why should everybody else suddenly jump to your defense, sympathize with you and attack your ally-turned-enemy?

the issue is between you and your former ally, nobody else.

"Only thing I can do is post' He broke our truce' on their profile. But not really that effective ;/ "

hahaha, some people actually do that. check my profile for an example.

i am ok only when breaking the truce is agreed by both parties.

i once had someone breaking the truce (with 3 players left and I am 2nd, truce with 3rd). the 1st player apparently hated that too and we ended up working together taking the 3rd payer out. what a happy ending.

I just keep a list of good and bad allies. I often avoid tables where I see one or more players that have not worked out as allies, or players that tend to be obnoxious or annoying in the chat window. It's all part of the learning curve and the fun of a game where personalities play a major part in the game. I have only come across a handful of players who are true backstabbers and if I end up in a game with them, I make a point of paying close attention to what they are doing. If it is in my power, and works to my advantage overall in the game, I do everything I can to eliminate them early.

When I witness a truce break, for me its not a matter "only of the 2". I am all for killing the truce breaker, and am fast to ally with the one who has been broken over. Many players *do* join in, in this case to kill truce breakers as the very first.

What a surprise, 5er being the first person to comment and support the backstabber.

I made some positive experiance. At a 2 vs. 2 stage of the game my "ally" started backstabbing me. So the other two offerd me help and he got first out of the game...

You cannot insure against breaking alliance by your ally. You have to ally with honest players only. With those you can trust to. I personally never break alliance :)

surely you know the risks when entering an alliance? thats just part of a package, theres nothing stopping them from turning on you.

There is also nothing stopping the whole board killing the aliance breaker first, and the is also nothing stopping the betrayed one posting the backstabber on the forum. So alliances are not offered so fast against him again.

Alliances are *the* "prisoners dilemma". ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma ) Note that betraying is only the personal optimal strategy if you are sure that you will not have to interact with the person again.

Otherwise "Tit-for-Tat" is the optimal strategy.

I have a related question:

It seems to me that folks only consider that when you are attacked that that is breaking an alliance. However, I alos think that an alliance is broken when your "ally" cuts you off from the rest of the board, even though he or she doesn't attack you. Does anyone else think this is bad ally behvior?