A while back, some people posed the question: how can a player of a geo-political simulation safely hand off control to another if the given player has to temporarily leave the simulation? The best solution, I think, can be handled completely in-game through a basic treaty called a Treaty of Conditional Surrender.

A conditional surrender is when one country chooses to give partial control over itself to another. This is as opposed to unconditional surrenders, in which one country gives complete control over itself to another. Conditional surrenders occur before a losing army is wholly defeated. After negotiation, the victor and loser agree on terms of the surrender, rules about future conduct that neither side can break. For example, the loser might cede control over their borders to the victor while the victor might be prohibited from massacring the loser's citizens. The loser is incentivized to abide by these terms because the victor's military was in a position to achieve victory, and the victor is incentivized to abide by these terms because the loser's military has not been wholly defeated and can resume the war if antagonized. Most victors have historically refused to insist on unconditional surrender (with the notable exception of the United States) on the grounds that the loser is then incentivized to fight to the bitter end at significant cost to the victor.

This model for a conditional surrender can be easily applied to any multi-party simulated geopolitical landscape where one player wishes to temporarily surrender control over their country to a fellow player. In-game treaties between players could be modeled off of the conditional surrender, stating "you may control X of my military units on my borders, and may alter these parameters of my economic policy. In exchange for this, you may take advantage of my country's medical institutions and your military units may move within my country. However, if your military units move within X miles of my capital, other countries (and I by email) will be notified of your treachery, and I will never cover for you if you need to be absent from the simulation."

Any thoughts?