After I watched WarGames yesterday...

[-Demosthenes-]

Okay, first thing's first: Please don't flame me, and I'm sure whatever I'm going to type won't even be considered. However, whenever I get an idea I have the need to tell people, even if its stupid, so sorry. You weren't forced to read this though

I was watching WarGames yesterday and I noticed a few things... yes I know this game isn't directly like the movie; but hey, it had inspiration!

Would it be at all possible, and make any sense to the game, to perhaps have false alarms sound once and a while? I'm sure many of you remember how WOPR ran simulations which appeared real, but weren't, and then would stop suddenly. Well, would it be effective at all to have that, perhaps as an additional setting, where randomly, sometimes a lot, sometimes never at all, one player sees planes on the radar that don't exist, or ships that don't exist, or even nukes.

I think it could add paranoia and hesitation, but also it probably is impossible and/or extremely hard to code. Who knows, it is probably stupid or impossible or unrealistic, however I thought ... why not ask you guys?

[OAM]

I kinda like the idea, I think I'll need to think about it for awhile though.

[Peace and Love]

being an absolute techno-idiot and know nothing about coding, I'm basing solely on the idea which I like very much.

I can just imagine the chaos it'd cause in Diplomacy

"Africa's launching his nukes!!! Do I try to kick him or is it a false alarm??! I don't know aaahhhh"

[PsychicKid]

I suggested something similar a while ago, only I suggested something I call Phantom Launches. The game randomly selects a player, then randomly selects any number of other players. The first player chosen does not see this, but the game shows them as launching ICBMs. The other players randomly chosen do infact see the silos go hot and missles shoot out. The players not chosen do not see anything.

Obviously, the silos would still be in whatever mode they were in normally, so a player seeing a launch with a bomber might still be getting shot at with AA fire, a tip-off that it's a phantom launch. After the missles start impacting, they do not do any damage to targets, or the damage is restored somehow, and all inbounds vanish from all player's screens. It would be really hard to program, but really interesting if it were possible. Would leave players guessing if they were really under attack, and if the game SAID "New York Hit" or "Airbase Destroyed", that would add to the panic, even if it was false or restored a few minutes after.

Or something.

[SunBeam]

being an absolute techno-idiot and know nothing about coding, I'm basing solely on the idea which I like very much.

I can just imagine the chaos it'd cause in Diplomacy

"Africa's launching his nukes!!! Do I try to kick him or is it a false alarm??! I don't know aaahhhh"

I know the answer: only kick if you can hit cairo first. heh...

[-Demosthenes-]

This probably wouldn't even work well (if possible) until the CPU's tactics were improved, or else you could guess, sometimes at least, due to launch patterns, if it was fake or not.

[ChasM]

Gosh, and I really did want to learn to swim.

[kb5zht]

The only problem with adding stuff like this is that the next step would be including stuff like espionage, etc.....
I HONESTLY believe that one of the merits of this game is the fact that it is strategic-level, so very little micromanagement to bog the game down..... a really good "beer and pretzels" game that has enough detail so as to include some complexity but not so the game drags it's heels.

If you began including stuff like faked missle attacks or anything simular, I would really destroy the spirit of the game.
This game I think comes the closest to accomplishing what it was meant to accomplish "as its".... so many games shoot for a honorable goal and fall short due to flying off on a few tangents here and there.

I say no ground units.... EXCEPT perhaps for short range tactical nuclear rocket units. That could be interesting, and would stay well within the scope of the game. Remember guys, each single new entity added to the game is not "free"; more CPU is required and you'll have more trouble on game connections with slower players or servers.

[C/Airman_Curtis]

So basically you want your early warning systems to fail/malfunction, but i think if you look closely on the fake ones it should have a static in the color only visible from the close up

[C/Airman_Curtis]

I just had a brain wave, what if instead of non existent aircraft and ships, but commercial? They would look slightly different than the units and if not payed attention to it might be shot down as an enemy fighter or sunk. This would also hasten wars becuase they are attacking "civilians"

[torig]

I just had a brain wave, what if instead of non existent aircraft and ships, but commercial? They would look slightly different than the units and if not payed attention to it might be shot down as an enemy fighter or sunk. This would also hasten wars becuase they are attacking "civilians"

That's actually a very interesting idea!
And the civilian planes and ships could also state the casualties. The lower numbers (239 dead, 12 dead, and so on) would tip you off to the mistake

[C/Airman_Curtis]

It with allies it show whether they trust you or regard you as an enemy.

Mabey there should be a civilian infastructure aspect of the game since that is also the biggest thing in war, dams, bridges, factorys, airports, power grids. It should be on the tool bar to check how its doing because if your population remaining cant live without some of the vital stuff like that. And especially OIL for your units.

Edit: And you know how pissed off america would get : p

[palehorse864]

That would be cool in a conventional RTS, though the scenario in Defcon is really an end game scenario. The units are probably stocked with fuel from the beginning, before hostilities ever begin. The game only takes 8 hours (Max) of game time to play out so I doubt they will need a refuel at that point. As for the civillian infrastructure, it could be a neat little tidbit just so you can imagine the damage being done on a more detailed level, though this is an endgame, end of the world scenario where both nations are barely going to have any people to use these items. It would be interesting to have an end game report of how many resources, you saved if you played rather well, though the units in the game should already have everything they need at their respective bases. Everything that does damage in the game is either air, sea, or stationary land based and they aren't too concerned with taking territory.

As for a ground unit, I think that would be a little hard to implement without frustrating players. Since you can't really hold ground in defcon with anything in particular, you lose radar contact after your planes, ships, etc. leave the area, so a mobile ground based nuke launcher would become nearly invincible unless there were some other unit to search them out. I suppose if introversion ever wanted it, they could use the bombers to take those down, but usually bombers already have targets. Subs and nuke silos would be able to see the initial position, but if the ground unit moved, how would someone find it? If they fly fighters over, it will probably move again, or if it is found and launched at while still visible, it could move out of the way by the time a nuke arrives.

By the way, the idea to give more feedback on the civillian infrastructure is good, though I don't think it would affect gameplay, it could be fun to look at just for the heck of it.

[C/Airman_Curtis]

The mobile nukes wouldnt move in gameplay. They are temporary silos until hardened. They would represent new positions that were moved in by the military, just part of refortiforcation. They would be placed and stationary and would not be hardened for 2 hours. It just explains how the new silos go there.us

on the infastructure if you take out power, water, food, and fuel the civilan population would be destroyed within months.