Nukes

ICBMs, in your opinion, overpowered? Yes I understand the whole concept of being an ultimate weapon and etc.

My gripe is that in multiplayer, my flatmate will tech fission/rocketry and end a game that we've sunk 5+ hours into with a handful of units. Sometimes I'm able to hold it off with espionage such as constantly sabotaging the Manhattan Project or uranium supply, others I can use brute force. Sometimes it's simply not feasible to stop.

For example, I was quite proud of one game. I somehow ended along the road for a cultural win. Two of the three cities were legendary, I had four turns to go for the final one. I had been playing well enough to keep him from scouting my cultural boundaries, he had no idea where my cities were to try and stop them. So what did he do? He daisy-chained a string of ICBMs through my culture "scouting" through the black until he discovered the city and blew it to hell with 6 or 7 ICBMs.

It's a long rant, I know. With the laser defense system not coming online until well, well after the discovery of nukes, do you guys think that they're too powerful or lack a credible counter?

I have never heard this before. But I guess having the prior knowledge that your friend is a nuke-crazy warmonger should dissuade you from going for a cultural win no?

You are probably going to find a lot more success rushing him with cavalry or tanks while he has once of his best production cities building the manhattan project. Or play his own game and build nukes and show him what it's all about.

Just four turns to go - couldn't you just limp over the finish line (rushbuy some cultural buildings back), possibly going to Ecology for scrubbing? Or mass up GPP in other cities for a great work?

Prevent nukes or get your own.

If your opponent can happily hang a tech lead on you THAT deep into the game without you killing him or keeping up, you earned your loss.

Also, tac nukes tend to be better and more cost effective than ICBMs, especially after SDI.

But seriously...blockade him, burn coastal cities, choke if he's on your continent, make it hard on him and manage your empire better. If it isn't nukes it's something else...like fighters and tanks for example. It might not be as flashy as nukes, but if he gets that with the same window of time to build them as he is getting with nukes against you, your best cities will wind up burning just the same.

So no, they aren't overpowering.

Slip some spies (And a Great Spy if possible) into his empire as soon as you can and locate every resource. Use espionage early and often rather than after he's already commencing the Manhattan Project. Try to spread your state religion to him just for good measure.
If you're sharing a continent go for Archery and Horseback Riding then build stables and as many Horse Archers as you can and send them in to capture workers, pillage resources, villages and towns. If you can raze a small city or two all the better. Consider these suicide units and use them up if necessary. Your goal can simply be harassment - not conquest. You're there to disrupt progress, foment unhappiness and make him divert research and resources to defense or counterattacking. If you're on widely separated continents go for Gunpowder, Military Tradition, and Astronomy then land some Cuirassiers on his shores and follow the same strategy. It sounds as if you've been playing a fairly passive early to mid game so he won't be expecting it. Once you've spanked him and disrupted his current strategy he'll go on to something else.
Make him react to the game you're playing rather than the other way round.

I don't play multiplayer, but vs the AI nukes are fun and all but not really that useful most of the time.

In my current game, I've got an entire continent to myself (and my terribly weak vassal, who has maybe 2 cities) and the other continent is the Celts and their 5 or so vassals.

The intercontinental invasion didnt go so well, but every turn I throw about 6 nukes their way.
Pretty much all its done is make them madder at me- between "you nuked us!" and "you nuked our friend!" I've got about a -50 or worse diplomacy rating with them

Eventually I'll wear them down enough to try another intercontinental invasion, but by that point all the cities will be garbage and I'll end up razing all of them.

Oh, and global warming is going crazy.

I can see nukes being helpful for a last-ditch effort to keep a rival from winning, but other than that, I don't think they're that useful.

I can see nukes being helpful for a last-ditch effort to keep a rival from winning, but other than that, I don't think they're that useful.

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Nukes can cut 50+ unit stacks to pieces in no time flat. The diplo penalty is a bit unbearable though...but good for taking down a last superpower if it comes to that. There are other options but nukes are pretty effective.

A more common use for nukes is when you're gunning for space and there is a big rival on another continent. If that guy declares on a weaker AI that would vassal, don't allow it. GIFT nukes to that weak AI right next to the big one's stack, and watch the fireworks. The best part is that you get no negative diplo for gifting nukes at all. A pair or trio of tac nukes should maul even the greatest shaka stacks. There goes his power, and any hope for war success!

How do you gift a nuke to someone? You need to rebase it into their territory and then gift it? Can you do that?

Tactical nukes yes, not ICBM You can load them on ships and bring them to a AI city as well

All you need to rebase tac nukes (which are better in this context no matter what, reduces the potential stupid ways an AI could use a nuke, although Rolo is saying you can't rebase ICBMs to AI's i've not tried it...) is open borders. They don't even have to like you other than that. They'll gladly take the nukes and any diplo penalty for firing them off. Neither side seems to be aware of this arms supply, which is really convenient .

If you have good nuke production, you decide who wins a war, if anyone. Remember, if it gets one sided you can always hand them to the other side . You do still have to find a way to win yourself however. Usually with that kind of tech it's domination, UN, conquest, or space.

@rolo
That's too complicated: simpler way, rebase to a city if you have open borders, press the gift button
edit: TheMeInTeam just said that. However I have seen AI who don't accept gift (the button is disabled and the tooltip says they don't want or sorta)

ICBM don't have a rebase button

@bestsss

I thinked I said "also"

You can also "gift" ICBMs to your neighbors quite easily by pressing the red button in the action bar.

^^

I think the idea was to let them use the nukes, not nuking them

Silu said:

You can also "gift" ICBMs to your neighbors quite easily by pressing the red button in the action bar.

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Nice one

To the OP, perhaps this is a hint that cultural wins are difficult in multiplayer, especially when your opponents can match you or better you in terms of skill. All it takes is your opponent/s nuking and burning one of your three main cities and culture win is almost certainly out the window. Unless you have a backup plan, I wouldn't usually plan for a culture win.

The way I see it, nukes are pretty much the counter to culture wins, just like a spear counters a chariot.

TheMeInTeam said:

Nukes can cut 50+ unit stacks to pieces in no time flat. The diplo penalty is a bit unbearable though...but good for taking down a last superpower if it comes to that. There are other options but nukes are pretty effective.

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Oh yeah. If you can get nukes early enough.... In my last game, I won Domination when i launched around 10~15 nukes on Carthage. I only needed maybe 10 or so tanks, and even some old Cavalry (which were highly promoted), and I tore through his empire. I nuked some beachhead cities, launched attacks with Marines, then rebased TacNukes and Bombers to the cities. Next turn I would launch the TacNukes, tear down the defenses with Bombers, then mop up with my tanks. Didn't lose a single unit (besides the nukes), but within the space of 5 turns, I had captured as many cities.

duckduckswan said:

do you guys think that they're too powerful or lack a credible counter?

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We've discussed nukes on other threads and there's widespread disagreement whether Nukes are usefull or not. SDI is the credible counter, but if you don't have that yet, then you've got to have weapons of your own (Mutual Assured Destruction).

If you do nuke an enemy, use two weapons on each city. Two weapons kill virtually every unit, much of the population, many of the city's buildings and all of the nearby tile improvements.

Sorry, my culture game was a bad example. I was still a bit peeved to be that close to winning a game only to lose to something that took no strategy in implementing, simply hording a single unit type.

Let me try to clarify my frustration with nukes. What our games seem to boil down to is whomever gets liberalism first uses it to bulb physics and that snowballs into nukes. I understand that having to build the manhatten project is a great equalizer but what would you do to stop it when you're playing a duel on a standard size map? Sometimes you spawn relatively close to one another, other times (such was my culture example) we're at opposite corners. That's a lot of ground to cover for a spy which may or may not be uncovered.

Sure we'll play on smaller sized maps and it's there a more "frantic" game will be played earlier but I guess what my rant is that on certain [largish] maps there's absolutely no counter to ICBMs that I can come up with. By the time I can amass any worthwhile force it will be obsolete in transit. Actually, do you guys think if we change the turn speed to marathon or epic this would affect my concerns?

I too dislike the nukes as I find them ridiculous or boring.
Moving to another speed certainly will make using nukes less effective.
It's possible to avoid them, just have more production (hammers) and harass him, even with small troops, so he can't produce nukes. Better yet, try winning the game before he gets them.

duckduckswan said:

Sorry, my culture game was a bad example. I was still a bit peeved to be that close to winning a game only to lose to something that took no strategy in implementing, simply hording a single unit type.

Let me try to clarify my frustration with nukes. What our games seem to boil down to is whomever gets liberalism first uses it to bulb physics and that snowballs into nukes. I understand that having to build the manhatten project is a great equalizer but what would you do to stop it when you're playing a duel on a standard size map? Sometimes you spawn relatively close to one another, other times (such was my culture example) we're at opposite corners. That's a lot of ground to cover for a spy which may or may not be uncovered.

Sure we'll play on smaller sized maps and it's there a more "frantic" game will be played earlier but I guess what my rant is that on certain [largish] maps there's absolutely no counter to ICBMs that I can come up with. By the time I can amass any worthwhile force it will be obsolete in transit. Actually, do you guys think if we change the turn speed to marathon or epic this would affect my concerns?

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Your perception isn't reality, simply put.

First of all, why are you or your friend letting the other lib physics?! On top of the lib techs, physics requires a sci meth pre req, and sci meth. That's a lot of turns (need one of chemistry or astronomy, and printing press) for the other person to take lib and just pick something more modest.

Second, you can cover an entire map with cities on normal speed by 1500 AD. How fast are you guys getting these nukes? Given the fact that you got flattened by nukes when pursuing culture, I'm guessing a lot later.

On a standard map, normal speed, there isn't a single place in the world that can't be hit HARD by the renaissance. If nukes are such an issue for you, take him out or at least cripple his research long before either side can field them.

Your other counter is to get nukes yourself.

Basically, nukes press the end of the game to happen sooner, but the BETTER EMPIRE WILL WIN REGARDLESS OF THEIR PRESENCE. If you have better tech, you'll get there first. Better production and you'll be able to fling more ICBMs and tac nukes faster than your opponent.

I'll say it again: if you lose to nukes, you earned your loss.

Now that said, if you guys are playing standard maps w/o AIs, you're talking about an abnormal game anyway. Even so, the reality doesn't change.