RECENTLY, I started playing (read: got addicted to) an online browser-based game called Travian. Travian is a real-time strategy game with elements of city-building games such as The Sims and of turn-based strategy games such as Civilization, but no client is downloaded or installed and your village coexists with those of thousands of other players.
Travian is rife with economics-related concepts, such as the challenge of reconciling infinite wants with finite resources and the mutual benefits of free trade. In addition to gathering resources and creating buildings, players can also interact with each other in the game either through peaceful trade or through military force. It is from this dichotomy of interaction that an interesting conundrum arises, and it is that quandary which I will pursue today.
We’re under attack!
UNFORTUNATELY for me, much of my early-game experience consisted of the latter means of interaction: military force. Within the first three days, I was invaded by no fewer than six competing players. Fortunately, these early attacks did not harm me for two reasons.
Firstly, my village was equipped with traps which would immobilize some of the enemy forces and hold them in my base. However, my village only had 10 traps, so if the enemy attacked with more than 10 men, some of them would get through.
Secondly, though, my village also had a cranny, a special building which protects up to a certain amount of resources from the plundering hands of enemy raiders. Because my cranny is relatively large and I don’t have many excess resources, the cranny effectively insures all my resources, regardless of how many attackers there are.
Negotiations
AFTER each failed attack (thankfully, they all failed), I would send a carefully-worded message to the attacker. In the message, I would explain that my village was riddled with traps and that the trapped troops would be of no use to the attacker, although he would continue to pay 1 unit of wheat per troop per hour as upkeep for his armed forces. Then, I would explain that all future attacks on my village would be doomed to fail because I had a cranny large enough to insure that none of my resources could be taken through raids. After explaining these two truths, I would offer the former attacker a choice: call off all future attacks on me and perhaps agree to some sort of trade agreement in exchange for the release of the prisoners, or continue fruitlessly attacking.
Results
MIRACULOUSLY, my technique of negotiated release worked in every single case which I pursued. The question I pose is, why? Furthermore, at least three of my former enemies agreed to trade deals or alliances. Not one of them proceeded to stab me in the back and send more troops after I released their prisoners. Why did this happen? Was it not in their self-interest to keep attacking me after pretending to be my friend?
And most importantly, why do people uphold contracts even in the absence of a contract-enforcing body (such as the police)? (For the record, there are no GMs or other such officials in this game)
Contract: An agreement, generally upheld by law, by which two or more parties promise to act in a certain way towards each other.
Let’s look at what a contract is, and why it’s important.
Contracts are the foundation of property ownership, liberty, security. Examples of contracts include the agreements undertaken in order to obtain a driver’s license (licensed drivers must contractually agree to respect the other drivers’ rights to safety), deeds of land ownership, and unwritten agreements to compensate the providers of goods and services at predetermined rates of payment (this is why it is illegal to eat food at a restaurant and refuse to pay for it).
The above contracts, however, are all enforced or enforceable by law–for instance, bad drivers face punitive measures such as fines and mandatory appearances at traffic courts, squatters can be evicted from land that they do not own, and thieves, or people who do not adequately compensate providers of goods and services, face fines or time in prison.
Trade agreements and agreements not to attack each other in Travian, on the other hand, are not enforced by the makers of the game or by any external party although there are certain relationships between players which are barred by game rules (for instance, one account may not be used solely to provide resources for another account).
So, why did it work?
Although this question has been debated for decades, perhaps centuries, in some form or another, I can think of three potential explanations for the behavior of my ex-enemies: opportunity cost, reputation, and perceptions of my skill level.
#1. Opportunity Cost
The first explanation is the opportunity cost of attacking. Recall that opportunity cost is the value of the next-best option given up in order to do something. When a player decides to attack me, his troops are not sitting at home. Thus, the opportunity cost of attacking is defense. If my former enemy suspects that one of his enemies is about to attack him, he may be reluctant to attack my base again because his own base will be undefended if he does so. The real-world analogy here is that upholding the contract may in fact be in both parties’ self-interest; thus, both parties will rationally uphold the contract even without a law-enforcing body.
The previous explanation seems a bit too convenient, however. Sure, it’s all fine and dandy if both parties are satisfied, but what if one side gets the short end of the stick, as my former attackers perhaps did when they conceded to my demands? This is where my second explanation, reputation, comes into play.
#2. Reputation
If the other player back-stabs me, his reputation could take a beating as I may tell other players of his treachery. Furthermore, many of my ex-attackers are experienced players and members of alliances; hence, misbehavior by one member of an alliance may cast a specter of doubt on the reputations of all the members of the alliance. To preserve a good reputation, which is necessary for trade and mutual defense deals, alliance members may be even more careful about the consequences of their actions than non-aligned players.
In the real world, people may uphold contracts for fear of gaining a reputation as a cheat and a liar if they do not. A bad reputation can cause other people to be unwilling to cooperate and make useful, self-interested agreements in the future, so it may in fact be in peoples’ best interest to uphold contracts which appear contrary to self-interest in the short run if the alternative is a bad reputation.
#3. They think I’m pro
The final explanation that I propose for my former enemies’ agreements is their perception of my skills. Generally, players with large armies tend to raid inexperienced players, colloquially known as “noobs”. However, my messages indicated to the raiders that I was not a noob who could easily be forced to hand over resources through raids, perhaps because I took the time to craft messages to each attacker instead of surrendering immediately and perhaps because my messages demonstrated thorough knowledge of traps and crannies.
This could explain why at least two of my attackers later offered invitations to an alliance. If the attackers think that I am a good player, it is in their self-interest to cultivate a good relationship with me and woo me into joining an alliance, where I could cooperate with them and make us both better off. In short, attacking a good player is a waste of time and resources, so it is in an attackers best interest to coexist peacefully with him.
Once again, there is a real-world analogy here: perhaps people only voluntarily uphold contracts when they regard the other party as too astute to betray. In essence, this is another form of the opportunity cost explanation: the opportunity cost of betrayal is alliance, and if alliance is more fruitful in the long run than betrayal, a rational player will choose that path instead.
Conclusion
CONTRACT theory has important applications beyond the world of Travian. As noted above, contracts ensure the protection of our three most fundamental, inalienable rights: life, liberty, and property. Without contracts, and, perhaps, a means of enforcing them, neither our political system nor our economic system would function for long; essentially, anarchy can be defined as the absence of contracts or of a means to enforce and uphold them.
Indeed, this whole field of inquiry is deeply intertwined with the philosophy of morality–the question which I have posed above is essentially another form of the philosophical question, “Why do people behave morally even in the absence of retribution for iniquity?” Naturally, to answer this question, we must first define morality (clearly a difficult task), but I think most people can agree that, in the absence of other factors, honoring agreements and contracts is morally upright.
Are people innately moral? Do they only honor commitments when it is in their self-interest to do so? Would an average person follow through with an agreement even when it seems detrimental to his or her well-being? These are questions which have been asked since at least the times of Plato and Confucius, yet we still have not discovered universally accepted answers to them.
– The Invisible Hand