Nuclear missile / atom bombs

[Anelyn]

Do they deal the same damage in all blast radius or main portion is dealt on impact location and decreases to further tiles?

Do they destroy buildings / wonders in a targeted city, or just deal damage to city hp and kill population?

Am asking because I am in a situation where I went for a cultural victory and 2 nations are closing to a science victory. We are friends, I have spies in both their capitals, and I can launch only 4 nukes (very little uranium on map, about 20 in total including city states which are my allies, I have 4 uranium in my nuclear factories, and 4 nukes, so I have most of the uranium). I would like to slow them down and not gamble on my utopia construction (no GE or well not in time, is a matter of couple turns).

I have the subs with the nuclear cargo in range of both their capitals, I can't get with melee units there for a capture tho (they refuse open borders and their coasts / areas near cities are crawling with units). Is this too late to slow them down?

I did try and succeeded in making them DoW eachother, but it doesn't help much at all since they are on different continents, they both have huge fleets and each has of them has at least 2 atom bombs (from my scouting) loaded on carriers.

I spammed golden ages to complete last social policy, am peaking at ~980 culture / turn (but again is epic speed), but am not sure I can finish in time before either of them (arabia and indians) will complete last part and send it to their capital (they are not building it in their capitals, so I can't guess in which city they are producing the last parts).

Any help appreciated, thanks!

PS: my first attempt at cultural peaceful game with siam, 4 cities, tradition / patronage / liberty / commerce / rationalism, 52 pop in capital and still growing fast (but got to the point where even with all specialist slots filled and all tiles worked, I still have several unemployed citizens lol), all CS are my allies, 1 continent is covered with my religion, I have 129 happiness, not sure if I missed anything

 

[Browd]

The thing about nukes is they won't destroy any SS parts that have already been completed and attached to the spaceship. Even taking their capitals with melee units won't prevent them from completing the SS; the SS parts magically port over to their new capital and they will continue building parts in other cities.

How far away from your last policy are you, and how many parts have they completed? If all they have finished are boosters and the cockpit, you may not be in as much danger of losing as you fear. It is not unusual for the AI to get distracted and fail to complete the last parts. Check demographics to see if literacy rates are high enough to conclude that the AI has researched the techs required for the last two parts.

How have you deployed your spies? Can you shift spies into their most productive cities? (Look at the terrain of their empires to find the cities with the most obvious hammer tiles--those are probably their production cities, if not their capitals.)

That said, nuking them will certainly distract them. If a war between them isn't enough, war with you may well be. In that case, you'll want more nukes, so you can wipe out their navies as they head your way.

Using a nukie will free up that uranium. Do you have enough gold to rush-buy A-Bombs when uranium becomes available? If you have nuclear plants in more than one city (i.e., the city you intend to build Utopia in), scrap three of the nuke plants and build some more A-Bombs.

 

[Anelyn]

I need 5 turns more to finish last SP. The problem is I can't nuke both of them at same time or put a severe pressure on them both (not enough units, they are far from me, one on same continent but england is between me and arabia on our continent and they are guarded, no open borders etc, no amount of money / resources will make them DoW arabia or give me open borders, and iruqois are on other continent all by themselves at this point after annihilating spain who was last one left there). After couple reloads sadly I found out there is no way out of this hehe Either of them will complete and attach last part in 7 turns no matter what I nuke, DoW or invade

So that's why I was curious if nuking the capital will have an active effect, but from your response is too late now - damn me for playing peaceful all game and allowing them to grow so large

I had highest science output (was first to enter atomic and informational eras) but my production was really low, capital had ~100 hammers and rest of cities were peaking at ~60-70 (with all manufacturing buildings, including nuclear plants and specialists). I couldn't afford to drop GE to improve some hills / mines output as I needed them always to get a wonder to increase my culture, and my main focus was on generating / purchasing Great Artists or GS (and drop landmarks / start golden ages in a chain, got 3 observatories as well).

Regarding gold, I last era I was making ~140g a turn outside of golden age, since all 3 standing nations expanded and filled every corner of the world so there was nothing I could trade to them luxury or strategic wise which they did not have at that point (I did loads of good trading tho up to industrial and a good part of it). I had only a hand of units like 1 sam and 1 rocket artilery and 1 mech infantry at each of my 4 cities and later a bit the nuclear subs. No roads outside of connecting 3 cities to capital (and they were all within 4 hexes distance) so not much expense here either, but a lot of expense on building maintenance since I pretty much built everything in each city - maybe this was a mistake

Anyway every loss is a step forward, as you can't expect to win first time a different victory condition on a harder difficulty only making educated guesses (some are not hard, like what wonders would be nice to get etc).

Another thing which I forgot to mention - and maybe is one of the reasons I was set back a bit for most of classic and a part of medieval eras - both adjacent neighbours being attila and songhai, both warmongering from start (attila DoW me around turn 75 - epic speed) which forced me to pump some military units as songhai was coveting my lands as well, and england was hostile from start.

My salvation came from meeting up with spain at a point, and giving them one small city I took from huns and getting some gpt and a luxury resource, and they became my friends and remained friends until they got annihilated by iruqois (even took a city from england when they DoW me in rennaisance, and gave it to iruqois to both get better relations and RA with them, as well to stop england from making it to my cities on land lol).

 

[apocalypse105]

Built aircraft carriers and put a spy in their capital and if you see a part declare war and kill it. with planes( I mean if it is going to the capital

You actualy need to capture cities and keep a eye on the new capital so he has no change of getting spaceships parts to it .

 

[Streams]

I had a very similar game with the Ottomans. Was on Archipelago to try and get a barbarian fleet, which made it quite a bit more difficult to conquer all the other 11 nations.

Was close to getting a cultural victory, with the Iroquois and the Dutch getting in a race for Science. Got 4 nukes, sent 2 near each of their capitals, sent in 2 spies, in the capitals. When your turn hits, you will be able to see their parts before being assembled. If it's a booster, you may wish to let it go. It it's something better, declare war and nuke. Scramble with the sub/carrier and keep it alive, so that you can nuke with the 2nd also.

It does buy enough time. The Dutch got into a war with Washington so it took him off my back, but the Iroquois were quite a pain. I ended up making a nuclear waste out of their original island.

King/Huge/Archipelago/Standard