Out of interest Stu, do you see any room for deception in foreign affairs in BM?
what i see is that deception has become overly prevalent way of conducting politics, and game mechanics was set in the way that it is not punished in any way, which in my opinion disturbs main storyline of bm.
how to develop stories about traitors that win most of time?
if you look at the real background, medieval italy is one extreme example of political place where deception prevails.
if you read Machiavelli, however, you can find out that 9 of 10 of those who make deceptions eventually fail at last instance, and that those who make deceptions lose incredible amount of reputation, to the level that mighty republic of venice lost most of its power and influence with one single deception attempt.
in bm, lords lose reputation for losing regions even if they have no control over events. judges lose pile of reputation for torturing notorious assassins. rulers, however, have reputation intact even after committing continent-known deception that has major influence on the entire continent.
deception is lucrative here, and general trend is that those who are permanently using deceptions have best profit. over the fact that we lose historical background, the fact is that too few stories about brave nobles and lords, impressively long-standing loyalties, heroic acts and attitude can be developed in such situation.
treason now and than is something completely different from treason as dominant if not the only way of "pragmatic" play. actually general message sent to any player who cares for political aspects of bm is rather disturbing, something like "be liar and traitor, that's the only thing which pays off here".
