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Feedback from war: Missiles/Nukes


Prefontaine
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Iron Dome at 50% is fine in my opinion. Missiles are considerably cheaper than nukes so having them blocked more often makes sense. Iron Dome being as effective as it is basically makes it a must have project which I dont think there is anything wrong with that.

 

If Alex wants more war and destruction he should also make a project (or make space program) to be able to produce 2 nukes like he has with missiles. Its trickier to accomplish because the amount safe from raiding would never cover 2 nukes but if someone is willing to risk it or get crafty with how they pull it off why not reward them.

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I would first start with the premise: What do we want nukes and missiles to do?

And I think it's important to communicate that to players as well. During wartime, it serves as a very strong way to destroy infrastructure, basically works really well balancing the risk/reward of infrastructure for its benefits in peacetime and the risks at wartime. I do think this conceptually must stay regardless.

However, I'd probably want to play around with the effectiveness of nukes and missiles. Specifically to counter the "Player gets worn down by war so they no longer even attempt to win wars, just declare on largest infra targets to help pad war damage scores".

I could see balancing it in the following ways:

  • Nukes being more effective based on certain domestic infrastructure averages (maybe cap to 1500 or 2000 average but to play a risk/reward of having to rebuild to make nukes more effective)
  • Maybe applying a debuff to nukes/missiles. Say someone has air superiority, it reduces its % chance to be successful (think of a nuke/missile being shot down). Can have different effects for different debuffs. Say then blockade may reduce the % damage of the nuke/missile, and/or the ability for it to be created.

As right now, risk/reward only exists on the person with infrastructure, but there is no risk/reward concept for the player building these weapons in the same day change and especially in a losing war they are only incentivized to neglect other aspects of war mechanics to solely build nukes/missiles for score. Especially with tying nuclear success/effectiveness to debuffs gives players the ability to mitigate this apart from a project while also encouraging them to do more diverse military actions.

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As the radiation levels goes up nukes become less controllable. They may miss there target, hit you or someone else (in your alliance +x% or not). This may help limit nations that toss nukes around like it was Halloween and nukes are candy. May help limit nations that send you "peace out or I'll nuke you threats".

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Why not have an option for Air Strikes on missiles and nukes? I mean there's an option to airstrike money.
But then on the flip side, a nation can declare a number of aircraft to defend the missile or nuke and those planes can't be sent to battle.

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7 hours ago, Lord Tyrion said:

I've had the same concern during all wars regarding how much resistance the nukes/missiles take off.  It doesn't seem you should be able to win a war solely on nukes.  Because the game mechanics don't encourage people to win wars, rather, sit on an opponent for five days - the cost to do that may be eating 4 nukes, even though you have an opponent completely zeroed - and then you could lose a war that you're trying to have expire.  That seems wrong - so if we're going to have to eat nukes to sit on somebody, at least don't let them win the war. 

Separately though, I think if you have an opponent on GC, AS and Blockade your opponent should be considered occupied and not be able to build/launch nukes or missiles against you (and maybe the trade off would be a smaller percentage of success if they do build them and launch them).  Understandably the risk of not allowing nukes/missiles to be built if occupied is that there wouldn't be much cost for people winning wars to just sit indefinitely on an opponent, so that would need to be factored in somehow.

Well I can't say I'm surprised to see you have this opinion. I still remember you asking me to nuke you after you declared a raid on me. 

Anyway I'm starting to become more of an expert on the use of nuclear weapons so hopefully I can express my opinions here. 

 

Nukes are designed to completely destroy a city or 3 and so I believe the following changes would make things more interesting. 

A project that allows you to double the number of nukes you can build daily. 

Nukes using 10 maps instead of 12 (before people complain I'll explain my thoughts. You can destroy 2k infra with two naval attacks using 8 map's and a nuclear attack destroys roughly 1900 infra but have to wait 8 hours longer) 

Nukes should destroy All improvements within the infra destroyed ( actually improvements should be lost anyway whenever you lose infra) 

Land's should be useless for farming for 3 months. 

I have many more ideas for nukes and Missiles but I'd end up being here all night. I know my ideas won't be very popular either but I guess that's just because people want to just win wars easily without risk of potentially losing all their military improvements and actually making it possible for an underdog to turn things around. 

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6 hours ago, Prefontaine said:

I think the more superiority (ground/air/sea) you have over a nation, perhaps it reduces the effectiveness of nukes/missiles. Maybe 15% for each, and then a bonus 5% for all 3 making it 50%?

Nodbody would bother logging on while being dogpiled. More people lose interest and more people go inactive and never return. 

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5 hours ago, Prefontaine said:

What about instead of "blocking", it turns it into a flat damage reduction? No longer an all or nothing attack. 

The VDS/ID roulette is part of the thrill.

I think nukes and missiles are balanced enough. They're a loser's weapon. They do enough damage, cost enough, and are blocked enough.

A project to buy two nukes would be interesting and may shorten wars, but on the downside, there may be no "losing party" for medium length wars. Maybe this is a good thing?

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12 hours ago, Prefontaine said:

What about instead of "blocking", it turns it into a flat damage reduction? No longer an all or nothing attack. 

No.. And I'm somewhat loath to suggest this but I think it'll work quite well. Just change the ID and VDS from blocking the said weapons to saving an improvement.

 

Assume said city is at 2k infra in both below examples.

Example 1 : I use a missle on an enemy nation and his ID kicks in on a attrition war, I do the normal 300+ infra damage, but the enemy's Iron Dome protects his Barracks thus I don't destroy any improvements.

Example 2 : I use a nuke on an enemy nation and his VDS kicks in on an attrition war, I do the normal 1700+ infra damage to the city, and destroy 1 improvement, instead of 2.

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13 hours ago, Prefontaine said:

I think the more superiority (ground/air/sea) you have over a nation, perhaps it reduces the effectiveness of nukes/missiles. Maybe 15% for each, and then a bonus 5% for all 3 making it 50%?

If you want to do that, make nuke and missiles kill military units as well as infra thus allowing people a chance to break out of being sat on.

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15 hours ago, Potpie99 said:

Maybe make nukes cost 250 aluminum and uranium more (up to 1000 aluminum/ 500 uranium) but make nukes destroy 5 improvements instead of 2. Personally when I get nuked I really don't care, I won't have to rebuild the city 90% of the time. Nukes currently are near exclusively for infra damage, but what if there was that risk of the nuke really destroying enough that you have to rebuild the city?

My man pot pie with the genius ideas

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16 hours ago, Leopold von Habsburg said:

Iron Dome at 50% is fine in my opinion. Missiles are considerably cheaper than nukes so having them blocked more often makes sense. Iron Dome being as effective as it is basically makes it a must have project which I dont think there is anything wrong with that.

 

If Alex wants more war and destruction he should also make a project (or make space program) to be able to produce 2 nukes like he has with missiles. Its trickier to accomplish because the amount safe from raiding would never cover 2 nukes but if someone is willing to risk it or get crafty with how they pull it off why not reward them.

I like the idea of a new project that lets you build an extra nuke; you could even make it the prerequisite to some other fun projects (much like the space program). Also, you could easily build 2 nukes a day (and 2 missiles as well) with daily login bonus, unraidable money, turn change revenue, and baseball.

Edited by Kyubnyan

Humans cannot create anything out of nothingness. Humans cannot accomplish anything without holding onto something. After all, humans are not gods.

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On 11/21/2020 at 7:22 AM, Theodosius said:

In essence, there should be a cost to war and players should not be discouraged or limited to fight back, but rather the avenue of doing so should always be open, now whether you are proactive enough about it is a whole other matter (for instance, you would need to find ways to buy that second nuke, as effective blockading and sitting on an opponent could easily deny it).

Echoing on this, it'd be nice if there was also some way to increase updec range.  I think it kind of defeats the purpose if a large chunk of the enemy coalition is able to stay nice and comfy at 8k+ score.  It's a tactic that the mechanics have reinforced with the score changes to tighten tiers, which paradoxically not only helped reduce downdecs but also gave a hidden bonus to the bigger guys.  Buffing score on missiles/nukes, or having some project in the mix to accomplish, would be nice.  I don't think anyone should be able to survive a decently-long global (say 4+ weeks) with 2.5k+ infra and no real opportunity cost.  

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 11/21/2020 at 8:09 PM, lightside said:

It would be interesting if missiles had an option to target military targets and do a small amount of damage to units. That way they are more useful as the amount of infra damage they do is really negligible.

They do, though? Still, one improvements' worth isn't nearly enough I agree, there should be a more specialized anti-military option that takes out more but does less damage otherwise.

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I am not sure if anything should be changed in case of nukes/missiles. Because if you boost them people will be complaining and you will have to change it back. If you nerf it however then I will quit because this is only way to somehow fight back when you are dogppiled. Plus people have ID and VDS so it isn't 100% confirmed hit every time... I would go maybe with other type of warfare. Maybe cyber warfare. Where for example you can disable power in one city for some time, disable part of units due to hacking for some time, maybe even loosing 1map. And it must be separated branch so it won't be affected by your army size or spy count. Sure it gives two sides benefits but it would require skill to use it well. Will also add more depth to gameplay.

Edit:

Just thought about it more and it could be done by a project which is enabling this kind of operations. It could be two kinds of operations offensive ones and defensive ones, second ones would be focused on disabling offensive moves(like enabling power in city, everything countered). It would be like stack of 3 or 5 points to use which could regenerate each turn. Defensive operations could be done not only to your country but you could help somebody else. This would encourage cooperation.

Edited by Maia
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I think nerfing these weapons should be the last choice since they give a reason for the losing party to stay engaged with the game.

Having a project to allow two nukes per day is a good idea, and very simple to implement quickly. Looking at data visualization charts, it feels like the game needs more sinks and doubling nukes could help a little.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Shakyr said:

Just a random thought. If a nuke happens to take out a Nuclear Power Plant, the resulting explosion should do bonus infrastructure damage ;)

Hehe, neat~

That said, nuclear power plants are designed to not explode even under extreme duress. The only way to make a Chernobyl or 3 mile island event happen is to sabotage the thing at an extremely deep level and change its core operating mechanics... while it's running.

...Which would be a rather cute suicide spy mission, wouldn't it? 😃

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Add land to the nukes damage ratio.  More land you have the less damage as your infra is more spread out. This would help make land more strategic and logical.

 

Nukes could be affected by their own radiation. As radiation levels go up the electronics start acting up. 

 

Nukes should need some lead for shielding their own radioactive cargo. This is for the technicians that handle these nukes and the public that may be exposed when the nukes are move on portable launch trucks.

 

https://blog.ucsusa.org/elliott-negin/how-much-cost-to-create-nuclear-weapon

This idea came from others in my alliance.  Nations at war could spy on each other with a "discover location of offensives military projects"  IE: Nuclear Research Facility and Missile Launch Pad, Once discover all nations currently warring would know were to find these projects are and could target them, if they had air superiority and the air force required.  Ground attacks would not work do to targets being to deep in the nation, however naval attacks MAY be possible with cruise missiles if the game wishes.  In that case perhaps Missile Launch Pad could target them as well.

 

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

politics and war 

 

I apologize this is copied and pasted from several weeks ago during the last global  i had noticed a number of imbalances that could be considered for discussion  nukes and missiles were one of the concerns  tyia for reading and providing thoughts and spitballing off any ideas that may interest you  

 

You ordered a ground attack upon the nation of ——- led by ——-. The attack was an immense triumph. Your forces lost 12,501 soldiers and 947 tanks, while ——-'s defenders lost 25,475 soldiers and 0 tanks. You used 333.40 tons of munitions and 265.00 tons of gasoline executing the attack. The attack destroyed 41.25 infrastructure in the city of 020. You stole $0.00 in the attack and destroyed 0 improvements. Because you had Ground Control, your forces were able to raid the enemy airfields and your Tanks destroyed 198 enemy Aircraft. 

 

  • as you can see here, the cost of munitions and gasoline utilized by the attacker exceeds the amount of damaged aircraft (aluminum and cash) required for an enemy to rebuild the aircraft. 
  • equally of note is the enemy does not have any tanks to counter the attackers overwhelming ground forces. Yet the attacker loses 947 tanks. The loss in tanks and the resources required to rebuild them also exceeds that required by the enemy to rebuild their aircraft. 
  • in this one attack we see an attacking army suffering double the damage as the defender despite winning with an “immense triumph.”
  • in addition the defending player has 32 cities with 700 or less infrastructure. The infrastructure damage does not offset the damages inflicted in an equal way either as the infra damage is minimal.  as this is more of a strategic tactic, it does not bother me however, in tandem with the other two issues here, the two imbalance issues cause superior armies to end up losing overall resources compared to inferior defenders. 
  • accounting for aircraft destroyed because of already establishing ground control, the aluminum costs still don’t quite cover the cost of steel for the lost tanks. additionally, if the player had no aircraft, as with many wars, there would be even heavier total negative cost incurred to the superior attacker. 
  • these examples are even more severe when an enemy has only soldiers and ZERO tanks. 
  • while i agree that defenses should have a chance to defend themselves, there comes a point where these minimalist soldier only, low infrastructure builds provide losing enemies too much power. 
  • when these low infra, high city players also have the ability to create missiles and nukes on the fly and can lob them without opposing players having any means of direct defense (spies) to take out missiles/nukes because they are protected by a 24 hour window, the issue  becomes even more severe. 
  • it cannot be fair to protect a players newly created nukes and missiles for 24 hours when a player they are at war with cannot defend themselves at all from the projectile. 
  • it would be my recommendation that missiles and nukes are not protected during an active war. there are already some safeguards for these newly created missiles in place such as a maximum of 3 spy ops against a player each day. in most cases in large scale alliance wars, spy ops are completed against players within a few hours. additionally, there are personal spy defenses to account for which also provide a chance of successfully protecting the projectile. also take into account strategy and timing for MAPS as a player can create a missile and launch it with immunity immediately. to make things fair it should be that if an enemy can immediately launch a missile then it can immediately be targeted by spies. 
  • another balance issue might also be reducing maps of a nuke from 12-10 but also nerfing its damage and the number of resistance it destroys, increasing the duration of radiation as a population and economic reducer to neighboring cities could be the damage offset (this is a tough balance change to consider since a nuke is after all a “nuke” the very name should scare people. 
  • my next suggestion for missiles and spies would simply be for missiles to have a protected window, but also a short window in which they could not fire the projectile.  in anycase, 24 hours of protection is too long for a newly created missile when in the middle of an active war. outside of war, it is perfectly logical. 
  • on to spy issues. spies are expensive and take a long time to regain. this is fine, however, spy ops and their potential damage should also have similar returns. for example, 14 spies shouldn’t be killed on a failed attempt when simply assassinating soldiers (overly cheap units) 
  • some balance changes to consider:
  • create a project that uses much more aluminum
  • require training soldiers to use a modest 0.01  munitions each along with their $ cost. Obviously, a well trained soldier needs to have fired live ammo at targets before being put in the field right? this negates players from using pure soldiers to defend against players who invested more money into tanks, gas and munitions when attacking. this cost would place a 100,000 soldier army at a cost of 1,000  munitions. therefore, protecting those soldiers with more tanks during the above described war scenario is ever more important. 
  • tanks with a value of only 4 soldiers is also slightly irrational. One would think if an rpg or tank to tank missile bounces off of a modern day abrams then what damage do a couple thousand rifle rounds from soldiers do? 
  • a thought for balancing players in losing battles is to also add a new warfare to battle strategy called “Guerrilla Warfare” this would allow soldiers to do more damage to tanks by using atypical warfare. however, casualties from guerilla warfare would be higher for the user... defensively and offensively they counter ground troops and tanks. unlike tactician however they do not evenly spread damage to all troops types ie air and naval. this would require 4 maps as it takes more time to build traps and bury ied’s than conventional warfare operations. 
  • allow for recording of the number of missiles:nukes shot down from projects 
  • allow for recording how many missiles/nukes/spies destroyed with spy ops. all other troops record this info for public knowledge ie.  tanks destroyed/lost... 

 

Edited by spnewbs
misspelling - removing a players name for anonymity
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