Nukes effect

civmod19

Chieftain
Joined
Sep 7, 2005
Messages
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If someone already put this thread in the forum, let me known. My question is about the nukes. I found unrealistic to Civ3 when a nuke dont destroy a entire city, but just reduces it's population and improvements to half. I tried to change this in the editor but with no sucess because it's hard coded. Will be possible in Civ4 to use nukes to raze entirely cities at one blow? This can create a good atmosphere for a cold war game.
 
...only if the AI understands how powerful they are...
 
Considering that you can get the SDK to code AI...

I guess a lot of things that weren't possible in the past moddings is very possible in this one.

I think with nuclear weaponry, the idea was to bring forth the global effects as well as just the effect it had on it's target.
 
Well, it would depend. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki nukes were, compared with today's nukes, tiny.

A fusion bomb in the 1+ megaton range would have many tens the times of the effect and could completely annhilate sizeable cities.
 
And depending on the blast (aerial or ground) it can kill a lot more :p
Blessed be those who never press the button!
 
Considering what you are suggesting and recalling how in Civ3, we got the radius of pollution along with a reduction in population around a targeted city, it'd make sense that Civ4 would have a similar effect on population. Instead of the pollution, we'd probably see a serious reduction in food/hammer production and perhaps increased maintenance costs for that city that'd but a strain on overall growth for a number of turns.
 
I always found nukes to weak myself aswell...

they are supose to be the ultimate weapon of mass destruction.

Pro: Half a city population and all adjecent tiles mass poluted is a rewal killing blow to a central city.

Con's: Almsot all civs immediatly delcare war on you.

So the price of 1 city reduced to half pop and polution is that you know have to wage war on every other remaining civilization.

Quite a heavy price for such a minimal effect.

As for the nuclear bombs, u had Tactical Nuke and ICBM. the Tactical Nuke is made on conventional nuclear weaponry and the ICBM with hydrogen. Hydrogen bombs are a exponent of a conventional nuke stronger.

So it would make sense if a tactical nuke would reduce the pop to half and such, but an ICBM can easily take out a mayor city and erase its very excistance of the face of the earth.
 
TerraHero said:
So it would make sense if a tactical nuke would reduce the pop to half and such, but an ICBM can easily take out a mayor city and erase its very excistance of the face of the earth.

You're right that hydrogen bombs are much more powerfull than nuclear bombs. The nuclear bombs used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had an explosive power in the tens of kilotons while the heaviest hydrogen bombs in existence nowadays are between 1 and 10 megatons (the heaviest to ever exist is about 50 megatons, but only one was ever manufactured). So the heaviest hydrogen bombs that exist today are about 500 times as strong as the nuclear weapons used in WWII. That does not mean that the destructive area of effect is 500 times as large. A nuclear weapon that is 1000 times as strong will have a distructive radius 10 times as large. Most nuclear weapons are in the 100-500 kiloton range.

To get some insight in the effects of nuclear weapons, one could take a look at this Nuclear Weapon Effects Calculator. They are really terrible weapons.

The largest nuclear weapons in existence today would destroy a medium sized town, but large cities will survive the effects of the nuclear weapon. Although the destruction will be terrible and the remainder of the city will not be a healthy place to live for a while. Multiple nuclear weapons or MIRV nuclear weapons would of course obliterate even the largest cities.
 
That isn't the only con though, it attributes to global warming, which results in changing terrain. Your lush grassland is now desert, or your now temperate region is nothing but swampville. I honestly don't know how much effect they had it do in Civ 3, but in Civ 2, you suffered big.
 
They should be like SMAC. They leave a hole where the city once was. I remember once nuking an island city and removing it from the map.

But that should be for the ICBM. The tactical should be like normal (half population, mess up health rating..etc.)
 
I agree... ICBM should be stronger, while tactical nuke should remain the same.

A nuke of any sort should remove all units of any type from the city and imediately surrounding tiles. Not to say that they were all killed, but they would be decimated in morale and in too desperate a state to actually perform their intended tasks.
 
What I am hoping for is somewhere within the editor (either SDK, Python, or XML) is the ability to create nuclear weapons of various types and firepower.
Nuclear tipped torpedos have been around for decades and I would think would be a real addition to the modern game.
Of course, considering how Civ IV will be built around pretty pictures instead of an actual game engine, the point may be moot.
 
We have a problem about the pollution here.
In Civ3 the pollution in the tiles was representing normal pollution and radioactive pollution. Now in Civ4 normal pollution go direct to the city with a reduction of production. I think that they will do the same with nuclear meltdowns (caused by nuclear plants) but with a higher effect on production than normal pollution.
But and if the ICBM are thrown against a tile that dont have a city? I will recall of a tatic that I used in Pentagenesis.
In Pentagenesis, cities have a laser defense that destroy the nukes. Then I was throwing nukes in the tiles surrounding the cities, thus killing some population inside the city (not half population) and the pollution affected their production. In Civ4 this will not be possible, as we will not have pollution, and the ICBMs will not have any effect in the enviroment. The birds, the chocobbos, the rabbits will still be there. We can have a crate, like artillery do, but the radiation is gone.
My suggestion is to mod it, putting a new terrain, with a green color to represent radioactivity, and damaging units that pass through it. More realistic than in Civ3, where radiation was treated like normal pollution.
Also, a system for testing nukes can be created, to thrown bombs in the sea or in telletubbies island, as the telletubbies will be lagging the game in later turns. The tests can have a effect in politics, with less powered nations in the borders being more benevolent, and equal powered nations making pressure to stop the tests, or a effect in technology research for better nukes.
More types of nukes will be better too. We can have some fusion technology to allow more destructive effect in the enviroment (like dozens of tiles with radiation). A unit called radioactive worker, with proper clothes, can erase it. The radiation will disappear naturally after some turns, but this type of worker can turn this more fast. We have new possibilities here, if is true that we can mod everything in this game.
 
:sigh: Here we go again, people claiming nukes should destroy entire cities ... :shakehead

As those who have been here for the last few years are aware, my RL job involves working with nuclear weapons, and understanding their destructive power. The Civ3 version of nuclear weapons is much more spot on than total city destruction.
 
Padma said:
:sigh: Here we go again, people claiming nukes should destroy entire cities ... :shakehead

As those who have been here for the last few years are aware, my RL job involves working with nuclear weapons, and understanding their destructive power. The Civ3 version of nuclear weapons is much more spot on than total city destruction.

Understood... Do you also have experience with the productivity of a post nuke city or nation?
 
I agree with Padma.


However I must say:

The largest nuclear weapons in existence today would destroy a medium sized town, but large cities will survive the effects of the nuclear weapon. Although the destruction will be terrible and the remainder of the city will not be a healthy place to live for a while. Multiple nuclear weapons or MIRV nuclear weapons would of course obliterate even the largest cities.

Is a true statement. A 1Megaton Nuke, say hitting Denver, would leave a large crater with an area of destruction for many miles, however teh city would still be there. Yet multi warheads spread out over the area of Denver, MIRVs, would level the city.


In fact the day Cheyenne Mt. Air Station opened was the same day nukes became powerful enough to make it Cheyenne valley if it tooka direct nuke hit.


EDIT: Oh, and where the nuke goes off is important too. On ground impact, above ground, in the air and in space all have different effects. A ground/near ground explosion (nuke explosion) will produce fireball and compressed air waves. A space (little to zero atmosphere) nuke explosion would cause massive x-ray, EMP, radiation waves not fireballs. In fact a well placed nuke detonating in space could take out a large percent of satellites.

Anyways, in Civ 4 you should be able to edit the nukes, how they are used, add event triggers if need be, and even change how the AI uses/reacts to nukes. So that alone should make everyone happy.
 
How about this , what if we could change the yield of nuke to make the effect more or less powerfull
 
i think i have to agree with a few people who said icbms..should be more powerfull..still not town "destroyers" but population destroyers...why cant a large nuke...kill most of the city..its very feasable...and limit population growth...

tactical nuke=same as present system

icbm=3/4 kill rate in city. 1/2 immidiate surrounding squares, 1/4 or damaged units out to the next surrounding squares...if the city is small the effects on squares are the same..but they city is reduced to one...not abandoned at all...but growth should be slowed for "X" amount of turns. the variables for damage should also change with terrain bonus...
ie.. mountain immidiately oustide hit square..damage now reduced to 1/4 and so on.

but padmas right...they dont eliminate cities..but they do eliminate live.
 
OK. Nukes knock cities down to half Pop, regardless of the size of the city prior to the strike. Depending on yield, the city loses one Pop per turn to radiation poisoning for x number of turns, where x increases proportionally to the strength of the weapon used. Nukes "pillage" the surrounding countryside removing access to resources (since pollution no longer exists) and depending on the yield, the "pillage" effect grows in size.

In a tactical strike, it wipes out the targeted units and causes the same "pillage" effect as mentioned above.

Would this work?
 
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