Missile Mayhem!!!

[Tsynder]

Wassup fellow Civ fans!! i'd like to wish everyone a happy new year n prosperous bombardment campaigns I haven't as yet gotten my evil hands on conquest but i sure am trying...I'd like to ask u guys who have managed to capture the lil bugger are ICBM'S now mobile??(I hated the idea they had to stay in their production cities) Also whats the deal with cruise missiles and them being able to load into naval units: subz, battleships or cruisers ?? I understand that ur able to build airbases now... thats cool!!! I'm a real aerial dude myself.. i just love my nukes Finally refering to normal gameplay outside of conquest's scenarios... what new technologys are available and what new commands ie"air superiority" can u issue?? I knew before u could make ICBM's mobile in the scenario editor aswell as naval units being able to carry cruise missiles, but the AI would never employ them so it would be quite unfare...

[Jaybe]

ICBMs still remain in their city of production.
No, without going into the editor, cruise missiles still do not load into combat ships (but they DO load into transports while in port).

[vmxa1]

ICBM can hit any spot on the map, so what difference does it make that they stay in their own city?

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by vmxa1
ICBM can hit any spot on the map, so what difference does it make that they stay in their own city?

Well I think the idea of having them mobile is to prevent them from being destroyed in a first strike. Sometimes you only have 2 or 3 cities that are productive enough to pop out ICBMs quickly. Having a bunch of missles stacked in these cities means they are sitting ducks.

[MattPilot]

but thats good for balancing reasons.

Just think about it, what if you would move all your ICBM's into your capitol and guard them with 50 infantry? There is no way you can even attempt to take that city. So, by having them stay in their manufactured base, the enemy can plan strategic strikes to take out certain cities with ICBM's in it, to limit 'your' retaliation options. You can't possible guard every base with an ICBM in it, as you could your capitol city with all the ICBMs in it.

Also, how do you move a missile silo that is dug into the earth, in real life?

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Cookie Monster


Well I think the idea of having them mobile is to prevent them from being destroyed in a first strike. Sometimes you only have 2 or 3 cities that are productive enough to pop out ICBMs quickly. Having a bunch of missles stacked in these cities means they are sitting ducks.

Is this really a concern? I think not. I mean the core is where they will be built, The core is deep in your land. If they can get to it, they can get any where. Moving it will do little. They are not going to come after it with troops are they? If they can land enough units to roll to your capitol at the end of the modern era, you will lose anyway. If they are coming with their own ICBM, they can hit any city and they know where your units are.

[:) Smiley]

Well the balancer to putting all your ICBMs in your capital would be to nuke the capital.

[MattPilot]

nukes don't kill ICBM's... at least not when i nuke the city.

Don't forget, ICBMS are underground in missile silos.

So this means, even if the Capitol gets nuked, there is probably no way the enemy can take the capitol in one turn, thus any retaliation would include all nukes.

In the current system, the aggressor could perhaps stop some of those nukes from getting fired.

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by MattPilot
nukes don't kill ICBM's... at least not when i nuke the city.

See I did not know this. I was under the impression that enemy ICBM's could take out your ICBM's.

Now that I know this I guess it doesn't matter that ICBM's cannot be moved. Their range is infinite.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Smiley
Well the balancer to putting all your ICBMs in your capital would be to nuke the capital.

Hum, I built ICBM's in three different cities, so it would not do much good. They would have to get past SAM's and I would be putting up SDI ASAP.

[LordVipper]

well,icbms come in mobile lauching platforms in real life....

[MattPilot]

uhmm no... name one

InterContinental Ballistic Missiles are huge rockets similar in size to the rockets that carry satellites into orbit. Afterall, ICBMs are Sub-orbital weapons, and they need to be to have the range that they do.

You, however, are refering to SCUDs, which are much smaller rockets. And they are only CBM, or continental ballistic missiles, with a short(er) range.

[PLATO]

Nuclear strikes will not affect a cities store of ICBM's. There have been several discussions on this point in the past and they provide some excellent rationale.

[Tsynder]

Ok ok.....itz about time i get into these topicz First of all I'd like to address Matt'z idea that ICBM'S are never mobile..The USA built the peacekeeper ICBM in the 1980's and to date it is the most accurate ICBM ever constructed in the world (ALSO TO ADD TO THAT IS HAS A PAYLOAD CAPACITY OF 10 MIRV WARHEADS YIELDING AT A MEGATON EACH) However unlike the majority of the land based detterent missiles, the peacekeeper was made rail mobile, meaning it traveled in big azz cargo trains around the nation in times of nuclear uncertainty...The Russians on the other hand built many Road mobile ICBM'S, which were transportable by specialised launching military vehicles similar to that which carrys radar artillery AN EXAMPLE is the NATO named SS-28 ICBM also known as the TOPOL. As that is cleared up moving on to why i personally liked mobile ICBM'S. As someone said earlier it makes it harder to destroy ICBM's in a first strike....I play the game on huge maps and there was this time that i downloaded a world map from civ3.com..Whilst playing i achieved tyrant levels with an ICBM arsenal of about 140 nukes maybe a lil more I have pictures to prove it My designated command n control center (as i reffered to it as it held the bulk of my arsenal) was Philidelphia... It could produce an ICBM every turn and some 40 ICBM's were based in the city...It had been erected in south america somewhere around the Rio De Janeiro area n boy was it a bad ass....However the evil chinese biyatches decided to trail me in an arms race....lol....BIG mistake on their behalf!! They totalled out at about 25 ICBMS n about 15 tactical's which i found quite cute compared to my 50 tacticals and my 150 ICBM's...YES I HAVE PICTURES!! Anyways the chinese biyatches controlled much of the middle east n the majority of asia whilst i had north america, south america, austrailia, and the majority of the pacific region....Yet i couldn't manage to get a footing nowhere on the asian, african or european continents so i sent a massive force to the western pacific and indian oceans to keep the chinese in order and to monitor their activities...I was practically a god compared to them resource wise and with everything yet every few turns of telling um no they would nuke my Philidelphia!!!THOSE C*** SUCKERS!!! If any of You ever had a massive ICBM build up such as that n have seen it halved by one ICBM EVEN WHEN U HAVE THE SDI SYSTEM WILL BE ABLE TO UNDERSTAND WHERE I AM COMING FROM.....even though i had enough nukes to bomb every city in the entire game 3 times even after their first strike i was still depressed by the initial lost....I WOULD LOVE TO SEE ICBM'S ON SUBZ ESPECIALLY!!! DAM THAT WOULD BE SOOOOOOOOOOOO COOOL Also secondly if you have a city with ICBM's and lets say about midpoint into the modern age some ediot civ decides to conquer the city pressures the gamer to either use them or loose them depending on your military mainstay whether it is deterency or first strike...Deterency involves a massive nuclear force capable of overkilling aswell as a massive conventional force to protect them and to carry out missions which need specialisation...First Strike involves a massive overkill nuclear arsenal and minimal conventional force where nuclear weapons are the weapon of choice to resolve all levels of conflicts...If you use the bombs especially in civ 3 after lets say the second bomb the world turns against you and armageddon erupts as everyone nukes everyone and I know there are lil gamers out there who want to loose say 10 ICBM's to a foe so nuclear war is inevitable...But if ICBM'S were mobile, you could move them out during a conflict to another site for safe keeping or until you feel their use maybe all thats left...People may argue tactical nukes for the job or even cruise missiles but ICBM's just give the gamer a sense or real military power

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by PLATO
Nuclear strikes will not affect a cities store of ICBM's. There have been several discussions on this point in the past and they provide some excellent rationale.

Are you talking about IRL or in civ? IIRC I've destroyed nukes with nuclear strikes.

[LordVipper]

MattPilot SS-25 SICKLE comes to mind at the time.Oh and scuds are tactical missiles.I can tell the diference,thank you very much

[MattPilot]

oki, i give it to ya, they are Intercontinental, but the Topol's range is only 10000Kilometers. And the Sickle has the same range. (quick reference: http://www.wonderland.org.nz/rass.htm)

With these ICBM's you could reach the USA (another continent) from russia, thus designated intercontinental. So yes, you are right. Forgive me.

However, in the game we are dealing with 'strike anywere' ICBMs, and as i recall, those are so big they can only be stored in Missile silos. I believe the earths radius at the equator is somewhere around 45-46k kilometers ??

[LordVipper]

yes you are right,a strike anywhere icbm would be the size of a "usual" space rocket,but they can still be moved around.But since civ3 units are veeeeeeery loosely based on real world ones.....
Still they should be rebased ingame,if not for any other purpose then because i hate searching every city on my huge maps to find the damned things!

[LordVipper]

or to be even more realistic,why cant we have a missile silo built as a worker action and have them lauch ONLY from silos?

[Jaybe]

i hate searching every city on my huge maps to find the damned things!

No need to do that searching:

Use your F3, hover over the ICBM (or any unit) and it shows you where it is on the minimap. Click on the desired unit on the F3 and the F3 closes, zooming onto it.

[vulture]

The earth's equatorial radius is 6,378.16 km, and it's polar radius is 6,356.78 km. That means the furthest distance between two points on the earth's surface, as measured along the earth's surface, is very slightly over 20,000 km (20,037) - not surprising given that the definition of the meter originally came from having the circumference of the earth defined as 40,000 km. (back when they thought it was more spherical than it is). So a missle with a range of 20,000 km can hit essentially any point on the earth's surface (ignoring problems with moving towards the poles). 10,000 km range can hit anywhere within one hemisphere.

[McMeadows]

another missle...
What's the use of cruise missles? Or in other words, does anyone use them a lot?

[vulture]

Cruise missiles are very useful in certain roles - or at least they used to be. They keep your coasts clear when your navy is otherwise engaged - shore-based artillery (or bombers) reduce enemy ships to 1 or 2 hp, and then a cruise missile sinks it. Since I haven't managed to start a conquests game yet, I can't remember what the changes are with lethal bombardment - if planes now have it vs ships, then that's one use of cruise missiles greatly reduced. Pre-conquests they had an additional job of being able to take defenders out of cities - useful since bombardment would hit either units, improvements or population, while cruise missiles only hit units - so they were good for capturing cities intact if you needed some kind of bombardment to take out or weaken the toughest defenders. With the changes to bombardment, this role is largely gone too.

[MattPilot]

i'm sorry vultur - your right I did mean the "circumference" to be around that size. Must be the language barrier
thanks for clearing that up.

[Tsynder]

The circumference of the earth at the equator is huge matt much more than 45-50 km. Some countries on the equator are much larger than that....I aint picking on u dont get me wrong so please dont get mad i just want to get the rite info across thats all....

[Tsynder]

A Suggestion I always favored was giving ICBM'S and tactical nukes different strength characteristics....I felt ICBM's should be much harder to produce for the reason that they would practically incinerate n vaporise a city rite off the map, whilst tactical nukes could remain the strength of current nukes in the game. This would make nuclear war a much more trickier business...To increase the fun factor for us all i would love to see a new nuclear animation of the exploding such as a red ball of fire expanding and then reaching to the sky in a dirty cloud.....slowing down the current explosion with some added effects could do the trick...

[MattPilot]

no worries tysnder - i ain't mad

notice though that i said 45-46k (notice the 'k'). I suppose vulture got it right with his 40k, though i can't give any hard number since i don't know the exact number