nuclear threat

[Adm.Naismith]

Korn469, about your analysis on Nuclear war M.A.D. (mutual assured destruction) I agree that the options about alert and counterstrike are good feature to add in a TBS game.

They are on the same line of Fighter on alert (scramble) in Civ II / Alpha Centauri and I like game design coherence

To tell all the truth, instead I disagree about your quick dismiss of Simultaneous Turns solution.

In fact I'm convinced that all the "trigger" presetted order you must add to a TBS game to add realism are only patches that can only last for a few game.

I think (you already know my crusade on CIV Essential List ) that the only way to counterattack against the incoming wave of RTS games is to "dig and improve" the concept of Simultaneous turns and to graft it into old TBS one-time-our-hero genre.

BTW if any new Apolytoner want a deeper look on this "Simultaneous" concept can jump to the original suggestion for EC3: http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum28/H...tml?date=09:02

And no, I'm almost sure Civ III will not be "simultaneous", but Sid "magic" can't be right every time

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

[mwaf]

quote: m_m_x: it culd be funny if our alarm system will do a mistake of identity of that kind of lunch and ppl will have to decide if its for real or not....should they start ww3 or not......should they start a nuckliar war or not......

I like that, there should be some cases where the SDI defense isn't sure if the missile is a nuke or not and the decision is up to you. This would most likely happen in a city with disorder.

quote: Earthling7: I would absolutely not want the game to decide if I nuke or not. In a dem. or rep. I may need to consult the counsel, but the game would ALWAYS need to consult me before nuking. America would not nuke without an executive decision (the president). This is too big a deal to be automated.

Definitely but maybe if you wouldn't have a government at the moment (government collapse) and disorder someone below you would launch the strike without your permission. Resulting furthermore chaos.

quote: Earthling7: Changing the targets would not cost money, but take a few turns

I agree on that.

In general; this pre-set trigger thing could start a chain reaction off nukes that would eventually destroy almost every city on the planet. Small peaceful civs would benefit from this, well, if you can call it that, after all there would be lots of waste, global warming etc.

[Chairman Mao]

For tactical ballistic missiles, I would have a simple missile control panel that listed the locations of all your ballistic missiles and would give you three options for each, the first being the target for each particular missile, the second being it's status, and the third its warhead type.

When you choose the target option, a list of all the cities for each civ pops up and you choose a preset target. Depending on the range, you may not be able to target all cities of each civ.

The status option must be set for each missile. The options would be Alert, Ready, and Standby.

A missile set on Alert will automatically fire at the specified target *if* the target belongs to the civ who launched an attack, whether it be against you or any other civ. This is intended to be a deterent from an attack on any civ. If the Russians launch a missile attack on the Zulus, your Alert missiles fire at the Russians, the Germans, who may have Alert missiles aimed at you then have theirs fire off at your targets. It becomes a vicious circle that results in AAD, absolute assured destruction. Thus putting missiles on Alert is meant as a tool to deter foreign powers from waging a missile attack for the sake of mankind.

A missile on Ready will be armed and ready to fire. If a missile attack is launched against any civ, a dialogue box pops up and you are asked if you would like to launch your missile at its target.

For a missile on Standby, it has a target, but you must open the nuke control panel and choose to fire it yourself.

These are all predicated on the fact that *if* an attack is made on you by a foreign civ, your Alert missiles will fire and you will get a dialogue box asking if you would like to fire your Ready missiles, even if it's not the end of your opponent's turn. You will not be allowed to fire Standby missiles until your own turn. Missile attacks by each civ would be resolved after each civ has taken its turn.

The Warhead Type will give options of Nuclear, Biological, or Conventional, each with their own special effects.

Diplomatic Options would include agreeing to take all missiles off of Alert and Ready modes. When you agree, all of your missiles become Standby. If you change one of these and break the treaty, you suffer severe reputation damage. You may also agree to A 50% Reduction of Missile Arsenals. Agreeing carries along with it the stipulation that you will not produce any more missiles.

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I'd also like to see two types of missiles during the game. The earlier version would be the V2, a conventional rocket which you would attack a city with, doing X amount of damage. The second version, the cruise missile, would come along with the advent of computers. With a cruise missile, you can choose the target within the city you are attacking: two military targets, civilians (reduces population), or any city improvement of your choice. Choosing to attack civilians does reputation damage to the attacker.

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I also firmly believe that a city in unrest should have several consequences. The citizens may attack a lone military unit stationed in a city. They may destroy an improvement. And if the unrest occurs over enough turns, say 8, and missile or a missile silo are in the city or its radius, there is a chance they will set off the missile. This makes it imperitive in the modern age to either keep the populus under control with military units or to keep them happy, depending on the type of government.

[CapTVK]

quote: Originally posted by korn469 on 05-01-2000 02:36 PM ok if civ3 is a turned based game you cannot have full control over your nukes during the other players turn...if there are three players in a game and player one has many nukes, player two has a few nukes and player three has the most nukes and these weapons have unlimited range then without an alert mode it is impossible to prevent a first strike scenario. for game play you need to have some of your nukes ready to go...maybe with improved technology you could gain improved detection so you could know exactly who launched a nuke, with this technology you could specify an alert mode and a counterstrike mode for each civ or something to that effect

It might be easier if you seperate the launch of nukes from a player's turn itself with the help of a timer that all players are aware of. For example, I have quite an arsenal, let's say 9 nukes. I intend to use them in my turn but before this can happen I have to arm them from the launch screen. There are two problems when arming your warheads: one, all players are informed that your arming your nukes, but they don't know who you're aiming for. The other players are only warned that you've started to arm and when you've armed your warheads and two, it takes 70 seconds to arm the warheads and it takes another 60 seconds for the nukes to reach their targets, should you decide to launch. So there is a window of opportunity for a preemptive strike!

So in doing this I must be pretty sure that the other players don't have their warheads already armed and not launch a counterstrike against me, tough call...

By putting in a timer you create an interesting dilemma, do you permanently arm your warheads for a firststrike or in fear of a counterstrike? And in doing so, are you thereby showing that you have hostile intentions to use them if need be? (otherwise you wouldn't have your warheads permanently armed, of course!
Or do you take a more peaceful approach by disarming your nukes as a sign of good faith?


Note:
I'm discussing this as seen from a multiplayer perspective, playing against the AI might be different...

[Kumiorava]

My view on those tactical, pre-aimed nukes:

I'll demonstrate using korn's method.

It's player 1's turn. He decides player 3 no longer deserves to live, so he commands his pre-aimed nuke forces to blast him of the planet.

However, these nukes will not launch from their silos untill player 1 is done with his moves and ends his turn. After the missiles are launched, player 1 can't effect their set targets.

At this point, before the actual turn of the next player, all players that posess an active nuclear arsenal will be alerted simultaneously with a popup. They are asked if they want to launch their nukes to their preset targets or hold back. If any of these players select to launch, everybody will again receave a notification and the same questions. This will be repeated untill everyone who might want to fire has fired, or ran out of nukes or held back. Thus, we can have a situation where you can wait to see if somebody launches at you or your allies before firing your own nukes, and if someone does you still have a chance to fire back in the same turn, even if he's turn comes after you.

So something like this would be a log of events displayed to all players:

- Player 1 uses nuclear weapons on Player 3's cities A,B,C,D.
- Player 3 uses nuclear weapons on Player 1's cities I,K,L,M.
- Player 4 (allied with 3) uses nuclear weapons on Player 1's cities E,F,G,H
- Player 2 (allied with 1) uses nuclear weapons on Player 3's cities N,O, and Player 4's cities P,Q.
- Player 3 uses nuclear weapons on Player 2's cities R,S.
- Player 4 uses nuclear weapons on Player 2's cities T,U.

Outside all this, we have Player 5, who has nukes but isn't allied with anybody, so he stays out of it. We also have Player 6, who doesn't have the tech to make nukes, so all he can do is to whatch in horror as 1, 2, 3, and 4 blow the planet up around him.

This seem's rather realistic to me. And since you know that if you fire, the enemy will fire back and you'll also die, and thus we have a balance of terror as long as people remain sane. All this results in a cold war.

Of course this special launching period should have a time limit, to keep down overly long gameplay delays. Make it 30 seconds after each notification or whatever. When in multiplayer, the chat line should also remain open to let players smooth out strategy in middle of the action, although they must make it quick.

After all launch orders are set, the nukes of every player that fired will hit their targets, get countered by SDI or whatever. Once the nukes are on their way, the players can't effect their course, and they can't be canceled. After all the missiles have either either hit or been destroyed, the next player on the list after player 1 gets his normal turn. That is, if there is anything left of his civ.

As for the nuke units, I think the ideas about several types with different uses is good. The type that I used in this model should be a long range missile with a large payload. It should be a unit you can't just move around the map, hopping from city to city. The only way to move them around should be via land carriers. They should be located in silos, that could be airbase-type tile improvements. Each missile would have a preset, changable target. Changing the target should take at least a turn. At launchtime you would select the set targets from a list (like when airlifting in Civ2), and the correct missiles would fire away. Each silo could only hold one missile. All silos would need to be within a city's radius. That city would get massive unhappiness, even more if the silo is loaded. Each silo tile improvement would suck production out of the tile for "upkeep", say one or two shields. If the tile produces zero shield, the number would turn negative, and the cost would needed to be taken from the city shield pool. A nuke unit would still require the support dictated by youur form of govt. All this would resrict how big of an nuke arsenal you can maintain. And as silos could be destroyed by plain old pillaging, it would also create new strategies concerning their placement.

Other, smalleer and more conventional nukes should also be available. They should function much like the ones we know and love, or maby some other way.

As for other diplomatic aspects of nuking, and the implementation of fallout, I'll go with korn.

[This message has been edited by Kumiorava (edited May 06, 2000).]

[Az]

sorry . didn't get the last post . could you plz post it in a simplified form ?

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Enslave the enemy .