Treaty Secrecy...

Post by **BattleGoat** » Mar 02 2004

Condition : Region A signs a Diplomatic Agreement with Region B. Other than alliances, peace treaties, and declarations of war, should these agreements be made public or kept secret between the parties involved? Should Region C read in the WM News that A and B have a Mutual Defense Treaty --- or should they find out the hard way?

We cannot pick and choose any further what are public and what are private. The question now is, should all other agreements be made public or not? Let us know what you think. We are just in the process of implementing News Items, so we need to know whether these should be included.

chandrill · Post by **chandrill** » Mar 02 2004

My preference would be that it should be up to the countries signing the treaty, with the possibility of discovering hidden treaties through intelligince.
Barring that, i'd say have them open, as imho, a mojority of these treaties are public knowledge irl.

tkobo · Post by **tkobo** » Mar 02 2004

Well, its conditional on a few things id think.

First treaties made with the WM should be public.They are after very public themselves.

Second,the knowledge of treaties between 2 regions who are not WM should be decided by the regions.If they want others to know,they can spread the word themselves.This knowledge should be able to be stolen however.At which point the stealer also now has a say in whether or not they become public.

Third,Any treaty that is about red haired green eyed serving wenches should be public-as they belong to all-but mostly to me

Fobok · Post by **Fobok** » Mar 02 2004

I have to agree. I'd rather see it depend on the country for having their treaties going public, if they want to hide a treaty it should be up to them, with the chance of it being discovered through intelligence actions if they hide it.

herr neumann · Post by **herr neumann** » Mar 02 2004

What regards Mutual Defence Treaties then they are mostly public in RL. The aim of them is to deter possible invader and what's the use if nobody even knows about it.

For example Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (not mutual defence but non-agression treaty) was also public BUT the annexes about dividing half of Europe were private.

I think that in the game also if countries A and B have an agreement to invade country C (are such agreements possible with AI countries?) then this shouldn't be known to all.

Yeah tkobo is right about WM treaties. They should be public. And tkobo is not right about the ownership of red-haired ones

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: herr neumann on 2004-03-01 23:26 ]</font>

djtrix · Post by **djtrix** » Mar 02 2004

I think that every country would know when two leaders meet. This should be the very least amount of info in the "news" given to them. Beyond that, the amount of detail they get on what happened at the meeting may be variable but I imagine that in RL it is going to be VERY VERY hard to keep secret any sort of pact between two countries. I'd say keep the meeting public but the actual treaty ambiguous.

An example may be:

"The Prime Minister of Canada met with the President of the United States last Thursday. Our sources indicate that topics on the agenda included free trade, continental defence, emmigration, refugees and loan relief."

My guess is that usually the "topics" would be accurate but if the two countries were discussing war plans they would probably hide that within the above agenda and it wouldn't be public...

In summary, I think MOST treaties and agreements should come out in the news but things of a more sensitive nature should be covered (maybe discovered through espionage). Examples may be: War pacts, pending embargoes and anything that would negatively affect another region.

Just some thoughts!

Juergen · Post by **Juergen** » Mar 02 2004

I think that wether a treaty can be keept secret depends on how many people are involved in making the words on the paper reality.
Treaties requiring the involvement of more people should be harder to keep secret.

On the other hand,Supreme Ruler 2010 deals with a relatively short time span and an unique scenario so keeping certain treaties secret should clearly be easier than in out world.
The more time passes the more time people have to make observations,think about what they saw and come to conclusions.

tkobo · Post by **tkobo** » Mar 02 2004

And tkobo is not right about the ownership of red-haired ones

WAR ! I TELL YOU< WAR !
hhehehehehheheheheheheheheh

JXai · Post by **JXai** » Mar 02 2004

On 2004-03-02 03:38, djtrix wrote:

"The Prime Minister of Canada met with the President of the United States last Thursday. Our sources indicate that topics on the agenda included free trade, continental defence, emmigration, refugees and loan relief."

My guess is that usually the "topics" would be accurate but if the two countries were discussing war plans they would probably hide that within the above agenda and it wouldn't be public...

I like this idea. If any of you have ever played the board game Diplomacy (which I love), then you'd know about the intrigue and mistrust that can occur simply by knowing two others have met, but not knowing the outcome. It would make the plot much thicker, but be quite easy to implement -- the characteristics of a good feature.

Also, it is an aspect of diplomacy not usually regarded in other games...the effects of diplomacy on your relationship with third parties.

Of course, it wouldn't restrict the in-game chat mechanism and probably shouldn't involve the e-mail system. Just the formal diplomatic offer...i.e. when the email that says "Diplomatic Exchange Successful" goes out, it should go out to everyone.

Ashbery76 · Post by **Ashbery76** » Mar 02 2004

All major treaties should be public.The idea of an "Mutual Defense Treaty" being secret is far to gamey, and belongs to CIV3 type games.

Fobok · Post by **Fobok** » Mar 02 2004

Do you honestly believe in the real world that everybody knows of every treaty everybody else makes? Ok, a mutual defense treaty is usually a deterrant tactic, but in that case it is publicized by the countries involved. In countries like the US, Canada, Britain, etc. I can see reporters gaining information and making things public. However, if, in an extremely unlikely scenario... say, pre-war Iraq had made a treaty with Iran, and they didn't want it getting out... who would find out about it without intelligence actions? It's not like there's some crystal ball that tells every other country that they made a treaty.

prime_642 · Post by **prime_642** » Mar 02 2004

I think that there should be a random disclousure event about secret treaties. The Press can be very nosey. And leaks to the press by "anonymous highly placed people in the administration" has hurt presidencies in the U.S. in the past. You probably wouldn't have the same problem in dictatorships though.

tkobo · Post by **tkobo** » Mar 02 2004

Well, even public treaties have secrets.
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was for the most part a public treaty,but it had a secret apendix in which plans were included to divide eastern europe.
This apendix was indeed kept secret for some while.
The treaty was publically billed as a non-agression treaty ,but was clearly also more of an aggression allianace treaty.

Than theres the secret treaty attempts in ww1 and ww2 in which germany tried to entice mexico into attacking the US.

Clearly there are many examples of secret treaties and attempts at such in history.
So secrecy should be possible in some treaties in some circumstances.
It should never be a quarentied thing though.
I like the idea of random chance of the press uncovering secret treaties very much.
And of course espionage activites should be able to uncover secret treaties also.

Ashbery76 · Post by **Ashbery76** » Mar 02 2004

On 2004-03-02 14:22, Fobok wrote:
Do you honestly believe in the real world that everybody knows of every treaty everybody else makes?

Yes! every major treaty on this planet is known about..

prime_642 · Post by **prime_642** » Mar 02 2004

now that i recall it, there was another rather famous instance of a partial public treaty. It was the treaty of San Idralfeo (or something like that, i'm not sure of the spelling) that ended the war between France and Spain during the time of the Napoleonic Wars. There was a secret clause that said that Spain had to pay i million francs to France until it declared war on Britain. British spies found out, and it just so happened that they found out that Spain was bout to declare war on Britain but were waiting until it's Treasure Flota from the New World (at the time) came in. Britain promptly ambushed and captured the flota with it's gold and the government was so much the richer while a Spain deprived of funds was forced to declare war with a less full treasury.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: prime_642 on 2004-03-02 16:33 ]</font>