Nukes And ICBM

[PapaLenin]

What do u guys think about thizz!!

First of all Manhattan Project should be small wonder...there is no point in building it if all get the advantage. And it is much more interesting to compete who will get the nuclear power first..

Second nations shouldn't get that pissed because of using them...Now when u have an alliance against some civ and use a nuke against itur friend should only become happier...Though I agree that Neutral civs would become angry...but not that angry if u throw 2 nukes they declare war!...I mean if u try to get Nuklear War in that game in the end everyone is in war with everyone

[Dida]

My opinion is the opposite of yours.
I think Man. Proj. should remain a GW.
And, the consquences of using nuke should be increased, after all, nuke has been used only once since it is made.

[Kassiopeia]

Second nations shouldn't get that pissed because of using them...Now when u have an alliance against some civ and use a nuke against itur friend should only become happier...Though I agree that Neutral civs would become angry...but not that angry if u throw 2 nukes they declare war!...I mean if u try to get Nuklear War in that game in the end everyone is in war with everyone

Isn't that the point in Nuclear War? Everyone dead? Though, it is silly that this is implemented, since the nuclear weapons are very much underpowered.

I would prefer nukes wiping out a city entirely from the map instead of the "all surrounding squares covered with goo, all units in city destroyed and city pop halved" effect. You can throw ten nukes at a 30-size city, but to no avail.

Also, the environmental effect ought to be increased, as surely a nuclear devastation would cause a nuclear winter and large clouds of deadly radiation.

But the diplomatic results are fine as they are. And, if another player shoots even a single nuke at you, even if it is shot down, you can retaliate with a mother load of nukes without a diplomatic penalty.

First of all Manhattan Project should be small wonder

That's been IIRC discussed over and over again, but I do agree. What self-respecting nation would divulge nuke technology to others?

[Terser]

1. ICBM's would be much more powerful. Cities below size five would automatically be destroyed. Larger cities would have a percentage chance (say 10%) of being completely destroyed. Even a city that survived would lose 50%-90% of its population and each city improvement and wonder would have a 25% chance of being destroyed

2. Fallout should be treated differently than pollution both in appearance and effect. I think it should be represented by the death's head symbol used for pollution in CivII, and should take at least 10-15 turns to clean up.

While I'm none to fond of the disease in jungles and floodplains I feel a fallout contaminated area should be hazardous for units. Every turn that a unit spends on a radioactive square there should be a percentage chance for it to die of radiation sickness, and units should be unable to heal damage while standing on fallout This would make cleaning detonation sights risky and expensive. No shrugging off a nuclear attack after 10 turns.

3. Tactical nukes should actually be less powerful than they are now. They should not have the same effect as an ICBM--instead I think they should only destroy all units and terrain improvements in the one square they are targeted at and cause fallout in that square and the four squares to the north, south, east and west. They should destroy any city of population size one or two and kill 25%-50% of the citizens in larger cities. All wonders and improvements should have a 10% chance of being destroyed.

Just my ideas. Some may be impossible to implement, others may seem unnecessary. But it never hurts to speculate...

[Spook42]

On one earlier game, I used city investigation to pin down where a potential opponent's own nukes were based at. At a later time, just to see the effect, I went ahead and fired away, concentrating on the cities with the ICBM's.

The opponent had only three ICBM's to start, and I hit each owning city with 3-4 nukes (tactical or ICBM). But it didn't matter, all of his ICBM's were untouched, and he returned the favor next turn (although, with my having also missile defense, only one of his got through.)

Apparently, ICBM's may be invulnerable to destruction by nuke attack. Appropriate? Hmmmmm......maybe, on the premise that if the opposing nation was advanced enough to have nukes, then it'd be presumed as advanced enough to track my incoming strike. But I don't think that having SOME chance (however small) of wiping an enemy ICBM with my own nukes is a far-fetched strategy.

[Captain]

What we really need is MAD.
This alone would make nukes better.


Spook, nukes are invulnerable to prevent first strike from being too powerful. There must be retaliation otherwise nukes are not deterrants. What they are trying to simulate (badly) is the idea that other civs can detect your missiles in flight and they sure as hell aren't going to wait for them to land before launching their own right back at you.

Human players wouldn't like it much if the AI pulled the human trick (much used in civ 2) of nuking everything so enemies had no chance at retaliation.

[Captain]

Originally posted by Terser

2. Fallout should be treated differently than pollution both in appearance and effect. I think it should be represented by the death's head symbol used for pollution in CivII, and should take at least 10-15 turns to clean up.

While I'm none to fond of the disease in jungles and floodplains I feel a fallout contaminated area should be hazardous for units. Every turn that a unit spends on a radioactive square there should be a percentage chance for it to die of radiation sickness, and units should be unable to heal damage while standing on fallout This would make cleaning detonation sights risky and expensive. No shrugging off a nuclear attack after 10 turns.

Definitely a good idea. It'll make you think twice about nuking if you've got to live with the consequences for a long time. Many of the radioactive elements have extremely long half-lives.

[Dom Pedro II]

I think that nuclear winter is a bad idea for one nuke... it's unrealistic. The U.S. has detonated dozens of nuclear bombs and we have yet to be thrown into such a situation. On the other hand, a full-blown nuclear war between two nuclear powers is different.

Furthermore, I don't think nukes should wipe out cities, or at least not all of them. Hiroshima was bombed with an atomic weapon, yet the city is still there. But the Hiroshima bomb was a 20 kiloton bomb. Most today are 1 MEGAton or more. So a tactical nuke ought to cut a city's population into 1/4 of its original size. All units should be destroyed, and the surrounding tiles should become wasteland.

An ICBM, on the other hand, should be considered on of the city-destroying, Armageddon-causing big boys. These should destroy all cities and units within a three square radius (presumably there will only be one city). All squares in a five-square radius should become those wasteland squares, and the pollution problem should increase drastically everywhere on the map.

Like in CtP2, there should be Mutually Assured Destruction, and, most importantly, the AI should be aware of the implications of a full-scale nuclear war and try to avoid that at all costs. It does very little good for anybody if in a game with MAD, the AI casually drops one bomb and then sets off a dozen others thereby ending the game. The MAD system should let the player pre-target enemy cities in ICBM and tactical nukes to go off in the event that the enemy strikes first.

[Thrawn05]

I think it would be ludicous (That word was inspired by kassiopeia's avatar ) to decrease the effect of an ICBM or nuke. It should be increased so that everyone will be furious at you and pull out of any trades or agreements right away. And start being nicer to the one you attacked.

[player1]

I'll tell you one story.
My first second game on Emperor, standard map.

Me (Russans) on south, English on north and French in the middle.

Needless to say I played passivlely and become one of 3rd rated civs. I had sevral wars with France, but I only got one or two cities. I also had a resource crisis since the WW on second contitint made my trade routes go borken.

Alther a while when I got stabilized (got all resources, started building Space Ship), I saw that if I want to be FIRST I'll net to get extra territory, not to mention that losing Aluminium or Uranium would be disaster.
Then war with French started, Manahatan Proj. was completed by English.
Then Nuke race started, at one momnet I had 3 tatcical nukes, French had 2 on them.

We were in WAR.

I stole plans and see that his tacticals are on subs in north sea?
Ha, ha...

I made allies with whole world against French and started nuking big, close, resource cities.

After that I easlity taked those cities with my armies.

After a while, when things settled (french destroyed) I easliy finished my Space Ship (Forbidden Palace helped)


P.S.
Nukes are great for softening enemy defese, taking out resource routes (try one on capitol), and making anybody to hate you.

So make alliance with everybody exept victim.

And, NEVER put tactical nukes on subs if your main enemy is on your continent.
That's the reason why I destoryed French, since he couldn't strike back because his nukes where out of range (later I killed his subs with battleships).

[Mannamagnus]

I think workers should not be able to clean pollution caused by nukes. We are talking about large areas of land, cleaning up only one square would cripple even the largest nations economy.
Look at the area surrounding Chernobyl; it will be thousands of years before it wil be habitable again.
So I think we need a new terrainsquare which produces nothing and kills of any unit that stays there for one turn or more. Workers should be able to build (rail)roads there though that would kill them in the end.

[aahz_capone]

I agree that the manhatten project should be a small wonder, I mean the russians and the british and french had to work just as hard as the americans to get their nukes.

The only change however I would make to the nukes themselves is that after a city gets nuked it losses peeps every turn for x turns depending on the nuke.

I am reminded of the first time I got nuked in SMAC... I literealy was a hair's bredth of sh*tting myself, crying into the crater that was my industrial center and swearing vengence on the Hive. Now THAT game had nukes. FOUR types to be exact.

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

Risking having my head served as aperitive/boxing ball during the first MP-tournaments, I wonna make an impopular suggestion:

JUST BAN THOSE NUKES!!

I mean, if used in real word it could probably lead to a chain reaction, killing and wiping off almost anything alive ...
In my civ-games, I never build/use nukes at first and I'll do anything to stop the AI using it against me. It's so sad: working on and building up your empire during the whole game and then turning the world map into chaos and destruction, reducing once top cities to villages, ...

Nukes aren't funny for me (and the real world) and in world history were, so far, only used once ...

NO THANKS TO YOU, MR NIXON (As we know now he suffered from the effects of manic depression ... I'm curious if we'd still consider the Americans friendly and rational if they had done that ... But this is off topic, of course ....

Of course some crazy, despotic dictator might use them one time in the future, let's hope we can cope with that then ...

Have a nice day ...
AJ

[Spook42]

Originally posted by Captain
What we really need is MAD.
This alone would make nukes better.


Spook, nukes are invulnerable to prevent first strike from being too powerful. There must be retaliation otherwise nukes are not deterrants. What they are trying to simulate (badly) is the idea that other civs can detect your missiles in flight and they sure as hell aren't going to wait for them to land before launching their own right back at you.

Human players wouldn't like it much if the AI pulled the human trick (much used in civ 2) of nuking everything so enemies had no chance at retaliation.

But as you will note in my initial post, Captain, I had opined that a "first strike" be allowed SOME chance (again, however small) to take out an opponent's ICBM's. It needn't be a BIG chance. Cold-War era targeting was heavily guided to targeting each other's missile silos, given that it wasn't a certainty that all ICBM's would've been expended in the first exchange.

Like several other elements to Civ3, the "nuclear weapon" model could stand some better treatment. The ideas given here by others of different "classes" of nukes in destructive power, or of specialty pollution, are interesting. I would say that for nuke pollution, not only should it be harder to remove, but workers working to remove it suffer some "attrition" unless that country with the fallout has sufficient tech advances.

I's also like the ability to modify, via the editor, the percentage chance of how well units survive getting hit, or the effectiveness of "Missile Defense" (MD) as a GW. (At first, have MD with a initial lower value --- say, 50-60% --- improving with steady increases in Tech levels that continue past the Tech tree.)

Increase the options for potency, defenses, and consequences all together, and allow these for the gamer to modify via the editor. The present nuke model is a bit contrival to me.

[godinex]

When You destroy a nuclear sub it provoque a nuclear explotion...

[Jack_www]

Today ICBMs are stationed in missle silos, and these silos are designed to take a direct hit form anther ICBM, and that might be anther reason why when you hit a city with ICBM it does not get destroyed. Most of todays nuclear weapons are not that big. By the way some of you guys it seems like you think that they are 20 megatons or something like that( i maybe wrong, if so sorry). Todays nuclear weapons are much smaller due to the fact that are now more accurate. And the only diiference i know of between ICBM and tactical nukes is there range, not there size of the bomb they carry. But I think fallout should be in the game. With nuclear winter I think that is already in the game, because if you deonate enough nuclear missiles many tiles of grassland turn into plains, and pretty soon you have very little productive land to produce food.

[aahz_capone]

At the risk of insulting some peeps (sorry guys), AJ:

Americans? rational? huh?



Anyway, I like that in civ the distinction is made between ICBMs and tac nukes. In "real life" there is such a thing as low-yield tac nukes, which can be used as an adjunct to conventional warfare. These aren't city busters like Hiroshima or what Nixon wanted to use in Vietnam. However few in civ and in the real world can get over their nuclear paranoia, so any device which is at all atomic would make the UN go balistic. (hmmm, poor choice of words)

I'm not saying that nukes are GOOD however, don't get me wrong, I'm just saying that on a purley military strategic point of view... etc

I think that because we have nukes dictating political moves on earth the same should happen in civ, even if MAD never happened here it WAS a very real threat.

Shouldn't the AI get pissed when you move tac nukes to a city which borders theirs? Could we have a "Cuban crisis"-like diplomatic option in civ? You decide, next time, on Donahue! Same place! Same Channel!

[Da_cOmRaDe_MiKe]

i think nukes should be extremly hard to build even harder than now... im playing on regent level and then i get rocketry ( for free due to special abilitys ) but im against musketmen and cavalry with about 16 nukes to blast em with? its ****ing pointless!!!! nukes should be only given much later in the game with a lot more techs needed... so i went off and changed manhatten project for a much later tech... its worthwhile theres notin like a big nucleur war when every1 catches up on techs...

[steelehc]

These aren't city busters like Hiroshima

By the way some of you guys it seems like you think that they are 20 megatons or something like that( i maybe wrong, if so sorry). Todays nuclear weapons are much smaller due to the fact that are now more accurate.

....ludicous... ...kassiopeia's avatar )

Little boy, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was not a city-buster. It was small enough to be considered a tactical weapon now.

The Russians deployed a fleet of missiles, SS-18s, I think, armed with 50 megaton bombs, designed to destroy hardened bunkers, and pother such targets. Modern nuclear weapons are more accurate, but not much smaller, and easily large enough to completely ruin a fair-sized city.

Colonel Sanders, go to... Ludicris Speed!!!

Steele

[GePap]

I completely agree with the notions of making fall-out different from industrial pollution and making the manhattan project a small wonder- not agreat wonder.
I actually think that ICBM's, besides their cost, which can be decreased in the editor, are well implemented- I agree that tactical nukes are too powerful. Nukes are really not meant for concentrations of troops, so the notion that it would kill all units in a square is wrong. Also, I don't think all cities should have a chance of ebing destroyed. Hiroshima lost about 40% of its population (in city, not met area) immediately, and then, with time, a simmilar number throught the effects , but it is still there.
As i said earlier, as good rule of thumb- 50% for metropolis, 75% for city, towns destroyed outright, with a wroker created as refugees.

[GePap]

Originally posted by steelehc


Little boy, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was not a city-buster. It was small enough to be considered a tactical weapon now.

The Russians deployed a fleet of missiles, SS-18s, I think, armed with 50 megaton bombs, designed to destroy hardened bunkers, and pother such targets. Modern nuclear weapons are more accurate, but not much smaller, and easily large enough to completely ruin a fair-sized city.

Colonel Sanders, go to... Ludicris Speed!!!

Steele

Just a correction- the SS-18 was armed with a 25 megaton warhead, not 50. The soviets did explode a 56 megaton warhead, the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated, but it was based on a design meant to give of 100 megatons. The 56 megaton warhead was too big to be a worthwhile war weapon, too big for missiles or bombers to carry. 25 megatons is still enough.

Also, only china really has megaton devices on their missiles now a days. 5 450kiloton deviced exploded in a given pattern at the right altitude will do more damage thatn a 20 megaton device, since the area of maximun damage is at its maximum. Thus, most states keep arpound large numbers of 3-500 kiloton warheads, which are still 20 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb even at the low end.

[Blaupanzer]

Originally posted by Dida
My opinion is the opposite of yours.
I think Man. Proj. should remain a GW.
And, the consquences of using nuke should be increased, after all, nuke has been used only once since it is made.

Wrong on both counts. Each nation that has nukes got it from their own program involving wildly expensive research and a significant amount of technical sharing (or stealing). This sounds exactly like a small wonder. Second, for good or ill, nukes were popped twice on Japan in 1945, not once.

World response to their use would likely be modified by their perceptions of the number available to the users. That is, if you had lots, the neighbors would shut the h**l up, if only a few, jump you before you wrecked everything.

[player1]

Originally posted by Blaupanzer


Wrong on both counts. Each nation that has nukes got it from their own program involving wildly expensive research and a significant amount of technical sharing (or stealing). This sounds exactly like a small wonder. Second, for good or ill, nukes were popped twice on Japan in 1945, not once.

World response to their use would likely be modified by their perceptions of the number available to the users. That is, if you had lots, the neighbors would shut the h**l up, if only a few, jump you before you wrecked everything.

Why Mah. proj is NOT small wonder?

To make balance in game.

So if one civ gets it and biuld sevral nukes, the game wont be over, another civ would quickly get some and world will enter in cold war.

Realistic? No.
Balancing? Yes.

[aahz_capone]

Originally posted by steelehc


Little boy, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was not a city-buster. It was small enough to be considered a tactical weapon now.

Steele

my mistake, quite right. What I meant was that back THEN it was meant to be a city buster. Anyway, that aside, I think that there should be a period in which nukes could only be delivered by airpower (bombers, but figure that helicopters will have to do in civ3).

And what about multiple warheads on single launch systems? One ICB doesn't have to nuke one city, does it? It's not like civ makes a difference between a fission bomb or a fusion bomb, or even a neutron bomb.

neutron bomb, now THAT would be helpful, kill sh*t loads of peeps but keep all the infrastructuur..

[Fitz]

Originally posted by Blaupanzer
Second, for good or ill, nukes were popped twice on Japan in 1945, not once.

Only used as a military strike twice, but a lot more than 2 nuclear bombs have been exploded on this planet during tests.

[Jawa Jocky]

When your game is over you are asked, “Your score will no longer be kept, would you like to continue playing?” This can be translated into, “Would you like to take a few minutes to use all of the Nukes you’ve built (without any repercussions) on your enemies or your so called friends?”

In previous versions nukes were quite useful for stealing the enemy’s capital when their military was a lot better than yours. I’ve had a few come from behind space race victories thanks to nuclear weapons. I have yet to use this strategy in CivIII.

I don’t like being nuked, and I don’t like the repercussions from using them. Plus the damn things are expensive. I end up building a lot of ICBMs and hope I never use them. It’s very wasteful…………hey that is realistic!

[Andrew Cory]

Originally posted by kassiopeia
What self-respecting nation would divulge nuke technology to others?

France. Well, I don't know about the "self respecting" part, but France gave nuke technology to Iraq. Thank the gods for the Israelies...

[Andrew Cory]

Originally posted by Mannamagnus
I think workers should not be able to clean pollution caused by nukes. We are talking about large areas of land, cleaning up only one square would cripple even the largest nations economy.
Look at the area surrounding Chernobyl; it will be thousands of years before it wil be habitable again.
So I think we need a new terrainsquare which produces nothing and kills of any unit that stays there for one turn or more. Workers should be able to build (rail)roads there though that would kill them in the end.

Well, Chernobyl has people living there again, hell that reactor is up and running. It is true that a Geiger counter is a common cooking utensil, but the place is habitable again...

Originally posted by aahz_capone
I agree that the manhatten project should be a small wonder, I mean the russians and the british and french had to work just as hard as the americans to get their nukes.

Except that the Russians stole the tec. from the Americans...

[TheDarkCavalier]

Russia didn't steal no tech from America! It would be the opposite.

[Andrew Cory]

Originally posted by TheDarkCavalier
Russia didn't steal no tech from America! It would be the opposite.

I wonder if you are being facetious? the Soviet Union bought nuclear tec. from various scientist working for the American government. Follow this link for more details...

BTW: besides your poor use of grammar (which, due to my poor spelling, I hesitate to criticize), do you have any sources to back that up; about nuclear technology, to be more specific?