Envoyé par
baumgarm
Actually, since we have a handful of people new to the multiplayer scene, let me explain one thing which has caused a great deal of misunderstanding and drama in Dominions MP games over the years: the correct handling of a Non-Aggression Pact, or NAP. The standard NAP is that two nations must give one another 3 turns of advanced notice before one invades the other. An agreement of that duration is denoted as an NAP-3. The spirit of the agreement is that the person about to be invaded should have 3 complete turns to ready themselves for said invasion.
A simple example: On turn 12 Ulm sends an in-game message to Caelum that their NAP-3 is being terminated. Caelum receives the message on turn 13 and has all of turn 13, 14, and 15 to prepare without fear of Ulm invading. On turn 15 Ulm can give the command to move his troops into Caelum's provinces because those troops don't actually arrive until turn 16. That means that the amount of time between announcing the end of the NAP-3 and actually standing in enemy territory is surprisingly long: turn 12 all the way to turn 16.
A more complicated example: Ulm submits his turn 12 shortly before the turn hosts and emails the player controlling Caelum that their NAP-3 is off. It isn't reasonable to expect Caelum's player to have the time to read the email and then re-take his turn in light of this new information, so we treat it as though Caelum received the termination announcement at the start of turn 13, just like in the previous example. If Ulm had emailed the Caelum player shortly after turn 12 came out then it is fine to assume that Caelum could use turn 12 to prepare, so in this case Ulm gets to invade a turn earlier.
What I like to do when communicating an end to an NAP is to explicitly state "...which means you and I will be able to have troops standing in each other's provinces no earlier than turn 21". It prevents a lot of game-derailing confusion and drama.
Generally speaking, catching another nation moving scouts, spies, assassins, or even stealth armies through your territory does not violate an NAP. Scouting is harmless and should cause no concerns, ever. Spies, assassins, and stealth troops should cause concern and might make you decide to end the NAP yourself, but they don't actually constitute a breach of the pact... after all, they could be moving on through your territory to screw with someone else. Also, infiltrating spies into NAP'd capitals is not a breach, but the other guy might not feel good about it. Note: if you want to move assassins and what-not through someone else's territory, it might be smart to give them a heads up so they don't get the wrong idea.
Casting anonymous spells on people you have an NAP with is a gray area that is generally allowed because it's almost impossible to prove who exactly is doing it (and sometimes bad events actually do cause frogs to rain from the sky on to your capital, reducing your income and giving your precious slow-to-recruit mages disease). However, if the other guy uses that as justification for ending the NAP, no one should be surprised.
Casting explicit remote attack spells, being caught having stealth commanders attempt to seduce or assassinate NAP'd commanders, or being caught sneaking around NAP territory with stuff like bane-venom charms (which kill population and disease units) does constitute a pact-breach and all the repercussions that come with it.
Of course, you are free to define whatever duration or conditions you want in your own agreements. I just want to state what constitutes the default so no one has any unpleasant surprises later on.