Minimal ranges for ICBM's?

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Minimal ranges for ICBM's?

Postby torq » Mon Jun 25, 2007 7:27 am

Well, I don't know whether it would be right, but here's my thought.

What will happen if there was a minimal range an ICBM can be launched to. Imagine silos don't have the ability to launch ICBM's closer than the radius of a SRBM for example. I'm afraid already to mention the 'real world' where minimal ranges do in fact exist for ICBMs, but the game itself provides an advantage for neighboring superpowers. Imagine a war between SA and Africa - they have to clash with fleets first, then they try to find out silos locations and then they launch. Imagine now EU vs Russia or NA vs SA. Personally I see nothing real about ICBM travelling from Leningrad to Kiev, of from Mexico city to Houston. It gives certain advantages to some players leaving othes in disadvantage (regarding points for kills).

What I am proposing is a limitation on minimal distance a player can launch his ICBMs at. Say, you can launch from Iceland at Cairo, but you can't launch there from Sicilia. ICBMs can fly over the continent but just can't be launched right across the border. Use bombers/subs for that.

When the player skills are heavily unmatched in local battles NA/SA, RU/EU, and maybe even RU/Asia, things are usually over very quickly and one player get points only because he happenned to be closer to the enemy cities than the others. When you eliminated all russian silos while being Europe you only need to launch everything you have at Russia, thus killing the population and ensuring a victory for yourself. It doesn't matter already if your population will be eliminated as well due to 2:1 kills/deaths ratio for points given. If it's lucky, SA can place silos just on the edge of NA radars and after killing silos with subs just take the whole NA population.
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Postby Xocrates » Mon Jun 25, 2007 11:20 am

I think you're forgetting to take some points into account:

1) in most cases, players will only use silos in a neighbouring country if any other way was no longer viable. Bombers and subs are still the number 1 choice when attacking neighbouring countries and the usage of silos usually happen when these are no longer or in too small numbers to be effective.

2) and most importantly, this brings serious problems in 1v1. Imagine a game Europe vs Russia, it was very likely that at one point all that the players have are silos, but because they're so close they can't use them. Thus being unable to end the game.

A very important rule in games is that you can't have useless units. A minimal range for silos would reduce the usefulness of silos (as well as of some strategies).
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Postby torq » Mon Jun 25, 2007 11:59 am

Well, yes, I agree that I didn't take that into account but still this creates a way to grab free points just by nuking your neighbor before anyone else would be able to do it (simply because you're closer).

I once played for USA, and anticipated the attack from both Europe allied with Russia and South America I placed my silos as much to the north as I could trying to to provide at least minimul protection for my cities at the same time (along the Hudson bay), reasonably believing that most nukes will come from the north. As for SA - he placed all six silos near the USA/Mexico Border. At first I thought that it would be easy to take them down with my bombers but at Defcon 2 I think, combined European and Russian fleets arrived and began rapidly destroying my ships. My bombers were ready to attack SA's silos, but I just couldn't sit and watch my fleet being methodically destroyed in Atlantic by overwhelming force. At the very moment Defcon 1 sounded, Asia approached my west coast and I had no other choice but to direct half of my bombers against EU/Russian and Asian fleets. In the middle of battle I tried to negotiate with all three upon a cease fire, but no luck. About 10 bombers released nukes on top of the Atlantic fleets, effectively destroying most of them and the rest flew after SA's silos but it simply wasn't enough to take them down. SA just opened them and released the whole lot on my cities. My silos done all they could repelling that attack but they were out of position, so SA got about 350 points from my territory. (he launched subs as well) Of course, later, his population had been eliminated by others, thus he ended with only 3.5 million survivors (the initial number was 200 millions), but still he managed to win that game. All that he was doing during the rest of the game was sitting back and watching as others tried to get even with him, making 'clever' remarks in the process.I know, that a part of it is my own fault, but I'd never expected an attack from three sides at once. I managed to end up positive, even above Europe, but still I felt somehow disappointed by the way it all had turned out. (So I sulked a lot during the game :lol:).

Russia/Europe made a blunder and launched against SA but their nukes had to go through my silos on their way south and most of them were just wasted.
After this game I became the strong fan of the survivor scoring mode, which is not as stupid as default or genocide are.
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Postby bert_the_turtle » Mon Jun 25, 2007 12:18 pm

Odd, I haven't seen a single six player game where firing all your stuff at a single neighbor would have been sufficient for a win.
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Postby torq » Mon Jun 25, 2007 12:37 pm

bert_the_turtle wrote:Odd, I haven't seen a single six player game where firing all your stuff at a single neighbor would have been sufficient for a win.


50 nukes from silos + 30 nukes from subs + bomber attacks against fully populated and unprotected cities. Count for yourself. He took 160-180 millions. That is 320-360 points, plus his subs launched successfully against asia - this adds another 100-120 points. Subtract 96 (his losses) and you'd get a range from 324 to 383 points at the end. A very good result for any player.

Of course he was lucky he attacked me at the most inconvenient moment for me. But still.
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Postby bert_the_turtle » Mon Jun 25, 2007 1:29 pm

torq wrote:plus his subs launched successfully against asia - this adds another 100-120 points.
Ah, you did not mention that :)
torq wrote:thus he ended with only 3.5 million survivors
That makes 197 points lost by my counting. So without the hits on asia, he'd have had 120-160 points, hardly enough to win in most games. Don't get me wrong, hitting your neighbor is a very good source of points, but if you use ALL of your resources for that (bombers, subs and silos) and leaving nothing for territories further away, you won't win.

Now consider the same game with a lower bound on silo nuke range. SA is a big country, so no matter what sensible minimal range you'd have picked, he would have been able to place his silos far away enough to still be able to hit you. It would have only taken a minute or two longer. What really went wrong in the game was that almost everyone was racing to hit you first, and SA won this race.

You could just as well suggest to ban sub nuke launches until 30 minutes into Defcon 1. A mass sub nuke launch is far more powerful than a silo launch (same amounts of nukes, but in a shorter time).
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Postby torq » Mon Jun 25, 2007 1:53 pm

bert_the_turtle wrote:
torq wrote:plus his subs launched successfully against asia - this adds another 100-120 points.
Ah, you did not mention that :)
torq wrote:thus he ended with only 3.5 million survivors
That makes 197 points lost by my counting.


Yes, I've made a mistake.
Let's say he nuked 160 of my people (I averaged to the lower values, because I don't remember exacly). This gave him about 320 points. And also he nuked Asia that brought him another 100 points 320+100 = 420. Subtract 197 420-197 = 223 points (high enough for winning), although his score was higher as far as I remember.

So without the hits on asia, he'd have had 120-160 points, hardly enough to win in most games. Don't get me wrong, hitting your neighbor is a very good source of points, but if you use ALL of your resources for that (bombers, subs and silos) and leaving nothing for territories further away, you won't win.


In a normal situation when enemies have tact and attack you in queue, yes. :lol:

Now consider the same game with a lower bound on silo nuke range. SA is a big country, so no matter what sensible minimal range you'd have picked, he would have been able to place his silos far away enough to still be able to hit you. It would have only taken a minute or two longer.


Two minutes is very much! I would be able to regroup my bombers. And more - missile arcs would be different so the effects wouldn't be so devastating.

What really went wrong in the game was that almost everyone was racing to hit you first, and SA won this race.


Yes, but EU/Russia had more moral rights to nuke me than SA who didn't do a thing except launching his silos taking advantage of his closeness. Instead I sunk the most of the combined EU/Russian fleet, including all their subs but failed to kill SA's silos.
Now, when I had thought it all over, I' realize what exactly I did wrong. I should have left the atlantic fleet and concentrated on SA's silos. Even if they'd launched subs - they didn't know the positions of my silos and their nukes had to go through AA fire before hitting my cities. Moreover, kills would have spread between two players instead of one. And SA would have been annihilated, totally undefended.

You could just as well suggest to ban sub nuke launches until 30 minutes into Defcon 1. A mass sub nuke launch is far more powerful than a silo launch (same amounts of nukes, but in a shorter time).


No, I wouldn't go THAT far. :) But bombers deal easily with subs. When Defcon 1 sounds, bombers are usally on target, counting down before the launch. It's not all that difficult to change targets to the spot where a radiation sign had appeared.
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Postby Chimaera » Mon Jun 25, 2007 2:25 pm

Moral rights? We're talking about Defcon here. :twisted:
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Postby torq » Mon Jun 25, 2007 2:35 pm

Chimaera wrote:Moral rights? We're talking about Defcon here. :twisted:


:lol: I know
But nevertheless, imagine you've made a long journey west, gained air and naval superioriy and are preparing to launch whe whole might of your fleet onto the enemy but then some $!@#$% just launches all he has and steals the victory right from under your nose. :) What emotions would dominate your feelings? And more - your victim suddenly bares nuclear fangs and boils the water in Atlantic right under your ships.....

But really - I DID propose a cease fire, an alliance even, but they refused (as they told me later - I was in the middle of battle, attacking their ships, but I thought that's what a cease fire is made for.... ) so I didn't feel very sorry when I was sinking their ships and later launching my nukes against EU :)
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Postby torig » Mon Jun 25, 2007 5:03 pm

That's also probably why the number of players is even. At least, one of the reasons why this is like it is. Every one has at least one neighbour they are the closest to, so the advantage -if there were any- is nullified.

Nuking your closest neighbour not only gives you a lot of points, it will also effectively deal with the biggest threat to you.
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Postby torq » Mon Jun 25, 2007 5:09 pm

With the possible exception of EU/Africa. EU has disadvantage.
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Postby torig » Mon Jun 25, 2007 5:22 pm

torq wrote:With the possible exception of EU/Africa. EU has disadvantage.


Not at all. Eu is as much in the race for Cairo as the USSR and Asia are.
Actually, depending on alliances and placement, both USSR/EU could be at a slight disadvantage versus Asia.
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Postby torq » Mon Jun 25, 2007 5:42 pm

Cairo is not all of Africa. Hitting Cairo only won't really bring you a victory. You'll get 40-50 points maximum. And the most of northern Africa is a desert and there are quite a few cities there. Africa stretches long beyond European radar ranges while over 80% of Europe is covered by African radars. This gives you time to prepare a bomber raid over Sakhara and hit Europe much faster than Europe can (firstly - you can't make hidden preparations except on extreme North, thus doubling the distance for the bombers to cover, and secondly even if you don't care about stealth or take out African radars really quick, your bombers have to go farther since most of the African population is in the south). And the most important thing - many European cities are located near the border and are easy targets). The best territory for Europe to Attack, really is Russia, but when you attack Russia, Africa usually attacks you :)
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