feels immoral which makes it difficult to see it only as a game move and clouds judgement. Don't resort to blind revenge as long as there might be a possibility to win.

In my opinion they all can be summarized as irrational thinking

Alliances are bets. You take a risk and it yields either a reward or damage. If you get backstabbed a lot it's probably a sign of you taking the wrong bets.

Well said, ginco.

ginco wrote:Every time betrayal is discussed on the forum there are posts that try draw a line between what is a "necessary freedom for players to not cripple the diplomacy aspect of the game" and "that's totally wrong and should be forbidden". You can't have security and uncertainty at the same time. Diplomacy is what makes this game so great because it adds a layer to the game beyond driller counts and specialists abilities. Any game mechanic that enforces treaties will take away from this uncertainty and makes the risk assessment more mundane.

Firstly I would like to add that there is no such line. And I can prove it using mathematical ideas(that you can't draw a perfectly spitting line between two things, and especially two abstract concepts)

Another thing I would like to mention is that many players have been waiting to try a game which contains nothing diplomacy-related because diplomacy is not under one's control. In fact, diplomacy can only really be influenced by one player and because of that many people who should be winning are being attacked in 2v1s and other things which a single player really doesn't have any control over. These things can be solved by playing a 1v1 (the diplomacy aspect, that is), however I'm sure you'll agree that the person who starts out with the better outpost positions or the better specialist hires will almost certainly win. I am one of the people who want to play a game which is perfectly fair to begin with and which all sides have the exact same things under their control. It only seems reasonable to suggest that a test of skill is wanted here, and NOT a test of who has more better positioned outposts at the start of the game, or who has better hires at the start of the game, or who is online the most often, or who has the most trustworthy allies, or who, in general, is the luckiest player. I think (*think*) that there is a general consensus that the more luck which is involved in a game, the less interesting and exciting it becomes. And the more things we can find that require skill, the more interesting it becomes. So a possible solution to deal with some of the 'luck'-based issues for those who want to play a game which tests purely skill is to create a quickplay game (a few hours max, but preferably under an hour to get more things done) which involves a 2 pre-determined 'teams', and most optimally in the form of a 1v1. The gameboard must be made symmetrically to ensure outpost symmetricalness and hires must be the same for each player per hire to ensure specialist fairness. More about my thoughts on quickplay and features here: http://forums.subterfuge-game.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1627