Per the discussion in the number of nuclear weapons thread, discussion has been brought up to make nuclear weapons more realistic (and more of a deterrent) and uncap GRL, instead of the current cap of 5.00. So, I thought I would post it here for discussion if the mods deem it fit.

not sure this will work well...but based on the escalation of nukes immediately in wars being a high possibility I approve this topic to try to make use of nukes more of a deterrent.

It would be interesting, but it would mess with smaller nations big time. Why not leave the cap of 5.00 GRL for CN nations until they are over 8 days old?

I doubt it would do anything for deterrence because hundreds of nukes have to be used to make a big impact. And nobody is going to care about their couple of contributions toward it.

It should only affect you if you own nukes.

No that is too unrealistic

After 50 days of being a nations it becomes uncapped or atleast double or triple the cap

Smaller nations have bills that are only a very small fraction of their income. They'll have significantly less problems than those of us with well-developed nations, if at all.

Also people seem to forget that you can always collect, regardless of whether you can pay bills. Also you can sell off your infrastructure to reduce bills.

So I support this or raising the cap to the point it hurts badly for everyone if another war like "The War of the Coalition" happens again. Bring on the Apocalypse!

I'll add my support to it being uncapped. I don't think it should have a cap for any nations, it won't hurt smaller nations any more then larger nations. It's also just plain more realistic, I don't think it will be a deterrent, maybe it will become a bargaining point for alliances getting killed though. "Give us terms or we'll go nuclear and ruin everyone's economy".

I support very much.

I support this suggestion. 5.00 is too little, so uncap it, or at least make it 15.00 or something.

Heh, I love to see that happening. It would make everything more interesting.

I definitely support the GRL being uncapped. It would make the game more realistic, and as it has been mentioned before in this thread, it wouldn't hurt the little nations any more (and possibly less) than the larger nations.

I'm all for trying a cap of 10 first like TE has, if that still fails to deter anyone then raise it again perhaps.

Keep the Radiation Cleanup bonus resource's cap at 2.5 though, this would improve 8BG sets during nuclear holocausts...

At this stage the GRL hasn't really been over 5 very often? so uncapping/increasing the cap would be no change at all for most of the time.

How about reduce GRL "growth" depending on it's value.

Say starting at 5 GRL it grows at 1/2 the normal value and once it hits 10, 1/4.

It goes to the roof way too fast as per the current formula, 1000 nations being hit by nukes makes for GR of 10, and that would probably be close to a major war, but for a massive war, you'd easily get up to 30-40.

The problem with uncapping is that even a small nuclear war, eg the war of the coalition, with a cap much higher than 5 will push even optimised nations collections below there daily bills.

For the big nations fighting this won't be as much as a problem as large WC covers all,
But for smaller nations, especially new ones would face a bill lock situation that would last for more than a month

So I'd support increasing the cap to 10 or 15, however only on the condition that the effects of GRL are linked to Infra, such that there is a linier ramp between no GRL effect at 500 infra, and 100% at 2500

I support this, it should be completely uncapped. Best case scenario is that it reduces inflation and prevents horrible curbstomps. This is one of the best ideas I've seen in a long time.

Being that I'm not a fan of capping anything, I wholeheartedly support this.

I support the removal of GRL's cap. In addition, I'd like to suggest that more heavily developed nations suffer from GRL to a greater degree (think more population and the resources required to decontaminate a large nation).

The larger nations would likely want to prevent nuclear escalation, and young nations get to grow with little impact from GRL.

I would agree with a 10 cap, but *not* uncapped. I don't trust people to be smart enough to stop nuking during a war so that the GRL stays low, or doesn't go too high. It won't be a deterrant imo, but even if it was, why are we looking at making nukes a deterrant? Given they're so prevalent now, if anything they should be *renamed*, not "made to be a deterrant" because in RL they are a deterrant.

Considering how weak the 8BG setup is, I don't see any problem with an uncapped Radiation Clean-up.

I agree wholeheartedly with this post.

Yeah, would hurt smaller nations less that way. Good post SynthFG.
Also great suggestion.

How about instead of uncapping it, increase the cap to 10 and add capless team radiation levels? I believe those were proposed a few months ago, but didn't make it through. It would increase the realism, as well as adding an interesting political dimension. For example, if I'm on maroon, and a blue ally of mine is considering going nuclear against a big maroon alliance they're fighting, I'm going to have an interest in keeping that from happening. It would make things interesting.

-Bama

Bring it down to the top 25 or 30%, 5% is a bit high I think.

This. Removing the cap from GRL would kill new nations in a war simply because their weak economies cannot cope with the harsh environment effects. An exception for new nations would have to be extended to a far longer period (30-60 days?) to be moderately effective.

I agree with this. TRL is a really great idea. I also like uaciat's idea of making it grow less than linearly, after 5.0 and/or 10.0 the rate it grows by slows down proportional to nations that have been nuked.

Such a shame team color has nothing to do with the geographic location of nations.

My CN:TE nation has exactly 1 infrastructure and almost no trades, makes around 1,500 per day with bills of 20 per day. I know TE collection totals are increased by 50%, but that still doesn't make a big difference. New nations have collections which massively surpass their bills, and it would be essentially impossible to break that. There should be no reason for concern over them because they'll be completely okay. Although it's usually the case that registration gets turned off anyway during big wars.

In reality a worldwide nuclear war would simply kill off all life as we know it, but just the destruction alone would cause significant economic disruption for everyone regardless of whether they are involved or not, that isn't really reflected in how the game operates. Perhaps the economic angle would support a suggestion like Bama's regarding team radiation level.

The team idea seems kinda lame in that it basically punishes an alliance for being organized.

I'd support this idea. It would basically please the capless and cap people; while in theory, there's no cap for it, but in practice, it wouldn't go that high up anyways.

I support a complete removal of the GRL cap based on my own analysis of GRL data (uncapped values) and other demographic data since August 17, 2008.

Sure, the war that was in progress at that time may not be representative of the next major conflict, but my nation would be able to trudge through it even if it were as high as 30 (based on my calculations). Of course, I wouldn't be whining about "oh woe is me, I can't pay my bills," I'd just cut back to the necessary level and cope. If only I had been tracking demographics since I started my nation nearly 1,000 days ago, I'd be able to offer a more complete analysis... but I guess that doesn't matter much now does it.

http://cybernations.wikia.com/wiki/Global_radiation

Work done for you.
"The Global Radiation level continued to set records, reaching 14.76 on September 2nd."

I'd support it if the formula was revamped per the number of nations on CN to be a bit slower. As we get more nations, GRL increases/decreases slower and less nations it increases/decreases faster. Given current number of nations it should be slower than it is currently.

Heres the thing, the GRL only removes 1 environment point per level. So 30 GRL would be a hard hit but not unstoppable. Also I like the idea of a sliding scale, but slightly different:

GRL effect = (Standard Effect x ( Nations infrastructure level/5000)) - 1 point equivalent for every 1000 technology.

So a 5k nation with 100 tech would feel 10 GRL if it is at 11, while a 3k nation and 200 tech would feel 6.4 GRL. A 1k nation would only feel 2.2 GRL if it has no tech.

Also, Rad cleanup should be changed to: Reduces the effects of GRL felt by the owner nation by 3 points plus 1 for every 1000 technology, up to a maximum of 5000.

So a nation with 3k tech and rad cleanup would be protected from 6 points of GRL.

Here is my suggestion corresponding to yours:

Exceptions:

1. Nation is 60 days old or under.

AND

2. Nation has less than 1000 infra.


Why? Most small/young nations lack large warchests unlike the larger nations. They can't just stop collecting tax and wait for the GRL to drop unlike the larger nations.

GRL reduction effects:

Radiation Cleanup: 50% reduction of GRL
Lead: 10% reduction of GRL

That would make the crappy 8BR trade circle better. Both resources' effects stack up.

I would love for it to be uncapped.

What? Team colors are the CN equivalent of continents. I see no reason to view them otherwise. There's no other way to determine it except the Google map, which isn't good for anything but RP because there could in theory be 1000 nations occupying the same spot. TRL is a valid concept.

-Bama

i like the idea of an uncapped GRL however the formulas for it are reworked or not reworked, it would be nice to see how an apocalypse works in cn, and it would probably help gain more cn players due to many nations having to sell off infra to pay bills if it got high enough for long enough

If you viewed colors as continents then i would say that GRL should be based entirely on color with nations not on the color only receiving say 1/3 of the radiation level from the other colors.

So for an example of this say enough blue nations were nuked to raise the GRL to 15 on blue. Assuming that no other nukes were launched the GRL for everyone not on blue would be 5.

This would increase realism and make things more dynamic as alliances on smaller colors wouldn't be able to get as high a GRL as alliances on larger colors.

Also their shouldn't be a cap on GRL anywhere.

Assuming Admin put the environment effects at something very near the original suggestion, all of CN without radiation cleanup could be running off of less than 10% pop with a 30 GRL.

Just a few little statistics to help discussion:
CN has 72,531 nukes
Each nation hit with nukes adds to GRL by about .01

Therefore:
Nuking 1/3 of Planet Bob = 100 GRL for a month after the nukes stop flying

Also, I say yes.

The GRL should flatten out at around the point where without Radiation Cleanup, a nation's environment is totally destroyed (0 stars). With radiation cleanup, this can be mitigated to a point where your nation can keep at least some of their environment. That is, from what I understand (correct me if I'm wrong, of course), the idea behind it.

So from that perspective, I would say no to uncapping the ingame value of GRL (besides, if you want to see a large GRL, it still gets calculated past 5.00 ... on one of the stats pages, don't have CN access to check).

The point of raising or uncapping the GRL isn't to see who far it goes up its to make nuclear weapons an actual deterant like in real life. As it is you can start flinging nukes and not have to worry about any effect exept getting hit by one. Were as if GRL was uncapped their would be serious political pressure to stop alliances from using nukes as it would actually seriously effect the global economy not the mild harm 5 GRL does.

Also having different GRL levels for colors would eliminate the fact that hitting 1/3 of planet Bob would cause a 100 GRL for around a month as their isn't 1/3 of Bob on any 1 color and even if multiple colors were heavily hit it still wouldn't matter as much since you could flee to smaller less effected colors.

I...don't see the point. Its not constructive to uncap the GRL. The last time the admins did something relating to the GRL, it royally screwed up the mojo of my nation and my environment suffered and I lost so many citizens. The cap is a sufficient regulation in the game. There's no reason to uncap it so we ALL incur extra environment penalties. Face it, people aren't going to stop using nukes whether there was an additional incentive to NOT use them in the first place. Most people just play this game to screw around, and to tell you the truth, I who takes it seriously, would consider using nuclear weapons more carefully for the sake of the cyber planet. Other people will not. Just my 2 cents.

I have that event on record.

I prefer to keep my own stats. It is much easier to track, chart, and otherwise manipulate data if it is located on my own hard disk instead of somewhere on the internet.

I'd only be for easing the cap, not uncapping it, if we made it team-centric. Perhaps allowing the current cap to double in teams launching or getting hit by nukes.

See my response on the first page:

Also, regarding this:

1. This would not cause political pressure to stop the nuking. *everyone* on planet bob suffers the same effects from this so no one is worse off than anyone else. People just make threads in the Gameplay Discussion forums complaining to admin that their environment sucks. Anyone coming to the politics arena will get laughed away at these complaints.
2. Why, why, why do you all want GRL to be uncapped so much? Everyone and their mother has nukes now in CN, the simple fact is if admin were to remove the cap and GRL went to 30, the only thing that would suffer is the game itself, because all of the casual gamers would not make nearly as much money and would lose interest. It's not in admin's best interest for the membership base of CN to go down, which will happen if you were to uncap GRL. Nukes cannot be an effective deterrent because there are too many of them on Planet Bob and anyone wishing for an uncap would see one of two things happening: 1. Wars never happening and a decline in membership due to boredom 2. Nuclear holocaust and a decline in membership due to frustration.

I prefer a modest increase of the cap, maybe to 10. better yet (and I know this is covered in other topics) if you want a deterrent, rename nukes something IRL which is smaller than a nuke, and make a "real" nuke only for top 2% and call it a nuke.

Edit: I'll say also I like the idea of incorporating something to do with teams in this.

I still think my idea is better than just making a bigger cap

I'm sure there are other threads about TRL ... I don't want to have that argument again here.

Uncapping GRL would provide a disincentive for all out nuclear warfare, it would provide a source of in-game politics and I support it.

From my calculations most nations would still be covering their bills without a problem with a GRL of 20 so the spectre of worldwide bill lock is not really likely.

Also why does this idea get approved when someone else suggests it

If an alliance were to hypothetically say "We will attack immediately with nukes if *anyone* attacks us (in defensive wars)," it not only would provide a disincentive for nuclear warfare, but warfare in general, because in this case warfare=nuclear warfare. Yes, it would provide a source of in-game politics, but at the expense of boring the casual gamer who isn't involved in the politics into leaving the game.

So yes, I agree with what you're saying there, but I think that's going in the wrong direction.

This is a good idea not only for the political aspects of discussions on the OWF but will necessitate that alliances formulate a banking policy or contigent plan to help thier nations pay for bills/maintain the ability to fight in a protracted conflict. If the cap is removed nations will loose population faster and reduce thier income (yes I know you all know that) that sets up a scenario for alliances of resource allocation.

So your not only sending funds to your nations to rebuild, your sending them money to survive the current fallout of the conflict. Even some alliance not involved would need a financing plan for the holocaust (if were talking about uncapping and we get to 20+).

Just another aspect as I see it. This will add to the alliance system by way of additional internal policies and procedures. A big factor? Not really but its yet another small example of how uncapping the GRL would enhance part of the game.

I don't understand why everyone seems to think an uncapped GRL will bill lock all of CN. Most nations can still turn a profit at 20 grl. Only the biggest of nations will be paying more in bills than their taxes, and if they don't have a big enough warchest to ride out 30 or so days of high grl they're already doing it wrong.