Peace Treaties: Alternatives to the Status Quo [Project in Progress]

[GrimFinger]

[ This is a project in progress - No time frame for completion has been determined ]

Project Begun: August 19th, 2026
Scope: For Organized Games of Hyborian War Only

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Peace Treaties: Alternatives to the Status Quo

Peace treaties in Hyborian War are a fairly straightforward concept, but simultaneously, they are a paradox, of sorts. Peace treaties can be a salvation for your kingdom, or a bane to your very existence. Players of Hyborian War both love and hate peace treaties, and many times at the same time. Hyborian War players love to use peace treaties against their enemies, even as they hate for their enemies to use peace treaties against them.

Many very experienced players of Hyborian War have long cried out for Reality Simulations, Inc. (RSI for short) to do something about peace treaties, to "fix" them because they swear that peace treaties are "broken." By the term "broken," what they actually mean is that peace treaties work exactly as they were originally designed to. They work so good, in fact, that players and their kingdoms invariably end up spending more time trapped in a "forced peace" than they spend fighting other kingdoms. And that frustrates them to no end!

"It's called Hyborian War they say, not Hyborian Peace," they say. Some players eventually become so frustrated with how peace treaties in Hyborian War work, that they end up dropping out of games of Hyborian War that they are in. Some players eventually quit playing Hyborian War, altogether, and not because they hate the game, itself, but rather, because they gradually become so frustrated by a single part of the game - peace treaties.

The purpose of this project, Peace Treaties: Alternatives to the Status Quo, is to explore alternatives to RSI's chosen method of implementing peace treaties in Hyborian War. Many players down through the years and decades since Hyborian War was first launched by RSI back in the 1980s era of play by mail gaming have long since persuaded themselves that RSI is never going to "fix" peace treaties, that RSI is never, ever going to tweak the programming of peace treaties, so basically, there is no hope for them to ever player a game of Hyborian War without always getting endlessly bogged down by peace treaties.

But this dilemma, even at its very worst, is actually a problem that is of the self-inflicted variety. Why? Because the true and actual reality is that Hyborian War players have power, already, to "fix" what they hate most about peace treaties. They always have, in fact. But in order to do so, it requires that players think outside of the box, and that they reach mutual agreement with their fellow players of the game to not bind nor limit themselves to continue enslaving themselves to the false doctrine that Hyborian War players are powerless to do anything about peace treaties.

The concept of Organized Games of Hyborian War has been around a very long time, by now. Players of Hyborian War long ago figured out that banding together and working together, they could form new games of Hyborian War faster than RSI could. They could play team games. They could pick their kingdoms or have their kingdoms assigned to them. All kinds of new variations on Hyborian War sprang to life! It just took a little imagination and some plain old cooperation. And none of it required any programming changes by RSI, at all. It was, in a nutshell, an act of self-empowerment.

And the same mindset and the same approach can also provide a host of different alternatives for players of Hyborian War, where the issue/problem of peace treaties is concerned. So, the core essence of what I propose, here, is not something new, per se. Rather, it's just a new twist on an old idea. And it's there, just waiting on the players of Hyborian War to grab it with gusto and to implement it!

But because Hyborian War players often times lack initiative, and because players would often rather complain than to get off their asses and fix a problem, or because they are often lazy, or because they often lack imagination, or because they won't invest energy or effort into solving problems, then they end up feeling stuck and being stuck. It's not RSI that's stuck. It's the players and the player community of Hyborian War, themselves, which inflict the very suffering of which they complain and lament upon themselves.

With that in mind, let us not turn our attention to some alternative possibilities for peace treaties in the PBM game, Hyborian War.

[ To Be Continued ]

[GrimFinger]

If you dig right down to the very root of the problem of peace treaties, what you will arrive at and discover is that the core, underling problem is not any of the following:

1. Peace treaties are too easy to negotiate.

2. The use of tribute makes getting peace treaties too easy.

3. Avoid influence doesn't work like it should, so players end up getting way too many peace treaties on their opponents.

4. Any character can successfully negotiate peace treaties, which guarantees a flood of peace treaties happening.


All of those excuses and others, as well, make for convenient scapegoats for players of Hyborian War that choose to allow their frustration to get the best of them, when denied getting what they want - which is to attack any and all other kingdoms in the game that they want to, and whenever they want to. This desire for - and sense of - entitlement, that they somehow deserve to fight without peace treaties getting in their way, and that if RSI didn't make getting peace treaties so easy for players to get in the first place, then Hyborian War would be a great game. Even as these same haters of peace treaties whine, moan, groan, bitch, and complain about peace treaties without end, simultaneously, they resort to negotiating peace with others as much as and as frequently as they want to. There's a word for that, you know. It's called hypocrisy.

But complaining when things don't go your way has always been a part of Hyborian War. The game is played by human beings, after all, and as a species, we are very well-versed in the art of complaining. Heck, if we had nothing to complain about, we'd complain about that, also.

The real reason that there are so many peace treaties always in play in Hyborian War is because it is the players, themselves, which have their kingdoms' characters try to negotiate peace. Thus, it's human choices, human decisions, and human behavior that is the wellspring from whence so many, so very many peace treaties trace their source point of origin to. And that is not something that RSI programmed into players. There's lots of peace treaties brought into play by the players. These are the result of conscious, deliberate decisions on the part of players. Getting a peace treaty on that other guy's kingdom confers an advantage upon the one one whose characters are sent to negotiate peace, and human beings and human gamers routinely seek to obtain advantages in wargames.

As such, "fixing the problem" requires fixing human behavior and human choices and human-decision-making more so than RSI fixing what is, in actuality, a "perceived problem." Peace treaties in Hyborian War, though it isn't always popular to say it out loud, works exactly as it was designed and programmed by RSI to work. Human beings love to have their scapegoats, though. Their scapegoats are akin to a Linus' security blanket. Players scapegoats provide them a "safe space," of sorts. Bad peace treaties! Bad RSI! Give us what we want. Give us what we could give to ourselves.

Hyborian War players need to ditch their woke mentality and sense of entitlement. War is hell, and peace can be just as bad! Life isn't fair, whether you're playing Hyborian War or just living day-to-day in the real world. Deal with it!

Now, with that out of the way, let us proceed.

[ To Be Continued ]

[GrimFinger]

“How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the

scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?”

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 ]

[GrimFinger]

Having set the stage, so to speak, let's now move on to specific ideas that, collectively more so than individually, seek to explore what I feel are viable options to the existing status quo on peace treaties in Hyborian War. Trying to get everybody in an organized game of Hyborian War to agree to the same thing is a real challenge of the first magnitude, even on the best of days. So, what I advocate for it players not forcing themselves to select from a menu that only includes one option or choice. Hyborian War is a game of different sizes of kingdoms (large, medium, and small) being in play and competing, simultaneously.

Blood Feuds


Wars of Honor


Limited War


War by Mutual Agreement


Let the Gods Decide!

Other

[ To Be Continued ]

[GrimFinger]

Blood Feuds

Blood Feuds is a concept intended to provide Hyborian War players in Organized Games of Hyborian War with an option to ensure that some relief from peace treaties can be obtained by those players who choose to embrace the philosophy that your kingdom hates another kingdom in the Hyborian Age so much, that both of the affected kingdoms willingly into into the declaring of a blood feud to exist between said kingdoms.

A primary benefit of the blood feud approach to playing Hyborian War is that it provides players subject to a blood feud a way to still have access to peace treaties with regard to their foreign relations with other kingdoms in the game, while simultaneously ensuring that they have at least one other kingdom in the game that they can attack and drink to the lees of war with. Mano a mano, with regard to that other kingdom that your kingdom's peoples have a declared blood feud with - but it's no guarantee that your kingdom won't end up fighting other kingdoms, as well, as your diplomats and your peace treaties and your silver-tongued words may still fail you, where other kingdoms in the game are concerned.

Blood feuds, as such can take the form of either being game-long in duration, from beginning to the bitter end, or they can be ended, and thus, only be in effect for a single set of war seasons (or even multiple sets of war seasons).

While other kingdoms continue to run the risk of getting locked down in peace treaties by all of their neighboring kingdoms, yours can bask in beauty of a blood feud, and war to your heart's content with that one other certain kingdom who hates your kingdom as much as your kingdom hates their kingdom.

What does it require?

1. That a game organizer for Hyborian War include the Blood Feud option in the special rules for their particular organized game.

2. That yourself and one other player in the same game openly declare a blood feud to be in effect towards each other's kingdom. Blood feuds are not forced upon your kingdom and its peoples. Rather, blood feuds derive from the Old Ways, and are the result of a mutual agreement by the affected parties to carry their mutual hatred for one another forward in the glory of war, without resort to diplomats and peace treaties to resolve their differences.

3. That both parties to a declared blood feud live up to their word. Mutual agreement is better, quicker, and easier than relying upon RSI to finally getting around to tweaking the programming of Hyborian War. It's also less work for RSI, and can be achieved without programming of any sort, at all.

4. If only one player declares a blood feud with another kingdom, then no blood feud goes into effect. To agree to a blood feud is to agree to a feud, after all. Blood feuds are mutual affairs, not unilaterally declared. Remember, it is the players, themselves, who bind themselves into a mutual blood feud, and it is up to the players, themselves, to make the concept work as intended.

5. Players declaring a blood feud must also declare whether it is eternal and forever, until the end of the epoch (until the end of the game), or just for a certain specified and agreed upon amount of time. The mutual agreement to blood feuds is what binds the respective players to them.

6. Other players in the same game will watch these blood feuds play out over the course of the game. If you really hate getting stuck in peace treaties and being unable to invade anyone else, then why not give blood feuds a try?

[Olorin]

OTHER

LIMITED PEACE

I have proposed (and we played one game of) a limited Peace system. You can have ONE peace treaty per warseason with any other nation. Each PY they reset. So Nemedia can get (by whatever means ) a peace treaty on AQUI, CORI and OPHI, but then if they brak the treaty with AQUI they can not get another until after the next PY. This makes it more of a strategic use than tactical. You can still slap one on a Kingdom and frustrate them for a whole warseason, but it eliminates the Peace-Invade-Peace.

[GrimFinger]

Wars of Honor

Wars of Honor is a concept whereby RSI"s programmed, automated acquisition of peace treaties via overreliance upon a character-based system of negotiated peace shifts players away from this reliance upon characters in favor of reliance upon players, much as is the case with how formal alliances in Hyborian War work, already - minus the dependence upon in-game intent to ally declarations.

In Wars of Honor, it is the players and not their characters who hold all of the high cards. Players (and game organizers) who choose to embrace Wars of Honor are then able to use their characters for things other than negotiating peace. The glue that binds in Wars of Honor is the honor of the players, themselves. Peace treaties don't get rammed down players' throats, when they are fighting a War of Honor.

The duration of wars is determined by and agreed upon by the players,themselves, who are party to a War of Honor. Don't want to get trapped in a forever war? Then a War of Honor may be right up your alley. Prefer just a few turns worth of war, instead of a long, drawn out, protracted war? Wars of Honor have you covered. Not got any good diplomats to secret your kingdom from the ravening hordes of another kingdom's armies? This, too, isn't a problem when a War of Honor is being fought by players and their kingdoms in Hyborian War.

In Wars of Honor, players can ask for - and expect - quarter. Wars of honor provide a more idealistic approach to waging war in the Hyborian Age. Long time players of Hyborian who hate - nay, utterly despise - the way that peace treaties bog everything down, turning Hyborian War into Hyborian Peace, could do a lot worse than embrace Wars of Honor. In a War of Honor, you never have to worry about gelling a peace treaty slapped upon you - though truly honorable men can even choose by mutual agreement to give their enemy an agreed-upon opportunity to send one or more characters a chance to attempts the negotiation of peace via the old method. But Wars of Honor do not force that, and players are free to forego peace treaties, altogether.

Wars of Honor, however, embraces a more civilized and gentlemanly approach to waging war in the Hyborian Age. Not everyone in a game of Hyborian Warm, however, might have openly proclaimed that they would be waging a War of Honor. In those cases, the barbarians may well still find their way to your kingdom's gate. Against the truly barbaric who do not adhere to a gentleman's code for the conducting of wars, you may well be forced to resort to embracing peace treaties in raw form, yet again.

That other kings and queens, emperors and empresses, and other assorted rulers of nations lack the civility that only a true gentlemanly statesman brings to the table, and consequently, lack the self-discipline and the good sense to embrace a more orderly approach to the waging of war, is no reason for you and others of a like mind to not set a better example - the proper example.

If your honor is intact and you possess it in abundance, then you need not lie at the mercy of unforgiving peace treaties. A golden age of civilized warfare awaits any and all who place honor above all else as the polestar by which their lives - and their wars - shall be guided.

[GrimFinger]

Limited War

Not looking for a wholesale solution to peace treaties in every instance? Then Limited War might be just exactly what you're looking for. A Limited War doesn't rob you of all of your kingdom's natural options for an entire game, nor even for a whole set of war seasons. Rather, it's focus is very narrow, indeed. Limited Wars are, in essence, one-offs.

Less about wars for entire kingdoms, Limited Wars focus players attention more on wars for control of a single, particular provinces. One and your done, so to speak.

As with all of these alternatives to playing Hyborian War without peace treaties blocking your way, every time that you turn around, Limited War requires a willingness by players to reach mutual agreement, for the sake of offering an improvement and enhancement over the standard fare, typical Hyborian War organized game experience.

Mutual agreement is a central tenet in the pursuit of viable alternatives to the existing and long-standing way of waging war in the Hyborian Age in the play by mail game known as Hyborian War. Hyborian War players aren't always gonna agree on everything, but that doesn't mean that they can't ever agree on anything.

If you like the idea of playing Hyborian War slightly different from what you're used to, yet you aren't quite ready to throw caution entirely to the wind and eliminate resort to peace treaties, altogether, then a Limited War might be just what the doctor ordered.

Now, if you just can't bring yourself to accept any limits, at all, when playing Hyborian War, then the standard off-the-shelf game of Hyborian War provides that to you, already. But if you find yourself craving something slightly different, but not too different, then Limited War might be just the solution that you've been looking for.

The thing about Limited War is that to resort to it, time and time, again, in a single game of Hyborian War will require a separate agreement with at least one other player each and every time that you want to wage Limited War in Hyborian War. As with every alternative way of playing Hyborian War, the key is the players, not programming changes to the game's underlying code or base data files.

If your word isn't worth shit, then even Limited War lies beyond your reach.

[GrimFinger]

War by Mutual Agreement

War by Mutual Agreement is a common theme to all of these alternatives to the current status quo of Hyborian War, albeit it to varying degrees. Now, hither comes War by Mutual Agreement in all its splendor, in all its variety, in all its glory!

Why skimp, when you can splurge? Why think small, when you can dare to go big? Here, you take the chains off of your own imagination, and opt to go hog wild - and treat yourself and at least one willing fellow player in your game of Hyborian War to a gamut of possibilities. Mix and match with your kingdom's trusty axe.

Need to pause mid-way through a long set of war seasons to catch your kingdom's breath? Crave non-stop, unending war everlasting? Prefer minor conflict one turn, but a sprawling brawl the next? War by Mutual Agreement has go you covered.

Want to allow resort to peace treaties, but only using characters that end in multiples of 5 (KUSA-5, DARF-10, AQUI-15, SHEM-20)? Or how about limiting the negotiation of peace to only characters that are female? Hate magic messing up your manly battles? The by mutual agreement, you can achieve that by leaving all of the mages at home, when time comes to invade those heathens that are in need of a good beating down?

Figure out the preferred mix of include this but exclude that, and persuade one (or more) player(s) to agree to it, and then set out to do just, exactly that - and nothing more and nothing less.

It's all imagination-based, but grounded in mutual agreement. Cry “Havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war.

Say what you will, but at the end of the day, you'll either play within the rules that RSI created almost half a century ago, or you'll treat yourself to a feast of mutual agreement. Think about that, the next time that your kingdom finds itself trapped in more peace treaties than you can shake a stick at.

[GrimFinger]

Let the Gods Decide!

Feeling a little daring? Why pay lip service to the gods of the different realms in the Hyborian Age, when you can allow the gods, themselves, to decide you kingdom's fate, by taking the decision of which kingdom (or kingdoms) that your kingdom must face without reliance upon - or resort to - the use of peace treaties and the negotiation thereof?

A script can be relied upon to determine the will of the gods. The gods may love you, or the gods may hate you, but regardless of which it turns out to be, a script can become the bearer of bad news. No killing of the messenger will take place, when it isn't a human who brings word to you of what it is that the gods have spoken.

Run just prior to each peace years turn, divine will can be ascertained with a little touch of technological assistance.

No such script currently exists - but it soon will!

Just how badly do you want to play Hyborian War and not end up trapped in perpetual peace by every kingdom that you border? You can pray to the gods, but you can also have the gods intervene directly. Or do you prefer to continue to take your chance on avoiding the influence of every kingdom that you want to fight? Think that your enemies won't resort to the use of tribute, if you keep on playing Hyborian War without mutual agreement of some form?

If you think that you get bored just sitting around turn after turn after turn, chained to peace treaty after peace treaty after peace treaty? Then how do you think that the gods feel having to always sit on the sidelines, also?

By mutual agreement, the gods can become a more active force in games of Hyborian War. At the touch of a single mouse click, the gods decide who among all of the kingdoms in the Hyborian Age that may not obstruct your will, by encumbering you with peace treaties. Sure, losing sucks, but perpetual peace brought on by unwanted treaties rammed down your throat can be a hell all their own.

Do something about it - by mutual agreement (and with the gods help, also, of course).