Would you like to play Global Thermonuclear War?

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-09-30 04:01am

That happens automatically when you click on a ground target, though. But you still have to wait for the timer.

Jaepheth · Post by **Jaepheth** » 2006-09-30 09:14am

I kind of like the North/South America vs. Europe/Africa vs/ Asia games

Yogi · Post by **Yogi** » 2006-09-30 12:02pm

Shadow WarChief wrote:It's lagging an absurd amount for me. I can't even move my mouse enough to get past pressing "Play Demo". What gives?

Try switching to Windowed mode.

Exonerate · Post by **Exonerate** » 2006-09-30 03:41pm

The AI usually tries to attack you early on with its naval fleet - I try to keep my ships in range of the anti-air, so I can wipe them out and still have my carriers left for anti-sub/scouting/bombing. Stick battleships upfront, they're better tanks than carriers. I usually have my bombers help take out enemy fleets, and when those are destroyed, the bombers are already in the air and half-way to their targets. I've found bombers and subs are best at oversaturating enemy defenses, since you can come in from various angles of attack. I usually have subs lying in wait until my ICBMs are about to come down though.

And scouting is a pain in the ass. Fighters have little range, and my bombers often get shot down before spotting anything.

ThatGuyFromThatPlace · Post by **ThatGuyFromThatPlace** » 2006-09-30 07:20pm

how do y'all arrange your fleets? I usually have four fleets of three subs each and then have my battleships and carriers in Three/Three groups, but that doesn't work to well...

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-09-30 07:22pm

Yeah, I used to do 3/3 groups, but you lose carriers in close combat. I use vanilla groups, with the warships tanking for carriers that can standoff and launch attacks. You have to micro the carriers a bit, as they often set course directly to the enemy fleets.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2006-09-30 07:48pm

Fleet combat seems to pretty much determine who wins the game. Having plenty of bombers and boomers left after the intial engagement is key. Still having trouble coming out on top of fleet engagements, and no matter what; I always lose most of my fighters and a significant number of bombers.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-09-30 07:51pm

Keep you carriers miles from the enemy fleets, launch your all bombers as soon as you can so you can bring 12 in against enemy fleets, and don't use fighters to attack ships because they suck at it. I can defeat three enemy fleet groups for each of mine using these basic rules. A squad of warships distracting/tanking is essential, and they will almost always be destroyed. But the nukes on the carriers are far more valuable.

Jaepheth · Post by **Jaepheth** » 2006-09-30 07:54pm

I usually divide my fleet into groups of 6, each w/ 1 type of ship. Then I send my subs to enemy coasts to wait fot them to launch icbms, if i'm Europe or Russia, I send 1 or both carrier groups over greenland to camp north of
Canada to launch bombers into the americas or north of russia to harass them. my battle ships stay close to my borders to defend against enemy attacks, and i back them up with my air fields.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2006-10-01 02:38am

Fun as this game is, I've taken this time to really get in to Uplink. Man, that game is addictive. I picked up Uplink faster than I have DEFCON (my management of fleets is garbage).

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-10-01 02:42am

Uplink is unfortunately totally broken. In fifteen minutes you've ripped off a bank and have infinite money. The game itself quickly gets boring after that: it's the 'shit did they find me' sensation that's good, and that's all gone when you've got the best of everything and it's all easy. Shame, apart from that it was such a cool game.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-10-01 02:46am

Uplink is all about finding stuff for yourself the first time and thinking creatively. Whem you first learn to use the IP logs to frame people and cover your tracks, or using other people's accounts, that's a wonderful day.

Oh, about Defcon... feel free to use every bomber and fighter a carrier has, and lose them if need be. You can always restock carriers using those awkward airbases too, which is efficient when your land is far from the enemy's continent (great for pacific campaigns in US vs Russia).

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2006-10-01 03:41am

The trick, I believe, is to get everything you have into the air. Of course, realistically in a game where the quality in players is equal, everyone should die. There is no such thing as victory, it is fiendish and wonderful.

I played a fun game of Genocide without teams earlier. The only major cities on the planet which escaped firey death and lethal doses of radiation (Australia, Canada, and Greenland; being uninhabited wastelands to begin with don't have any cities, as we all know) were Bejing, Seoul and Tokyo. I feel this sort of amazingly lethal combat is the sort of thing that makes this game shine. On another note; I'm thinking of hosting a game of Speed Defcon, that'll be fun

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-10-01 07:21am

In PvP I imagine scouting to find bomber swarms and kil them with fighters will be much more important... but there's a lot of ground to cover.

Faqa · Post by **Faqa** » 2006-10-01 10:44am

Uplink is unfortunately totally broken. In fifteen minutes you've ripped off a bank and have infinite money. The game itself quickly gets boring after that: it's the 'shit did they find me' sensation that's good, and that's all gone when you've got the best of everything and it's all easy. Shame, apart from that it was such a cool game.

Uplink is style over bloody substance. I don't know how much clearer that can be. But with THAT kind of style, I just don't care.

DEFCON rocks. Ace would NOT shut up about the game on the day before our LAN party, and he was right not to. Again, classic Introversion style + a nicely strategic game.

The keys seem to be patience, scouting and defense. Defense above all, since just one sub fleet can ruin your day completely if you're not deployed to stop them. Patience, to make sure you're not firing blindly.

And scouting, so that your nukes don't get the shit blown out of them by silos you can't see.

But it's all worth it to see Europe as one huge white mass of fallout...

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-10-01 11:18am

I'm up for matchs in the next 24 hours. PM me for times.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2006-10-01 01:47pm

Anyone up for a little Global Thermonuclear war right now?

DocHorror · Post by **DocHorror** » 2006-10-01 02:05pm

Perhaps later, just put SDN in the game names and I'm sure we'll hook up.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2006-10-01 02:15pm

People always seem to join my server right away, no matter what the name is.

ThatGuyFromThatPlace · Post by **ThatGuyFromThatPlace** » 2006-10-01 04:58pm

I love a good match of diplomacy, espescially when you have a couple of people who are really good at bluffing and distraction. You can get almost the entire map to focus on like SA or africa and then have some country nobody expected break the alliance after launching half their arsenal while everyone was so focused on getting their fleets in position around South America they didn't even notice. Now that is an awesoem experience.

Jaepheth · Post by **Jaepheth** » 2006-10-02 01:30am

we could set up a convention like when any one of us start a server, put SDN as the name and SDN as the password, if no one joins after 5min, take the password off.

Or something like that

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2006-10-02 02:18am

According to the little message, there are more servers than are displayed. I already went through this problem with hotfoot, you really need to know when/IP.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2006-10-02 04:03am

Has anyone here tried taking out enemy radar with bombers/subs before the enemy switches his silos from air defense? I had a thought that it might be worth trying to blind him by hitting his radars with SLBMs, then using whatever leftover SLBMs I have and bombers to nail the silos before they go into launch mode. This would assume adequate scouting of course. The possible hitches I see are: 1) the silo radars are good enough that they could still swat down incoming missiles, making the whole exercise a waste of time, and/or 2) it's impossible to take out enough radar stations to make the tactic work.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2006-10-02 04:34am

It might have been a fluke, but hte last game I played against the AI (1vs1) I won by simpling going all out almost the instant defcon 1 hit (maybe a minute or 3 afterwards, had to queue up the bombers). I threw caution to the wind and sent every fighter, bomber and silo based nuke into the enemy, and wound up completely overrung his defenses, the boombers arrived in time to nuke his silos as they started launching, but by then all my silos were back to defense, and all of his cities had been nuked at least once.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-10-02 05:07am

That can work in 1v1, since you don't have to worry about anyone else. A first strike can obliterate the other guy's silos, so he's boned. Worst case you bring your bombers back to rearm and kill all his dudes.

Destroying radars is *absurdly* effective. The AI doesn't do overlapping coverage, so taking one out gives you impunity over much of their territory. The range on the silos is enough to perhaps take out single missiles (if they're lucky), but it's trivial to destroy them with five-odd bombers. Remember, every hit to a silo destroys some of it's nukes, so even if it's left standing you've reduced the density of the counterattack. Places like Africa and Russia are quite vulnerable to radar destruction, due to size. Europe and America (with tightly packed cities) less so, since all the silos will be close together.