It occurs to me that many of the people on this team haven't had much exposure to the Multi-Team Democracy Game format. For one thing, why such an unwieldy name? Answer: these games grew out of the Game of Democracy format in which a team of human players competes against the AI, making decisions by polling the options for every action in the game. The first multi-team game was populated primarily by players who were participating in the Democracy game.
The first MTDG was played under C3C. The game is now archived, and all the teams' private forums are open. It's really worth looking at some of the turn update threads to see how the teams handled things.
The way the game shook out, there were 4 teams on 2 continents. One continent tried to live in peace, whereas the other one went to war. There were several trade agreements between all 4 nations, some more lasting than others. Here's an example of one of them.
Diplomacy is the key to the game. KISS (sharing the peaceful continent with MIA) tried to get MIA into a sweeping alliance, wherein neither team was allowed to declare war on the other without 10 turns advanced notice, and that notice could not be given until the turn after the other 2 teams were eliminated from the game. But not enough trust existed at the time, and MIA didn't want their hands tied. Too bad, too - we found out after the private forums were unlocked that KISS was completely sincere. The game would have gone very differently had we known.
Likewise, miscommunication can have just as large an impact on world events. In the first cIV MTDG, Piffle and Aloha were trying to work out how to stop Epsilon from winning. A plan was in place whereby Piffle would nuke several of Epsilon's coastal cities, then Aloha would invade, razing as they went. The idea was to knock down Epsilon's population to the point that one of the other teams could win the UN vote out from underneath Epsilon. But several events conspired against this. Epsilon attacked Aloha's navy (after spotting alohanese Redcoats, which could only have come from Piffle the English
), but then a turn later Aloha accepted peace! 
Drat! Now Aloha can't declare war on Epsilon for another 10 turns - the plan was in tatters: Piffle had several nukes, but no army to invade with, and Epsilon was about 1 or 2 turns from completing the UN. The source of the error? Poorly written letters (by me 
)
The first MTDG was played under C3C. The game is now archived, and all the teams' private forums are open. It's really worth looking at some of the turn update threads to see how the teams handled things.
The way the game shook out, there were 4 teams on 2 continents. One continent tried to live in peace, whereas the other one went to war. There were several trade agreements between all 4 nations, some more lasting than others. Here's an example of one of them.
Diplomacy is the key to the game. KISS (sharing the peaceful continent with MIA) tried to get MIA into a sweeping alliance, wherein neither team was allowed to declare war on the other without 10 turns advanced notice, and that notice could not be given until the turn after the other 2 teams were eliminated from the game. But not enough trust existed at the time, and MIA didn't want their hands tied. Too bad, too - we found out after the private forums were unlocked that KISS was completely sincere. The game would have gone very differently had we known.
Likewise, miscommunication can have just as large an impact on world events. In the first cIV MTDG, Piffle and Aloha were trying to work out how to stop Epsilon from winning. A plan was in place whereby Piffle would nuke several of Epsilon's coastal cities, then Aloha would invade, razing as they went. The idea was to knock down Epsilon's population to the point that one of the other teams could win the UN vote out from underneath Epsilon. But several events conspired against this. Epsilon attacked Aloha's navy (after spotting alohanese Redcoats, which could only have come from Piffle the English
), but then a turn later Aloha accepted peace! Drat! Now Aloha can't declare war on Epsilon for another 10 turns - the plan was in tatters: Piffle had several nukes, but no army to invade with, and Epsilon was about 1 or 2 turns from completing the UN. The source of the error? Poorly written letters (by me )
at any time. And be prepared to do the same if necessary to win.
route, and just strike when ready. If we want to play that way then the best way to protect our diplomatic reputation is to not put dates or turn limits on treaties. Then we haven't implied they are permanent. 
)
