I have been stuck for a week now. The problem arises from the complexity of some of these scripts. In the previous essay, I described how I decided to remove — for the time being — all verbs associated with lying, because it was simply too difficult to sort out how to assess the truth value of any statement. Now I am faced with a similar problem related to the creation of alliances. How should an actor make such a decision?
Initial motivations
In general, alliances are advantageous to actors, so they should be favorable to them. Two factors must be considered for the initial proposal of an alliance: the choice of ally and the choice of enemy. The second choice is easier: it should be that actor who is least well-considered (the sum of pGood, pHonest, and -pPower). In addition, some weight should be put on how dangerous that actor is — how many aura pons the actor possesses. After all, there isn’t much value in going after an opponent who is already weak. And by taking out a strong actor, the conspirators might well gain the good regard of the weak actor. There are also second-order considerations that must be taken into account:
Retaliatory alliances
An actor should retaliate against all those who ally against him by forming alliances against them. This rule would result in the rapid formation of alliances, the speed of which is determined only by the speed of gossip. However, the victim of an alliance would never know of an actual alliance; allies would never reveal that. However, they WOULD know of a rejected proposal of an alliance. If A proposes an alliance to B against C, then B could tattle on A to C, thereby gaining trust and goodwill from C. This would in turn induce C to propose an alliance to B against A, with a good chance that B would agree to the alliance.
Knowledge of another’s pValues
Proposing an alliance is a dangerous act: the DirObject might well tattle. To properly assess the risk, the Subject must have a good idea of DirObject’s pValues. This requires me to add two new features to SWAT: circumferential relationships and their uncertainties. I suppose that is the first task I must tackle. It will be difficult to master because I have never understood Facundo’s factory system for generating relationships.
