In office mode, the game runs in real-time and cannot be sped up. The score is determined not by the enemy population killed, but by which territory has the highest percentage of survivors at the end of the game. The chat system features a public channel, in which all players may communicate, as well as channels private to specific alliances, and direct player-to-player private messaging.Īll players start as members of a single alliance, and attempt to stay on top as the alliance disintegrates. This results in arguments in the chat channels, followed by skirmishes at sea, followed by retaliation, before finally the whole alliance collapses and everyone starts nuking the hell out of each other. We've seen alliance members shooting overhead friendly planes down because they believed the planes were scouting the area for targets in preparation for a strike.
This means that almost all alliances are broken by the end of the game. Allied players share radar coverage and line of sight, but there is no allied victory and there is only one winner. Alliances with CPU-controlled players can only be set at the start of the game. Alliances can be formed, broken, or renegotiated at will with human players. DEFCON also features local multiplayer capability, i.e. Once this occurs, a victory countdown begins (45 game minutes by default) and the final score is announced when this countdown runs out.Ī DEFCON game can host up to six human or AI players. Once DEFCON 1 is reached, the game proceeds until a certain percentage (80% by default) of the total number of nuclear missiles available to all players have been launched or destroyed.
Defcon levels meaning upgrade#
Each upgrade in alert level brings more possibilities. Gameplay begins at alert level DEFCON 5 and counts down to DEFCON 1 (the highest alert level). A countdown system prevents games from disintegrating prematurely. Players choose and position their forces at the beginning of the game. The game offers six territories that may be selected by a player or assigned to an AI opponent.ĭEFCON is a streamlined real-time strategy game, with no unit production (except for automatic fighter regeneration), resource collection, or technology tree upgrades. There is also an "Office" mode of play in which the game is permanently real-timed and can be minimised to run in the background of other computer activities, allowing the player to check in only when important events take place, and only for so long as it is necessary to modify the standing orders of each of the player's assets. Most games last 30 to 40 minutes while real-time gameplay can last more than eight hours, depending on the mode of scoring. Gameplay time can be varied by configuring the speed at which events progress from real-time (1 second in-game:1 second out-of-game) to 20 times real-time. Players' scores are determined according to one of three schemes: Default (gain 2 points for 1 megadeath caused, lose 1 point for 1 megadeath suffered), Survivor (gain 1 point per million survivors in the player's territory) or Genocide (gain 1 point for each megadeath caused) though functionally identical in a one-on-one conflict, each scoring scheme suggests large differences in strategy in larger multiplayer conflicts. In most games, all sides take heavy losses, but the player with the highest score wins. A typical game will see civilian casualties numbering in the millions (megadeaths) while players try their hand at annihilating their opponents. If, after one minute, one side has not won at Defcon 1, a Tactical Nuke detonates, and no player is credited with winning.Players are given a 1980s vector graphics computer-themed world map, a varied arsenal of nuclear and conventional weaponry, and a primary objective: destroy as much of the enemy's population as possible while having as little of one's own population destroyed as possible. At Defcon 1, all players are eliminated from one round when killed. At Defcon 2, all killstreaks take one less kill to obtain (2 less with Hardline). At Defcon 3, all weapons deal more damage (even more with Stopping Power). At Defcon 4, each player goes into Last Stand when shot enough. At Defcon 5, all player stats are normal. This game mode was completed by hackers and posted as a private match game for a while. There are unused files in the game labelled "_1mc_defcon_01.wav" and the announcer is heard saying Defcon 5 all the way to Defcon 1. It is a variant of almost every other gamemode "(Defcon Team Deathmatch, Defcon Domination, etc.)" For the feature on Zombies on the map "Five" in Call of Duty: Black Ops, see DEFCON.ĭefcon is a cut gamemode for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The subject matter of this article was cut from the final version of a Call of Duty game.