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vovan
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Initial Nuclear War ThoughtsVersion 1.2
4 December 2003 Introduction I saw the success of the game Nuclear War right here, at 'Poly, and thought that it might make a kick-ass computer game. I found that a game does not necessarily need to be complex in order to be fun. Take Arrgh! The Pirate Game or Samurai for example. The rules of these games are very simple, but the emerging patterns in game play are varied and numerous, and fun! Thus, I thought I'd write down some rules for a computer version of Nuclear War game, and see how it looks.  Here they are.
Table of Contents - Introduction
- Table of Contents
- Gameplay Overview
- Diplomatic Relations Overview
- Order System Overview
- Available Orders
- Order Costs
- Turn Resolution Order
- Revision History
Gameplay OverviewNuclear War is a turn-based strategy game, in which the player assumes the role of a leader of a country, which has a certain nuclear arsenal. The world as a whole is on the brink of a World War, and all of the computer opponents of the player (or human opponents in Multiplayer) also have control of a nuclear arsenal. The basic goal of the game then is to be the only country remaining on the face of the planet. The main means of competition in the world is the nuclear arsenal, which can be used to reduce the opponents' cities to rubble. The goal of the game is to provide fairly simple, but entertaining gameplay. It isn't meant to offer the player strategic depth, such as that of, say Civilization, but instead tries to provide simple gameplay. One game could potentially be completed somewhere between thirty minutes and one hour. The player controls a nation. Every country in the game is highly absdtracted to keep gameplay simple. The nations are represented in the game world [?probably on a two-dimensional tile-based map?] by the cities that they are comprised of. There would normally be few cities belonging to one country - somewhere between two and ten - during the course of the game. The only other aspect of the nation that the player can control directly is the type of government, which can potentially be changed during the course of the game, but that is not really encouraged. The player can then employ a set of basic orders at every turn to gain the edge over other countries and ultimately be the only survivor on the planet. The main tool of warfare, as stated above, is the nuclear warhead, which can be launched at other players' cities, but there are also other options available, which allow the player to protect his existing cities, erect new ones, or conduct secret warfare through propaganda.
Diplomatic Relations Overview The game will include diplomatic relations between countries. There are two diplomatic states available between any two countries: war and peace. All the nations start out at peace with each other except for the "enemy governments". Enemy governments are those with precisely opposite philosophies. They always start out at war with each other. Nuclear War is a war of gentlemen: one cannot send a nuke towards any country without formally declaring war on them. There are, however, other ways of taking one's cities: such that don't break official peace treaties. Also, certain governments are peaceful and aren't allowed to declare war on others. [? What should the state of war entail? Maybe: Any two countries that are at war with each other have to send at least one nuke each other's way every turn. ?]
Order System Overview Each player has a certain selection of orders available to them at every turn, as defined in the next section. The player has a pool of action points available to them, and at each turn the number of points available is reset back to the maximum. The maximum amount of action points is determined by the number of cities the player has: each city produces enough action points for as many nuke launches as the player is able to produce every turn. So, if the player has only one city, for instance, there is no use stockpiling the nukes. Also, if at the end of a turn, the player has action points left over, these are not carried over to the next turn. However, if the player chooses to stockpile action points, then the next turn, he will have double the maximum points available.
Available Orders Military Orders - Launch Nukes - the player can launch nukes one by one as long as he has enough action points to do so and enough nukes to launch. When this order is made, the player must choose a city to target with the nuke. If the city is hit, it will be destroyed. The player, however, can only launch nukes towards cities belonging to the nations with which he is at war.
- Deflect Nukes - the player can choose to put up a missile shield in which case the incoming nukes are deflected at the rate pre-determined by the government type (normally, 50% of incoming nukes are deflected). When the missile shield is used, a target enemy must be pointed out by the player. All of the nukes deflected by the shield will then be redirected to this target player. This, however, cannot work in an infinite circle. Suppose some player A chooses to deflect nukes to player B; player B chooses to deflect nukes to player A; player C sends four stockpiled nukes towards player A. Some nukes will be deflected by A's shield towards player B; some of those will be deflected right back at player A. Those, however, are no longer subject to deflection and hit player A's cities, despite the deflector shield.
- Hide in Bunker - when the player chooses to hide in a bunker, none of the nukes hit his cities. However, the missiles are not deflected to any other player. They just "disappear". Another constraint is that unlike the deflector shield, the player only has a limited number of bunker hide orders available, and the available number is determined by the form of government the player is currently using.
Diplomatic Orders - Perform Propaganda - if the player chooses to perform propaganda, he must also select one or more target cities (the specific number of cities converted by propaganda is determined by the type of government the player has). If propaganda is successful, the player will gain control of those cities. The player cannot perform propaganda on countries with the same type of government as his or hers. Also, propaganda cannot be performed against countries that have either attacked the player or been attacked by the player, both directly or indirectly. Note that propaganda is a covert operation and does not result in immediate declaration of war between the two parties involved.
- Perform Counterpropaganda - if the player chooses to perform counterpropaganda, any propaganda targeted at the player will fail at some rate determined by the form of government of the attacker.
- Declare War - before applying nuclear weapons to some other country, the player must officially declare war on it. No nuking can take place until the turn after war has officially been declared by either of the sides involved.
- Ask for Armistice - the player can ask another country for peace. It will not necessarily be granted, however. Similarly, if the player is asked for peace, he can choose to accept or decline it.
Spy Missions Each player starts out with a certain number of spies. The normal number is one, but certain government types may get more (and others - less). The spies can then perform different missions, during which they are likely to die. In case a spy dies, another one or two need to be trained in order to perform more spy missions. Spy missions cannot be cancelled by sabotage. - Sabotage - when the player chooses to sabotage, he must also select the target nation. Then, the orders made by that country during that turn will be cancelled. Note that the spies usually have to sabotage very important governmental projects. Thus, there is no way for the spy escape after such an insult to the security systems of the targetted nation: he will be found and will use the cyanide pill. Thus, the spy always dies during this mission, although the country responsible for the act of sabotage is not discovered, and thus, no war is declared.
- Gather Intelligence - the spy gathering intelligence will return the next turn's orders to the player. If during the turn when the spy reports orders the target country is nuked, the spy dies. Otherwise, he returns to homeland safe.
- Secret Police - the spy will search for other nations' spies in the player's country. If a spy on a sabotage or intelligence mission is found, he is killed. If two enemy spies are found, the one with a more deadly mission is killed (sabotage wins over intelligence gathering; if missions are the same, a random spy is killed). If three or more spies are found, the two with the more deadly missions are killed, but the player's spy perishes as well. Also, if a spy from a nation in peace with the player is found, the player gets the option of declaring war immediately, and nuking can begin during the same turn - no need to wait one turn as with the official declaration of war. Of course, the converse is also true: if the player's spy is discovered in a nation at peace with him, war can be declared.
Domestic Orders - Stockpile Nukes - the player can choose to not do anything but stockpile the nukes. In that case, the available nukes are carried over to the next turn and are then available for use, unless the maximum stockpiling period, determined by the government type, is exceeded.
- Mobilize - if the player chooses to mobilize for war, he will have double the regular action points during the next turn.
- Train Spy - A new spy is created the next turn.
- Build City - A new city is created the next turn.
Order Costs Military Orders:
Launch Nukes - 2
Deflect Nukes - ?
Hide in Bunker - If the player has three or less cities, all of the points. Otherwise, three cities' worth of points. Diplomatic Orders:
Perform Propaganda - ?
Perform Counterpropaganda - ?
Declare War - ?
Ask for Armistice - ? Spy Missions:
Sabotage - ?
Gather Intelligence - ?
Secret Police - ? Domestic Orders:
Stockpile Nukes - ?
Mobilize - The maximum available points.
Train Spy - ?
Build City - If the player has two or less cities - all of the points. Otherwise, two cities' worth of points.
Turn Resolution Order - Spy Missions
- Secret Police
- Gather Intelligence
Sabotage - Domestic Orders
- Build City
- Train Spy
- Mobilize
- Stockpile Nukes
- Diplomatic Orders
- Perform Counterpropaganda
- Perform Propaganda
- Ask for Armistice
- Declare War
- Military Orders
- Hide in Bunker
- Deflect Nukes
- Launch Nukes
Revision History- Version 1.2
4 December 2003 - Added the Gameplay Overview section
- Version 1.1
3 December 2003 - Revised the Launch Nuke order phrasing as per Comrade Tassadar's suggestion.
Last edited by vovan on 05-12-2003 at 08:18
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Jon Miller
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there was one similiar to this uot longh ago
Jon Millewr
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Comrade Tassadar
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Good idea, except for a few things
-Countries at war shouldnt be FORCED to attack each other each turn.
-A revision is needed. When asking for an Armstice, players should be able to set up a "Contingency" just in case the deal is declined. If it leaves them open for one whole turn, I don't think anyone will really go back to peace 
-An "alliance" diplomacy option should be avalible. Just as an official thing.
-I Propose we divide spies into two groups: Sabetours (sp), and Spies
quote:
The maximum amount of action points is determined by the number of cities the player has: each city produces enough action points for as many nuke launches as the player is able to produce every turn. |
Is confusing. It really begs the question "how many nuke launches is the player able to produce each turn?". Are we using the current (flawed) governments (Democracy, AmeriCommunism, Isolationism, and Jamskism?)
-"Launch Nukes" is not well written. What if you only want to launch 1 nuke? Will it be 2 as well?
-Before anyone can begin to develop order costs, one must know the government in the game. I propose what I proposed before:
quote:
COMMUNISM (Propaganda Gods)
Advantages: Propaganda twice as effective (Due to communists being masters at propaganda ),
2 spies at start (Uh...Because of the legacy of the KGB? I want at least 2 advantages per government.),
2 sabetours
Disadvantages: Unable to build any new cities (was unable to grow),
Unable to Train New Spies (Representing fear of the government and skepticism of its motives for recruitment)
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The unable to build any cities is really stagnating, and as such they need to feed off of the cities of others.
The flaw in the Nuclear War Poly game is that they weren't propaganda gods, and they couldn't build cities either which, as predicted, resulted in their elimination 
I removed my proposed "2 nuke to destroy cities" rule because the propaganda being twice as effective is POWERFUL.
I'm hesitant on giving them too many advantages, however...Because spies aren't offensive, however Communism could stall a certain player and eliminate him unless that player was helped by ANOTHER player....
Which is also why communism shouldn't be allowed to build more spies.
In essence, Communism is going to be a "Vampire" government.
quote:
DEMOCRACY (Expansion Gods)
Advantages: Can build 1.5 cities per turn (Meaning they've built one and started construction on another...The next turn they complete construction, and build another thereby building "2" cities. This represents populations fleeing tyranical governments to achieve thier dreams Isn't that heartwarming?)
Can stockpile an additional nuke (Due to populations being more productive under more freedoms)
Disadvantages: Can't Declare War. |
I changed it here to "Can't declare war" because the "Can't nuke someone who hasn't nuked you" has now become a global rule.
quote:
ISOLATIONIST (Defensive Gods)
Advantages: 2 FREE Multi-Purpose Spies Per Turn (They can either sabatoge or spy)
3 Hide in Bunker Orders may be used
Deflectors Stop an Extra Nuke
Immune to spies and sabetours
Disadvantages: Can only launch 1 nuke per turn |
Alright...The "1 nuke" rule is REALLY stagnating and under Jamskis rules, Isolationism essentially becomes a sitting duck because while the other governments CAN be offensive, this one essentially CANNOT. Yes, it can deflect but that only prolongs it's death and EVENTUALLY it will be destroyed.
Therefore the free 2 spies counters that...They can establish a large network of informants or sabatoge people whom are going to nuke them.
However they can't be infiltrated (because the society is isolated, people would notice), which again makes them a more viable government.
quote:
MILITARY DICTATORSHIP
Advantages: Can launch 3 nukes per turn (Having most of the economy tooled towards military)
Immune to propaganda (Due to, well foreign anything not being allowed)
Cities produce 1 Action point per turn
Disadvantages:
Cannot initialize propaganda (Due to nobody wanting to be under a military dictatorship)
Cannot stockpile nukes (Um...Because he's trigger happy?)
Deflections only protect 1 in every 3 nukes (So nukes 3, 6, 9, and 12 would be deflected by 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, and 11 would hit, because no freedoms at all make scientists ineffective at researching deflection technology)
Starts with 2 Cities instead of Four |
Alright...Here's what I propose. Each city produces .5 action points per turn and in each game they start out with 4 cities (insuring that a military dictatorship doesn't wipe out a player in the first turn.).
A military dictatorship produces 1, but starts out with half cities...I think thats a big enough early game penalty while late game this government could become POWERFUL.
Perhaps I'm undervaluing the use of spies?
Now, for this....
quote:
Military Orders:
Launch 1 Nuke - 1
Deflect Nukes - ALL
Hide in Bunker - If player has less than 5 cities: ALL. Otherwise: 4
Diplomatic Orders:
Perform Propaganda - If player has less than 5 cities: ALL. Otherwise: 4
Perform Counterpropaganda - 2
Declare War - ALL
Ask for Armistice - 0
Spy Missions:
Sabotage - 0 - Dependant on how many spies you have.
Gather Intelligence - 0 - Ibid
Secret Police - 1 per Secret Police
Domestic Orders:
Stockpile Nukes - All
Mobilize - All
Train Spy - If player has less than 5 cities: ALL. Otherwise: 4
Build City - If player has 2 or less cities: All. Otherwise: 1. Only 1 may be constructed per turn.
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What do you think?
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Sore Loser
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Aarhus, Denmark
Sep 2003
time: 06:32
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Practical question here: Can you change orders? If so, spies are useless because you can simply change orders at the end of turn, rendering the intelligence gathered null and void. If you can't change orders, then the intelligence gathered is also null and void.
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Comrade Tassadar
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quote:
Originally posted by Sore Loser
Practical question here: Can you change orders? If so, spies are useless because you can simply change orders at the end of turn, rendering the intelligence gathered null and void. If you can't change orders, then the intelligence gathered is also null and void. |
Like in NW, one could change the orders of course, except for spy informant orders....
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vovan
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First of all, Tass, thanks for the feedback. I appreciate it. 
quote:
Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar
-Countries at war shouldnt be FORCED to attack each other each turn.
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Well, I thought about it. That's why the thing about being forced to attack is in the question marks. However, I think that when it comes to game design, every single feature should be justified. In this particular case, I don't want to put in things just because that is the way they are in the real world. Instead, I want everything to have some sort of consequence.
Part of the reason for this is that like I said above, I would like to do this for a school project. Thus, for one thing, it is part of the requirement: to be able to justify every single feature, every single button on the interface, and every single design choice; and secondly, remember, that I am going to be doing this in a very limited time. I have to finish the project in 16 weeks, and plus I will have other classes to take care of as well.
That being said, I would still like the game to be fun.  Which is why I posted the inital thoughts here for your critique.
Back to responses to your much appreciated comments though...
quote:
Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar
-A revision is needed. When asking for an Armstice, players should be able to set up a "Contingency" just in case the deal is declined. If it leaves them open for one whole turn, I don't think anyone will really go back to peace |
I am not exactly sure what you mean here.  You mean, like the consequences of not accepting peace? Ask for peace with gingerbread in one hand and whip in the other?
quote:
Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar
-An "alliance" diplomacy option should be avalible. Just as an official thing.
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Well, like with war, I would like to avoid putting things in for the "Why not?" reason. I thought alliances should be available, but they have to have some sort of tangible and substantial effect on gameplay. Otherwise, there is really no reason to put them in. In the end, I'm thinking, I might axe the state of war as well, and not have diplomatic states at all: just pure nuking fun.
quote:
Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar
-I Propose we divide spies into two groups: Sabetours (sp), and Spies
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Same old, same old. What would the reason be? Good idea, theoretically, I think, but I would still like to keep gameplay simple. I am not really aiming for another civ here, but rather for the kind of lunch-break arcade with a bit of thinking involved.
quote:
Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar
quote:
The maximum amount of action points is determined by the number of cities the player has: each city produces enough action points for as many nuke launches as the player is able to produce every turn. |
Is confusing. It really begs the question "how many nuke launches is the player able to produce each turn?". Are we using the current (flawed) governments (Democracy, AmeriCommunism, Isolationism, and Jamskism?)
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Well, my idea was this: the number of nukes that the player is able to produce each turn is determined by the form of government he has. The default value that most governments will have is 2. However, some governments, such as, say, Jamskiism ( ), would allow for three nukes per turn.
A word on governments, here. I think balancing the governments with all the different advantages and disadvantages may be one of the more daunting tasks. Thus, I have already divised a simple way to keep the game very flexible that way. Each government will have a set of characteristics that will determine such values as the number of nukes produced per turn, the number of cities taken with propaganda, etc.. These characteristics, along with all the settings for the different government types will be loaded from an XML settings file when the game is launched. That provides for several very nice features: (1) The number and type of governments is very flexible. You don't need to recompile the game (or even have the sources available) in order to change them. (2) Mod-friendly. When I get to some acceptable state, I just post the game here, and hopefully you people will help me balance it. You can download the game, play it, find imbalances, edit the government settings yourself, and then put up the new XML file for all of us to try.
quote:
Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar
-"Launch Nukes" is not well written. What if you only want to launch 1 nuke? Will it be 2 as well?
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Indeed. I will revise that piece. Thank you.
quote:
Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar
-Before anyone can begin to develop order costs, one must know the government in the game.
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Hmmm... I actually thought about it the other way. Like I said before, I would like the governments in the game to be very flexible and easily editable by anyoone with access to notepad. Thus, I thought we would devise the costs of orders first and then deduce the government advantages and disadvantages from that. But now that I think about it, I figure, might as well stick the order cost settings in that same XML file with the government settings (or, in general, into some external settings file). Probably a good idea not to hard-code that either, and leave it to balancing.
Again, thanks for your feedback, Tassadar, and I hope to see more from you and others.
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Jon Miller
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there is one on the underdogs, but that isn't the one I played (the one I played was not graphical)
OJn Miller
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Comrade Tassadar
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Yep. They give it the "Top Dog" award but the reviewer pans it quite much.
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Adagio
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Vovan >> Yep, that's the one
Ok, there's some different ideas in that game (No governments, not spies, but more tactical orders)
I haven't looked at your idea yet... at least not much, but one thing "concerns" me:
Are you planning on making this a MP game, or only against AI... making it hotseat, or online/LAN... or a PBEM game?
In most of these parts, you can't really use the spy (Only in online/LAN games) since there wont be time to change the orders from other people (Take a look at the thread game... none of the players has yet to actually use the 'spying' part, because: The player who's spyed haven't sent orders, the spying player sends the orders too late, or might not come online before the turn has ended...)
Maybe you should wait with the spying part until you have finished the other parts of the game... But the sabotage could be used (And has been used several times in the thread game)
Just out of curiosity: In what language are you going to program this game? Programming-language that is
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Comrade Tassadar
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I've used spying once, and I know someone else has too.
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vovan
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quote:
Originally posted by ADG
I haven't looked at your idea yet... at least not much, but one thing "concerns" me:
Are you planning on making this a MP game, or only against AI... making it hotseat, or online/LAN... or a PBEM game? |
Well, that is one of the biggest points I'm stuck against. I would actually like to make the game multiplayer, because it is much more fun to play it against human opponents as the thread game has shown. However, one problem here is that it probably won't work too well in real-time MP. Turn-based games in general aren't really good MP-makers. However, PBEM is a definite yes, as well as maybe some kind of mode where it allows you to enter the orders for all players and see the results, sort of for facilitating the resolution of turn orders for an actual thread game manager such as yourself.
quote:
Originally posted by ADG
In most of these parts, you can't really use the spy (Only in online/LAN games) since there wont be time to change the orders from other people (Take a look at the thread game... none of the players has yet to actually use the 'spying' part, because: The player who's spyed haven't sent orders, the spying player sends the orders too late, or might not come online before the turn has ended...) |
Indeed. I am having trouble conceptualizing the idea of the Observe spy order, or Gather Intelligence, as I chose to call it. That is why I chose to make it so the spy will report the next turn's orders, instead of this turn's orders. However, that can only work for a computer opponent, which can make orders before the player, and thus they can be reported to the player at the beginning of his turn. That will not, however, work worth a damn in a real-time MP game.
quote:
Originally posted by ADG
Just out of curiosity: In what language are you going to program this game? Programming-language that is |
As per the class requirement, the game has to be written in Java. That makes the GUI part easy as pie, but doesn't lend itself well to pretty graphics. Which is partly the reason I chose a game such as this, where the map is not very interactive - you only click on it when choosing a city to bomb or some such, but it does have plenty of user interface elements: orders to choose from, turn reports, etc..
If the requirement was to write the game in C++, I probably would have chosen something else, where there's minimal user interface and everything is done through keyboard and mouse, and there is more need for fancy graphics.
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vovan
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quote:
Originally posted by ADG
If it wasn't because it was a school project, I would have offered to help (Not that I'm that good at programming... but I do know a little java... have never tried to make any games though)
Maybe you could post the source files after the project has finished, and we could (Those at Apolyton who's interested) help finishing the last parts of the game (if you don't manage to do everything beforehand)...
...just an idea...
I'd defently like to see this game |
Well, I don't know yet. Like I said, I still have about a month to come up with the proposal paper for the class, so I may still change my mind about exactly which project I will be doing. This game may not fit a couple of requirements we have... However, I would like to still keep on polishing the design of this: I am sure it would make a fun game in the end.
I would like to hear some input from Jamski, though, him being the original starter of this nuking deal. *hint, hint, Jam*
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03-12-2003 10:33
I thought you said there was one like that recently? 
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