What is "colateral damage" in the game?

[BorstiMa]

What is "colateral damage" in the game?
What causes it?

[Hegemon Hog]

My understanding was that it's when you damage your allies. However, i'm not sure exactly how that's done. My guess would be that you can only do it when you have "ceasefire" turned off, but I know for a fact that I've done collateral damage when "ceasefire" was never turned off during the game.

Regardless, you want to avoid getting collateral damage because it subtracts from your point total (i don't know how much).

Anyone know more about this?

[ARRG]

It seems to happen when you have your own nukes exploding soon after being shot or too close of your own cities in general.

[Behrditz]

ive gotten collateral damage during a 1 vs 1 game. Therefore, its not "attacking allies" It IS the most score damaging thing there is too, -2 points as opposed to -1. Im THINKING its when you somehow hurt yourself...maybe like....trying to shoot down an enemy nuke and having the air defense missile hit a city, or having one of your planes run out of fuel and crash into a city.

Just my ideas

[GeneticFreak]

If you turn radiation view on you will see when your area glows, its gonna "grow" collateral damage over time. It's very deadly to scores when you got your whole continent glowing earlier in the game, while those who got shot at last will have less collateral penalty.

[wwarnick]

Collateral is damage done on the side. It's indirect. In Defcon that means the fallout damage. It's when a lot of radiation is at one place and kills another few million in a city. You get extra points deducted in Standard mode for that because then a lot of nukes have passed your defense. You can find the manual online somewhere on the steam storefront; it's described in there.

I know this because I've tested the game 8)

Jelco

Fallout damage? That's not described in the manual and it hasn't been mentioned anywhere by Chris or anyone else. I've only been deducted collateral points a few of the many times I've played and I've never finished a game without glowing fairly bright (I'm not the best player). I think collateral is when you damage yourself. One thing I do know is that whenever there's a white glow, whether it be a detonated nuke or a destroyed fighter, it damages all units in its radius (you can destroy a radar with a fighter's explosion; I've done it). I think collateral is when your own explosions happen above your own cities.

[wwarnick]

I did a 1v1 AI game, didn't place any silos, and let the computer bomb the heck out of me. By the time he was finished, Africa was glowing pretty bright, but since the AI is dumb, he saved just enough bombs that the victory timer never started. But I had it on full speed and minutes passed, but my collateral stayed at 0. Then I tried a new game with silos and the whole deal, then bombed myself immediately after defcon 1. My collateral went up to around 2.5 before I quit. So yes, collateral means self-damage. And people wonder why they get collateral points when they don't nuke themselves, but that's because one of your fighters or nukes was destroyed above one of your cities.

[xander]

I did a 1v1 AI game, didn't place any silos, and let the computer bomb the heck out of me. By the time he was finished, Africa was glowing pretty bright, but since the AI is dumb, he saved just enough bombs that the victory timer never started. But I had it on full speed and minutes passed, but my collateral stayed at 0. Then I tried a new game with silos and the whole deal, then bombed myself immediately after defcon 1. My collateral went up to around 2.5 before I quit. So yes, collateral means self-damage. And people wonder why they get collateral points when they don't nuke themselves, but that's because one of your fighters or nukes was destroyed above one of your cities.

You can also get collateral if you nuke an ally's city, or if you nuke an enemy city very close to one of your own (this can be a problem with Europe when nuking the USSR).

xander

[nimby]

Collateral damage has -nothing- to do with radiation. Radiation is just for show.


Collateral damage is:

1) Casualties inflicted while still allied. A 'sneak attack' on a current ally that involves his cities blowing up will -cost- you 2 points for every megadeath.
2) Casualties inflicted on yourself/allies by your shot down nukes/planes over their cities. I'm not sure about planes, but I've seen AA shoot down one of my nukes while it crossed Teheran, and it inflicted 0.3 million casualties.

[MajorKingKong]

I've seen it happen against the AI in a game once. I launched scouting fighters over their territory, their air defense shot down my fighter as it was directly flying over one of their radar stations and the radar station was destroyed (all during defcon 3) ... was quite nice, I wonder if their is a way to use it to your advantage (i.e. using the enemy's own air defence to damage their structures ....)

[prozachar]

I've been charged with small amounts of collateral damage when I play as NA against an AI Africa, which is odd because I've never been in a situation where I didn't have unchallenged air superiority over my own continent. None of my own nukes were ever shot down over my territory.

[wwarnick]

I've been charged with small amounts of collateral damage when I play as NA against an AI Africa, which is odd because I've never been in a situation where I didn't have unchallenged air superiority over my own continent. None of my own nukes were ever shot down over my territory.

One of your fighter's could have been shot down over your territory though. Don't tell me they've never sent any fighters or bombers into your territory.

wwarnick

[Keywork]

I think collateral damage is done by nukes that are not placed on city or military targets, basically, empty space.

Try it sometime, I always get collateral when I click too fast and mistakenly bomb empty space on land.

[Fyei]

Collateral damage is when you kill people of your own country or your allies, nuke your allies cities while your still in an alliance and watch your score drop like a rock.

[Ozy]

I always thought that collateral damage was damage inflicted against you by an opposing side in the following fashion: You place a unit next to a city. The enemy nukes that unit and the city is caught in the blast. The city sustains minor damage.

This is certainly how it always seems to work....