Lesson Learned: Careful using nukes

[techbota]

Last night im on my final leg of a battle. Im finally learning how to win using tips from here. Especially settler factories. TY

So there was 4 of us left I (Japan) was just taking out Korea that had a island all to themselves.

Ottomans were on another small island by themselves and posed little threat.

Inca shared a very large continent with me. I had more cites but we occupied about the same area on this continent. We were doing fine with trading and his attitude with me was polite.

I have MA's and Stealth bombers out the butt.

Most of them are in Korea though. But im still well defended in my homeland.

So after I take Korea's last city I change all the production that I can to workers so I can rebuild my new island for a few turns.

The next turn Inca declares war on my catching me off balance.

The whole game im turning down making ICBM's. I only made one. So I use this to devastate his capital. Finish off my turn licking my wounds and trying to protect vulnerable cities. Also taking my stealh bombers and removing all roads and improvements from the ottomans capital...as they joined inca against me.

Well I Click Space to move on and take another whupin while I rebuild my stateside forces to take them on. WHAT A FRIGIN MISTAKE TO USE JUST ONE NUKE!!! The computer spent 5 minutes just nuking my cities. When they were done over half my cities (like 25-30) were deciemated!

The moral of the story. Dont use a nuke unless you plan on nuking each and everyone of the nme's citys. Also IMHO I should of built up a huge force of nukes caus eI couldve ended the game at this point if I had about 100 nukes. Which I could easily of made in 10-15 turns!!!!

Guess I will have to swallow my pride and go back to a earlier save.

[rajwhitehall]

Originally Posted by techbota

...Guess I will have to swallow my pride and go back to a earlier save.

What!?! "Game over man, game over!" You lost; time to resign and start a new one.

[techbota]

But im so pissed at them........lol

They have to pay.

Actually im chaulking it up to a learning experience.

[rajwhitehall]

I hear ya. Sometimes the AI must be made to suffer

Originally Posted by techbota

But im so pissed at them........lol

....

[Blackbird_SR-71]

Nukes are fun to play with. But remember you better have a nuclear arsenal that is ready to nuke the world 2 times around.

[Quilty]

Yeah, I was bummed to learn that a nuclear weapon actually doesn't kill all the military units in the enemy city. Ya gotta nuke 'em several times over. "It's the only way to be sure." Even so, teh enemy ICBMs never seem to be affected.

I haven't played a game yet where the nukes were anything but a deterrent. Has anyone tried moving defensive units out of a city, knowing that enemy units were nowhere within range, in order to preserve them from being decimated by ICBM attacks?

[QuiksilverHg]

I've only used nukes once to try them out and was not very impressed. They seem to hit a city, but not destroy it, seemingly so that it is easy to capture. However after the nuke with all the pollution and everything who would want to capture it anyways?

Maybe I'm missing something about nukes, but how can you win the game with enough nukes since you still have to capture the city anyways?

[Tomoyo]

The Nukes destroy the defenders...

[North King]

Originally Posted by QuiksilverHg

I've only used nukes once to try them out and was not very impressed. They seem to hit a city, but not destroy it, seemingly so that it is easy to capture. However after the nuke with all the pollution and everything who would want to capture it anyways?

Maybe I'm missing something about nukes, but how can you win the game with enough nukes since you still have to capture the city anyways?

They are much better used against enemy forces, I think. Once I had a massive stack of enemies invading my territory (thankfully they did not have nukes), and I nuked them about three times... There were essentially no forces to take care of afterwords, just a few units with 1 or 2 health.

[coolgilgamesh]

in one game nukes helped me win. ONE GAME. i was seriously outnumbered by the japanese and was in serious trouble. however, i did have a pretty good nuclear force. also, japan was not very techinacally advance and i had SDI defence or whatever. i just nuked the enemy stacks and i was eventually able to rebound. i also used tactics such as even nuking my own border cities if they got too close. i realise this was a sort of once in a lifetime situation, but nukes can be used for great defencive purposes as well.* note that me and japan were only two left besides small island nation with nothing so world opinion was not worrying.

[shadow2k]

I wasn't aware that the AI would launch nukes first...until tonight. The funniest part was that the madman that started the nuke war was Gandhi.

I guess when you raze 15+ cities in one turn, including his capitol, they tend to get a bit upset. Now I know why I rarely raze cities. The reason I was doing it was so that I wouldn't hit 100k culture before 20k, and wouldn't hit the domination limit either.

I don't even normally make it to nukes in most of my games, usually a domination win near the advent of tanks or MA's. I don't remember the AI ever launching first, only in retaliation...and the rest of that game had the other smaller AI's nuking each other into oblivion until I got tired of all the global warming messages, and cut off my culture victory by domination. You tend to build up quite a lot of MA's (350+) while waiting for your capitol to hit 20k.

Does the AI launch nukes first a lot? This was emperor PTW 1.29, not sure if that makes any difference.

[Drakan]

Originally Posted by Quilty

Yeah, I was bummed to learn that a nuclear weapon actually doesn't kill all the military units in the enemy city. Ya gotta nuke 'em several times over. "It's the only way to be sure." Even so, teh enemy ICBMs never seem to be affected.

I haven't played a game yet where the nukes were anything but a deterrent. Has anyone tried moving defensive units out of a city, knowing that enemy units were nowhere within range, in order to preserve them from being decimated by ICBM attacks?

You should never have more than one unit guarding your city when there are nukes around against the AI. You should keep your SoD outside your cities and way off any tile that is a potential target such as a rubber tile or oil tile.

[zerksees]

Just clean up the mess and get back to work. Next time get SDI before launching nukes. Only one or two in ten will hit then.

Oh yeah - never start the nuclear war if you don't have SDI. Use you weapons in retaliation. I am pretty sure the other AI's will not gang up on you if you act in retaliation.

[techbota]

They do work good for destorying all roads leading to the city you nuke but thats it. My intention was to cut off the capital from all cities to keep them from fliping after my SoD's walk over them!

Anyways I replayed it and didnt use nukes and won a domination victory in about 10 more turns.

[zerksees]

They will destroy the units inside as well, though it may require more than one nuke to destroy all of them. At the end of the war academy thread in my sig I use nuking to clear out a city before invading it and taking out the AI's SDI.

[Bluemofia]

I once did a nuke test once. I had about 500 nukes. I nuked the enemy's capital about that many times. Then I used a modded scout with a lot of movement to peek into their city. I gave them 1 nuke to see how many times it takes to blow it up. It didn't. I assume the game puts nukes in silos automatically, so you won't have a decisive nuclear strike to eliminate enemy nukes and win cheaply.

[zerksees]

Originally Posted by Bluemofia

I once did a nuke test once. I had about 500 nukes. I nuked the enemy's capital about that many times. Then I used a modded scout with a lot of movement to peek into their city. I gave them 1 nuke to see how many times it takes to blow it up. It didn't. I assume the game puts nukes in silos automatically, so you won't have a decisive nuclear strike to eliminate enemy nukes and win cheaply.

Oops I think I knew nukes could not take out nukes - just defensive units.

But if I had a tank army right outside the fallout zone, I could nuke all the units with defensive capability and walk right in . This would implode the nukes in that city. If you do this on their SDI city, then subsequently launch all your nukes on other cities they will all hit. If you have SDI only 10-15% of their nukes will hit. Plus you know they are going to nuke you so you spread units around in locations outside of cities and their 9-tile radius.

Now if you did not mind committing ROP rape, you could possibly take out all their nukes using MA, tanks or cav (1 per city) and just take the cities after nuking out all the defensive units. (Of course you need to investigate cities to find out where the nukes are.)

[Admiral8Q]

I was playing a game where Russia, Japan, France, and England were all way more powerful than me (I was playing Germany) Only the Mongols were less powerful and I had already conquered the Americans.

Anyways, there I am building up an invasion force of panzers to launch on the Mongols when all hell broke loose. Russia, Japan, France, and England all nuked each other and after that I was the most powerful civilization.

[rupertlittlebea]

Originally Posted by Bluemofia

I once did a nuke test once. I had about 500 nukes. I nuked the enemy's capital about that many times. Then I used a modded scout with a lot of movement to peek into their city. I gave them 1 nuke to see how many times it takes to blow it up. It didn't. I assume the game puts nukes in silos automatically, so you won't have a decisive nuclear strike to eliminate enemy nukes and win cheaply.

Yepper, the one game that I got nuked in, all Nukes survived the attack. The other computer players pummeled the miscreant where the strategic resources were. Nobody cared when I bounced a few of his cities next.

[Volstag]

Might seem obvious now, but I generally follow these guidelines when it comes to nukes.

* Only nuke if your opponents don't have the tech and/or resources.
* Only nuke if you know you're going to win on the next turn.
* Never be the first to nuke. If it's a retaliatory strike, you should be okay (I think).

Generally though, the only time I use nukes is for the novelty of it -- late game, and I know I'm going to win. Generally, you get more bang for the buck (no pun intended) using conventional weapons.

-V