8.Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD Orders)

A player with nukes may submit MAD orders, in which they may wait to fire their nukes yet respond should another nation fire first. It is essentially a dynamic form of the “Hold” command, except if you are nuked your own nukes are not wasted.

8.1. Formatting and Conditioning
MAD Orders are submitted in the form of “If-Then” statements.
-Valid “If” conditions are specific countries or “any” country fires nukes at specific countries or any country.
“If USA nukes Germany” or “If USA nukes me” or “If anyone nukes me” are valid conditions.

-Including yourself in the firing countries is an invalid condition.
“If I nuke Germany” is an invalid condition.

-A foreign country NOT firing nukes is an invalid condition.
“If Germany does not fire nukes:
Then N LON ! BER”
...is an invalid MAD order.

-You can use AND/OR to group sets of nations. (I encourage you to keep this simple. If you overcomplicate this you may not get the result you want.)
“If USA or Germany nukes me:
Then N LON ! BER”
…is a valid MAD order.

-It is not the burden of the admin to assess your alliances, public or otherwise. Therefore, formal alliances/enemies, even if made public through forum roleplaying, is an invalid condition.
“If USA nukes Axis of Africa:” is invalid.

-MAD orders can not trigger on conventional unit movements.
“If A HAM -> HOL” is invalid.

-Like all other commands, your responses must be specific to the unit.
“If Germany nukes me
Then nuke Germany” is invalid

“If Germany nukes me
Then N LON ! BER” is valid.

8.2. Definition of a Country
Nuking a country is defined as nuking any province where an owned supply center, army, fleet, wing or nuke is located when the turn began.

8.3 MAD Order Priority and Resolution
Players may submit multiple conditions/triggers, up to the number of players that have nuke tech when the turn began. Nuke responses happen in the order they were triggered, from the top.

Example: A US player might submit MAD orders as:

"If UK nukes me
Then N WDC ! LON

If Germany nukes me
Then N WDC ! BER"

If both UK and Germany fired a nuke at the United States this turn, the nuke in DC would be fired at London, as the orders have it listed first, and thus is a higher response priority.

8.4. Action Vs Reaction
Manually firing nukes overrides any MAD orders given to that nuke!
If a player ordered
"N WDC ! LON

MAD Orders
If Germany nukes me
Then N WDC ! BER"

The nuke in WDC does not have the opportunity to respond to Germany's strike, as it was manually fired at London.

8.5 Public Relations
MAD orders that are not triggered are ALWAYS hidden from seasonal announcements!
Are the US and Germany teaming up against the UK but the US can't stand the idea Germany backstabbing with nuclear rain? The US can list Germany higher than the UK in the MAD orders, and if no nukes are fired, Germany would not know how mistrusting the US is.

8.6 Nuclear Cascade
MAD Orders can trigger MAD Orders
One nuke being manually fired can trigger MAD orders firing nukes which can trigger MAD orders firing nukes. MAD orders are checked at the launch of any nuke whether they were fired manually or not, until no more MAD orders are firing.

Combat of a season would resolve in this order:
1) Nukes that are manually fired are launched.
2) MAD orders are checked, and triggered responses launch.*
3) All nukes detonate.
4) Armies, Fleets and Wings clash.

Step two is repeated indefinitely until no further MAD orders trigger.

8.7 Presentation
There will be a special “Nuclear Warfare” area consolidating nuclear activity at the end of turn announcements. Should MAD orders be triggered they would look something like.

“Nuclear Warfare
USA N WDC ! LON

In response:
UK N LON ! BER

In Response:
Germany N BER ! GBR
Italy N ROM ! LON”

8.8 Handling Invalid MAD Orders
If your MAD orders condition and/or response is invalid, it will merely be ignored and the lower priority orders will continue to be checked. If all of your MAD orders are invalid, then your nukes are essentially on Hold.

Example Germany has a range of 4 and submits:
“If USA nukes me
Then N BER ! WDC

If UK Nukes me
Then N BER ! LON”

If both the US and UK nuke Germany, the first response is invalid as WDC is out of range of the nuke in BER. However, rather than the nuke getting an invalid command and doing nothing, the lower priority MAD orders will be checked, triggered and carried out.