Nukes should = Nuclear Winter, not Global Warming

I posted this a few months back, but since BtS was released I think it's time for a revisit.

The reason that I bring this up is that since Bts re-introduced Tactical Nukes to Civ4, nuke wars are far more common. Formerly in Civ4, producing ICBMs was cost prohibitive (you were better off producing Spaceship components) and they became nearly useless once your opponents built their SDI national wonder. But since tactical nukes are cheaper and can't be intercepted they're used a lot more and lead to rampant global warming.

I've completed three full campaign since I bought BtS and in all three I had to use nukes. I didn't want to, but the AI forced my hand. Either the AI attacked me with overwhelming numbers (of inferior units, usually) or the civ that I was engaged in a conventional war with capitulated to a more powerful civ and caused a world war. (I posted an idea that gave you the option to stop the war if your opponent capitulated to another civ months ago, but apparently it wasn't implemeted into BtS -- but it should have!) In those instances I had two options: face annihilation or launch my nukes; I chose the latter.

But, of course, using nukes triggered global warming and there's apparently no "off switch" once it starts, even if I refrained from using nukes again.

I don't want to instigate a global warming debate or anything, but it just doesn't make sense for nukes to trigger global warming, because -- if anything -- excessive use of nukes should cause nuclear winter.

I understand that the Devs wanted to deter players from abusing nukes so -- in addition to causing fallout -- they imposed the consequence of global warming. But if they wanted to impose a realistic consequence it should have been nuclear winter, which is the opposite of global warming.

Nuclear winter would partially block out sunlight, which would hinder agriculture and cause global famine; and this would endure for years. So nuclear winter's effect in the game should be starvation and unhappiness, but eventually it would end and the climate would normalize.

If global warming was accurately represented in the game it should become available after the Industrialization tech is researched and be caused by rampant pollution. I think that there should be a pollution limit based on the size of the game world and if the pollution from all of the cities in the world exceeds that limit global warming should occur, similar to how it does from nukes. The Environmentalism civic wouldn't prevent global warming because it merely boosts Health, but it doesn't reduce Pollution. Building Recycling Centres would help, as well as replacing Coal Plants with Nuclear or Hydro Plants; and if necessary demolishing pollution producing Forges, Factories, Drydocks, Airports, and Labs.

Perhaps there could even be a UN treaty like the Kyoto Protocol, which would might have the effect of stopping Factories, Drydocks, Airports, etc. from producing pollution at the cost of reducing their production bonuses by approximately half.

So in conclusion, I'd prefer if Civ4 was changed so that Pollution caused Global Warming whereas Nukes caused Nuclear Winter.

The effects of large-scale nuclear conflict aren't known. Nuclear winter is one of several possibilities. There's some evidence a lot of nuclear detonations could do serious damage to the atmosphere and trigger a collapse of the ozone layer.

My personal guess is that you'd get a mixture- nuclear winter in some areas, "nuclear summer" in other areas.

Protip: global warming is false anyways. So obviously they couldn't cause something that wouldn't happen!

Nuclear winter is exaggerated the effects wouldn't be that significant without a complete exchange of the worlds nuclear weapons.

Yep nothing bad will happen if we nuke this planet into ashes LETS DO IT MAN BECAUSE THEY BELIEVE IN A DIFFERENT INVISIBLE MAN THAN ME WHEEEE!

/rolls eyes

With attitudes like that humanity is doomed

TheTerminator97 said:

Protip: global warming is false anyways. So obviously they couldn't cause something that wouldn't happen!

Nuclear winter is exaggerated the effects wouldn't be that significant without a complete exchange of the worlds nuclear weapons.

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Please tell me you're kidding and truly not that ignorant.

TheTerminator97 said:

Protip: global warming is false anyways. So obviously they couldn't cause something that wouldn't happen!
Nuclear winter is exaggerated the effects wouldn't be that significant without a complete exchange of the worlds nuclear weapons..

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And the World is flat!

I think if you seriously wanted to question global warming, you'd need to direct your attention to whether it is caused by man or not, not whether it exists which it obviously does and no one with even half a foot in reality disputes.

A complete exchange of the world's nuclear weapons? Do you even have any idea of how much that is? There are enough nukes (some unknown number between 10,000 and 20,000) to kill every man, woman and slithering amoebic fish-like soup 10 times over. Anyone not directly killed wouldn't enjoy living the rest of their blighted radioactive existence and would be very unlikely to be able to reproduce as well.

Sorry to criticise, but what reality do you live in? It helps to avail yourself of the facts before commenting on real world issues.

I read State of Fear (yes, its science fiction based on fact, not the other way around) but as a someone studying to get a degree in Math and be involved in science, I think its pompous to claim that we humans can truly quantify (put #'s to) anything that we do in terms of climate. The planet and its ecology/atmosphere dwarf us yet we claim we know every detail about its function.

We can all agree that we are putting foreign material into places they shouldn't belong and can agree that this is a bad thing that we shouldn't be doing, but to claim we know beyond all doubt what will happen is preposterous.

Related to the game - it already models both. It models global warming in that tiles decay to desert from "getting warmer" but it also models nuclear winter in that tiles decay to desert from the loss of sediment that the lack of plants do - deserts = dry, not necessarily hot. I live in the American midwest and we get just enough rain to have grass and parts of the state actually have a sand/soil mix.

Andy06r said:

I read State of Fear (yes, its science fiction based on fact, not the other way around) but as a someone studying to get a degree in Math and be involved in science, I think its pompous to claim that we humans can truly quantify (put #'s to) anything that we do in terms of climate.

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Perhaps studying a more related subject would give you greater insight and relevant facts.

It's like me saying that I am a qualified anthropologist - a scientist, and as such, I know all about humans and thereby know that they are causing damage to the world...... it's hardly rational is it?

I'd agree that we don't know the knock-on effect of many of our actions, but it behooves us to attempt to work them out rather than saying "oops" when it's too late. Surely predicting outcomes is a cornerstone of science.

Of course, but acting on predictions is different then confirming predictions

(I don't deny global warming as a valid idea and it climate change is a topic of great interest to me - I just think that the scientific method gets thrown out the window in favor of media attention and public opinion)

Global warming is a stupid game mechanic. I was in a game where, apparently, the Celts had a single meltdown of a nuclear reactor and tiles were getting smacked with global warming all over the world as a result.

In the real world, there have been many above ground nuclear explosions, and no one is blaming them for global warming. (Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the Bikini Atoll, the New Mexico desert etc)

Personally, I think nukes should be cheaper in the game, and SDI less effective. MAD just isn't a strategy I've ever worried about in Civ, even though it was effective in limiting conflict during the Cold War.

If you really want, you can think of it as excessive background radiation killing the grasslands/plains/whatever on a tile, turning it into desert.

Soryn Arkayn said:

(I posted an idea that gave you the option to stop the war if your opponent capitulated to another civ months ago, but apparently it wasn't implemeted into BtS -- but it should have!)

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This has been gone over before, and I don't think it should be like the way you suggest. There was a bug before that the AI didn't take into account of taking upon the ongoing hostilities/war(s) of the vassalized nation, I understand this was fixed (in Warlords?) and the AI is now aware that it will take on those wars?

So assuming the above is true, the AI is offering to be vassalized to another for help in their current war. I see this as logical so why need the change? It's like them offering a tech/gold to for war assistance.

There has been conducted thousands of nuclear tests, with apparantly no effects on the climate, so I doubt a few thousand real strikes would create the doomsday nuclear winter everyone has come to expect. Why should it?

Of course the radiaton and actual blasts wil create some havoc.

Because the vast majority of nuclear tests have been performed underground. And even the ridiculous number that the States has decided were necessary would pale in comparison the number and size of nuclear explosions involved in a full-scale nuclear war. There's been ~2,000 nuclear tests; it's safe to assume that a Cold War 'full-on' would have involved easily double and plausibly triple the number of explosions, all 'surface' (well, actually air, but you know what I mean) blasts and all much larger than the vast majority of tests.

More people commenting on this should try to read bits of Square Leg's findings from various books. Threads is also a worthwhile film (esp. compared to the silly USAmerican films of a similar ilk).

Essentially, the most generally accepted environmental consequences are:
Significant amounts of dust is ejected into the atmosphere. Most obviously, this causes a cooling effect (large enough to be problematic to humans living in 'temperate' climates) and notably reduces the amount of light reaching the Earth's surface; both these factors reduce the viability of all plant life and the efficiency of agriculture.
It is also postulated that the dust would interfere with the upper atmosphere, likely reducing the efficacy of the ozone layer; as the dust began to settle (still largely radioactive), large amounts of UV would be transmitted through the atmosphere. This would have fairly bad effects for the survivors' health in terms of cataracts and so forth.
The radioactivity would lead to cancers and miscarriages and so on but it seems unlikely that all human, let alone all 'higher' lifeforms', would become unviable and be prevented from reproducing by this alone.
EMPs are significant. First few blasts not entirely restricted to direct attacks on purely military targets would likely have been high-air blasts which would have disabled almost all civilian electrical supply.

Nuclear war, USA&USSR-style, would not have wiped out humans, let alone life, on this planet. It would have made this planet even worse to live on and would have resulted in an awful lot of deaths. It's worth noting that even in such a war, most targets would have been military with industrial centres and so forth only designated as very much secondary. The aim was not to wipe out the other side's population.

mike p said:

Personally, I think nukes should be cheaper in the game, and SDI less effective. MAD just isn't a strategy I've ever worried about in Civ, even though it was effective in limiting conflict during the Cold War.

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MAD doesn't exist in Civ- its not like in Alpha Centauri, wherein the AIs were actually aware of your possession of Nukes (or "Planet Busters"). Also, the effect of Nukes in Civ4 is rather pitiful compared to their real world counterparts.

I would think that anyone living in a city that gets hit by an ICBM would either die instantly or die shortly thereafter, but noooo....

No, you're wrong they wouldn't. Nuclear blasts are large but they're not city-sized. Largest active warheads of any consequence are ~1MT-equivalent. Firestorms are significant but entire populations of cities would not be destroyed, even if the ICBM represents a MIRV. Assume a 10 miles radius of complete-to-severe damage to err on the 'safe' side but remember that it's military bases near the city, more than residential areas, that are the priority.

Best solution to the nuclear weapons in Civ issue:

Nukes should trigger nuclear winter, which should cause a temporary -n or +n in all your cities (where n depends on intensity of the conflict) and the effect should subside over time. Tiles turning into desert permanently is just silly.

Also,

I think the player should be able to set a switch in the "Custom Game Menu" deciding whether or not the game should include Global Warming. That way both scientists, people who trust scientists and people who don't can have a fun time.

I hate all these liberal morons who have their panties in a knot over global warming. Idiots, don't you pay attention to politics? The Bush administration doesn't believe in global warming, so it's obviously not a problem. Why would they lie? Pfft, use your heads people.

Spearthrower said:

And the World is flat!

I think if you seriously wanted to question global warming, you'd need to direct your attention to whether it is caused by man or not, not whether it exists which it obviously does and no one with even half a foot in reality disputes.

A complete exchange of the world's nuclear weapons? Do you even have any idea of how much that is? There are enough nukes (some unknown number between 10,000 and 20,000) to kill every man, woman and slithering amoebic fish-like soup 10 times over. Anyone not directly killed wouldn't enjoy living the rest of their blighted radioactive existence and would be very unlikely to be able to reproduce as well.

Sorry to criticise, but what reality do you live in? It helps to avail yourself of the facts before commenting on real world issues.

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global warming is stupid if it by small chance does exist i sure hope its
caused by us, because then we dont have a damn thing to worry about, well run out of crap to burn far before global warming screws us,

in anycase i agree with the op, i always thought Nuklear use should spawn ice and tundra tiles.

Andy06r said:

Of course, but acting on predictions is different then confirming predictions

(I don't deny global warming as a valid idea and it climate change is a topic of great interest to me - I just think that the scientific method gets thrown out the window in favor of media attention and public opinion)

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this is an intelligent post!

Chiyochan said:

global warming is stupid if it by small chance does exist i sure hope its
caused by us, because then we dont have a damn thing to worry about, well run out of crap to burn far before global warming screws us,

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I dont understand why people are in such denial.... it must be political affiliation.

No serious scientist questions whether there is global warming (actually as Andy06r said it better: Climate change) - some scientists question the validity that it is caused by humans.

Of course there IS global warming, just the same as there are ice ages - are you going to question those too? By simple deduction, if there are ice ages then there must be some system of global warming in place or we'd all be sitting in our woolies right now (if we were lucky enough to have survived).

I'm not weighing in on either side of the human driven climate change debate as that's not actually at discussion here and to tell you the truth I have spent more months of my life than I care to reading on the subject and "debating" it with people who have no basis in science but are interested purely to push a political agenda.... but let's please accept a basic, simple scientific fact and that is that the world warms up and cools down periodically. You can conveniently label those periods "Global Warming" and "Global Cooling"..... not exactly controversial is it?