How to make Guided Missiles Useful

[Silverman6083]

So in the game guided missiles are useless. You build them once, use em, they don't do much damage, and then you can never use your missile again. So I had an awesome idea. If you use a guided missile on a city, you can target a building and it will attack and either destroy the building or render it useless, and then the civilization will have to re-build it. Because historically that's what guided missiles have been use for. Well it is either for precision strikes, surface-to-air missiles, air-to-air missiles, or sea-to-air missiles, but the latter 3 are already represented in the game. So thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions? Insults of how bad an idea this is?

 

[bryanw1995]

Missiles don't cost maintenance, so they're actually a lot more useful than they at first appear.

 

[docbud]

I think it would be a nightmare to try and code, as well as a nightmare to even launch the guided missile. Do you want to target any building or wonders? If any building, it would be quite a list to choose from. Factory? Temple? University? Library? etc.

 

[bryanw1995]

I think it would be a nightmare to try and code, as well as a nightmare to even launch the guided missile. Do you want to target any building or wonders? If any building, it would be quite a list to choose from. Factory? Temple? University? Library? etc.

Coding it wouldn't be that bad, just like a really weak nuke that doesn't cause pop loss or radiation. But, as I stated earlier, that "no maintenance cost" thing is huge, you can literally buy/build 100 of them for either a big blitz or to protect you from kamikazes in the endgame.

 

[reddishrecue]

Guided missiles are cheap so you can build them quick. Most cities make enough production to make 1 guided missle per turn so you can make a guided missile quick and use it one turn and then use another guided missile the next turn.

 

[erisiamk]

Guided Missiles just need more Combat Strength. In Vanilla they had 60 Combat Strength compared to 50 Combat Strength from Mechanized Infantry. Guess they forgot to adjust Guided Missiles for the new combat system...

90 Strength Guided Missiles would be great imo. I'm going to mod this and test it out later.

 

[Trackmaster]

I guess I don't entirely understand the rationale of having to make the heat seeking missiles individually instead of just having to produce a unit that shoots missiles every turn. I'm sure that the US airforce stockpiles those babies by the thousands.

 

[docbud]

Coding it wouldn't be that bad, just like a really weak nuke that doesn't cause pop loss or radiation. But, as I stated earlier, that "no maintenance cost" thing is huge, you can literally buy/build 100 of them for either a big blitz or to protect you from kamikazes in the endgame.

By the difficulty in coding I meant difficulty so far as selecting an individual building to launch it at.

 

[johnny5000]

instead of just having to produce a unit that shoots missiles every turn.

You mean rocket artillery?

 

[Trackmaster]

By the difficulty in coding I meant difficulty so far as selecting an individual building to launch it at.

I think another issue is that it would require us to be able to peer into what the enemy city has, which I do not believe that you are able to do. Although one fun can of worms that it could open is the distinction between attacking innocent civilians and their buildings as opposed to attacking out military units and military buildings. As of now, generally there's no distinction from an in-game standpoint. The only civilian/military distinctive moral policing is in regards to taking cities and using nukes.

 

[Silverman6083]

I think another issue is that it would require us to be able to peer into what the enemy city has, which I do not believe that you are able to do. Although one fun can of worms that it could open is the distinction between attacking innocent civilians and their buildings as opposed to attacking out military units and military buildings. As of now, generally there's no distinction from an in-game standpoint. The only civilian/military distinctive moral policing is in regards to taking cities and using nukes.

I don't think peering into enemy cities would be an issue, because you can do that currently with spies

 

[_Dachannien]

Perhaps it could optionally be used to directly attack a garrisoned unit instead of just attacking the city itself. Or perhaps it could be used to remotely pillage an unoccupied tile (presumably without actually getting gold for doing so, of course). Attacking buildings would be a little OP in my opinion. In any case, this would be a pretty nifty mod.

 

[Silverman6083]

Perhaps it could optionally be used to directly attack a garrisoned unit instead of just attacking the city itself. Or perhaps it could be used to remotely pillage an unoccupied tile (presumably without actually getting gold for doing so, of course). Attacking buildings would be a little OP in my opinion. In any case, this would be a pretty nifty mod.

Well i guess I didn't mention this in the OP but obviously AA and SAMs(or maybe other guided missiles ) could intercept these. So I don't think it would be OP, but I do agree with the whole pillaging idea

 

[phillipwyllie]

You could also have support units that have a command that takes all their MP to laser fix on a particular building increasing the odds, just like we have in real life. If you have a spy in the target city then you can get the option to target a building, if not it's random.

In regards to the programming side the game calculates what buildings are destroyed when a city is captured. There must be a method that allows you to retrieve the list of buildings a city has.

 

[dasaard200]

OK, my games haven't gotten to missile throwing yet, how do I: 1) build, 2)transport, and, 3) launch the silly buggers ??

 

[Browd]

Build or buy like any other unit. They behave like, and are controlled in the same manner as, other air units (except they don't come back from their first mission).

 

[Primacide]

Totally useless unit IMHO. I can't imagine having to stock my rear area cities with AA guns (another totally useless unit) to defend against them. That would give another edge to late game offense, which isn't necessary. Hello? Stealth bombers anyone?

In the spirit of actually making them useful, I would be in favor of making them strong enough to kill a late game unit in one or two shots. They would cost maintenance and be way more expensive to build. I think this would get to a good representation of cruise missiles in real life, where they are expensive, but also are nearly a guaranteed one shot kill. You'd use them strategically, but would really have to consider the cost vs building say a bomber.