We nations have discovered nuclear weapons, but we've not come to terms with the ethical qualms of chemical weapons in warfare (weapons which are considerably easier to develop).

Nuclear weapons also have some ethical qualms, as weapons which should not be used in usual conflicts. But nuclear weapons are available rather far into playing CyberNations, and there is no ethical equivalent prior to the purchase of a Manhattan Project. Chemical weapons should be added because, while we have real-life treaties strictly prohibiting their manufacture/stockpile/usage, as of yet we have no such conventions in CN (proven by a GRL over 40 ) and their use in real-life has been established throughout the twentieth century.

I propose the incorporation of Chemical Weapons into the military system.

They may be appropriately generic. Irritants, nerve-gases, and hallucinogens all result in human casualties and non-materiel losses with a decrease in military efficiency. The use of chemical weapons also violates certain ethics, which will sadden nations using them. This trade-off can make wars more interesting.


Chemical weapons will be obtainable through the Military Purchase Options screen, alphabetically prior to "Cruise Missiles". Three levels are available for purchase, with the purest grade affecting yourself considerably more than the weakest. Only one chemical weapon may be obtained per day. A nation may stockpile 2 chemical weapons for each border wall they own. (The border wall enables a nation to keep out inspectors and hide their cache.) Prices are fixed to cruise missile prices, and thus a resource which cheapens cruise missiles will also cheapen these.


Grade-C:
100 technology, 5 cruise-missles required. 4x cruise missile costs. (initial $80,000 / upkeep $800)
.: Kills 10% of remaining defending enemy soldiers.
.: Reduces population of enemy citizens by 2% (until next tax collection).
.: Lowers your own ground-attack efficiency by 10% (for 24 hours).
.: -1.0 to your own population happiness (until next tax collection with no offensive wars). -0.5 if unsuccessful.

Grade-B:
300 technology, 10 cruise-missiles required. 8x cruise missile costs. (initial $160,000 / upkeep $1600)
.: Kills 12.5% of remaining defending enemy soldiers.
.: Reduces population of enemy citizens by 5% (until next tax collection).
.: Lowers your own ground-attack efficiency by 12.5% (for 24 hours).
.: -2.0 to your own population happiness (until next tax collection with no offensive wars). -1.0 if unsuccessful.

Grade-A:
600 technology, 20 cruise-missiles required. 16x cruise missile costs. (initial $320,000 / upkeep $3200)
.: Kills 15% of remaining defending enemy soldiers.
.: Reduces population of enemy citizens by 8% (until next tax collection).
.: Lowers your own ground-attack efficiency by 15% (for 24 hours).
.: -4.0 to your own population happiness (until next tax collection with no offensive wars). -2.0 if unsuccessful.


Chemical weapons are not used in their lonesome, however. Here is where they become interesting. They must be delivered to the enemy by pre-existing means, your air or ground forces.

The Deploy Military page will be updated to reflect this setting, for nations stockpiling chemical weapons. Two drop-down boxes will be made available to these nations, reflecting the force equipped and the weapon grade. Examples, starting with the default:


Because they are tied to a certain type of attack, chemical weapon attacks are theoretically limited to two-per-day per target. They are only effective if the ground battle was a Victory, or if the attacking bombers managed to survive the mission and destroy some infrastructure. Sending an equipped ground-assault/bombing-mission will automatically deplete one item of the chemical weapon from your arsenal, whether or not it is successful. The weakened happiness penalty would then be applied due to your country's attempted violation of ethics. Once the selected grade of chemical weapon is depleted, attacks will be strictly conventional until properly re-deploying.

The effects of each warhead is multiplicative, not additive. The citizen count would therefore be 92%^n where 'n' is the number of active Grade-A chemical attacks upon it.


And here is another interesting prospect afforded by deploying with your existing forces:
- Bomber-deployment doubles your aircraft losses (due to low-altitude flights) and cuts infrastructure damage in half
- Soldier-deployment cuts any land/technology gains and your inflicted infrastructure damage in half


This is because your forces are concentrated on gassing enemy forces, as opposed to blowing them out of fortifications. (The nature of this weapon is not explicitly to destroy your enemy's resources, but instead to diminish your enemy's ability to destroy you, by killing their soldiers and reducing their available population.) Your equipped force will be impaired militarily in order to deliver chemical weapons. Then the decision must be made as to whether you prefer inflicting damage by air or by land. Either way, the enemy will lose less infrastructure. By ground, your rewards are impaired. By air, you run the risk of needing to re-purchase more aircraft. This choice will enliven battles involving chemical weapons.


Now, for example numbers, let us consider the absolute worst-case scenario. One nation is at war with six. Each enemy nation is equipped with at least eight Grade-A chemical weapons. These six nations are experienced, and active at the time of update. They have preserved their attacks for tonight, and they had already deployed yesterday. Each Geneva-convention-defiling nation may, then, accomplish the following strategy:
.: Chemical ground assault (x2)
<re-deploy chemical weapons for bombers>
.: Chemical bombing run (x2)
<update>
.: Chemical bombing run (x2)
<re-deploy chemical weapons for soldiers>
.: Chemical ground assault (x2)

In this extreme chemical weapons event, if all of those Grade-A attacks were successful, from all six well-prepared nations, the victim (who probably would have already been sent into a defeat alert anyway) would lie with 5% of their available citizens until their next collection. Their attackers would pay with -32.0 happiness, each, for this coordinated strike (or -16 if all efforts were completely unsuccessful). And each offensive efficiency would have been culled to 27% for the next 24 hours. By expending eight weapons (out of ten that may be stored), each attacker would be restricted to 4 chemical weapons the following day if they re-purchase them as often as possible. So despite the radical number, it would be impossible to maintain that population advantage over an enemy.

This price makes massive chemical warfare a difficult, messy, and unwise prospect, but chemicals remain an effective punch against your enemies when you most need it. These weapons will not be something that requires update-blitzing due to their cumulative penalties which discourage binging. And perhaps best of all, stronger nations will still consider weaker chemical grades, in order to avoid this penalty for committing genocide, yet in many cases I am sure some will still see it as justified...



edit:
- civilian reduction time change, from__ 24-Hour-Effect __->__ Next-Tax-Collection
(reason: makes the result a little more effective, as well as easier to program for.)
- civilian reduction number increase, from__ 1.5%/3.0%/6.0% __->__ 3.0%/5.0%/8.0%
(reason: is your home prepared for a VX attack? Also more noticeably affects the recruitable population.)
- soldier reduction number decrease, from__ 15.0%/20.0%/25.0% __->__ 10.0%/12.5%/15.0%
(reason: we can assume many crews are prepared. consecutive chemical attacks are less overpowered.)
- happiness reduction time, from__ Until-Next-Tax-Collection __->__ Until-Collection-With-No-Offensive-Wars
(reason: you can not happily wage continuous offensive wars with chemical weapons!)
- additional chemical weapon build requirements of__ 5/10/20 cruise missile inventory
(reason: CMs represent a national arsenal, a form of chemical-weapons prerequisite.)

approved for discussion

I made a similar suggestion at the same time you did, although it was the idea of a bioweapon, which impacts population versus infrastructure.



I also suggested the idea of an EMP and chemical weapon, which have been suggested in the past. As the ground-level military has expanded with the navy, I think the weapons-level is falling behind. I think that bioweapons could act as a replacement for CMs, in that they are cheap and have a short-term population impact. Either that, or bioweapons are introduced for long-term damage (not permanent, but until tax collection, which would have a military disadvantage for the hit nation [less soldiers available w/o anarchy] but also a limit on economic endeavors for nations w/o warchests, adding strategy to the arms race).

Great suggestion, you obviously took a lot of time into it I look forward to reading discussion on this.

Unethical in war! Just like flame throwers

Serious note though, it is a good idea. iSupport this.

I love the idea, but make the damage to the enemy last longer (so it will actually affect their economy, as no-one collects in war), and KISS, for now at least (so make a tireed system which we can implement a layer at a time.

While I support it, I doubt it will be put in (there was a similiar suggestion a while back, which just rotted).

I contemplated extending the population decrease over a longer period of time.
It could be diminished until the nation's next tax collection, would that be agreeable?

As for your suggestion, Doom Lord, of a tiered system for future implementation, I would like to know more about what you mean by this. Are you suggesting a nation-strength percentage-ranking version, such that only the top 25% are allowed to purchase Grade-A materials? Such that one must pass the 25% nation strength mark in order to obtain the lowest grade of chemical weapons?
If this is your suggestion, I am tempted to agree with it. Scalability (and straightforwardness) is always a priority, and a percentage-based method would be adept to this. If I have misunderstood you, what else would you suggest?


As for the comment on being unethical like flamethrowers, Randomhero, you are absolutely right! The United States' deployment of flamethrowers and incendiaries was managed by the U.S. Chemical Warfare Service.

Will all die from fallout!!!

What I meant was a way in which (simply at first) it could be implemented without too much hassle. This is because the post seems to long and complicated, so just maek an addendum where the information is streamlined. Remove the 'grade' stuff, replace it with 'money invested in chemical research, I'll explain later.
An example might be:
Bio missile (whatever costs for the missile)
[Damage]
Replaces 1 CM launch

Bio bombing (whatever cost for the operation)
[Damage]
Replaces 1 bombing run

Bio terrorism (whatever cost for the operation)
[Damage]
Replaces 1 spy operation

Flamethrower assault (whatever cost for the operation)
[Damage]
Replaces 1 ground assault (all gains converted into increased damage)

And everything else, just so it's easy for people to understand and can be implemented a 'layer' at a time (so first the spy thing might come in, then we might lobby for missiles and bombing runs, and after that ask for anything else), the reason is because, as I've seen, many topics have died out because they are too hard to implement or serve no purpose.

Concerning chemical research, an idea to improve the weaker resources (like gold, furs and lead) could cheapen 'chemical research', (this would be a while on mind), which works like tech, increasing your chemical damage and decreasing your enemies, and can't be aided.

Effectively using chemical weapons can be tough in RL. The same thing is true of biological weapons. If you put them in munitions, then you have to make the dispersal be heavy enough that wind can't effect it overly enough, but light enough that it can reasonably enter the lungs of the enemy. There are some topical chem/bio weapons as well. You also have to make the release of the weapons be something that can have a wide enough area to actually be worth something, but also done in a way that the explosion of the munition doesn't destroy the weapons. What I'm getting at is that the effective deployment of chem/bio weapons is not easy.

I would recommend that you can only buy a certain amount per day without significant expense to maintain your stockpile. I also think that we should be allowed to have preparations to counter it (spending extra money to equip soldiers with gas masks for example). There is more I might say, but I will wait for others to comment first.

Personally i think it should be way more expensive. And a higher chance of failing to use it, as in it could go wrong and effect yourself.

I don't think failure/explosion should be a possibility unless we decided to add that risk overall (because there is a chance of a military coup, lol, but the game doesn't assume that in-depth).

I think that we need to consider two different routes:
1) The "new" weapons are alternatives to the nuke where there is a high inherent barrier (which is reasonable in real life, you would need the technology, the infrastructure, and advanced scientific researching facilities). But, the bioweapon would impact population versus infrastructure (which is less long term, although would affect tax collection).
2) the "new" weapons are an alternative to the cruise missile, although this isn't realistic in terms of the real world, I think this would be a great alternative because CMs have little real impact (20 infra max a day, right?) although they are relatively expensive, especially for smaller nations. Although the impact would be limited, it would add to the spice of the game as foundational/basic warfare and add new strategies (do I target population, infrastructure, or what).

This weapon would never effect combat ready military forces, at least as far as first world countries are concerned. It would only be effective in killing civilians. In other words, lose the Military effect, keep and/or expand the civilian cost.

The problem with replacing battle actions, as opposed to augmenting them, is that it violates user expectancy. A user is allowed two ground attacks per target per day, without exception. With the current suggestion, one which employs chemical weapons may choose which type of attack to augment.


While I agree, many topics have died out due to overcomplexity, I do not believe small layers are a good idea. Users become frustrated with multiple small updates. And perhaps more importantly: Although ideas of this scale may have died due to lack of ease, no CN suggestions have been added in stages.


As for scaling nations by 'chemical research' points, that is unlikely. Another integer, unique to each nation, would overcomplicate this game. Chances for weapon backfire would also overcomplicate this game. Negative results are reflected by negative happiness and your reduced offensive efficiency.

Instead of demanding specific chemical weapon research points, however, I would like to bring the idea of demanding a nation maintain a significant cache or weapons arsenal, in the form of cruise missiles. Mirroring another suggestion, to give advantage to cruise-missile stockpiles, I propose the following requirement (to be edited into original post when a supportive reply is made):
:. Grade C: 100 technology, 5-CM-inventory requirement.
:. Grade B: 300 technology, 10-CM-inventory requirement.
:. Grade A: 600 technology, 20-CM-inventory requirement.


Now I must specify, I am against merging these chemical weapon suggestions with any new biological weapons, because biological weapons have not been employed in warfare (as chemicals have), and they demand higher organic-chemistry technology to develop (which defeats the purpose of a poor-man's-WMD), so the need for their existence in CN is significantly less. (Another reason I oppose biological weapons is because their reproductive capability makes them unpredictable, and has ramifications too complex to simulate in CN.)



You know what, SilverHawk? You're absolutely right. I tried justifying the numbers in order to keep them specifically military-oriented weapons (with the happiness-draining side effect of collateral damage). I also tried justifying the high number due to unprepared military personnel. But this would also require the nation's entire army be subjected to the same attack. I propose these revised effects:
:. Grade C: 10% soldiers, 3% civilians
:. Grade B: 12.5% soldiers, 5% civilians
:. Grade A: 15% soldiers, 8% civilians

This would reduce enemy civilians until their next collection, and I also want to propose reducing your own happiness until your nation is not in any offensive wars.


Are these three suggestions (#ofCruiseMissiles-requirement, % effects adjustment, war-based happiness-reduction period) acceptable for including into my original post?

I think this is very interesting, we may see the use of chemical weapons to force opponents to collect in order to minimize their economic losses.

I agree with most of your post (Commander Tiki), except tha part about stages, as I've been viewing the very old topics in the suggestion box, some of which proposed the manhatten project being as little as 50 million, but it is now being considered being pushed up to 150 (which some people were then suggesting). By 'stages' I mean a simple thing at first, then additional addendums added to improve balance (like with reducing the NS bonus of tech).
Maybe it was a bad phrase, but I was thinking something like with the Navy.

You could also link this into a new wonder.

Good idea!

Chemical Weapons Research Complex

Cost: $60 million
reduses your environment by 0.5 (the chemicals used in building CW damage the surrounding environment)

Info: Allows nations to research, build, and use Chemical Weapons.

I support this idea, but if a requirement to have a Chemical Weapons Research Complex comes up then I would want the price to be reduced to 6 million.

I approve of this change. I see it as a much more aggressive blockade action that doesn't require a navy.

Nope, no requirement expect having the money.

Heh...sorry, but you will want to revise this much at least. The USSR, US and at least a few other countries after WW II very publicly maintained chemical/biological weapons stockpiles and developed them further so that they were *far* more lethal than when they were first used in WW I. It wasn't until the 1980s that countries such as Iraq used them on civilian populations and in military conflicts as terror weapons and hid their stockpiles in order to prevent international condemnation. That strategy didn't work out so well for Saddam in the end....

Chemical and biological weapons are noted for killing personnel but leaving equipment and infrastructure intact. A properly trained military organization would be able to dramatically reduce the number of casualties resulting in a chem/bio warfare attack. Civilians on the other hand...it is a disaster relief situation though once again, well trained civilians would be able to adapt.

The effects of chemical and biological weapons should therefore be largely economic. They would cause Anarchy similar to nuclear weapons, though it would not be as long lasting (2-3 days instead of 5). Other effects would include loss of a specific amount of income for a period of days--not like Blockade, which is based on the next collection--but effects should be cumulative. Temporarily loss of land: 5% per attack (persistent chem/bio agents would make areas of the nation not a good place to stay in for any length of time, civilian fear of areas attacked would make land uninhabited regardless). Higher tech should increase the amount of land lost, some sort of chem/bio clean up similar to Radiation Clean Up bonus improvement would reduce the amount of land affected and reduce Anarchy time. Limit of one attack suffered per day, as with nukes.

I support this idea. It does an over-the-top job of balancing damage to the enemy and consequences, an idea that still needs to be perfected in the current warfare system. I love the balance of citizen/soldier loss with infra "gain," and the concept of fallout in your own nation from the affair.

This would be a whole new aspect of strategy in the game... how to attack, which attacks to use, how to best avoid the negative effects... I can see the war guide forums now - "Ground, Air, and Missile Warfare Subforum... Chemical Warfare Subforum..." this would be TIGHT.

This is true
I was trying to explain my choice in the Border Wall storage requirement. (It's an improvement that finds moderate, non-universal use. Early nations may stockpile chemical weapons at the expense of some better economic improvement. Later nations with a wider improvement foundation are more likely to have the capacity to build these weapons.)

As it stands, border walls (like those of israel) improve the environment by keeping out things like illegal drug/arms trafficking, as well as subduing an illegal-immigrant population boost. (After all, this environment boost is also reflected by your government position on immigration.) We may agree that nations should not be developing WMDs without the sense of national security portrayed by these walls. Except in this case, chemical weapons must also be secure enough from getting snuck out of the country... or, at least, that's another way of viewing this requirement, in the case of nations which have no need to hide their arsenals.


I must disagree with creating any form of anarchy, as that is one of the primary purposes of nuclear weapons. (I also see it as adding another time and form of anarchy to be coded.)
Temporary land loss, however, is a fascinating idea. It is reflected by cases such as the Dugway sheep incident. I quote from the wikipedia article, There is the dilemma of the utility of temporarily reducing a nation's land mass. It mostly affects a defender's population density (a small factor during war) and faintly affects some battle odds. Would going through the effort of coding CN to keep track of every chemical weapons attack (so it knows when to stop affecting the nation's land) be worthwhile?


I disagree. As currently described, chemical weapons:
- Aren't good candidates for being overused, by harming their deployer
- Are limited in the ability to purchase one per day
- Are also limited by ground/air attack limits
I believe the currently-described limitations accurately reflect their nature in the real world. They may be used on one small front, or be completely distributed throughout a nation's city centers. One application of chemical weapons would by no means saturate a nation, but several concurrent applications could have that effect.



edit: I also updated the original post to reflect the changes that were discussed.

Also, I wanted to speak about what other elements of CN should be involved to fully integrate this weapon into the game.

Disaster Relief Agency: Saves 1% of your population from perishing during a chemical weapon attack.
(Grade-B: 5% citizen loss -> 4% citizen loss.)

Fallout Shelter System: Reduces soldiers lost due to a chemical weapon attack by 50%.
(Grade-B: 12.5% soldier loss -> 6.25% soldier loss.)

Great Monument: Removes happiness penalty from performing unsuccessful chemical attacks.
(Grade-B failure: -1.0 happiness -> -0 happiness... your people trust your judgement that it was worth a try, no harm done)

Great Temple: Reduces happiness penalty from using chemical weapons by 0.5 points.
(Grade-B success: -2.0 happiness -> -1.5 happiness... your people are slightly comforted by the fact that god will sort them out)

Weapons Research Complex: Increases the number of nukes [u]and the number of chemical weapons[/b] that can be purchased per day to 2.


I am still unsure as to whether chemical weapons warrant any original wonders.
As presently described, they work well enough without needing such a thing.


So what would being attacked look like? At around 30k NS, it would look something like this:

how about instead of having grade a-c, you research and buy different agents, starting with chlorine and mustered gas going up to nerve gas

I agree. Alsdo we have Nukes, we should have bio/chem weapons

Ok, firstly...you could easily add a defensive wonder against it..such as "Gasmask company"..ok that name is a joke but I can't think of one.

But this whole idea seems pretty pointless IMO.

For a start...the penalty for firing them is a happiness deduction...which in war, doesn't matter as you collect hardly anything anyway, people rely on war chests.

And the same applies to the person being attacked, it is mostly economic as I would rather hit them with 2 CM's costing me about 30k and making them pay around 5 million to repair it, instead of hitting them with a temporary lack of soldiers.

I think I agreezzz with the Idea.

I think grades is pointlessly overcomplex and tying their effectiveness to population density and lightly to tech is better (better tech=higher grade). Density should affect it more though.

The exception is if producing these weapons comes chance of randomness in their quality. Spending more money (up to X amount) increases the odds of higher grades/types:
1m = 85% C, 10% B, 5% A
2m = 70% C, 20% B, 10% A
3m = 55% C, 30% B, 15% A
4m = 40% C, 40% B, 20% A

If they are implemented perhaps we could make them a double-edged sword? Like if you use them you run the risk of the chemicals affecting your own deployed troops.

The counter-measures (-32 happiness?!) seem way too drastic...

probably best to just make them have a low moderate affect of environment per 2 missiles, so it does have a negative affect, also would be best to make it so you can only buy one a day, so if you want to make good use, and you know a war is coming you stock up on a few of them and then you have them at your disposal.

I like Comrade Tiki idea.