This has been my point of view throughout my PBEM carreer, although not this black and white. It's more like this: when a human - human treaty would be broken I would end the game because all fun has gone for me (note, I say for me!). Luckily this never occured. And I played a LOT of games. All my opponents honored their treaties.

Civ for me is about a test in skill. Civ has a tremendous amount of in-game option to fight your opponent, peaceful and in war times. That for me is what the game is about. I don't like to play tricks.

Yes, I don't like to do devious things either. I wouldn't outlaw them, ad I don't stop playing if someone does them, but I don't practise them either. In my experience, which is only casual PBEM, people seem to get pretty annoyed just from a perfectly legal, non-ROP-rape, DoW. In a RoR game I'm stll playing as MAcedon, around turn 40 I had concluded my affairs in Persia I turned around attacked Rome, and I guess he was unprepared. I had no units in his territory, not contracts of any kind. HE seemed somewhat upset, and we're now at turn 80 or so and he's arrived in my territory on several occasions since while we were at peace, forcing me to declare war after a turn or two of his incursion.

Reading Aggie's post, I conclude it's simply a matter of preference. The best thing is to agree on the rules before you start a PBEM. The problem is what to do in PBEM's already going on...

I advise Aggie and col not to play against each other. ;)

Ha, can you imagine the spoiler threads? I'd be in one telling Aggie to attack col first and in the other telling col that Aggie is far too nice to stab. [lol]