As Per 3.2. on Declaring conflicts.

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" 3.2. Declare conflict (Shares 3.2 with conflict resolution chart.) During the conflict phase, each player is granted one opportunity to declare a military conflict and one opportunity to declare a political conflict. These conflict opportunities alternate between players with remaining conflict opportunities in player order until each player has declared a conflict or passed on each of his or her conflict opportunities. A player’s military and political conflicts may be declared in either order during the round. When a player has an opportunity to declare a conflict, that player may:

◊ Declare a military conflict, or pass the opportunity to do so.
◊ Declare a political conflict, or pass the opportunity to do so.

If a specific conflict opportunity is passed, the player forfeits his or her right to use that opportunity this phase."

AS per Pass

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When passing an opportunity to declare a conflict, a player is not required to specify which type of conflict he or she is passing.

Excellent, more rules writing that attempts to lock down the rules but at the same time buggers up the intent.

Thankfully the second line means that we can (at least until a random ruling changes it) play the second way and just say 'pass'

I had understood "If a specific conflict opportunity is passed, the player forfeits his or her right to use that opportunity this phase" to be there to point out that passing a conflict opportunity is not like passing on an action opportunity (where you can play actions even after passing, provided your opponent doesn't pass.)

Here I understand "specific" to mean "either the first or the second opportunity" that, once passed, cannot later be used. I did not read "specific" to mean "either the military or political opportunity." The passing text served to me just to make the situation clearly explained (i.e. you can pass without declaring what type of conflict you have passed on.)

ooo nicely interpreted...

After thinking about it, I think it's fairly clear:

To put it in plainspeak ....

1) If you Pass your Conflict, you can then declare either Political or Military ( only 1 though!)
2) If you Pass a specific Conflict ( i.e. Military) and you state it verbally, then you are forced to declare only the one that's left ( in this case Political).

That's to avoid situation where you lie your opponent that you won't do Military and then you do it.

Cheers

Ahh! So many times at the Kiku Matsuri did my opponent pass on conflict when they were first player (and no I don't mean the action window), then proceed to declare both types against me after I declared or passed. I figured that a pass actually meant you forfeit the opportunity for that conflict, but given the chaos of the day I never had time or bothered to clarify.

39 minutes ago, romo said:

Ahh! So many times at the Kiku Matsuri did my opponent pass on conflict when they were first player (and no I don't mean the action window), then proceed to declare both types against me after I declared or passed. I figured that a pass actually meant you forfeit the opportunity for that conflict, but given the chaos of the day I never had time or bothered to clarify.

Whaaa? No wonder so many games went to time.

On 9/1/2017 at 7:32 AM, Matrim said:

Excellent, more rules writing that attempts to lock down the rules but at the same time buggers up the intent.

Ha! Par for the course. I believe if the complete rules for Magic the Gathering was printed it would be something like 2500 pages. XD

A ruling for this has popped up on facebook. When you pass, if you mention to your opponent what type of conflict you would have done, you are bound from not using it your next opportunity.

Deleting my previous post. As answered above, the RR is very clear. TY!