Having read the many replies to your original question, I have to answer the
person who said that if a person is not in jail, he can be reasonably assumed
to be among the law-abiding majority. What a ridiculous statement.
1. Even accepting his assumption that the majority are law-abiding (in a
game with no prisoners playing), as many as six of the fourteen persons he
might want to communicate with, i.e. nine allies and five neutrals, might not
be law-abiding. He better not play a neutral, since up to eleven of the other
twenty four persons might be evil in real life. How would he know? (Judging
from the contents of my email, I would have to conclude that the majority of
the people I don't know personally who email me are trying to commit some
hoax or scam.) As to the prisoner informing his friend of your address for
purpose of bulary or rape, that is an obvious red herring. Although one can
imagine the possiblity of such an occurence, does anyone know of an instance
where it actually occurred?
2. The prisoners, assuming that they are not going to phone you or email
you, have only two means of communication left: letter writing and diplo
messages. Diplo messages can only occur once every two weeks, i.e. it takes
over two weeks for a communication to be returned from the other party.
Letter writing is more efficient, usually about three days in the mail each
way, or say, one week for a round trip communication, perhaps more if
over-ocean. So, if they want to communicate as well as they can, they have
to resort to letter-writing, which reveals their address. Therefore it is
not necessary for Clint to go to any special lengths to inform anyone that
prisoners are playing. They will let you know themselves.
3. Suppose a prisoner did try to perpetrate some kind of scam. It would
likely be found out, and then their playing days would be over since word
would inevitably get around and nobody would communicate with them or
cooperate with them in the game. Therefore, communicating with a prisoner is
not likely to be more risky that communicating with anyone else. Their
purpose in playing the game is to play the game, not to scam you, whatever
the reason for their incarceration.
4. I have found that I have at least one "jerk" as an ally in just about
every game, who will generally act in a non-cooperative manner, even, in one
case, to the extent of ordering "InfOthr" just to avoid losing a turn of
training when his emissary happened to land on an allied camp that had been
created the previous turn. I have had prisoners as allies and found them to
be much better allies than the jerks. Therefore, I would prefer Clint tell
me in advance who the jerks are, rather than the prisoners.
Ed
