I think politics has to play a huge part of the idea of truly genocidal types of weapons. As recent events have so clearly shown, NO one is safe. No matter how powerful you are, you are always weak from within. Start decimating people wholesale, and they may repay in kind.

The real debate though is that they can truly destroy any semblance of gameplay and balance. I think the notion of having a tech tree to create genocidal weapons is a bit silly. If you have the power to span stars, then you already have the potential to wipe cities off the face of the earth. Why "build" an item that a country should already be able to create? So having genocidal weapons as a "goal" should also not be something of an option within the game.

When you really think about it, tech trees themselves only make sense if the context of the game spans years of game time. I''m not saying there should be no advancements, but when they happen they should be truly epic in scale. Imagine if the Germans had developed rocket technology in 1940 instead of 1945? In many ways, the Allied victory can be very much accredited to it''s advances in Radar, sonar, crypto crackers, and of course the A-bomb. Technology should be a huge advantage to those who can not keep up, but it also has to make sense within the game.

As the late Oppenheimer was once asked, "Is there any way to stop the power of these weapons?" his sincere reply was, "yes, don''t use them". I think that in a sci-fi setting, having genocidal weapons like nukes is unfeasible from several standpoints. Why don''t we use them now against Afghanistan, Korea or Iraq? So I think what becomes more of an issue is not genocidal weapons, but weapons that can not be defended against....like orbital bombardment against a side with no naval power.

I agree with anonymous about the efficiency of just dropping rocks or iron on an enemy''s head from an orbiting warship. As he pointed out, accelerating an object that fast would require tremoundous energy. If a weapon could be created that was that powerful, then you could have a planet based weapon that could swat the warship out of the sky in a heartbeat with no defense. If anything, planetary cannons could be thousands of times more powerful.

So naval artillery would be just like it is today, though a bit more powerful perhaps. The advantage that Orbital artillery has against its modern seaborne counterpart is range. Instead of a few score kilometers, you could hit any spot on the planet''s surface. Although I know Babylon5 portrayed this cool image of the Centauri''s just dropping rocks on the Narn''s, I too find this sceptical. As I said, if you have a naval gun (the Navy calls it''s huge weapons "guns" not artillery) that can accelerate 1 ton rocks that fast, then you can have planetary cannons immensely more powerful than that that would make naval warships turn into so much fine metal dust.

Again, the advantage lies in being able to hit anywhere in the world with near impunity...unless the surface defenders really do have some sort of planetary artillery or missle silos...or preferably, other warships and fighter craft to preoccupy the warships. Another advantage that warships would have is their intelligence gathering. They would be able to report with very good detail any troop movements to ground defenders even if the fighting got too close for comfort (to avoid friendly fire). All of these factors make having a strong Navy the most important branch of the military for a sci-fi based setting. Ground forces will be relegated to garrison, marines, special operation troops, or specialized hit and run styles of warfare.

I like having mass destruction weapons but like many others I feel there should be ramifications for using them but only on the area of attack(assuming nuke). One idea I had on the weapons themselve was to give the player more control over the creation of the weapon. Say you let them build a nuclear weapon, you know there will have to be a time frame involved. So take it to a lower level on this aspect of it. Instead of allowing them to create a "nuke" let them decide what size warhead to use(15kiloton to 200megaton) and have the warhead size directly responsible for the amount of damage done to an area. Obviously the more powerfull the weapon the longer it should take to build it.

GRELLIN
You''re not drunk if you can lay on the floor without holding on! -Dean Martin-

About the space-based planetary bombardment:
If you''re sitting 1/2 an AU away, and throw a rock at a planet, the planet has 1/2 an AU to deflect it away 0.004 degrees. Given that they also have the capability to assault ships in orbit, it shouldn''t be much more difficult to hit a rock from far away.(The energy required to move something from earth tapers off quickly as the distance from the earth increases) And if an enemy is that far away, it gives you quite a bit of breathing room to deploy whatever rudimentary space based infrastructure you like.

I still don''t like the idea of having armaggedon style weapons as a strategic concern in a game. MAD is just that...MUTUALLY assured destruction. And in a sci-fi setting, the only powers that will have space faring technologies will be the ones that already have the technical capacity to start the game with nuclear devices (or bio or chem weapons).

Personally, being able to build a genocidal weapon through a tech tree is a bit preposterous. Not only do I believe this is not a sensible and logically consistent game idea, it is too imbalancing. There has been only one instance in history where "building" a mass destruction weapon worked. And its no coincidence that we have not had a major war since. But in the context of WWII, building a MDW (mass destruction weapon) made sense. Since no one else had them, it made sense to try to build one to end the war. But in a sci-fi setting where the know how already exists....what''s the point in "building" an MDW? The other side can too, in which case you are back to stalemate.

I see the use of genocidal weapons in a game as a no-no and should be offlimits. They are not logically consistent to build, nor do they have any semblance of game balance. should one side use them, the game is over...and where is the play in that? The only way to have war is simply to not use them. Now other forms of highly destructive weapons that are more surgical are possible (like orbital bombardments) but any NBC type of warfare should be offlimits. Once you include these weapons, then there is simply little to no defense, and both sides will quickly destory themselves.

The only possibility I see is not in a strategic game, but in a tactical one, where a small side that does NOT have MDW''s is trying to build them, and you have to destroy their forces and find their technologies before they can launch them (sound familiar?....shiver....)

quote: Original post by Dauntless
Personally, being able to build a genocidal weapon through a tech tree is a bit preposterous. Not only do I believe this is not a sensible and logically consistent game idea, it is too imbalancing.

Aren''t all tech trees too imbalancing? What I like about RTS is planning the clever surprise attack, or setting up traps. Throw in tech trees and resource gathering and it turns into a game of who can click the mouse fastest.

I thought the nukes / anti-nukes in Total Annihilation were perfect.

- creating the nuke is very expensive (both time and energy required)
- the nuke take some time in flight - all the while being visible on the map - so mobile units are likely to avoid the blast
- the anti-nuke weapons are pretty costly too (time and energy)
- later in the game large scale air attacks could easily destroy a certain building or three (despite heavy casualties). So a quick large-scale air attack against the anti-nuke defenses (completely ignoring anti-air defenses) followed by a nuclear bombardment was a very straight-forward deadlock breaker.


That being said, I wonder what would happen if each player would _start_ with a single nuke, and no more WOMDs could be produced later in the game.

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
Aren't all tech trees too imbalancing? What I like about RTS is planning the clever surprise attack, or setting up traps. Throw in tech trees and resource gathering and it turns into a game of who can click the mouse fastest.

You mean we should make it... *drumroll*... Turn-based?

Seriously, ALL RTS games are about who can issue the commands fastests. If you want something else, go play Civilization or Europa Universalis.


Edited by - Ganryu on March 9, 2002 8:15:56 PM

I agree with anonymous to a degree about tech trees being unbalancing. I think the issue is more along the lines of a time factor. In the modern day, coming up with a device and it''s counterpart is a fact, but they tend to come along fairly slowly.

For example, let''s say someone comes up with an EMP bomb. This would be devestating for a highly technology based army. and even coming up with a defense for it would require a serious overhaul of one''s armed forces. You could for example come up with fiberoptical based computers, or surround electronics in a magnetic field....but what about all of your existing equipment? So it takes time to research the invention and then finally implement it on a mass scale.

I think that tech trees have to be implemented very carefully. What would really be interesting, though virtually impossible to implement, would be a free-form research mode. Instead of trying to develop pre-made technologies, the player could truly do "research" to invent new weapons, defenses, technologies, etc. However, this would be a game in and of itself, and I don''t see it coming to fruition anytime in the next few years. But something like this SHOULD be a long term goal for developers. When you no longer have precanned units, but instead design units and capabilities on the fly, the unknown factor will be a huge gameplay feature.

You mean we should make it... *drumroll*... Turn-based?

Seriously, ALL RTS games are about who can issue the commands fastests. If you want something else, go play Civilization or Europa Universalis.

Realtime of course. But like Dauntless points out, the time-factor is wrong. We don''t want RTS to turn into FPS, do we? Personally I''d be interested in a game that took months to finish and where each attack took several hours. Then you could spend the day evaluating the last attack and planning the next. Once the battle is on, it''s realtime and you have to be on your toes.

Today you get surprise-attacked, stomped all over because you had your forces preparing for an attack elsewhere. 10 seconds later, he''s chewing your second base and now you''ve moved your forces back but you had no time to position them, so they''re just chasing *behind* the enemy now. That''s where he had the rest of his forces, so you stumble right into them *gone*. *game over*

Hmm.. I''m not sure how to change that. Maybe I''m after tactical games like Ground Control, where you have a limited number of units. Still, I want the scale of RTS...