08-19-2026, 01:45 PM
“How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the
scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?”
King James Version (KJV)
King James Version (KJV)
This isn't a sermon, nor is it a digital tent meeting. Rather the quote above is sage advice, for both life in general, and for figuring out how players of Hyborian War can solve the Rubix's Cube of the "peace treaty problem" that players create for themselves, by way of how they choose to play the game. Me? I dole peace treaties out like candy, when I play Hyborian War - and I'm an unapologetic son of a bitch about it. My role as your enemy in Hyborian War is not to pamper you. It's not to just let you get your way. As your enemy, I embrace the motto of "All is fair in love and war." I don't care about your whimpering about peace treaties being unfair. Peace treaties are instruments of peace, but I wield them like weapons.
Why? Because they frustrate you. I remember all too well how in my very first game of Hyborian War, which was game number HW-85, my first enemy in Hyborian War slapped peace treaties on my kingdom for three straight sets of war seasons. Thus, in my first game of Hyborian War, my first enemy taught me a priceless lesson in the art of frustrating one's enemies. An enemy that can become frustrated is an enemy that can be defeated. After all, if a player cannot handle and deal with their own frustration that swells up inside of them, then that is a weakness - and all weaknesses can be exploited.
But what does that Bible verse quoted above have to do with Hyborian War and the "perceived problem" of peace treaties? Quite a lot, actually, if you pause and think about it.
There's a really good reason why so many Hyborian War players are loath to give up negotiating peace treaties. What you're asking them to give up is a key and central part of their kingdom's safety and security. Just because you want to kick their kingdom's ass does not mean that they are in agreement with just letting you do that. So, time and time and time, again, they send forth their characters on diplomatic missions seeking peace with your sorry kingdom and evil realm. You not wanting them to negotiate peace with your kingdom is just you being selfish, just you thinking more about what's in your own kingdom's best interests, and not what is in their kingdom's best interest.
And the competing interests of players and kingdoms in Hyborian War is an exercise in complexity, not simplicity. Hyborian War players want what they want, the complexities of such be damned. By and large in life, human beings tend to over-focus upon trying to come up with simple solutions to complex problem. To successfully persuade one's fellow Hyborian Ear players to sign off on and to buy into alternatives to the existing status quo of how peace treaties are resorted to and work in Hyborian War, now, it requires taking into account what other players want and are willing to subject themselves to, willingly.
Trying to persuade other Hyborian War players to forego the use of peace treaties, altogether, is a pretty big sell. Plus, they might not be interested in lining up to kiss your ass, just so that your powerful kingdom can rung roughshod at will over their kingdom. What's in it for them? What do they get out of making such a deal with the devil? You don't want to eliminate peace treaties from Hyborian War, because you have the other player's best interest at heart. It's you and your kingdom, what you want and what your kingdom wants, that dominates your thought processes.
In reality, you're not nearly as clever as you might imagine yourself to be. Your Hyborian War enemies can see right through you. You would think nothing of gutting their kingdoms by conquering their provinces. The more the merrier, as far as you're concerned. And all of the words in the world won't change the fact that you're wanting to tailor the game more to your liking, rather than to effectively deal with a host of competing interests that continually vie with one another, in-game.
Hyborian War players don't want their kingdoms snuffed out, and neither do they want what's in the best interests of their own kingdom to play second fiddle to whatever it is that you want and crave so badly.
For the very reason that overreliance upon "simple solutions" to the perceived problem of peace treaties in Hyborian War has failed - and continues to fail, all the more reason, then, to craft "better solutions," where peace treaties are concerned. The alternative is more of the same, more of the existing and frustrating status quo.
[ To Be Continued ]