1) AKeeFaTheHun
2) berberstrijder
3) Bonatogether
4) ezpickins
5) ingebot
6) Macca573
7) Player5
8) ScubaSteve
9) Swede03
10) The Ambassador
11) ubercacher16
12)

I'd be interested to try this too!

You know, we could do a Europe 2020 map. That would be interesting due to the large amount of countries.

We can probably get enough people, although I suppose some people might not like the large amount of countries.

I quite like the idea of big coalition wars that that could create actually. One thing I wondered - how would we rule for defensive alliances pulling in allies? For example, if Austria is allied with Germany and Germany is allied with England, would Russia declaring war on Austria find themselves at war with Germany and consequently also at war with England?

Could create many levels of alliances: from non-aggression pacts to mutual defense/aggression pacts?

I think you're right Player5, we probably need a number of different alliance levels.

BTW, I'm definitely interested in playing but feel a GM will be needed for this one to break alliance/war aspects that weren't planned in the rules. I'm cool with doing that if needed and step out of the game.

Unless someone else wants to GM.

Maybe we should always confirm any allied participation explicitly. For example: Let's say player 1 and 2 both state that they are in a defensive pact, player 2 and 3 confirm that they are in a NAP. Should player 4 attack player 2, then player 3 still needs to confirm if they want to join the war. In my opinion, player 1 also needs to actively confirm their participation in the war, otherwise P4 could abuse the rules by declaring war on P2 and then immediately attacking P1 because they are automatically joining. Or we should do something with time-related rules...

My thoughts would be that simpler might be better. I could just imagine fights over who broke what rule and then discussions about what the remedy would be.

I'm in regardless, but my vote is for simplicity.

I think Steve is right with regards to simplicity. Given this, I would like to propose an easy formal/informal alliance system.

A formal alliance would be an alliance that you and anyone else involved announce in public chat, and is absolutely binding. You can't attack anyone in your alliance (although I am on the fence if you can intentionally fail to help them). You can make a formal alliance with multiple people (ex: England, France, and Germany make an alliance) but not be in multiple formal alliances (ex: England cannot ally Germany and separately ally France). Of course, you can drop out, but it only comes into effect the turn after you announce it.

An informal alliance is basically the same as an alliance in a normal game: you can have as many as you want, they don't have to be publicly announced, and there is no penalty for breaking them aside from people not trusting you.

I think having "informal alliances" that work the same as a regular game alliance will result in people not really playing in the spirit of the game and only making informal alliances.

If someone says they want an informal alliance, I'd assume they want to betray me.

I"m not a huge fan of Euro 2020 due to some balance issues, but will play whichever map. With a bigger map, there is more "fun" in chain declarations of war as a result of alliances

Player five, Uber and Amby bring up good points. Even considering simplicity is targeted, rules have to be explicitly formalized, or all players play in the spirit; else, the gm will go crazy.

Imagine everyone declares war on everyone! The alliances will still exist, yet informally.

To make it simple, begin with "power A can only declare war on power B if there is one unit touching a territory that is owned by the other, or that is occupied by the other."

Also, timing is important. Say Russia and Austria are in war. One day A & G decide to formally declare alliance. It doesn't mean G automatically declares war on R - unless they want to and actually declare so.

That's my two cents and I hope I'm not complicating the simple. Playing in the spirit and having fun is the ultimate goal, right?

I think if simplicity is the goal (and I agree that it should be) then Bonatogether's suggestion of only allowing alliances to exist if all members are allied in a bloc will prevent the situation becoming a total mess. And that also makes the case for informal alliances - if, for whatever reason, two players can't be in the same bloc but still want to work together then they can but it would be unstable in the way normal diplomacy alliances are

Also, unless people are absolutely against it I believe that the phase should be rather long. 2 days at the very shortest, maybe even 3.

I disagree that simplicity should be the aim. Alliances in Europe back then, and through history, have been very complicated. Alliances with clauses such as "If war is declared upon either of us by Russia, we both immediately makes peace declare war back." Or "We will both go to war with any aggressor, unless it it Germany declaring war on England." Or even "If war comes upon France, Germany agrees to lend 2 armies to France's aid."

This sorta stuff is the way alliance work, and it's the thing I'm really excited for.

Agreed Macca

If we are to go the complex route, I would say that complex rules are not the goal, but rather complex terms are. As a suggestion, let people come up with their own terms, let the GM know the terms (he'll keep a document with each treaty or something), and then if anyone thinks someone broke the terms of their treaty, the GM can adjudicate as they see fit.

Formal alliances and declarations of war are held in public chat right? So there's no reason the GM can't also be playing as long as the rules are sufficiently detailed?

Also, here is a sketch of what I would envision a simple set of hostilities / alliances would look like. I think this is deep enough to still allow for some interesting new strategy, while still being simple / hard to accidentally misinterpret.

You relationship with each country can be in one of 6 states:
1) War: All is fair. Do whatever you want to their territories. Once you enter war with another country any ally (State 5) you have, will automatically be Hostile (State 2) with the country you are entering war with until either they also declare war, or you cease war (either through diplomacy or are defeated).
2) Hostile: You may not directly attack said country, however you can support moves into their territories or convoy allied (State 5) units into their territories.
3) Neutral: This is you relationship with all countries at the start of the game. Essentially you two can't interact other than bouncing in neutral (uncolored) territories.
4) Friendly: You may support hold units of the other country. You may also convoy their units to a neutral zone, and support their units to a territory they own, or is neutral.
5) Allied: Same as friendly except you can also help (support move / convoy) into hostile or warring countries.
?) Allied + Hostile: When two of your allies declare war on each other you become both allied and hostile with both countries. While in this state, you can only act as friendly to either one unless you are also warring/hostile with a fourth party, in which case they both are treated as allies concerning the fourth party. (Until you decide to pick a side and drop your relationship of allied down)

* A country's territories are defined as anything they have a unit in, or is colored their color.
* To change status towards a higher number both parties must agree. To change it to a lower status only one party need make it known.
* Changes in status must happen X hours before the turn moves
* Spring 1901 is extended an extra X hours to allow spring attacks to be feasible.

Personally I think it's elegant if X is just the phase length, but I can see why you may want it to be shorter (or for very politically slow games, an in-game year).

Not saying we should go with this, but offering it up as one potential starting point.

I like this some of this idea, but I stand by what I've said before. An alliance is just a fancy word for a type of complicated agreement, and I believe each party privy to an "alliance" should negotiate the exact terms of that agreement and how it will play out.

That said, the "At War", and "Hostile" terms seem like they could be very useful in translating agreements into rules.

This leads me though to a question, do you need a formal relationship with a power to support hold them? And in follow to this, can you support (especially support move) people you are "hostile" or "at war" with? How will that affect game play as these moves, especially support move, can be used offensively on someone?

I agree that the window for changes in status (the X) should really be the phase length so everyone is aware of it one turn ahead - I mean, if changes are allowed within the same turn then I feel like it defeats the purpose of this special rule-set entirely as isn't it the same as an ordinary game? Maybe except the unwanted purpose of allowing someone to ambush others by taking advantage of different timezones we live in.

And going along the six states, is it intended that only War and Hostile are required to be publicized? Or is it the case that any changes should be made known?

I think that if two allies declare war on each other the power who's allies declared war should be forced to choose to drop either one or both alliances. They can't hang out in some limbo state before deciding.

I realize that my arguments for simplicity do seem to be a minority opinion. Permit me to refine my call for "simplicity" to be a call for "clarity". The more we can avoid in-game judgment calls on the rules, the better.

Granted, this is but my oh-so-humble opinion.

@Macca573 - I think it's more interesting if you need a formal relationship to support hold someone, but I don't have strong opinions about this. The problem with the terms of an alliance being declared in game is that it will result in game rulings which I agree with ScubaSteve should be avoided at all costs. That's a good point support moves can be used aggressively so: yes? You can also support move their units but only into territories they already control. At least, that's the ruling that would make sense to me.
@Lukas Podolski - My intent would be that everything be public. Also the only argument for X to be less than a phase length was if a phase length was 2 days and X was one day. I agree that X should not be less than one day.
@ubercacher - The only reason I would want to be in a limbo state would be for 4th parties. Like if Russia is fighting Turkey and England and allied with Germany and Austria, then Germany and Austria broke out into war (for some reason), Russia might not want to pick a side in that conflict but still want to use Austria against Turkey and use Germany against England. But maybe we call this a cost of going to war and not allow Russia that option?

I'm split on allowing people to keep allies while both their allies are at war.

If we force them to choose, it means you can skip out of an alliance. I would think the thing they would have to do is to stay out of the conflict, as to not break agreements with either?

1) AKeeFaTheHun
2) berberstrijder
3) Bonatogether
4) ezpickins
5) ingebot
6) Macca573
7) Player5
8) ScubaSteve
9) Swede03
10) The Ambassador
11) ubercacher16
12) kingpin
13)