Quote Originally Posted by changeling View Post
I have found in the past that agreeing to a "No Intentional PK" rule, without further elaboration, can tend to lead to disagreements about what PK actually is. While we all recognize that FB and Kidnaps on a deep-chained province with low peasants is the characteristic hallmark of intentional PK, there are other situations where the line is not clear - i.e. massacring a chained T/M to remove opping power, or noting when exactly is peasants too low.

The following are designed to minimize risk of PKing, while balancing against legitimate war needs that increase the risk of PKing even if not intended to, and to provide a framework whereby that can be done safely.

(I normally assign actual acre numbers to the following based on average numbers, not use percentages. So if we start off with a KD of mostly 1000 acre provinces, I use "250 acres" instead of 25%, but I give percentages in this post to better convey the overall meaning).

1. Define "Semi-Chained Provs" as provinces that have been taken to below 25% of original acres, define "Deep-Chained Provs" as provinces that have been taken to below 10% of original acres.

2. No Kidnaps or Fireballs on either Semi-Chained Provs or Deep-Chained Provs below 500 peasants.

3. No Massacres on Semi-Chained Provs below 200 Peasants without notice pursuant to section X. No massacres on Deep-Chained Provs at all without notice pursuant to section x.

4. No attacks on Deep-Chained Provs on land defense below 120 peasants.*This one is per my earlier post that I was asking about, I do not currently use it, but am considering it and would like to see if I can get a mod to approve, as I'm not sure if it is within the rules, but at the same time it's to address that attacks on land defense provinces do kill peasants, and in sufficient number can be used to PK.*

5. For the bans on actions in sections 2, 3, and 4, the burden is on the attacking party to obtain up to date SoTs and intel to ensure that the peasant levels and acreage are high enough to meet the requirements for whichever action the attacking party is intending.

6. To accommodate massacres on Semi-Chained Provs or Deep-Chained Provs when necessary to remove opping potential, the following notice provision can be used. If a Kingdom wishes to massacre a Semi-Chained or Deep-Chained Prov, that kingdom can give a "12-hour notice" whereby, a message should be sent to the province, the opposing monarch, and posted in the war forum, stating that at X time, set to no earlier than 12 hours from the time of the message, they intend to massacre X province, and to release 1k peasants by then. This notice will be deemed continuing such that X is expected to consider himself a massacre target, and continuously maintain the 1k peasant number whenever lengthy periods of inactivity are expected. But, if there is a 15-hour gap with no new massacres, the notice will be deemed expired, and a new 12-hour notice will have to be issued to resume massacring. Once the 12-hour notice is sent, the massacring Kingdom will no longer have the burden of checking SoTs before massacring to check peasants levels, and the burden to check on and maintain appropriate peasant levels will be shifted to province X. Note, this rule is not intended to allow PKing after giving notice, but to shift the burden of intel-checking and allow for a reasonable presumption.

7. Both Monarchs also agree to work together and communicate and to hold themselves to a duty to act in good faith. I.e. even if 12-hour notice is given, but you notice someone forgot to release enough and is down to 20 peasants, even though you may have given notice, please do the right thing and shoot the prov a warning and temporarily pause massacreing. That said, if a province is continuously abusing the rules, i.e. given notice, but hovering himself at 199 peasants in the hopes that massacres can be avoided, please still communicate with the opposing monarch, and the opposing monarch should keep in mind that while this provision seeks to ensure communication stays open during a war and monarchs cooperate to make sure everyone fights a clean, fair war, a province given notice is open to massacres, and will not be considered a rule-break if he gets killed - so the risk of keeping low peasants to try and avoid massacres is on that province.
This all sounds good, except you refer to deep chained/semi chained as "provinces that have been taken to below x% of original acres". Technically, that doesn't mean they still have to be below that size, and so it is theoretically possible (eg after a very long war) that a "Deep chained province" regrows and ends up big again and it is possible that there could be a scenario where they still nonetheless have land def and under 150 peasants (especially if the war terms say they can't be attacked..lol). I suspect you probably intend to include and additional part of the definition to make clear that if the prov in question regrows above x% then they are no longer considered deep chained/semi chained (unless/until they are back below the acres threshold), because without that you risk handicapping your war effort. From a rules perspective, even without that additional part, I think all of it is within the rules except #4 because that prohibits ALL attacks. In my view, #4 is fine if it relates to a prov that is already badly damaged (ie the aim is just not to kill them) but not fine if it ends up relating to a big prov that has ended up becoming immune from attacks due to these war terms. So in my view to make #4 permissible you need the war terms to only consider a province "deep chained" if they are still below a sensible acre threshold.