This is take two of the outdated and horribly presented thread by me here.

Current situation

There is only one type of conventional missile, the cruise missile. The CM, as powerful to equally useless (depending on nation size) as it is, is not the only type of missile used by militaries of the real world.

Problem with the situation

With only one type of missile, nations who are not nuclear are limited severely when it comes to assured destruction. Since soldiers, tanks, fighters and bombers can all be destroyed without doing one single cent of damage, cruise missiles can destroy with just a click of the mouse. Once again, as useful as the CM is, there are many other options of conventional weapons to be able to use.

Suggested change

I suggest that there are x number of new missiles added to the game, and possibly an alternative to regular nukes.

Conventional Missile changes:

1. Cruise Missile
   Cost: $20,000, Upkeep: $200 (tripled if stockpiling more than 50), Destruction: 10 tanks, 10 infrastructure, 2 technology, +10% destruction each satellite (capped at 15 tanks, 15 infrastructure, and 3 technology)
2. Fuel-Air Missile
   Cost: $50,000, Upkeep: $500 (tripled if stockpiling more than 25), Destruction: 25 tanks, 20 infrastructure, 4 technology, + 5% destruction each satellite (capped at 30 tanks, 25 infrastructure, and 5 technology), Requirements: 500 infrastructure, 50 technology
3. Bio-Chemical Missile
   Cost: $250,000, Upkeep $2,500 (tripled if stockpiling more than 15), Destruction: 100 soldiers, 10 tanks, 30 infrastructure, 10 miles of land, damages environment by 1 point for 1 day, +2.5% destruction each satellite, Requirements: 750 infrastructure, 75 technology
4. Massive-Ordinance-Air-Blast Missiles
   Cost: $500,000 ($350,000 if nation owns a Weapons Research Complex) Upkeep: $5,000 (tripled if stockpiling more than 5), Destruction: 50 tanks, 50 infrastructure, 25 miles of land, Requirements: 1,000 infrastructure, 100 technology, 5 satellites

A nation would still be limited to 2 conventional missile attacks each update.

Now Seeing the MOAB your probably thinking "your first nuke costs that much!" Well here's the difference, nuke purchase costs raise over the amount of nukes you own, thus making your 20th nuke somewhere in the 1.5-1.6 million dollar range, that is a big difference in cost compared to what 20 MOAB's would be.

Why this change is better

It adds more variety and power to the non-nuclear side of the game. Cruise Missiles just do not pack a punch for bigger nations.


I have removed the Hydrogen bomb from the listing from the first topic because redoing the nuclear missiles is a whole other topic by itself.


Proposed changes to this suggestion:
Add reduced damage effects for owning Missile Defense improvements.

Anti-Air missiles.

Anti-Navy missiles.

Rework the damage scaling above.

Anti-Improvement missiles.

Starting from scratch with missiles for specific missions.

Approved for discussion.

umm.

well it might be nice to have a higher dmg CM, but the point of it now as I understand it is that the CM, as is, is the only weapon there is no real counter for...

I think I could dig it if they were boosted up to the level of what an air strike or GA's base damage is, but much higher than that and it is a bit overpowered. either that or increase GA's and air strike's base damages as well.

That, and put in a way to counter CM's if your are going to increase their damage.

Where's the other side to balance this addition?

Navies have balance since both nations can create navies and defend attacks, same goes for spies.

I forgot to add the reduced damage from Missile Defense improvements. Thank you for reminding me destro.


EDIT: The effects of Missile Defense improvements would have the reverse effect of the Satellite improvements. -10% per Missile Defense for CMs, -5% for Fuel-Air's, etc.

I doubt this would have the positive impact on the game that the game really needs. It's like trying to fix a car that has a broken engine by painting it. However, CMs are totally boring and this would be a nice spice for a few days.

Supported lal

Variety? Not really no. The way you just made CM's is just like purchasing aircraft. The only difference between choice #1 and choice #2 is the damage and outrageous prices (tell me, how much does a 1k infra nation net? I bet its no where near half a mil).

As for your second reason, There are enough ways to destroy without nuclear weapons. Why do you wish to give extra firepower to the one weapon in the game that has NO COUNTER. Well, at least your making the turtles happy.

If you really wanted to change cruise missiles, then you should consider a maximum amount of CM's you can buy daily (to give reason for stockpiling), lifting the caps on the current CM's (10 tank damage at most? really?), offering specific missiles for different purposes (bio missile for killing soldiers, radiation missile for killing more infra, less troops, etc....) But offering CM's to do just as much damage as a nuke, that in no way helps game play at all.

If you look, the Bio-Chemical focuses on soldiers and population over destruction, yes it does add variety. You tell me how much a 1k infra nation nets, because by the time it gets its 20th nuke its past 1mil, these aren't meant to be super affordable like CM's are.

You are failing to realize that this is just the draft (well second draft if you count the original topic from almost 2 years ago). In a suggestion topic, YOU CAN MAKE SUGGESTIONS TOO.

I did not touch the specs of the Cruise missiles at all, and if you look at the firepower of a cruise missile, it does not pack a punch bigger than lets say, 10 tanks. IF you cared to read, I intended to get the conventional missiles settled before I moved on to possibly changing the nuclear aspects of the game.


A note to future posters, if your post is only intended on taking down the suggestion, then just don't post at all. Now, if you have something of value to say, like "I think this should include x, y, and z, and you should change a to b, then please post, but don't waste pixels.

I agree with Energizer on this. You made each tier bigger and badder than the next in every way. Where's the fun in that?

Also realize, a 30 infra damage CM, usable twice a day when boosted by satelites, tech, and WRC, gets to be ridiculously large. You're talking something along the lines of 100-150 infra per day just from CMs.


If you want to make CMs more useful and interesting, and add variety, what you need to do is make an upgrade that does something different, not just stronger.

Example:
Bio-Chemical Missile might not deal any infra damage, but wipe out a much larger number of soldiers and reduce enemy population temporarily. (say 5% population penalty for 5 days, and wipe out a few thousand soldiers/tanks each, modified by tech)

Fuel-Air Missiles (or some other name, I'm just taking the names you provided, I honestly know nothing of real weaponry so my conceptualization could be way off) might instead of causing infrastructure damage, directly take out enemy Improvements temporarily. Say one CM takes out a few improvements at random, and until the enemy pays bills, those improvements stay neutralized. The value of the improvements destroyed gets added to the next bill payment, effectively allowing you to rather than damage your enemy, drain their warchest faster.

Also I'd recommend Anti-Air missiles that could be deployed defensively to help defense against incoming fighters, or even an offensive missile to take out enemy planes on the ground.

Also an anti-naval missile wouldn't hurt.


I in general disagree with a CM that's just generally going to be a bigger bomb, but if you want a larger expensive cruise missile like MOABM I'd recommend keeping the price you set on it, but only increase damage about 50% above a normal CM (so 15 infra base). Simply because inflicting more damage already happens automatically from tech.






tl;dr - More damage is boring, any suggestion should include more tactical choices to make conventional warfare more interesting.


edit: I started posting before seeing this:



I hope that my post has proven to not be a waste of pixels in your eyes.

I'm gonna go backwards, no its not a waste of pixels, because you suggested an improvement over just saying its bad.


I was trying to keep with the KISS method, but I guess I did get a bit carried away.

The problem with not increasing the MOAB is it literally is the Mother of All Bombs, this thing has a massive blast radius, about half that of the first nuclear weapon used in rl warfare. Now before people say "but this isnt RL", it would be awesome if these weapons would use a realistic scale. However toning it down could be possible.

Didn't even think of anti-naval missiles.

I considered Anti Aircraft missiles, perhaps you can only get them after getting the AADN? Or maybe the AADN would just increase their abilities. Anyway I guess that could be put in somewhere.

Fuel-Air is really a thermobaric weapon, meaning instead of exploding using its own power, it explodes using the oxygen in the atmosphere, that can be renamed, and instead of being an upgraded CM, could be targeted at the environment. Taking out enemy improvements is a strange idea, but I do not think it would be a bad idea.

The 1 point of damage to environment should be a pretty big impact, however attacking the population number directly might be a good idea.


And another point for anyone else who proposes changes, lol. If you can, could you setup a general model for the changes? Like if you say "the CM needs to be more powerful, here's what it should be.", list the changes in the damage, price, etc, that is if you have an idea for it.

The problem is KISS and Interesting tend to not go hand in hand very well. Making each progressive bomb bigger doesn't make anything more interesting, it just makes war more destructive. While that in of itself is not a bad goal, it isn't particularly interesting. If all you wanted to do was make bigger badder CMs a simpler suggestion would be to have tech affect CMs differently than other units, making the damage, cost, and upkeep increase drastically with tech. So a 50 tech nation and a 10,000 tech nation would still use CMs, but the 10,000 tech nation's CM would be much stronger and much more expensive than a 50 tech nation.

But that's boring. It's the same problem with the aircraft system, which could probably use some retooling. More interesting options are always more fun.



Like I said you just have to keep all other CMs at the same base damage or lower than current CMs, then MOAB is basically the next best thing. Yeah, it won't deal half the damage of a nuke, but frankly it shouldn't unless we are going to allow SDI to apply to CMs . Even then it's iffy. I don't mind a major spending increase for a 50% increase in damage, but you were talking about triple CM damage which is pretty ridiculous.



AADN allowing for the readied missile action would be a good compromise. You can launch normal CMs to target either Aircraft or Navy taking out a few units (dependent on tech levels/satelites/cms). AADN allows you to ready a missile to launch when aircraft attack. This lets you take out some of the enemy attacking force without giving them an opportunity to rebuy before the attack hits, which is a pretty significant advantage.



In that case, what we can do is shelve the bioweapons, and let those be a nuclear alternative. Instead Fuel-Air is your population damager. Taking out Environment causes happiness and population penalties, and actually is probably a much more effective way of implementing what I was thinking.



Targeting improvements could be something done with regular CMs with either X Satelites, or a new Wonder to allow the option (similar to AADN allowing the defensive missile option), or you could make a new brand of missile if it's really considered too powerful to be used in place of infra damage, but given the net effect would be increasing bills I don't think it's too extreme to have as a regular CM.




So to summarize you have the following:

Cruise Missile-May target Infrastructure, Aircraft, or Navy. Causes minor damage to soldiers and tanks. Cost same as normal CM
-Optional Upgrade 1-With AADN may be used to ready action against Aircraft attacks
-Optional Upgrade 2-With new unspecified wonder or X Satellites may be used to target Improvements

Fuel-Air Missile-Heavy damages to soldiers, low damage to tanks, damages environment (effectively lowering population and happiness). Costs 200k per, 20k upkeep per, up to 50.

MOAB-50% higher infra damage than normal CM, heavy damage to tanks, moderate damage to soldiers. 500k per, 50k upkeep per, up to 50.

Well one thing about the Fuel-Air compared to the Bio-Chemical, is the Fuel-Air is an instant effect, whereas the Bio-Chemical is a lingering, and possibly more devastating weapon. However once again, compromise is always an option.

I do like your suggestions though. When I have more time I'll try to come up with some numbers behind those suggestions.

I understand the difference there, which is why I think that Bio-Chemical would be a good alternative to nukes rather than CMs. Where a nuke is a big $@! CM, the Bio weapon would be a big Fuel-Air.*




*this may or may not be a gross oversimplification

I'm not in favor of bigger/badder CMs. I like this interesting thought of Seerow's, however, where CMs (or CMs of a certain type) target improvements rather than infra.

That would also make long wars more fair for people, because once huge nations get beaten down, they still have all of the improvements.

More unfair you mean? I.E., if the improvements are destroyed, not allowing those nations to rebuild easily?

I figure that the missiles can Target improvements, but only damage. Either Seerow's idea of damaged until the next collection, or a "repair" cost, or a "repair" cost that gets tacked to Bill Pay...

But it's an interesting idea.

I get what Josh means.

I guess they could disable the improvement for a day or at least cut some of the abilities they give you.

Like a bank being hit by a Missile would take it down for a day and so on for every other CM.

Would you be able to target specific Improvements or would it be random?

I believe what they were saying ment that it would only disable the improvement for a set amount of time.
I would say that it would be better for you to be able to target individual improvements, so you could
cripple their GC's, if they had better equipped soldiers etc.

I would tend to say random improvement.

This. I was thinking more along the lines of disabling random X improvements. Say assign a dollar value to the improvements that can be destroyed, the dollar value is improved by tech/satellites. Random improvements are destroyed equal in value (rounded down) to the total amount.

To reactivate the destroyed improvements, the person must pay their bills. The value of the improvements destroyed is added to their upkeep.

o/ Pitt and i think this is a good idea..i helped root out some of the problems so make sure to give me credit Pitt...for the records....i told him about all the missiles and there functions

jk good luck Pitt

-W4r

1, It would make it easier for nations who were not big to fight nations who were once big.
2, It would slow down the rebuilding after wars, actually lowering the total NS of the game and making tech easier to buy (my personal favorite).
3, It's just not fun fighting a nation who has the improvements of a 12k infra nation when you are only a 3k nation.

I would say the missiles should work like Spies of targeted at buildings. Drop down list but chances of success for each. Like attacking a missile defense improvement is obviously going to be one of the hardest.

And this just popped into my head, how about instead of using CM's at improvements, what about EMP-CM's? Since EMP doesn't fry every electrical part in something, it would make it easier to fix irl, and ingame that could be the reason why its not permanently disabled, only for a day.

I like the oft repeated idea of changing the focus of a particular missile rather than continuing to make each missile bigger and badder than the rest. Each missile should have an effect based on its name.. for instance, a fuel-air missile shouldn't do anything to tanks really, and it would only burn down wooden buildings within your infrastructure, however it would chew the hell out of soldiers.

This is a great idea so long as each missile does something slightly different, as it would add a new facet of strategy to warfare.

If we upgrade CM's, I'd like to see the SDI extended to CM protection.

I don't think we need stronger CM's.. I think we should be able to choose what to aim our CM's at. Enemy troop camps to cause soldier casualties (1-10% of someone's defending soldiers, as well as 2.5 infra and 0.5 tech before modifiers), tank depots to destroy tanks (5-15% of someone's defending tanks as well as 2.5 infra and 0.5 tech before modifiers), or cities/roads to destroy infrastructure and technology (the current numbers, but no tanks destroyed).

The percentages would be random, and not affected by tech/improvement modifiers. The tank percentages are higher because most of your battle strength comes from soldiers, especially when guerrilla camps are used.

it would be great to CM someone improvement and render it useless for a few days.

We really do need Chemical missiles and Biological missiles. Adding those in recreates attacks by nations. For example, if someone is using pure infa/military destruction missiles and the other is using Economic ones like Chem/Bio it makes wars much more interesting on how they stockpile and arm and defend themselves.

It also gives something spies can do, for example, instead of destroying the missiles you could steal the chemical or biological ordnances within the missiles and bring them back to study (this then tells you how many of whatever missiles they have you nicked the stuff off)

In the end we need them, we have nukes and we need Bio weapons and Chem weapons. As for the other ones listed, I’m not fussed, if they come into the game, I’ll buy them and use them, if they don’t, they don’t.