the use of EMP

[greatUnknown]

What does shutting down a city for five turns accomplish?
I noticed that EMP can be used against AI despite nonagression pacts, or without open borders.
Is this purely an economic warfare mechanism to slow down opponents, even those you are at
peace with?

[jdmillard]

I too have wondered this. Why can you do it so easily to allies?

Is all food, minerals, production, and research put on hold? Also, One time I started off a war by attacking and then I decided to EMP every single city of my enemy but the next turn they unleashed black holes and other operations. Shouldn't operations be temporarily disabled if the host city is disabled?

[greatUnknown]

The description for EMP claims that it disables city defenses;
however, when I tried it prior to attacking, the target still had
full defensive power bonuses from buildings like planetary fortress.

[jdmillard]

Either it's not currently working properly or the description should be changed.

[Dr. Foo]

Shouldn't operations be temporarily disabled if the host city is disabled?

I guess it could be argued that the operation's control is deep underground in a hardened bunker, therefore an EMP would not affect it. Take Orbital Bombardment, the bombs are in space mounted on satellites, but they are controlled by the ground. It would make sense that these command and control facilities would be hardened. At least that's what I tell myself.

[jdmillard]

Shouldn't operations be temporarily disabled if the host city is disabled?

I guess it could be argued that the operation's control is deep underground in a hardened bunker, therefore an EMP would not affect it. Take Orbital Bombardment, the bombs are in space mounted on satellites, but they are controlled by the ground. It would make sense that these command and control facilities would be hardened. At least that's what I tell myself.

I guess that works. I suppose that the bunker would have to be deep and/or lined with lead. And it would need an independent power source that's completely off the "grid" that is also just as protected. For simple systems such as a red button, this would be fine, but intense operations requiring a lot of energy would prove difficult I think. But even if you could get a launch control system functional under these conditions, the launch and control of the rocket/missile/bombardment would require that a signals be sent to the remote location. Such signals are electromagnetic waves and would need to penetrate the lead/granite/earth in order to reach their destination thus suggesting that the the signal generator is more powerful than the EMP (which couldn't penetrate the bunker). Then again, I suppose that after the pulse has passed, one could take the once-protected signal/telemetry equipment up to the surface to broadcast the launch/control signal and push the "red button" from down in the bunker. But if the original purpose of the EMP was to disable the city AND operations then they would have designed a series of pulses (1 large one to render the city useless, and several smaller ones following for the purposes of delaying proper repair of the "grid" and to overload any emergency equipment that might be brought to the surface after the initial strike). It seems like this is the case because the city is disabled for 5 months. I don't think it would take 5 whole months to repair the transformers unless more pulses were periodically discharged in order to render the repair tools (which were sent by a nearby city) useless.

[BlueTemplar]

Gameplay >>> Realism
Considering that there are no real defenses against nukes and black holes in the game now, I'd say that EMP's should disable building-based operations (or reset their reload time like they were just used?).

[Dr. Foo]

Gameplay >>> Realism
Considering that there are no real defenses against nukes and black holes in the game now, I'd say that EMP's should disable building-based operations (or reset their reload time like they were just used?).

The only problem with that, is the EMP lasts for 5 turns and the cool down for most operations is more than five. If they figured out a way to take operations with more than a five turn cool down offline for just the five EMP turns I'd be for this.

[jdmillard]

Gameplay >>> Realism
Considering that there are no real defenses against nukes and black holes in the game now, I'd say that EMP's should disable building-based operations (or reset their reload time like they were just used?).

The only problem with that, is the EMP lasts for 5 turns and the cool down for most operations is more than five. If they figured out a way to take operations with more than a five turn cool down offline for just the five EMP turns I'd be for this.

Yes please.

[boulugre]

Gameplay >>> Realism
Considering that there are no real defenses against nukes and black holes in the game now, I'd say that EMP's should disable building-based operations (or reset their reload time like they were just used?).

The only problem with that, is the EMP lasts for 5 turns and the cool down for most operations is more than five. If they figured out a way to take operations with more than a five turn cool down offline for just the five EMP turns I'd be for this.

Yes please.

While I see the value of having a tool to prevent being nuked/black holed, I feel this feature would give even more advantage to the declaring faction.

Right now the declaring faction already have the opportunity to

- First strike with bombardment, nukes and black holes
- First strike with artillery
- First strike with units ( which is specially powerful with the unit bonus that makes unit taking 0 damage when they succesfully attack
- Position your units in strategic location
- Pillage roads
- take cities on the first turn of war

In MP game this doesn't matter as turn are simultaneous, but in SP against AI you already have an huge advantage striking first (especially that AI will not react to you massing unit at their borders). If you can also take out all their nuke and black hole ops, seems a little too much to me

[player1]

Well, then have it slightly modified, like EMP effects starting on one turn after war started, to keep MAD.

And have EMP effect do two things:
1) prevent use of operations from that city
2) freeze cooldown of operations during its effect

[jdmillard]

While I see the value of having a tool to prevent being nuked/black holed, I feel this feature would give even more advantage to the declaring faction.

Right now the declaring faction already have the opportunity to

- First strike with bombardment, nukes and black holes
- First strike with artillery
- First strike with units ( which is specially powerful with the unit bonus that makes unit taking 0 damage when they succesfully attack
- Position your units in strategic location
- Pillage roads
- take cities on the first turn of war

In MP game this doesn't matter as turn are simultaneous, but in SP against AI you already have an huge advantage striking first (especially that AI will not react to you massing unit at their borders). If you can also take out all their nuke and black hole ops, seems a little too much to me

This is a good point. I'll add drop pods to your list as well. This is actually my second biggest concern in the game after diplomacy: that preemptively striking offers far too many advantages to the aggressor in the late game for the reasons you mention. My suggestions for fixing it are these:

-The biggest change I suggest is a change in the way the cooldown works for black holes. It's described in detail in another thread. Just scroll down to the bottom of the first page.
-The AI needs to declare war more often. Right now they tend to only declare war on factions with no military strength.
-(maybe)Drop pods should hurt the unit 50%. This means that the attacker would need to consider sending multiple units to defend a city that is captured via drop pod. That way in order to keep a city, one will need to send multiple units. I suppose this would be negligible with nanobots.
-(maybe)Units should heal at the slower rate (10% per turn) in captured cities. Cities are "captured" until the takeover morale penalty wears off. I suppose that this is irrelevant with nanobots. A more extreme version of this would be no healing in captured cities, but I think that would just be super annoying. On the other hand, it would make forts more useful.

I guess this is unrelated to this EMP thread... sorry.

[boulugre]

-(maybe)Drop pods should hurt the unit 50%. This means that the attacker would need to consider sending multiple units to defend a city that is captured via drop pod. That way in order to keep a city, one will need to send multiple units. I suppose this would be negligible with nanobots.

Yeah drop pods could be nerfed but on the other hand they are quite expensive to build and need to be planned in advance, so they should still stay powerful.

Taking 50% damage is an option, another would be to give the unit a temporary one turn -50% defense, illustrating the difficulty of organizing a defense while rushing out an assault pod. Another option would be to disable drop pods directly on cities, giving more time to the defending faction to react and preventing dropped units to directly beneficiate from cities defense building.

-(maybe)Units should heal at the slower rate (10% per turn) in captured cities. Cities are "captured" until the takeover morale penalty wears off. I suppose that this is irrelevant with nanobots. A more extreme version of this would be no healing in captured cities, but I think that would just be super annoying. On the other hand, it would make forts more useful.

Yup, or make city defense building without effect during the time of takeover would make taking back cities more easy. Or why not even make defense building destroyed when a city is taken, after all those defense needs to be razed before conquering a city so it makes kind of senses.

[jdmillard]

We need to just create a thread about the advantages given to the faction that preemptively strikes and how to balance it.

I like your ideas.

Yup, or make city defense building without effect during the time of takeover would make taking back cities more easy.

I thought about that too, but I would want to test it first to make sure that it doesn't just create unstable wars. What I mean by unstable is if two factions of equal military strength starting fighting, maybe they'll just alternate between capturing each others' cities without ever going anywhere... but I suppose that could be a good thing (bringing in the need for strategy rather than brute strength alone).

I just thought of something else. What if there were two ways to declare war?:
-Official Diplomatic Declaration of War: in this form, the declaration takes place immediately (so everyone knows), but you CANNOT take military action until the next turn. In this form, it's like saying "hey we're not happy with you and we're gonna take military action." Factions who do this will have better chances of other factions helping (depending on whether they like you or dislike your enemy) and it will not hurt your integrity rating. But you're essentially giving the first turn of warfare to the opponent. If you have open borders with them, your units would be removed. This would be considered more noble than the alternative. If you are the victim of a "diplomatic declaration of war," you will have a "medium" ability to gain support from friends and it would depend really on how much they like you and/or dislike your enemy.
-Surprise Attack: in this form, the declaration takes place immediately AND you CAN take military action. If there was an open border agreement, the attacker may keep his units in enemy lands. You are free to immediately attack and inflict whatever operation you want, but you will be much less likely to receive help from friends and your integrity and diplomacy will take a hit. The victim of a surprise attack will have a better chance of garnering sympathy from other factions. This offers a lot of advantages to the attacker, but he might find himself waging a multiple-front war soon if they tick off the wrong people.

The advantages for attacking would still need to be nerfed though.

[boulugre]

I just thought of something else. What if there were two ways to declare war?:

-Official Diplomatic Declaration of War:
-Surprise Attack:

The official diplomatic declaration of war doesn't seem very realistic. Surprise is totally key in warfare and no decent general would agree to such a chivalrous process.

I agree that faction declaring war on another should take a diplo hit with other factions, except if you declare war against common enemies. I would rather have a system where depending on the diplo situation the hit is more or less consequent. I was thinking of something like that :

- You declare war on a faction with whom you have no treaties whatsoever : You take a small diplo hit with that faction friends/allies, gain a small boost with that faction enemies

- You declare war on a faction with who you have economical/research agreement : You take a medium diplo hit with that faction friends/allies, gain a small boost with that faction enemies

- You declare war on a faction with whom you have non aggression pact : You take a large diplo hit with that faction friends/allies, gain a small boost with that faction enemies

- You declare war on a faction with who you are allied : All factions immediately considered you as hostile and dangerous.

This system would make the diplomatic game much more important and dynamic, with warmongering faction being quickly isolated and making smaller factions team up against a super power in the process of conquering the world.