haha @FS, i'm pretty sure i've been the victim of that more than once, lol

@ FS: What does define backstabbing then?

Isn't backstabbing when you help someone one turn, and attack them the next?

You can't backstab someone if you were never allied with them in the first place.

By that definition, I never backstab people.

According to Sharp's book, stabbing is when a player breaks an agreement with another player. That could be from not giving support when agreed to or moving into an agreed DMZ to entering your former ally's home centers...

someone should start a game called this - "a lack of integrity"

i also like for a game name "what does define backstabbing then?"

I like the latter of the two.

I hate a boring game where i'm not challenged. Usually being stabbed (when i didn't see it coming) makes winning much more difficult, challenging and fun (at least for me).

Here's a question then. What was the worst backstab you've performed while playing this game. Where you almost had a real pang of honest-to-goodness, undeniable guilt as soon as the move finished?

I have to admit that my most blatant backstab was communicating/coordinating orders w/ my ally, while putting in the exact opposite orders and taking 2 of his SCs that turn while simultaneously stringing him out in an undefensible line. His message to me said it all: "Have you no shame"... :P

But I did let him survive @ the end w/ 1 SC.

"But I did let him survive @ the end w/ 1 SC."

This was probably not so much an act of mercy toward your former ally, but an act of mercy to what little conscience you had left. =P

Now I'm feeling guilty all over again.

Being stabbed by trim is not all that bad. Play on his guilt and he will let you survive the game.
He won as austria and let me have tunis.

This is a funny thread. The OP must be joking, especially this bit: "to anyone who disapproves of lying in diplomacy..."

That said, being the sensitive soul that I am I always feel bad when I stab. Silly because I don't feel bad when someone stabs me.

oh my gosh, I LOVE this thread :) great work guys :)

thats diplomacy boys. hes a master. sounds like someone id respect. what your doing is wrong and is ruining the game mate. leave him alone,

Absurd!

I feel bad stabbing as well, but then I also have a problem with being stabbed. It is true that if you play very well you won't have to lie, but it still happens!

The worst outburst I had from a player was in a game where I was Austria and had just attacked Italy. He offered to become a jannisary, which I accepted because I had a chance to get through Gibralter if I moved quickly. So I leave Italy with Rome and Tunis as long as his fleets move west.

A few years later the Italian fleets reach the English Channel and my fleets have followed through Gibralter. Since Italy is about to take Belgium I have to take Rome off him in case he builds behind my lines. At this point Italy says "Have you no Honour! You broke our agreement and I was not going to build."

"It is true that if you play very well you won't have to lie, but it still happens!"

I don't think that's actually true figle. If you don't have to lie at all this only means the other players in the game are not very good.

I would be interested to hear the opinion of a champion like Edi Birsan on this subject: do players at an elite level, such as in a world championship competition tell lies during their games. My guess is that they do.
I think if you just accept, at the outset, that players will lie to you at some point during the game, then you will be less disapointed when it happens. Sometimes it is necessary to adjust one's expectations to reality.

Perhaps the other necessary adjustment of expectation is that players will always play very well. They won't. We don't all have the ability to play very well.

Thank you all for your support. I thought it was pretty funny when he accused me of the dreaded "lying" in the game. And it was not a backstab...we were NEVER allied. He just thought we were because of my "amazing manipulation" which consisted of something like, "hey, want to be allies?". :-)

omg I love this thread!!!

Could Espera and mwalton play again together so that we get a second threat exactly the same?

It would start this way:
"Can you believe than mwalton vulgarily stabbed me again despite the fact that I was not happy with what he did in the first game?"

I think this espera is cleverer than you think. This whole thread is just to put people off guard in future games and allow him to make a massive and devastating stab!!

Watch out, he is a cunning one...

if i have to stab an ally to win the game i might but i dont like playing with people who take glee in stabbing an ally. war is war and all but i dont enjoy playing with people who break their word time and time again and seem to get pleasure from it.