Nuclear Weapons should be More Expensive

Can't clean it? What kind of messed up rule is that? What if a volcano erupted in the ancient era? You'd have pollution there for the next 1-2000 years!

Volcanos in Civ IV don't act like in civ III... well, technically there are no volcanos in Civ IV at all, but only a event that destroys completely or reduce to rubble ( cleanable rubble ) all the inprovements in the neighbourhood of a mountain that the game decides that is a volcano Nothing like the fallout-like magma spills of Civ III

I like the Civ3 version better... It's more predictable too.

I honestly like the idea of increaseing the cost of nukes, and I think that should be the main balance for it. I hate the idea of basically all war against the civ that uses nukes its insane. I mean it should be a culmulative effect, if I nuke a huge civ back to the stone age completely every city leveled. Then yes the rest of the world should go crazy war on me, but if I nuke two- three cities per war then the AI should be fine with that, except civs that are friendly to that civ then maybe add another negative point against me because I used nukes against his ally.

But since this thread is about nukes this should be appropriate here. I think they need to add another nuke unit call it the A-Bomb and have it loaded into stealth bombers and regular bomber also add a jet bomber in between them. Also have tact nukes loadable into jet and stealth bombers.

Have the three units increase in power
A-Bomb obliterates the city itself, no tiles outside of the actual city tile possibly lose 1-2 pop and 1-2 buildings : cost normal what an ICBM costs in civ4 considering how weak : Maintenance Cost 1 gpt
Tact Nuke take out the city and the surrounding 8 tiles(the initial square) take out 3-4 pop and 3-4 buildings : cost would be say twice normal cost of ICBM in civ4 : Maintenance Cost 5 gpt
ICBM take out the entire city radius and 4-10 pop 4-10 buildings and have about a say 10% chance of completely eradicating any city with 10 or less population(note I mean the city is no more and would require a new settler to come and found new city : cost ten times as much as ICBM in civ4 and limit one built per city. : Maintenance Cost 10 gpt

For diplomacy purposes the larger the weapon the more negative effect it has but still based on how many you use as well. I think with the maintenance cost and the time it would take to build the high end nukes would be a good balance and ensure you don't just go spam crazy with them but still allowing the use without it turning into Everyone vs whoever uses them crap.

Also none should go obsolete so you can always have the option to use the low yield A-bomb so as to not destroy to much land and possibly get the enemy to surrender easier.

The nuke implementations are ridiculous. You get a -1 with all a civ's friends for nuking a low-pop countryside just to deny resources. You get -0 for entering a city, killing every person there, destroying every building, and leaving rubble.

Although I think a country would encounter backlash if it launched a nuke today, probably bad sanctions, how do you think the world would respond if spain declared war on france and promptly COMPLETELY ANNIHILATED paris? I bet that wouldn't be "fine" by most of the civilized world's book. Certainly not better than a nuke...probably just as bad if not worse (depending on how/what the nuke were to hit).

They're hardly cure-alls in this game, I'm surprised we have so many in favor of making them weaker in terms of usability.

TheMeInTeam said:

They're hardly cure-alls in this game, I'm surprised we have so many in favor of making them weaker in terms of usability.

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It may be because they only play on low difficulty levels... Move up some and feel the pain!

Naokaukodem said:

It may be because they only play on low difficulty levels... Move up some and feel the pain!

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Well, yes, if one plays below their difficulty level, it's understandable that nukes dominate the planet. But nukes aren't alone there. If I drop down to monarch or something I can win domination by building horse archers exclusively for most of the game. Emperor if I slow the speed down to epic. Horse archers should be more expensive ! And zomg look look they raze cities too! Nukes can't even do that! They're too strong !

Naokaukodem said:

It may be because they only play on low difficulty levels... Move up some and feel the pain!

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I play with Noble difficulty and I feel it is right for me.
I usually play on large maps with 8 opponents and I manage to stay at the top 4 up until the modern age.
Once I start accumulate nukes it become much easier.

In my last game I was number 2 where the number 1 civ was much stronger than me.
The other remaining 3 civs where way behind.
Once I used numerous nukes against the number 1 civ there was no challenge left in the game.
Even if the other 3 civs have declared war on me I could have still handle them easily.

Up until the nukes my game was fun and challenging.
Once I got all these nukes on wholesale price the game become ridiculously easy.
That is pretty much my feedback.

MosheLevi said:

I play with Noble difficulty and I feel it is right for me.
I usually play on large maps with 8 opponents and I manage to stay at the top 4 up until the modern age.
Once I start accumulate nukes it become much easier.

In my last game I was number 2 where the number 1 civ was much stronger than me.
The other remaining 3 civs where way behind.
Once I used numerous nukes against the number 1 civ there was no challenge left in the game.
Even if the other 3 civs have declared war on me I could have still handle them easily.

Up until the nukes my game was fun and challenging.
Once I got all these nukes on wholesale price the game become ridiculously easy.
That is pretty much my feedback.

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This more represents an inability to fight without nukes on your part, rather than nukes being too strong.

I was # 4 out of 6 in an immortal game, then used a narrow rifling window to cut someone down with cavalry. Then, I basically used cavalry and cannons for most of the rest of the game, even against more advanced AIs that were only slightly smaller, winning easily each time (every war was <15 turns, one took less than 10). Would nukes have helped? Sure, if I'd gotten to them before one of the AIs pulled an early-mid 1800's AD culture win...all the way across the map.

As I mentioned earlier, on noble/large if you're playing on epic or slower, you can win the game fast by over-whelming everybody with horse archers...MAYBE upgrading to knights to fight the last 1-2 AIs, maybe not. MUCH earlier than nukes. I use this as an example because even though horse archers are quite different from nukes, they can completely murder multiple civs on difficulties well above noble...so that nukes make your game easier on that difficulty is no barometer as to their actual balance. Unless of course you feel horse archers are overpowering too (probably are vs the AI, humans can at least stop them without needing deity bonuses).

Nukes allow you to get away with using smaller stacks...or should I say nuclear warfare requires smaller stacks, since a marked % of your hammers will go into nukes and if the enemy has them then you have to be careful with losing your entire military force in one go. If you are poor at conventional warfare, nukes will make things seem easier certainly, but that is not the fault of the unit.

MosheLevi said:

I play with Noble difficulty and I feel it is right for me.
I usually play on large maps with 8 opponents and I manage to stay at the top 4 up until the modern age.
Once I start accumulate nukes it become much easier.

In my last game I was number 2 where the number 1 civ was much stronger than me.
The other remaining 3 civs where way behind.
Once I used numerous nukes against the number 1 civ there was no challenge left in the game.
Even if the other 3 civs have declared war on me I could have still handle them easily.

Up until the nukes my game was fun and challenging.
Once I got all these nukes on wholesale price the game become ridiculously easy.
That is pretty much my feedback.

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It prooves only one thing: that you are unable to win other than with nukes. Therefore I think that you are missing a lot of other strategies.

You simply do not see them, but they exist.

Although I think a country would encounter backlash if it launched a nuke today, probably bad sanctions, how do you think the world would respond if spain declared war on france and promptly COMPLETELY ANNIHILATED paris?

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- Well, there would be mass chaos in the European Union, the rest of the world would be extremely hesitant of joining due to Spain being so loose with nukes, and Portugal might attempt to interfere.

Then the U.N. would scramble and start arguing over a punishment before Spain would, eventually, launch another nuke, this one pissing off the rest of the world and causing a minor nuclear retaliation across smaller cities due to the world wanting to save culture. A massive conventional strike would take place from just about every country in the U.N., NATO, and the rest of the E.U.

...

(If the game had good diplomacy) Spain would get kicked out of the alliance and declared on. Nukes would fly. :3

Camikaze said:

Yeah, I suppose that's an argument for it, but it doesn't really have a realistic base. Why should it be impossible for two nationalities to have a unit in the same 360 km^2 area?

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Because it makes the gameplay work more smoothly. That's all the rationale it needs.

And it still doesn't really solve the problem, because they could still be in one of the surrounding 8 tiles, and prevent an attack.

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I'm not sure I see that as a problem, though, because it's a thing a amart player might well want to manipulate. (At the same level as conquering a bunch of cities from civ A and then giving one of them as a gift to civ B such that civ A cannot attack you over land without having to go through Civ B.)

r_rolo1 said:

I believe you are confusing 2 diferent features related to nukes: Global warming ( tile goes to desert ) and fallout overlay...

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No, I just didn't put that clearly. I think fallout of some sort is a sensible mechanism, and Civ 4 does not do this so badly; global warming, otoh, has been done badly in Civ since the beginning, and hence I was only complaining about the latter.

This more represents an inability to fight without nukes on your part, rather than nukes being too strong.

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It prooves only one thing: that you are unable to win other than with nukes. Therefore I think that you are missing a lot of other strategies.

You simply do not see them, but they exist.

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I could have fought without nukes if I wanted to or if I had no other choice.
It would have been an uphill battle, but I had a good chance of successes.

However, the availability of such destructive nukes for such cheap price was just too hard to resist, so I used them.

So that is exactly my point &#8211; it is too easy to win with nukes.
For that reason I think they should be more expensive.

As I mentioned earlier, on noble/large if you're playing on epic or slower, you can win the game fast by over-whelming everybody with horse archers...MAYBE upgrading to knights to fight the last 1-2 AIs, maybe not. MUCH earlier than nukes. I use this as an example because even though horse archers are quite different from nukes, they can completely murder multiple civs on difficulties well above noble...so that nukes make your game easier on that difficulty is no barometer as to their actual balance. Unless of course you feel horse archers are overpowering too (probably are vs the AI, humans can at least stop them without needing deity bonuses).

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Can two horse archers destroy 150 enemy units in one turn?
I don&#8217;t think so.

On the other hand I did just that with 2 nukes destroying 150 enemy units that were stationed in a city (and I took out almost the entire city too).

There is no comparison here.
Winning with nukes is way easier, and what makes it so easy is their cheap cost.

Can two horse archers destroy 150 enemy units in one turn?
I don&#8217;t think so.

On the other hand I did just that with 2 nukes destroying 150 enemy units that were stationed in a city (and I took out almost the entire city too).

There is no comparison here.
Winning with nukes is way easier, and what makes it so easy is their cheap cost.

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Your jokes are getting old...

If you're lucky enough to get 150 units clumped onto 1 tile on noble difficulty (highly unlikely that noble AIs get 150 units in a stack in typical situations...!), more power to you.

Or, how about this: You invest an equal hammer's worth of nukes into horse archers early in the game, and on noble? You probably just took out two civs. Win long before nukes are even relevant. If it's on 1 landmass, long before anyone even wins liberalism.

I could have fought without nukes if I wanted to or if I had no other choice.
It would have been an uphill battle, but I had a good chance of successes.

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This is PRECISELY why we're saying your non-nuclear war skills are lacking. An uphill battle is being slightly behind in tech and somewhere between .5 to .75 your target's power, using conventional weaponry. Something like cannons or cavalry vs pre-renaissance units is a laughingstock walkover. Same deal with infantry/arty vs pre-industrial.

All you're saying is that you got nukes first and then the game was too easy. News flash: with a tech lead, all war is really easy.

By the way...those nukes? If the target fans out, it's hard to use them to kill an equal investment worth of troops. The problem is not nukes, it's the AI. But then, the AI lacks in all aspects of warfare, you just don't notice because you also lack in some of these aspects...

Strong as nukes are, the initial investment to get them and then the hammer requirements to produce them alongside a conventional army against a strong opponent (all while avoiding a DoW) on higher levels aren't trivial.

Go ahead and boot up an emp+ game and try waiting for war until you can fly those nukes. See how "easy" that makes the game, compared to alternatives.

MosheLevi said:

I could have fought without nukes if I wanted to or if I had no other choice.
It would have been an uphill battle, but I had a good chance of successes.

However, the availability of such destructive nukes for such cheap price was just too hard to resist, so I used them.

So that is exactly my point – it is too easy to win with nukes.
For that reason I think they should be more expensive.

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It is "too easy" to win on noble all short. So delete this difficulty level in Civ5!

Really, the time you built 1 nuke, I would probably have conquered a whole continent. And that would make the game much more easy yet, since I would have this massland for me very earlier than your nuke. It would translate into only one thing: a much, much earlier victory. On noble, I even won cultural victories. You just have the ambarass of the choice of victory on noble.

You can win any victory condition on any difficulty, although going for high level time is kind of obnoxious.

The game is actually pretty well balanced outside a few events

It can be castastrophic to focus on culture on difficult levels, for what i know. But yet, I probably know less than you.

Naokaukodem said:

It can be castastrophic to focus on culture on difficult levels, for what i know. But yet, I probably know less than you.

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I'm not a culture pro, but Jesusin for example regularly wins standard settings deity culture...Lexad is at least as good as well.

If you know the diplo tendencies of all the AIs it is very frequently possible to win culture. Of course winning it well before 1500 AD is probably useful too as there are fewer turns of war checks in total.

I've only won standard settings culture at immortal (I used the "late culture" strategy of corps, cathedrals, and cottages in those games since it's still a bit faster than space), not deity. My only deity wins are a handful of AP cheese games and a kind of ridiculous domination using Rome and chosen opponents.

If I played marathon and used egypt, rome, or persia I could probably beat deity more frequently on sheer troop spam, but I'd prefer to actually use some empire management skill and not have to rely on crapathon...very good players can beat deity on normal speed with some consistency and I want to get there.

TheMeInTeam said:

If you know the diplo tendencies of all the AIs it is very frequently possible to win culture.

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That's exactly the kind of things I hate seeing used... I see no fun in guessing AI programmation in order to win a game... if one is smart enough to guess AI programmation, why doesn't one go program his own game instead of loosing time in mastering an existing game? That is a behavior I am far to understand. The worst of all, is that Firaxis may listen to those "master players" when programming their new games, that could not be beaten without knowing every bit of it.

I saw your videos TheMeInTeam, and, although I tried, I'm far to understand how you manage to win a single Immortal game without building any unit.