When will the AI use atomic bombs?

[Sedwick]

Of course, this would be the most OP weapon: http://www.merkle.com/pluto/pluto.html

After it emptied its payload, it could just scrape across every enemy tile and completely wipe out any civ without air defenses.

 

[wayneb64]

That does suck. The only consolations I can offer is (1) the game is almost over anyway, and (2) the AIs tend to favor Nuclear Bombs over missiles, which leave half your veterans only half-dead. Sorry it did not work that way for you.

What also annoys me is there is ZERO messaging about the attack, just radiation and smoke and all my units gone without a trace. It would be nice to know what killed them like every other way units meet their end.

 

[Tarbos]

AFAIK, the AI only nukes cities.
So, if you capture a new city and the nearby cities have bombs in it, move your troops out of the 2 tile radius and wait until the AI unloads their bombs on an empty city.

 

[beetle]

What also annoys me is there is ZERO messaging about the attack, just radiation and smoke and all my units gone without a trace. It would be nice to know what killed them like every other way units meet their end.

LOL, I remember one of my early games with nuke and my cities losing population and I had no idea what was going on! Since then, I had to turn animations back on as I could not really follow, even with the pop-ups, what was going on with the battles.

 

[kibbles]

I know this isn't entirely related, but has anyone else noticed that if fallout affects a flood plain tile, the flood plain is destroyed and it reverts back to a regular desert, river tile? Pretty much the only long term circumstance I've noticed from nuclear use but was it even intended?

 

[beetle]

Apparently flood plain is a “feature” on top of desert, not unlike forest on other terrain types. Nukes will also remove forest.

 

[Delnar_Ersike]

I know this isn't entirely related, but has anyone else noticed that if fallout affects a flood plain tile, the flood plain is destroyed and it reverts back to a regular desert, river tile? Pretty much the only long term circumstance I've noticed from nuclear use but was it even intended?

I think that has been the case since Civ3, though some forum members might be able to very this for Civ2 and earlier. The reason this happens is because Floodplains are a tile feature, like forests or jungle, only they automatically get assigned to desert tiles next to rivers on map generation and cannot be removed. Fallout is also a feature, one that overrides the current feature of the tile. As a result, when fallout is applied to the relevant tiles, all the non-natural wonder features on the tile, including floodplains, get removed.

 

[joncnunn]

This feels like something that started as a bug in Civ III (unintended), but when discovered was thought to be really cool and is now an ascended feature.

A nuclear explosion on flood plains would definitely permanently reduce the food yield.

 

[fyar]

This thread was really useful! Thanks for the breakdown, Delnar_Ersike.

 

[reddishrecue]

That doesn't happen now does it? Flood plains turning into desert from nuclear blast? The river would have to dry up first. Unless its a desert river with water.

 

[lockandload]

AFAIK, the AI only nukes cities.
So, if you capture a new city and the nearby cities have bombs in it, move your troops out of the 2 tile radius and wait until the AI unloads their bombs on an empty city.

Wow, that is quite useful. Thanks. Never been nuked, will definitely keep that in mind.

So your units are safe in the field away from cities? Just want to make sure I have that right.

I've sort of noticed the same thing by the AI. Once the AI was massing to retake a city of theirs. I decided to clear out and let them rally around the city and then nuke the units trying to take the city. The AI took the undefended city in the next turn but as my vision was fogging up, I could just see their units scatter away from the city center they had just retaken, as if the AI was anticipating me nuking the city and their sieging units.

 

[Browd]

That doesn't happen now does it? Flood plains turning into desert from nuclear blast? The river would have to dry up first. Unless its a desert river with water.

Flood plains is a terrain feature that is eliminated when fallout is applied to the tile. Even after the fallout is scrubbed, the flood plains feature is gone for good.

A different, but similar, effect happens if you place a Great Person tile improvement on an oasis -- the oasis terrain feature is gone for good (which means adjacent farms that relied on the oasis for fresh water access no longer have fresh water).

 

[beetle]

A different, but similar, effect happens if you place a Great Person tile improvement on an oasis

Yikes, so you end up with a GS on dessert? FWIW, GG will not build citadels on oasis which seems like a bug.

 

[beetle]

I am coming back to this thread since in this months DCL Gandhi is my neighbor. I was pretty friendly with him, but we had different Ideology. Predictably enough, late game he DOWs me out of the blue. Much to my surprise, his opening move was an A-bomb to my cap. From this thread, an my past game experience, I was not really expecting that!

Emphasis added:

In the unmodded game, the actual algorithm is actually quite simple: if the AI thinks that it is losing any war, it will generate two random numbers between 0 and 9 inclusive. If its Use Nuke flavor is greater than the results of both rolls, it will launch the nuke. So 10 flavor is 100% pass, 9 flavor is 81% pass, 8 is 64% pass, 7 is 49% pass ... The reason Ghandi always uses nukes is because even if flavor rolls at the beginning of the game give him -2, he's still at 10 Use Nuke flavor, which means the roll to use nukes always succeeds.

So how does this account for AIs nuking each other? Do both sides think they are losing? Certainly it does not account for Gandhi's opening salvo in my game. Also, the AIs seem more inclined nuke once someone goes first, or is that just wishful thinking on my part?

 

[Delnar_Ersike]

I am coming back to this thread since in this months DCL Gandhi is my neighbor. I was pretty friendly with him, but we had different Ideology. Predictably enough, late game he DOWs me out of the blue. Much to my surprise, his opening move was an A-bomb to my cap. From this thread, an my past game experience, I was not really expecting that!

So how does this account for AIs nuking each other? Do both sides think they are losing? Certainly it does not account for Gandhi's opening salvo in my game. Also, the AIs seem more inclined nuke once someone goes first, or is that just wishful thinking on my part?

If the AI has already nuked another player or that other player has already nuked them, they will always be willing to nuke. Otherwise it rolls.

I was a bit wrong with my description of "if the AI is losing any war": the correct logic is that if the AI's current projection of how well the war against the other player will go is lower than last turn's projection or if the projection is that the AI will be destroyed, it will roll for nukes. War projection is based on a hidden "war score" calculation that depends on relative military strengths, relative "economic might" (sum of population + hammers per turn + gold per turn), and "war damage" levels (how many units/cities each player has lost).

 

[Volcanon]

So in most games the "war damage" level will be rather entertaining:

Player: Lost 1 cavalry and 1 scout, no cities.

AI: Lost 15 musketmen, 12 riflemen, 1 warrior, 1 trireme, 18 great war infantry, 3 artillery, 2 trebuchet, 10 cannons and 7 workers, no cities (capture cities after you blow up the carpet of mostly outdated units).

 

[joncnunn]

AI doesn't really care about unit loses [maxes out at lower value than anything else]; it cares about:

1. Economic loses (primarily City loses.) This can max out at a higher value than anything else.
2. Current ratio of military strength. (As given by the military advisor)
3. How many turns its already been at war. (linear; slow as molasses increase over time)

 

[beetle]

If the AI has already nuked another player or that other player has already nuked them, they will always be willing to nuke.

Okay, I am pretty sure that nukes had already been flying. So is that all the Gandhi needed?

I was a bit wrong with my description of "if the AI is losing any war": the correct logic is that if the AI's current projection of how well the war against the other player will go is lower than last turn's projection or if the projection is that the AI will be destroyed, it will roll for nukes.

Is that again only for “first use”?

 

[Delnar_Ersike]

Okay, I am pretty sure that nukes had already been flying. So is that all the Gandhi needed?

Only if you already nuked him or he already nuked you. The roll doesn't happen if either player has already nuked the other one.

Is that again only for “first use”?

Yes, this is only for the very first nuke sent between the two players. If the AI has already nuked the other player at least once or the other player has already nuked the AI at least once, no rolling will happen (the AI will always send out their nukes).

 

[beetle]

Only if you already nuked him or he already nuked you. The roll doesn't happen if either player has already nuked the other one.

Nope, it was his opening move. Our first war since I stole a worker on turn 7. I was still working on the Manhattan Project so he would have known he had the advantage. I am pretty sure he had exchanged nukes with another AI, but you say that should not have mattered. So I guess you are saying that pattern does not fit the code?