Happiness is a warm nuke

wurstburst · Jan 7, 2011

I just realized what a potent force for happiness nukes are. Yes, you heard me right: nukes make your citizens happy. Very happy. In particular, people who get nuked are much happier than similarly situated citizens who have not been nuked.

Let's say you are in an annoying war with Siam (I hate Siam), and you need to take out one of their seemingly endless 20 population cities. If you just attack their city without nukes, you are left with 10 unhappy citizens. This is going to hit your empire's happiness in a major way.

On the other hand, if you drop a nuke on them first, you make them very happy. Your 20 pop drops to say 8, which when you take the city, leaves you with only 4 unhappy citizens. A net improvement of 6 happiness.

So, a nuke = circus+colosseum

If you play your cards right, you can hit 3 big cities with one nuke, making the equation:

1 nuke = 3 circuses + 3 colosseums

Maybe it's all the glowing that makes people happy? :nuke:

mislaV_01 · Jan 7, 2011

What about the fallout and reduced yelds of the nuked tiles? I ussualy nuke the sh*t out of a civ if i want to criple them economicaly.

builer680 · Jan 7, 2011

mislaV_01 said:
What about the fallout and reduced yelds of the nuked tiles? I ussualy nuke the sh*t out of a civ if i want to criple them economicaly.

That just makes them happier longer because they won't grow as fast! Along these same lines, nuking yourself would also increase happiness.

diz2 · Jan 7, 2011

mislaV_01 said:
What about the fallout and reduced yelds of the nuked tiles? I ussualy nuke the sh*t out of a civ if i want to criple them economicaly.

Fortunately, starvation works nicely as a happiness tool as well!

Actually I've noticed that since the patch happiness in a modern war is not such a big problem. The AI cities seem to have enough happiness buildings/wonders that cities can almost support their own capture.

I also prefer to spend my uranium on GDR's, which are usually available not long after given the level of science I am cranking at this point in the game.

Roto-Router · Jan 7, 2011

diz2 said:
Fortunately, starvation works nicely as a happiness tool as well!

*Sigh* I understand having to live within the restraints of game logic, but this kind of thing goes too far and breaks immersion for me. More than any other version of the series, this one requires an heroic effort to maintain suspension of disbelief. People become more content and work harder when subjected to genocide, and riot in the streets when their nation wins a war? /facepalm

OK, I'm ok. Rant over.

Smote · Jan 7, 2011

Of course the happiest thing for any nation is to give all its cities away

Tabarnak · Jan 7, 2011

If i have below -10 happiness and i'm not burning a city, i can deliberately starving citizens to get back to -9 or higher.

But i think nukes is too much a masochist way and i think it's better to use them on the ennemy. But nice comparison overall...

gameplay>realism as usual

builer680 · Jan 7, 2011

Gotta nominate this for "Thread of the Day."
:lol:

wurstburst · Jan 7, 2011

builer680 said:
That just makes them happier longer because they won't grow as fast! Along these same lines, nuking yourself would also increase happiness.

I just gave this a try for fun. Nuked 3 of my own mid-sized cities (8-10 pop each) that I had puppeted 20 or 30 turns before. Happiness increased by 6. Followed that up with a nuke on another one of my cities of size 11. Happiness increased by another 7. 13 happiness for 2 nukes. Not bad.

I suppose you lose some beakers. I guess that's called "balance".

Smote · Jan 7, 2011

wurstburst said:
I suppose you lose some beakers. I guess that's called "balance".

You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs

basta · Jan 7, 2011

Don't forget you send out your workers to "scrub" the radioactive fallout for three turns. Then everything's peachy and you can repair the tile and it's like nuttin' ever happened.

But hey, to be honest, there are a lot of these twisted population-control/genocidal policies going on in the world right now.

For starters, just ponder all the depleted uranium shells lobbed in Iraq and Afghanistan for 8+ years now. Or did you know that fluoride (aka, aluminum processing waste) was initially used in Nazi concentration camps to keep inmates docile and stupid? And it's also the main ingredient in rat poison?

And so it goes. Brush up, kiddies, it'll keep the cavities away!

elthrasher · Jan 7, 2011

We need stop top players to post some high-profile games in which self-nuking is the right choice. I want to see "I beat deity by nuking my own cities."

Smote · Jan 7, 2011

Yeah, you can reduce maintenance cost too if your army is situated near city site. Kill 2 birds with 1 stone!

basta · Jan 7, 2011

elthrasher said:
"I beat deity by nuking my own cities."

...in under 200 turns, on pangea.

Makes me want to watch Dr. Strangelove again

...where is that Bibor guy anyway?

Soneji · Jan 7, 2011

HAHAHAHAHAHa

a

builer680 · Jan 7, 2011

Roto-Router said:
*Sigh* I understand having to live within the restraints of game logic, but this kind of thing goes too far and breaks immersion for me. More than any other version of the series, this one requires an heroic effort to maintain suspension of disbelief. People become more content and work harder when subjected to genocide, and riot in the streets when their nation wins a war? /facepalm

OK, I'm ok. Rant over.

To be fair, even in previous games an effective way to keep cities from rioting was to starve them. But you're definitely right, it is indeed pretty silly all the same.

The silliest part in this version is how powerful this can actually be. Need that Golden Age a bit faster? Nuke some of your crappier cities! :lol: