AirMe's Blog

I sorta wish I never suggested this improvement. I did it under a different name and a $350 million price tag, but still.

Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) - $75,000,000 - Reduces odds of a successful nuclear attack against your nation by 60%. The SDI wonder also requires 3 satellites and 3 missile defenses and those satellites and missile defenses cannot be deleted once the wonder is developed.

We aren't told how the odds of a successful strike are computed, except that no SDI is an automatic hit. There appears to be some formula in play though for determining hit/miss beyond just SDI's influence.

However hits and misses are determined, it would probably be a good idea if Admin explained things a bit better and undertook some sort of statistical analysis to determine if his formula is giving good results and if the "outliers" (several successful intercepts in a row) are making the data look good when it isn't.

I'd like to see the AADN increase the odds of the SDI.

You're lucky. I don't even get nuked anymore and that is all I want.

I support this message

I think it's very rare that an SDI blocks 60% of nukes.

In fact it seems pretty obvious that it's not even 40%.

I think it's very rare that an SDI blocks 60% of nukes.

In fact it seems pretty obvious that it's not even 40%.

By my best approximation, I'm at over 80% this war. There will always be outliers and the low end will inevitably be the biggest complainers.

I have been in 9 wars so far and had very few blocked nukes, either given or taken. If you're at over 80% then I think something fishy is going on with SDIs.

My SDI's success rate has hovered around 10%. At only one point has it blocked two or more nukes in one day.

Then decom your SDI.

I don't see what makes the SDI so special since they can just fire another one. In TE they work because not everyone has 20-25 nukes and HNMS. In SE if your opponent has WRC and HNMS they just have to press more buttons to nuke you.

I never understood why my scientist lack the resources to fire another missile unless the first one gets shot down.

My SDI did a great job this war.

I think people have a tendency to notice or care about the nukes that get through, and ignore the ones that were blocked. Most of the time, even when a nuke or two gets blocked by the SDI, they keep sending more and eventually one gets through.

The point of an SDI isn't to stop you from getting nuked. It won't work, because they'll keep trying, and the SDI can't stop them all. The point of an SDI is to run your enemies out of nukes faster.

I don't think people understand odds. It's a 60% chance to block a nuke, and sometimes that means several will be blocked in a row, sometimes it means several nukes will get through without the SDI stopping them.

It's similar to someone I talked to earlier who lost a ground battle at 75% odds. He seemed to think that since he had a 75% chance of winning, he shouldn't be able to lose. For some reason, he ignored the fact that 1 out of 4 times with 75% odds, you're going to lose.

After posting above, I saw that Naktergal had posted in the "Nuking at Update" thread (where some people are saying "nuking at update never works, the SDI's always block them at update") a link that I think fits here, too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia

my SDI blocks my own nukes causing freindly fire infra damage and lots of heavy sighing.