quote: Original post by Dauntless
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.

I totally agree, which is why I am not really considering NBC style warfare as a valid. A weapon which completely annihilates everything on the map is utterly stupid. However, I am talking about the more ''surgical'' weapons which won''t destroy entire cities, but can still destroy much larger areas then any ground based artillery.

Incidentally, most of the energy expended in using a big hunk of rock will be the picking it up and moving it into orbit. You don''t need to impart a large velocity to it to get it to work, all you really need to do is apply enough thrust to move it out of a stable orbit. Also, 1/2 AU != orbit. I think attacks from that sort of range would be impossible without some extremely fancy technology.