Nuclear War

[Barington]

Does any one know what triggers the AI to build the Manhattan Project. With most other wonders it seems to me that the AI start building soon after the prerequisite advance is discovered.
Of course with Nuclear Fission any civ human or AI can build Manhattens as soon as any civ discovers NF. But they often dont. Any ideas?
PS I suppose everyone knows the trick of sheiding a large city without SDI with the SDI in a small (well defended city) nearby. So long as you keep a lot of units about 5+ I think in the big city the AI will shoot endless nukes at it to no effect. The AI keep no record of the failures. Is this a cheat? I regard it as levelling out the advantage the AI have in always knowing exactlly where you have SDI without using spies. They never nuke a city with its own SDI in my experience.
Richard

[Albert B]

quote: Originally posted by Barington on 01-26-2001 07:27 AM Of course with Nuclear Fission any civ human or AI can build Manhattens as soon as any civ discovers NF. But they often dont.

Is this true? I have never noticed this, seen it posted and don't remember reading anything about it in the manual. You are saying that regardless who discovers NF, I can build Manhattens with out having knowledge of NF myself? If I am not misunderstanding you, then I would be very suprised and disappointed if this is really true. Can someone else verify/denounce this observation?

[War4ever]

This is false. IF you build the Manhattan Project then you can build nukes if you also have the necessary technology. Manhattan Project doesnt' mean you get nukes right away. A civ must then steal or discover the tech itself to qualify. However if the ai has the necessary prereqs and someone has built the project then they can build nukes too. Once the tech is out there and the ai will trade it around and the Manhattan Project has been built, then all can build nukes... ie the cat is out of the bag.

[Caesar the Glutton]

I don't know what triggers the AI to start building the Manhattan Project, but in my current game the Mongols were a Democracy and had already discovered NF. Upon discovering fundy, he switched govt's and started building MP. We're each building it now.

The End is near.

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Nam si violandum est ius, regnandi gratia violandum est: aliis rebus pietatem colas

[Albert B]

War4ever, I know that you have to have rocketry and have MP built to be able to make and use nukes. The original post implies that every civ can start building MP once one civ has discovered nuclear fission. I believe this to be totally false and your post leads me to believe I have an idea of where his confusion may lie. The way things should work (and I'm pretty sure they do work this way):

you must know (discover, trade for, steal, etc) nuclear fission to be able to start building MP.

However, once one civ has built MP, any civ with knowledge of rocketry can build nukes.

I think it is pretty clear for me now, unless anyone has proof to contradict this.

Albert B

[Barington]

D'oh!
Your right I got all this cause and effect sequence confused. Thanks all for the clarification.
Richard

[War4ever]

sorry i too misread. Yes you need to have nuke fission to build the MP. If i discover it... no ai can build it until they discover, trade, steal for it.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

In my experience (I play mainly on King and Emperor, and usually ToT these days), the AI will only build MP if it has the prerequisites to build the nukes themselves. So, if the AI discovers Nuclear Fission, it won't start to build the wonder until it has Rocketry as well.

Good thing, too, because as soon as the AI has Nuclear Fission I work as hard as I can to get Laser... of course it's inevitable that the stupid AI will trade the techs so that everybody can build nukes.

Question for you Civ experts: I usually am 'Supreme' by this point in the game. However, I hate to waste shields on nukes that I seldom use, so I don't build any in most games. As far as reputation goes, does the AI consider an opponent weaker just because they don't have any nukes? I find the AI gets much more aggressive when it feels it has that edge (even though I could have a dozen nukes in a turn if I wanted). Is there any evidence that not having nukes worsens your esteem with the AI?

STYOM

[Bereta_Eder]

HI STYOM.

I have absolutely no idea about what you are asking.

But I remember reading in CIV 1 manual that for the AI, discovering a tech is not enough. You must also produce the new arms and "bring them to bear" if I remember correctly - that is show the new arms to the AI - have them moved around next to them in your turn. (But nukes do not show)

Of course this is only hypothetical (did this transfer to civ 2?) and from my own experience I always build 3 or 4 nukes as soon as Manhattan Project is built, just in case.So I don't know if the ai would respond differently if the nukes weren't there.

[Blaupanzer]

The AI makes a big thing out of backing their words with nuclear weapons. Thus, the programmers probably built something in for them to notice if you have them. I know for sure the AI will "nuke hunt," i.e., shoot nukes at your nukes in cities without SDI. If you have a city protected by another city's SDI, that is, within three squares, you can drive the AI nuts by putting a nuke in that city. The AI will burn a ton of shields shooting nukes at that city. All you "sleazers" (you know who you are) can take advantage of that.

[Scouse Gits]

quote: Originally posted by Blaupanzer on 01-27-2001 12:11 AM All you "sleazers" (you know who you are) can take advantage of that.

Good tactics! However, if you are a sleazer - the nearest the AI ever gets to having anything resembling a nuke is the dome on top of a temple.

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SG(2)

quote: Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man on 01-26-2001 07:35 PM In my experience (I play mainly on King and Emperor, and usually ToT these days), the AI will only build MP if it has the prerequisites to build the nukes themselves. So, if the AI discovers Nuclear Fission, it won't start to build the wonder until it has Rocketry as well.

In my experience this is true.. I'm just about to finish my 'OCC bloodlust' (!!) game where in the end the only remaining wonder was MP. The was also an expired 'Oracle' around. All AI's had NF but not rocketry. To my suprise one AI even started to build that obsolete 'Oracle' and finished.Only after a long time when I was quite ahead conquering the AI's Greek started on MP but then he had rocketry. (I captured his MP building city before he completed it)

[Stuff2]

quote: Originally posted by Barington on 01-29-2001 12:28 PM [Originally posted by Blaupanzer ) Actually I never usually build any nukes mainly because I have always believed what STYOM above suggests ie that the AI percieve you as more powerful if you have them. With the way I play only using democracy and always being the most powerful my problem is getting them to attack. Richard [This message has been edited by Barington (edited January 29, 2001).]

There is several ways of starting a war when you are in a democrazy and want to stay democracy. One way is to simply violate enemy territory and send message to their leader to redraw their troops (even though they don't have any troops in your territory). Sooner or later they will go mad and start war with you.

Another way is to pay a third country money to wage war with your 'enemy' and hope that your betrail gets noticed. It's usually noticed after the discovery of espionage, and they usually declare war with you.

Subverting cities (for the double cost) gives you no diplomatic penalties and still, the nation you have stolen the city from get's very upset. It's a great way of getting bad relations with another civ.

But the best way is simply to get a lousy reptutation early on and keep being supreme, these attributes in combinations make the ai-opponents go mad of anger and envy. You can be sure that they won't keep a treaty more than maybe ten turns.

[Chainsaw]

quote: <font size=1>Originally posted by Stuff2 on 01-29-2001 01:09 PM</font> One way is to simply violate enemy territory and send message to their leader to redraw their troops (even though they don't have any troops in your territory). Sooner or later they will go mad and start war with you.

Is it necessary to have troops in the enemy`s territory? I can`t ask them to withdraw if they haven`t any troops in MY territory and when I´m in democracy.


[This message has been edited by Chainsaw (edited January 29, 2001).]

[Edward]

Stuff2,

I was under the impression that paying a third country to go to war with someone you have a peace treaty with was a violation of that treaty and worsened your reputation. Is this true?

That's a great idea about being a Democracy which purposely has a bad reputation. Usually I try to avoid a bad reputation, but I guess it comes in handy when you want the AI to attack you.

[Cyclotron]

quote: Originally posted by Edward on 01-29-2001 03:46 PM I was under the impression that paying a third country to go to war with someone you have a peace treaty with was a violation of that treaty and worsened your reputation. Is this true?

Not unless they find out

Although you can do this, there is always a high risk (like he said, especially in the modern age) that your victim will find out and an international incident will happen.

You can still take the risk, though...

Perhaps the best way to get the AI to declare war on you is sneak a nuke into a city at peace with you, and hope they catch you! Of course, everyone declares war on you then... But then, maybe that's what you want!

[Gatekeeper]

Everyone:

I have Civ II for the Macintosh and know for a fact that if you have no nuclear weapons — and the AI civilization(s) does/do — you are considered weaker. I base my statement on the fact that AIs who have nukes while you don't typically have a "hostile" or "icy" attitude toward non-nuclear powers. Once you build nukes, though, they "compliment" you for joining the nuclear club and "raise" their attitude to "neutral" and sometimes even higher (think "receptive"). Those powers which continue to not have nukes often become "enthusiastic" or "worshipful" to you, more so if they have no defenses against a nuclear strike.

Regarding using another nation to start a war against someone you don't like, one of the repercussions of being caught includes the collapse of any democratic or republic-based government.

CYBERAmazon

[Barington]

[Originally posted by Blaupanzer
( I know for sure the AI will "nuke hunt," i.e., shoot nukes at your nukes in cities without SDI. If you have a city protected by another city's SDI, that is, within three squares, you can drive the AI nuts by putting a nuke in that city. The AI will burn a ton of shields shooting nukes at that city.)[/quote]

Thanks for that I did not know a nuke added to the attraction of the 'Nuke trap'. I have always just used lots of units; whatever 'rubbish' I have got by bribe usually.

Actually I never usually build any nukes mainly because I have always believed what STYOM above suggests ie that the AI percieve you as more powerful if you have them. With the way I play only using democracy and always being the most powerful my problem is getting them to attack.

Richard
[This message has been edited by Barington (edited January 29, 2001).]

[Barington]

It would seem to be a good idea to have a bad reputation under democracy if you want the AI to declare war but I think there is a double bind here. If your reputation is bad does this not incline the senate to go behind your back and make peace on the next turn? I think this is so but I may be wrong. So you are soon back where you started. Of course they sometimes do this even when you are spotless but much less often (I think).

You can can ask the AI to remove troops when they have not actually got any on your territory. As said above. if you do this often enough they will eventually lose patience and declare war. This seems to work much better if you in fact have lots of military units in there territory. In fact even a one city AI civ will eventually declare war. I think it helps if you occupy all the city squares and 'starve' it into retalliation.

[This message has been edited by Barington (edited January 30, 2001).]

[Stuff2]

quote: Originally posted by Chainsaw on 01-29-2001 03:44 PM Is it necessary to have troops in the enemy`s territory? I can`t ask them to withdraw if they haven`t any troops in MY territory and when I´m in democracy. [This message has been edited by Chainsaw (edited January 29, 2001).]

No, it's not necessary to voilate their territory but it will certainly annoy them more if you do. And yes u can ask them to redraw troops even if they don't have any in your territory. That is if they think that you have a peace treaty.

I have sometimes found that other civs may not always have the same opinion in what kind of relations you have. You can look at your peaceagreement and then when you open the 'embassie-window' of that civ u can see that they think that you only have "contact",
The only thing you can do at this stage is to suggest a new peace-agreement, and hope that they don't "forget" it in the next turn, since you can't ask them to redraw the same turn that the peaceagreement is signed, u must wait to the next turn. I've sometimes experienced that a forign civ simply forgets our peaceagreement every turn. It's annoying but you can then be sure that they will soon attack, so the goal is almost reached anyway.

[East Street Trader]

I agree that the ability to provoke war with the AI while in higher forms of gov.t is an important skill. It is kind of nice that in 18th/19th century Europe there were some diplomatic skirmishes which involved one power or another seeking to find a causus belli. So the game mirrors history a little in this respect as in so much else.

I will add two points. One is that finding your enemy's enemy can help. He will often invite you to join in a war and you can accept with no diplomatic penalty. I sometimes maintain a puppet, one city, state so that when it is in a state of war with other civs I can talk to it, get invited to join the war and happily agree. Using a puppet to gain diplomatic advantage is something you can do more extensively in SMAC but it is quite good value for this particular purpose in Civ2 also.

A second point is that among the things which irritate the AI is to block the movement of its units, particularly settlers. Not sure about blocking caravans in this context.

Edit to add this. Say you have just used your howies to take an A1 city and you wish to knock out a number of the partisans which appeared. You will be able to give instructions to any unit already next to an enemy unit but if you move a unit to get into position ready to attack a screen will immediately open in which the A1 offers a cease fire and the doves will accept. So try to manoevre youe units in advance ready for as much of the mopping up operations to be carried out bedfore you have to move a unit as is possible.

Oh, and another thought. There is definately some pattern to the way the Senate behaves when you have the UN but I haven't yet quite twigged what it is. I don't believe that it is a random dice roll which determines the occasions when I am allowed to continue my "peacekeeping" operations and the occasions I have to desist. Interested to hear the experience of others.
[This message has been edited by East Street Trader (edited January 31, 2001).]

[Barington]

quote: Originally posted by East Street Trader There is definately some pattern to the way the Senate behaves when you have the UN but I haven't yet quite twigged what it is. I don't believe that it is a random dice roll which determines the occasions when I am allowed to continue my "peacekeeping" operations and the occasions I have to desist.

Umm so would I. My only impression is that the senate just gives you x number of chances to keep 'peacekeeping' (means war) going and that x may be inversely proportional to the power of the AI civ. ie the weaker the AI the more chances you get. Just a guess though.

[East Street Trader]

Now you say that, I rather think you're right.

So maybe the UN lets you pick on the little guy but gets worried if it's a more influential power.

ANOTHER good parallel with reality, if true!