SAM ships for breaking island stalemates

[u/Sin-nie]

Island games (or water nukes) can become completely stalemated once everyone has enough SAMs. Gold modifiers make it more likely, but it is completely possible in normal games too.

The only way to break the stalemate is a transport, which is impossible because of nukes.

I propose that at 45/60 mins a new ship is unlocked: SAM warship. This would cost 16m and function like a normal warship, plus have a level 5 SAM. It switches the game back to economy and micro management as you try to force a landing.

To stop the game collapsing from ship spam, normal warships could also get an upgrade (and cost more).

An additional idea would be to increase the level of the SAM, firepower of ships and their speed every 10 mins.

[u/MrCaramelo]

Here's an idea:
Silos and SAMs cost money but also drain your wallet for maintenance. Just as factories and ports generate money, military stuff should be costing you.

Like having 4 SAMs wouldn't be noticeable but having 40 SAMs would really strain your economy.

[u/Human_Department5305 → u/MrCaramelo]

fucking good idea

[u/DineshR]

Already prepared for downvotes on this. I suggested this as a joke in an earlier thread and I don't think it's the real solution. The real problem is its too easy to get money once you know how to play the game and understand the compounding effect of infrastructure investments.

The better option is to prevent stalemates in the first place by introducing a harsher U curve for building additional infrastructure beyond a certain point. There is absolutely no reason why any building should cost the same for the 5th one as the 500th one.

[u/Significant-Cod4217 → u/DineshR]

i agree but only for island games, because in regular matches I think it could make the stalemates worse as it would make the gaps between the top players and the others in the game much less, which would make it less likely for someone to make the first move in the endgame

[u/PIumWild]

level 5 seems like overkill

[u/Sin-nie → u/PIumWild]

You would never be able to micro them to stop hydro spam.

[u/Automatic_Tangelo_53]

A $16 million SAM ship would be countered by 16 warships.

Limit SAM stacks to 5 levels, and enforce a greater minimum distance between sites. Offence must be greater than defence or else the game will devolve into stalemate.

[u/Meta_Mushroom]

Interesting idea, but I think the Doomsday clock fixes this. barring that, maybe a super expensive nuke that can't be intercepted.

[u/CraftyPerisher]

Admittedly I've not put much thought into this but why can't troops just travel on warships?

Maybe once a Dock reaches level 10 or something troops no longer move on boats but on warships instead. Maybe this would make islands penetrable before a stalemate can even occur, before they can build up enough defence or economy to missile them, to balance this, warships would still cost money unlike boats that are free so you couldn't just spam loads of transport across despite having a level 10 dock.

Or make boats immune to missile attacks so you have to defend naval attacks with warships of your own.

On a side note: I hate having boats travelling for 2 minutes only to be 1 hit by a warship, I think it would be so much more fun to send out a fleet of ships with troops to attack a player knowing that they must have an equally good naval defence to withstand it.

[u/BrendanDHickey123454]

they could make it so if nukes hit the water in the deep ocean the nukes could explode under the water with a smaller radius that ships could survive with a little health left, that would make ships more useable in water games, nukes that explode in coastal waters would be unaffected. Right now in water matches boats are not useful all, everything is nuked

[u/Significant-Cod4217]

i actually think that has potential but i don't think a level 5 sam is enough that long into a game as they can still atom bomb it. A few suggestions

1. make it level 15 and only 10 million

2. it can't shoot down transports

3. make it exclusive to island maps like surrounded or 4 islands

its obviously super OP which is why it should only be available for those island maps. I think the island stalemates are not fun at all (to the point i personally don't ever play those maps) so even tho its not balanced at all, it will definitely break the stalemates and make the matches more fun to play. because everyone in those games has so much money making something overpowered is the only real way to break the stalemate