Im doing a turnbased strategy game set in the near future. Similarily to "Total War"-series, the player takes command of an empire and controls cities and trains armies. The game plays out on a world map with other empires trying to dominate the world and conquer cities.

I want to include WMDs and here are some ideas I like to have feedback on! There is "research" in the form of discrete "inventions" that unlock buildings/units and/or gives bonuses. The three branches of WMD will probably have some Tech tree connected to it so an empire can focus on one but not another and so on.

All WMD will target cities, armies moving around cannot be targetd.

NUCLEAR
Deploy with missiles (from cities or from submarines)
Large damage on armies, population and buildings
Most expensive of the three.
Fallout stay and makes the city less liveable/productive?

BIOLOGICAL
Deploy with missiles (from cities) or by agents (chance of not detected who released the WMD)
Some damage on armies, large damage on population
Can spread to other cities ("plague" mechanism)
Slow, lasting effect on population decrease

CHEMICAL
Deploy like biological.
Some damage on armies, large (largest of all three?) damage on population
Cannot spread. Immidate loss of population but no lasting effect (a single turn is 3 months so no effect "after that").

What do you think of this basic ideas? Can they be made even more distinct from each other? (right now only nuclear affect buildings for example). I could also skip one of them (chemical seems the least interesting).
Thanks 
Erik

Biological agents might have diminishing returns as vaccines are developed. They're also the most dangerous for the user (virus escapes the lab, sickness spreads to your own troops) which could have either accident risk or just an internal morale hit.

Chemical weapons could be defended against (provision of gas masks to the citizenry).

You specified they could only be used on cities, but chemical weaponry in particular can be used as an "area denial" weapon.

I think the biggest questions, though, are on theme and tactics. War games are inherently violent, but chemical and biological atrocities are particularly heavy content. Does it fit in with the tone you're going for? Could it hurt marketability? How are your going to present these actions?

Tactically, they can have a major impact on how a war is fought. Is there still a role for ground troops once nukes are in play at all? If it's a free-for-all among multiple empires, does the mutual destruction action make for fun gameplay (where use of WMD beget counter-use of WMD and leave both empires weakened and easy pickings for another side)? Would the stockpiling of weapons and then a sudden carpet bombing of a player leave them unhappy with the game?

The basic idea is fine, but I think the implementation details need careful thinking.

22 hours ago, suliman said:

. I could also skip one of them (chemical seems the least interesting).

I 'm no expert on mass-genocide, but i think there 's some overlap between chemical and biological weapons, and they could be called biochemical weapons.

Also i would skip the biological/virus. Viruses give annoying questions like what happens when the player activate a svirus while there is/are still active viruses on the map, how is it going to spread, why doesnt it affect your own population etc.

BIOLOGICAL: It WILL affect your own population. Im thinking something like the plague mechanics in total war: medieval 2. Basically each city will have a desease rating which you can boost with biological attacks. Highly infected cities can spread to nearby cities, regardless of who contols them.

Cool ideas!  Thanks!

Im not sure how much of this could fit into the scope of the game (im a lone developer). Easiest balance seems to just make them so expensive that it's only worth in very specific situations. I may include diplomatics if i can (in that case, those will defenitely be hit as well).

Terrain will not be altered, that is to advanced for me:) I like the idea with unity and countering it with propaganda! Might make it into the game somehow.

I might in that case have two empire-wide meters:

Corruption (0-100%). This lowers overall income by the % of corruption and is increased by total distance of all controlled cities to the capitol. Can be lowered by research and some buildings, or by moving capital to "center" of empire (like in civilization).

Unity (0-100%). Lowers when using impopular methods (WMD, breaking deals, population resettlements, etc) or when conquering new cities. Recovers over time or when using propaganda, some research etc. Inflates military costs (both upkeep and training new units) with 1/unity. So double costs at 50 % unity and "infinite" cost at 0 % unity (0 % unity would signify a total collapse of the empire and wouldn't really be possible to reach).

Could that make sense?