Biological warfare.

Please hear this out.

We could have viruses as costly stealth units, and give cities (but not units) a large stealth radius for them.

The idea is that you'd leave them lying around somewhere, and an enemy unit would "step" on it. This is a bit unlikely, I understand, but maybe there could be a "step" radius for the virus, so that if a unit is within a certain radius, it will be infected.

If a unit "steps" on the hidden virus, he contracts it. Any stacks or cities that the particular unit was a part of will have a chance to be infected as well. I think that the infection mechanism could be much like the normal attacking/defending mechanism. In fact, the viruses could have attack and defense. Each turn, the infected unit would have a "fight" with all the other units in his stack. The computer would randomly pick anywhere from 25% of them to 75% of them to have a "chance" to be infected by the virus. Once that percentage is chosen, the virus will "attack" those units. One virus will attack each unit, and if the unit "loses" the battle, he will be infected.

After a couple of weeks or so, the opponent gets notified of whatever units are infected. The affected units die after a set number of turns.

A few things:
One virus can only affect one unit. Let's say you put one hidden virus unit somewhere, and a 76 stack of tanks "steps" on it. Only ONE of the tanks would be immediately infected, but the rest would be susceptible to infection FROM that specific unit. If the stack breaks up, the computer decides which stack the infected units follow.

There will be a cap on the number of units that can be infected after the ORIGINAL infection.

On the turn when the opponent gets notified that his units are infected, the infected units cannot infect. This will give the opponent a chance to separate his sick units from his healthy ones. After this turn, the units will be able to infect, until they die off. Basically, if you are notified that your units have viruses, you separate them immediately.

Which brings me to my next point. If you knew your units were infected, why wouldn't you use them as weapons? Infected units can infect enemy units by attacking them. There would be alternate rounds for attacking and infecting. IE: first, one unit would attack another unit. After one unit died, the virus would get one chance to infect an enemy unit. Regardless of whether the infection was successful, another unit battle takes place. After one more unit dies, the virus tries to "attack", or infect, again. This way, there's no guarantee that the virus will infect.

If a unit gets infected from an ENEMY unit through battle, the unit's owner is notified right away. (As opposed to that "wait" period for the original virus)

Viruses will only be able to affect units that can hold cities. They will not be able to affect units in air transports. They won't affect destroyers, because those are pretty handicapped as it is.


The handicaps:

They will be easily detected by cities, so you can't just go around infecting people's defense lines with them.

A unit has to step on a virus. It's like fishing. You can't actively infect a unit (unless your unit has already been infected). You have to leave it in a strategic location and hope for the best.

There will be a kill cap for each infecting round. The first time around, the virus will only be able to infect 70 units max. After the opponent is notified, he has one turn to "quarantine" his sick units. After that turn, there will be a new cap, and those infected units can infect another 70 or 50 or whatever number of units in turn.


Okay, so it definitely has a few bugs in it, but I think it would be a very interesting addition. It's a whole new flavor of warfare that hasn't been mentioned in Afterwind as of yet. Of course the game is great the way it is now, and there could be an option for "bio weapons" or "no bio weapons", so that if it is added, players can still play the "normal" version of the game.

If you have any questions, this sort of stuff is a lot easier to explain through chat. This is a serious proposition though, so please consider it, Ivan and Amok!

Sounds cool. How will this afect the countrys income though?

There'd be an upkeep for it. Perhaps the upkeep would be costly, to prevent people from spamming them everywhere.

It wouldn't affect the income of an opponent in any way, just their units.

Unless they took over the country right

It wouldn't affect enemy incomes in any way whatsoever.

Let me reiterate:
this unit would have a max amount of units it would be able to kill.
The opponent would have one full turn, after notified, to stop the infection from spreading.
When the opponent is notified of the virus, the "sick" units will have a marker on them to distinguish them from healthy ones.


Any other thoughts?

Sorry, bumping thread.