Scorched Earth war policy

[Sir Scarfalot]

Lose 50% more loot and take double military and infrastructure losses, but all loot lost is destroyed rather than gained by opponents.

It's punishing, but keeps asymmetric warfare viable without fortification. All that matters is that there be an option to not allow your enemy to gain profit from attacking.

There could be more penalties thrown onto it as well, like attackers start with 12 action points, or the nation under this policy gains actions at half speed, etc.

[Edward I]

There would need to be some penalty for the attacker. Inter-alliance wars are fought to destroy military and infra, not take loot, and as far as I've seen defenders in raids mostly care about minimizing their losses, not disincentizing raiders (that's what counters are for).

[Sir Scarfalot]

5 hours ago, Edward I said:

There would need to be some penalty for the attacker. Inter-alliance wars are fought to destroy military and infra, not take loot, and as far as I've seen defenders in raids mostly care about minimizing their losses, not disincentizing raiders (that's what counters are for).

Well, the thing is that if the current form of fortification is removed, then alliances that lose wars can be mass raided for loot, and they can't counter if their militaries have been obliterated in the process. Any attempt to counter at all would be easily re-countered by their wealthier opponents for even greater profits for them. This can be not merely crippling but an existential threat to smaller sides, who can end up with no options but to reroll, VM, merge with a larger side, or feed. With an option to preclude profit from any attacker, they can persist as an independent side for as long as they're willing to hold onto the scorched earth policy.

tl;dr: the penalty for the attacker is that they don't get any loot whatsoever, so anything they spend on the war is a sunk cost that won't be recuperated by looting.

Edited January 27, 2018 by Sir Scarfalot

[Edward I]

1 hour ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

Well, the thing is that if the current form of fortification is removed, then alliances that lose wars can be mass raided for loot, and they can't counter if their militaries have been obliterated in the process. Any attempt to counter at all would be easily re-countered by their wealthier opponents for even greater profits for them. This can be not merely crippling but an existential threat to smaller sides, who can end up with no options but to reroll, VM, merge with a larger side, or feed. With an option to preclude profit from any attacker, they can persist as an independent side for as long as they're willing to hold onto the scorched earth policy.

tl;dr: the penalty for the attacker is that they don't get any loot whatsoever, so anything they spend on the war is a sunk cost that won't be recuperated by looting.

Ah, that makes sense. I still think there should be a penalty for the attacker. Say it simulates destroying infrastructure and housing and waging guerrilla warfare on an invading army or something along those lines.

[Sir Scarfalot]

4 minutes ago, Edward I said:

Ah, that makes sense. I still think there should be a penalty for the attacker. Say it simulates destroying infrastructure and housing and waging guerrilla warfare on an invading army or something along those lines.

Well, that kind of already exists for ground battles in the form of 'resisting population', but that could really stand to be buffed since it counts for approximately the worth of 2k soldiers or something even at decent infra levels.

[Willam von Waldreich]

I do think that in the case of a Nuclear strike that the side that gets nuked should lose military forces. I mean realistically if your in the middle of war and someone nukes you the ability to "protect" all your troops is pretty shady at best. Say when a city gets nuked you lose 1/3 of the amount of troops supported by that city. If they city gets nuked 3 times then you'd lose all troops normally supported by that city.

[Dr Rush]

On 1/25/2018 at 9:26 PM, Sir Scarfalot said:

Lose 50% more loot and take double military and infrastructure losses, but all loot lost is destroyed rather than gained by opponents.

It's punishing, but keeps asymmetric warfare viable without fortification. All that matters is that there be an option to not allow your enemy to gain profit from attacking.

There could be more penalties thrown onto it as well, like attackers start with 12 action points, or the nation under this policy gains actions at half speed, etc.

As far as alliance wars go, it is pretty much impossible to turn a profit if your opponent is even moderately active or competent. If they are neither of these things, this won't really help them. Which makes it a waste of time.

On 3/2/2018 at 0:28 PM, Eugene Faulkner II said:

I do think that in the case of a Nuclear strike that the side that gets nuked should lose military forces. I mean realistically if your in the middle of war and someone nukes you the ability to "protect" all your troops is pretty shady at best. Say when a city gets nuked you lose 1/3 of the amount of troops supported by that city. If they city gets nuked 3 times then you'd lose all troops normally supported by that city.

Your idea is also a waste of time since thats literally nothing as far as losses. Your idea also likely suffers from a binary balance issue but I'm to tired to think it out further.

[Angel Akuryo]

You seem to be thinking of Scorched Earth as a defensive only policy. Just as often however, it was used offensively, see: Sherman's March to the Sea, which was one of the nails in the coffin for the Confederacy.

The 50% less loot covers that, and the taking double damage covers its defensive use, but you should also deal double infra/improvement damage when attacking. That's what Scorched Earth, realistically, is for, to be incredibly brutal and absolutely crippling. Sometimes only to your opponent (offensively used), or sometimes to you and your opponent, seeing who can outlast who in an attrition slugfest where everything is on fire.

I also don't think it making it impossible to get loot either, as thats also just not how Scorched Earth works. For that, i'd actually reccomend making the 50% less loot also apply both ways. Drop it even more, maybe, make it 30%. You only get 30% as much loot when you attack, but when being attacked you only 30% of what your normally would.
I'd also actually reccomend infra/improvement damage be made 3x instead of 2x, and still applying both ways.

Which would make a theoretical ingame SE policy pretty similar to real life in point. It's meant to cripple your opponent by draining of the resources, by burning everything to the ground. This makes it useless for what you intended, but makes it unrivaled when you want to break somebody's jaw and aren't concerned about losing yours. I don't that it'd ever be used in any large scale conflict, but if it were, in the way i've described it, the damage would be amazing. 

[Willam von Waldreich]

On 3/3/2018 at 11:24 PM, Dr Rush said:

As far as alliance wars go, it is pretty much impossible to turn a profit if your opponent is even moderately active or competent. If they are neither of these things, this won't really help them. Which makes it a waste of time.

Your idea is also a waste of time since thats literally nothing as far as losses. Your idea also likely suffers from a binary balance issue but I'm to tired to think it out further.

While I could attempt to point out the flaw in your logic I will not do so as it is a waste of my time and effort. Just suffice it to say that if it can be done in other games of this nature and implemented without issue then it can be done here. But on a related note if you don't feel that it is enough of damage then I guess we could just say that if a nuke hits your city it wipes out all military units stationed in that city ranging from Soldiers, Tanks, Aircraft, and Ships and then you would have nukers just sling at least one nuke at every city until you have no military left. It is called balance for reason.

[Dr Rush]

That it can be done and whether its worthwhile to do so are two entirely separate concepts. I'd respond further but I'm not going to continue the derail.