Would you like to play Global Thermonuclear War?

[Ace Pace]

Gee, uh, thanks?

If I do it while explaining how I'm doing it, probably?

[Admiral Valdemar]

Heh, I'll have to make time for you to "teach" me then. So far, I'm going about basic campaign stuff.

[Ace Pace]

Heh, I'll have to make time for you to "teach" me then. So far, I'm going about basic campaign stuff.

Quick notes.

Micro naval battles.
Slow down time for nuke strikes.
Bombers and subs launch first most of the time, reveal as little detail on ICBM layout as you can.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I had noticed that aircraft are notoriously slow. Mind you, ICBMs and SLBMs do travel at hypersonic speed. Gives you time to plan ahead, I guess.

[Ace Pace]

I had noticed that aircraft are notoriously slow. Mind you, ICBMs and SLBMs do travel at hypersonic speed. Gives you time to plan ahead, I guess.

Airplanes are slow, but they're faster then you think. Not sure how to explain. Other then with a neat example.

I was playing a DEFCON game. Enemy set up a massive bomber wave at me, and texted me saying: "I know where your air bases are, you will never react in time." Not many of his bombers got nukes off.
The combat radius is large enough to utterly anahilate things inside the radius and they fire fast enough to make it deadly.

[Admiral Valdemar]

So the best bet against bomber waves is to simply use fighters rather than rely on air defence stations? Makes sense. How well do BBs and CVNs fare against subs and their equivalent?

[Ace Pace]

So the best bet against bomber waves is to simply use fighters rather than rely on air defence stations? Makes sense. How well do BBs and CVNs fare against subs and their equivalent?

Bomber waves can be utterly murdered with a few fighters. Or a battleship in the middle. Fighters are replaceable, bombers are not. Remember that.

BBs and CVNs can work out against subs. IF they know they are there. If you find a single sub, rapidly switch everything to sub hunting, because where there is one, theres usually 6(with noob players).

If the subs are firing undetected, most chances is the fleet is gone before you've noticed.

[Admiral Valdemar]

The subs easy enough to entrap or do they move too quickly to bother going after once they're launched? They have an advantage in lower reaction times, but it must be harder to get them near the coasts with any real decent navy about.

[Ace Pace]

The subs easy enough to entrap or do they move too quickly to bother going after once they're launched? They have an advantage in lower reaction times, but it must be harder to get them near the coasts with any real decent navy about.

Subs... mixed topic. I'm not exactly in touch with the 'strategy FAQ writers' so your milage may vary.

I find it useless to go after subs in the early game. A good player either uses them up in naval combat, in which case you get them by dedicated a carrier to anti sub ops, or he sneaks them around.

But I get around that by keeping a close eye on the shore. The moment subs pop up, send fighters. Even if the fighters will barely be in range. They can easily shoot down surfaced subs and the cost of a ICBM that gets through is far greater then losing 5-6 fighters.

[Uraniun235]

Watch your allies closely. They may try to nuke the shit out of you while your back is turned.

As should you, them. I find the best way to do it is to launch a first wave of missiles against his silos while we're still allied, then break the alliance just before the second wave rains down on his cities; killing allied civilians reduces your score, but killing allied installations doesn't affect your score.

[Ace Pace]

Watch your allies closely. They may try to nuke the shit out of you while your back is turned.

As should you, them. I find the best way to do it is to launch a first wave of missiles against his silos while we're still allied, then break the alliance just before the second wave rains down on his cities; killing allied civilians reduces your score, but killing allied installations doesn't affect your score.

Thats so nasty I don't even do it. And I've been accused of being a pathological backstabber.

But I think advance Diplomacy lessons are abit early.

[weemadando]

The Stark Bomber Swarm is the best tactic I can recommend. Its quite impressive especially if you can time your sub assault to hit at the same time.

[Uraniun235]

Watch your allies closely. They may try to nuke the shit out of you while your back is turned.

As should you, them. I find the best way to do it is to launch a first wave of missiles against his silos while we're still allied, then break the alliance just before the second wave rains down on his cities; killing allied civilians reduces your score, but killing allied installations doesn't affect your score.

Thats so nasty I don't even do it. And I've been accused of being a pathological backstabber.

But I think advance Diplomacy lessons are abit early.

It's not always terribly effective. For example, if you're Asia and you're allied with the Russians against the Europeans, you can easily have your bombers heading towards Europe, only to make a surprise counter-force strike against Russia before Russia even knows what the fuck. On the other hand, if your North America, it takes a bit more adeptness.

Another lesson is that just because your ally is launching against you doesn't mean you have to break the alliance; simply uncheck the "cease-fire" box in the Alliance window. Now your silos will fire on his missiles (and, I believe, your other forces against his) but any civilians he kills will still count against him until he breaks the alliance.

[Dark Lord of the Bith]

Watch your allies closely. They may try to nuke the shit out of you while your back is turned.

As should you, them. I find the best way to do it is to launch a first wave of missiles against his silos while we're still allied, then break the alliance just before the second wave rains down on his cities; killing allied civilians reduces your score, but killing allied installations doesn't affect your score.

Thats so nasty I don't even do it. And I've been accused of being a pathological backstabber.

But I think advance Diplomacy lessons are abit early.

It's not always terribly effective. For example, if you're Asia and you're allied with the Russians against the Europeans, you can easily have your bombers heading towards Europe, only to make a surprise counter-force strike against Russia before Russia even knows what the fuck. On the other hand, if your North America, it takes a bit more adeptness.

Another lesson is that just because your ally is launching against you doesn't mean you have to break the alliance; simply uncheck the "cease-fire" box in the Alliance window. Now your silos will fire on his missiles (and, I believe, your other forces against his) but any civilians he kills will still count against him until he breaks the alliance.

And remember also, it's far better to kick your target from the alliance than to leave on your own; if the alliance kicks him, then he suddenly has a whole lot of people gunning at him, instead of the other way around if you leave yourself.

Sounds like common sense, but I've seen too many people leave the alliance then attack, then get pounded by the other 5 players. 5v1 is tricky for anyone to survive, unless you can convince others to join you. Doesn't always happen though, and sometimes the alliance won't break up until they've had their fill of smashing a single opponent.

[Admiral Valdemar]

From experience, how often do humans go for backstabbing in alliances rather than combining efforts to wipe everyone out bar those two? It's a good study in psychology of MAD to see how these people risk their assets by turning first while the going is good.

[Ace Pace]

From experience, how often do humans go for backstabbing in alliances rather than combining efforts to wipe everyone out bar those two? It's a good study in psychology of MAD to see how these people risk their assets by turning first while the going is good.

I find that in my games we kick people out. Mostly because I end up running 2-3 factions against each other.

[ThatGuyFromThatPlace]

In diplomacy you'll mostly have one or two people splitting up the alliance behind the scenes until all of a sudden two or three people split off together.

In a regular game you'll only usually see people backstabbing when their alliance is either doing really well or very poorly.
In the former I guess its so that they can be the 'winners' and int he latter its of course so they don't get creamed terribly.

I've seen really good players drop from their winning alliance when the end-game timer starts and come out with ridiculously high scores.

[Enforcer Talen]

2nd game, I had a tie; ie, my country survived, but I was 200 points behind.

I was usa vs ussr, and I put all my fleets in the pacific, and all my facilities on the west coast, gambling that the russians would move their fleet for the several dozen minutes it took to reach the east coast.

My fleet encountered the majority of theirs in the northern pacific, and I wiped them out in a sustained effort. Some of their survivors ran south and east, and I ignored, pushing foward to launch nukes and bombers off the coast of japan. They got wiped out, and I retreated under intense fire.

Meanwhile, I had launched two ICBMs from Canada into Mongolia, and the AI responded in force. I believe I lost something like 50 million people, but I had more people then they had nukes, so I began to respond with my ICBMs, most of which were wiped out by fighter defenses.

Thats when the victory timer came up, and I ended the game.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Okay, spent a good couple of hours watching a six-way match which really only heated up within the last ten minutes when three alliances of two were made. I think I'm getting some good ideas, though I'll have to look up some old actual nuke strategies too.

If anyone wants to arrange a game when I'm online (usually from 1900 till 2015 GMT then later on that night tomorrow), I'll be on MSN, Yahoo, AIM and ICQ.

EDIT: BST? Valdemar meant GMT, for he is no fool typing shit up at 3AM.

[Stark]

Woo if people are playing again I should get in. I'll be free tomorrow, so watch out.

[Admiral Valdemar]

You were out? Tsk. I can't imagine putting something like this down, especially if I worked in an office all day. Now if only there was a DS version of the game.

I've been checking their forums too at Introversion and there's some interesting patches being proposed.