Honoring Mutual Protection pact should not be manditory

[SuiteSisterMary]

As it stands, if a pact partner goes to war, your civ automagically declares war.

It should, instead, offer you some choices.
Our "brothers" the Greeks have declared war on the Japanese! Our mutual protection pact requires us to declare war as well!

• Yes! We must honour our treaty obligations!
• They got themselves into this mess, they can get themselves out of it. (diplomatic hit; major with former pact brother, smaller with all other civs)
• Lets strike our "brothers" while their backs are turned. Contact the Japanese and offer an alliance! (war with pact brother, major diplomatic hit, minor hit with other cultures, possible diplomatic increase with the civ you're now trying to help)

I say this because I got dragged into a war, negotiated a separate peace, and was dragged right back in next turn. Really annoyed me.

[Kc7mxo]

Dude. If you're not willing to fight, don't become a pact brother. Telling your neighbor they got themselves into it isn't likely to be a diplomatic hit, its likely to be a declaration of war.

If the US was suddenly invaded by some other nation and the rest of nato just shrugged, who do you think we'd come looking for after we finished our war?

I LIKE mutal defense pacts the way they are. At least now they serve some purpose.

If you don't want to fight, don't sign the treaty.

yeesh.

[MarkG]

well next time to dont do a pact if you're not ready to honor it

this is a rule of the game, adapt your strategic choices to it:
- dont get into pact if you think you'll face problems from it
- feel certain that the other side will always honor the pact

[Peterk]

On the subject of mutual protection pacts, can anyone tell me if the following is true.

Let's say that country A contacts me for a protection pact. I say yes. On the next turn, country A declares war on country B and takes a city. I don't go to war because A was not attacked.

But what if now B counterattacks and takes the city back. Will this oblige me to go to war? The manual is a little unclear because it speaks only in terms of countries attacking one another not in terms of declaring war on another. In this example, if B attacks A in self-defense, I would not expect to have to honor any mutual protection pact because A started it.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Peterk
On the subject of mutual protection pacts, can anyone tell me if the following is true.

Let's say that country A contacts me for a protection pact. I say yes. On the next turn, country A declares war on country B and takes a city. I don't go to war because A was not attacked.

But what if now B counterattacks and takes the city back. Will this oblige me to go to war? The manual is a little unclear because it speaks only in terms of countries attacking one another not in terms of declaring war on another. In this example, if B attacks A in self-defense, I would not expect to have to honor any mutual protection pact because A started it.

Well, if the country you have a pact with attacks, you don't need to go to war, but if the country you have a pact with is being attacked you need to come and aid them

[MarkG]

Peterk, i think that the moment a unit of your "pact brother"(to use smac terminology) is attacked by another civ, the pact is activated

[SuiteSisterMary]

As far as I know, I can break the pact the turn before, or the turn after, the same way you'd break any other diplomatic or trade agreement. I just want the opportunity to break it at the time. After all, I know that I've payed huge AI empires dearly for a 'mutual protection pact' then gone and picked a fight, just to sit back and watch my pact brother steamroll my enemy for me. And that's not right; that's what an alliance is for.

If nothing else, then a MP pact shouldn't be invoked if the pactbrother is the agressor, and I believe that as it stands, that's the way it works.

[Peterk]

Yes, but by "attack", do you mean the declaration of war or the act of a unit attacking another???

Mutual protection implies that I am willing to defend the other civ if his homeland is attacked, but not to participate in any invasion during which his units may and probably will be attacked.

I hope they use the declaration of war as the trigger, but it doesn't look like it.

[eMarkM]

It should, instead, offer you some choices

The problem with this is if you get to have choices to back out than the AI would have to get these choices as well. However it's triggered. If that's the case, the whole idea of MPP goes out the window since you may be counting on your AI partner to come to your aid and they'll likely just say "see ya" like you would like to do to them. So there'd be no point to having them at all if you can just back out at the first sign of trouble.

If you really want to back out, just give a half hearted effort in the war. You still have war weariness, etc, to deal with, but you don't have to go all out and to spend tons of units, esp w/ overseas war. Just bombard their cities a little with navy, perhaps cature a stray city.

An example of how your idea would ruin the whole concept of MPP. I currently have a big lead in the space race w/ Chinesse and French as only civs who could threaten me. They're behind in tech, but both with military close to mine in strength so as I approach launch I anticipate an attack to stop me. These two civs have a MPP with each other, so any aggression on my part and I'll bring them both against me for sure. I want to launch my ship peacefully and don't want war with both so I made MPP with French, which I paid for dearly in luxuries. If the more powerful Chinesse attacks me, the French will be forced to go to war against them. This is just what I want. I can't afford to be attacked by them both simultaneously. The move is made so I don't have to fight two powerful enemies.

Well, if the French can just blow it off just when I want to activate it, than this whole diplomatic move would be pointless and there would be no value to MPPs at all. MPPs are useless if they're not enforced. As others have stated, don't join MPP unless you're prepared to go to war for them. They're not to be taken on lightly.

e

[HugoHillbilly]

As far as I can tell MPPs are activated when your pact brothers units are attacked, not necessarily when they declare war.

So If they invade, and the opponent Civ does not counter-attack then you are not dragged into the war.

[The Eliminator]

Agreed, you should be able to choose if you are going to join in the fray or not. There also should be a "total alliance" option as well as "mutual protection pacts." I think the Alliance thing was totally glossed over in Civ 3. Just look at the real world, I think Kc7mxo said it best: "If the US was suddenly invaded by some other nation and the rest of nato just shrugged" - just look at the War on Terrorism! Article 5 was invoked, and 75% of NATO members were like "....well, we'll see..." Thats what a mutual protection pact is.

If there was an option for a total alliance - that would rock. Just like the "Golden Triangle Alliance" - USA, UK, and Canada - they are always there for each other. When Article 5 was invoked, the 3 were like "It's on b*tch." Granted all Canada can do is supply you guys with water, gas, and some lumber, but still...

Bottom line is you should be able to decide if you are going to participate in your fellow pact brother's war under a mutual protection pact. If they had a real alliance model, you should have no choice at all.

[Kc7mxo]

I can understand your annoyance at having a really aggressive pact brother, but thats the same problem as occurs in the real world. While its definete that the US would have eventually declared war on the Nazis, it wouldn't have happened so soon if the Japanese hadn't attacked, forcing their allies the germans to also declare war.

[Wombat]

Actually, the Nazi-Japanese pact only required them to come to each others support if someone declared war on them, not if Germany or Japan attacked someone. That's why Japan never declared war on the USSR. Germany declared war on the USA basically so they could do unlimitted attacks on the Atlantic convoys. (and also because Hitler was an egomaniac who thought the USA was no threat)

[SITS]

From what I understand SuiteSisterMary says that it would be nice to have choice and using that choice would mean that you would have to face various consequences. Sounds fair to me.

Also what happens if you have a MPP with two civs and they attack each other? You don't get a choice to whom you back.

Choice!

[GNGSpam]

No human player would ever honor a Mutual Protection Pact that wasnt beneficial if it was optional. Largely because its a computer game and therefore our sense of "honor" is pretty muted. Therefore a Mutual Protection pact would basically be pointless as an option.