Would a simple 1 turn advance warning on atomic/nuclear launches balance nukes?

[dyllyn]

The threat of a nuclear war through simultaneous launches (aka mutually assured destruction) kept the US and the Soviets honest throughout the cold war. Knowing that your opponent would react with nuclear strikes should you launch your own is a sobering deterrence to the employment of nuclear weapons.

What i'm thinking of is simple: a popup alerts you whenever a nuclear launch is heading for your territory. it doesn't tell you where. To figure it out you'd have to pay attention to where your enemy had nukes the turn before and then do the range math (just like a real war!)You'd have time to launch a counter strike, evacuate all your air units, try to get your men away from (what you think is) the blast zone...

Since in Civ5 (and i'm sure, all the other CiV games) one nuke can wipe out a hundred plus turn's worth of hard work in one launch, would the ability to respond go some way towards reducing the impact of nukes?

I think there are many other problems with nukes - hospitals not doing anything to reduce the population loss during a city takeover or nuclear strike is ridiculous (what the heck is a hospital for, then?) There's also other counter intuitive nonsense like jet fighters not being able to intercept atomic bombers (don't tell me one F-15, let alone my garrison of 5 can't take out a 1945 long range bomber) But this single change would help alot. Thoughts?

 

[Teutorian]

Funny, I was thinking about a way to work out a mutually assured destruction scenario for Civilization earlier today. That's as far as I got, though lol.

Great idea. Really. Love it.

I do like the destructive power of nuclear weapons, though. I just think launching them against another nuclear power should be dangerous.

On a side note, my game earlier left the Inca between myself and Siam and we both started nuking them with multiple warheads at the same time. Poor guys. They got completely ruined. Ate about 10 missiles in 4 turns.

 

[Drawmeus]

Honestly, I like the MAD part of this, but I don't like the idea of evacuating units etc. A big reason nuclear war was so terrifying is that strikes would happen in 15 minutes; you would not have the time to evacuate ANYONE.

I'd prefer just flagging nuclear weapons as immune to nuclear strikes, so you're guaranteed second strike capability. It'd have the same MAD effect.

 

[Teutorian]

Agree,

 

[Becomedeath]

I really do think that people are massively under-reading the brilliance of nuclear warfare in CivV.

Lets look a scenario for a moment.

Iran: We have nuclear capability, but we're honestly not building a weapon.
US: Okay, we don't really believe you at all, but without a full scale invasion all we can do is keep an eye on your troops and your access to nuclear materials.
Iran: Well, we're not really comfy with that either to be honest.
US: So what if you're not, we actually have nukes and we can pretty much do as we please.
Iran: Okay, but it's a waste of your time.
US: Well it's our time to....hold on, if you don't have nukes then why do you have a launch capable boat parked within striking distance off our shore?
Iran: Erm...
US: Right, well we're going to take it out, if you don't have nukes then we're sorry and we'll get peace after a while, in the mean time, we don't trust you enough that we're going to screw up your uranium access anyway.


By the modern era, you're in endgame already unless you've gone for a cultural victory and have it suprisingly early. It's supposed to be high stakes in end game and how much higher do you want them? And with higher stakes, comes higher responsibility. (Lame Spiderman reference noted after writing.) And quite frankly a turn to move all of your troops to a safe distance is not help, it's spoonfeeding.

You have to take notice of what your enemies are doing, you have to ensure that you can defend yourself against an agressor nation that might fancy your land or envy your tech.

It's no mistake that in the 50's and 60's the space and arms races were symbiotic so even if you're after the safe space race win, the enemy still sees you as being technologically advanced enough to pose a threat to them and about to win one way or another, so why aren't you seeing them that way?

Winning is not always about getting there first, sometimes it's about shoving the other guy over before he gets there.

I've nuked and I've been nuked. Yes, it's devastating to a games direction if you're not expecting it. What I've learned, is expect it.

As soon as that Manhattan project pop up rears it's head, it's time to start serious checking your opponents and gearing up your borders if you haven't already.

Nukes don't need extra comfort built into them, they need extra caution applying.


The moderately more constructive bit:
If anything needs implimenting around this, it's reality. As soon as the UN goes up, get Civs to sign a charter. After that, the number of Nukes they have is visable at all times, not the location, just the number of active nuclear weapons. Anyone that doesn't agree to that charter takes a massive diplomatic hit and you can safely assume that they are armed and dangerous.

If you're looking for a real life scenario of how the nukes work in CivV (as far as I can see) consider the Cuban Missile Crisis. Kennedy didn't want it on his front lawn and did something (sort of) about it. So why are you letting them take a picnic on yours?

Perhaps it's just the style of play I employ, but I find all of the hysteria around nuclear weapons to be highly dubious.

 

[KaiserKevin]

The Nuclear subs were essential to MAD during the cold war, and play the exact same role in CIV. Use them, hide them, protect them. That is your secondary strike.

BTW I notice an evasion '50' promotion on nuclear weapons, or maybe just the atom bombs. Can they be intercepted?

 

[Ddude97]

No they can not be intercepted, but that supposedly is a bug
I'm gonna agree with Becomedeath on this one, yeah when someone nukes you its unpleasant, be prepared or it could screw you over. Have to take a more proactive approach when nukes come round, or face the consequences. Nothing wrong with that

 

[zekeand]

Drawmeus says:
Honestly, I like the MAD part of this, but I don't like the idea of evacuating units etc. A big reason nuclear war was so terrifying is that strikes would happen in 15 minutes; you would not have the time to evacuate ANYONE.

I'd prefer just flagging nuclear weapons as immune to nuclear strikes, so you're guaranteed second strike capability. It'd have the same MAD effect.

I agree with you. That´s why US and Soviet Union had their missiles pointing to any previous selected target.
Some auto response mechanism could be implemented. Something like if you start a nuclear war, inmediately you fire one of your missiles, one missile in the other band will be fired. Some kind of priority could be given, so if you fire one missile to Kyoto, a missile in Nara will be fired against any previously selected location in your country.
That will make MAD possible. You strike first, but you don´t know what will happen.
You fire one missile, the other band fires one... you fire another, they fire another.. and so on...

I know. There is a problen with 2+ countries nuclear war, but I think is possible to do it.


Greetings

Zeke

 

[dyllyn]

yeah my only purpose in making this thread is my feeling that MAD isn't represented properly. that and my beef with hospitals.

 

[Revoran]

I really think this is an interesting idea that needs to be further explored, but I also think that the way nukes have been implemented isn't all that, it just requires you to think and anticipate.

But I definately wouldn't be against this, as long as it's maybe only 1 turn, and as long as the AI takes MAD into account before launching nukes.

 

[starrywisdom]

No they can not be intercepted, but that supposedly is a bug
I'm gonna agree with Becomedeath on this one, yeah when someone nukes you its unpleasant, be prepared or it could screw you over. Have to take a more proactive approach when nukes come round, or face the consequences. Nothing wrong with that

There's multiple things wrong with that...

 

[Sonereal]

This is an incredible terrible idea.

The threat of a nuclear war through simultaneous launches (aka mutually assured destruction) kept the US and the Soviets honest throughout the cold war. Knowing that your opponent would react with nuclear strikes should you launch your own is a sobering deterrence to the employment of nuclear weapons.

Both sides had second strike capabilities as well. If one side could have possibly wiped out the nuclear arsenal of another side in one fell swoop with anything looking close to being acceptable losses, they would have.

What i'm thinking of is simple: a popup alerts you whenever a nuclear launch is heading for your territory. it doesn't tell you where. To figure it out you'd have to pay attention to where your enemy had nukes the turn before and then do the range math (just like a real war!)You'd have time to launch a counter strike, evacuate all your air units, try to get your men away from (what you think is) the blast zone..

.

Except in the real world, it very much depends on distance. ICBMs launched from the USSR would only take five to eight minutes to reach London, for instance. You're proposing slowly down a game where by the modern era, each turn is represented by at most a year, more than likely a season, to mere minutes.

Since in Civ5 (and i'm sure, all the other CiV games) one nuke can wipe out a hundred plus turn's worth of hard work in one launch, would the ability to respond go some way towards reducing the impact of nukes?

No. In the real world, you're in trouble the second nuclear missiles are launched. You can shoot down bombers but ICBMs are pretty much a death warrant for millions. I've been nuked and I responded by moving the missile subs/cruisers into range and ending the war.

I think there are many other problems with nukes - hospitals not doing anything to reduce the population loss during a city takeover or nuclear strike is ridiculous (what the heck is a hospital for, then?) There's also other counter intuitive nonsense like jet fighters not being able to intercept atomic bombers (don't tell me one F-15, let alone my garrison of 5 can't take out a 1945 long range bomber) But this single change would help alot. Thoughts?

[/QUOTE]

lolwut?

Hospitals won't do a thing during a nuclear war. Even if they were fully functional, you're still dealing with hundreds of thousands injured and the hospital systems being pushed to the brink. Needless to say, many are going to die after the fact. The only useful suggestion is making fighters/AAs/etc capable of interception.

 

[Jim Bro]

honestly, my opinion is that if you get nuked, you play too hard. if you want to play with only 4 cities on deity, it's pretty lame. to be in charge, dont play harder than prince and thus, you will not get nuked. if you want to play harder, well accept the consequences.

 

[starrywisdom]

honestly, my opinion is that if you get nuked, you play too hard. if you want to play with only 4 cities on deity, it's pretty lame. to be in charge, dont play harder than prince and thus, you will not get nuked. if you want to play harder, well accept the consequences.

Am I being whooshed or are you being serious...?

 

[Becomedeath]

Yet another game played where The Destroyer of Worlds has exacted a hefty nuclear toll on the the globes populous and despite having my capital and main production city nuked, I'm still at a loss to understand what the hysteria about these weapons is.

With this thread in mind, I went back a few saves to before when my capital was nuked and considered how I'd have played differently if I had one turns warning (okay by this point I was nuking capitals just to clear the area around them of troops so I'd won already, but still...)

In one turn, you can not only move your troops out of the blast zone, you can selectively annex cities, you can rebase entire bomber divisions, you can take your time to work out how best to distribute the impact of loosing your most prized city (I've rarely seen the AI attack anything you're not going to miss).

The fact is, you get time. And more vitally, you get time where you're not psychologically in a "WTF" state and your mind is automatically looking at retaliation instead of recouperation.

I'll say again, this is not a broken or unbalanced mechanic. This nonsense about Mutually Assured Destruction is just that, nonsense. It works when you consider ICBMs held in static silos, but it doesn't work when you look at the relitavely short range and mobile weapons used in game.

A civilisation without satellites couldn't operate such a system, and moreover, why on earth do the French armed with crossbowmen deserve any protection from my nuclear weapons?! And MAD is being completely misunderstood. Consider the phrase "Nuclear Deterrent". The Cold War was kept going by the nuclear threat and neither side was stupid enough to actually employ an automatic firing solution. The threat of MAD was that if you acted, some nutter on the other side would give the go ahead for a full deployment. And how did you know? From the signatures generated from monitoring satellites. Nuclear weapons have always had extremely complicated launch systems, purposefully, and no automated system in the history of the world was ever given direct autonomous control over them. Even with the technological sophstication of todays theatre, nobody would be stupid enough to let a machine decide that a sufficent level of threat has been determined without any human input whatsoever.

Back then, you weren't talking about war, you were talking about the end of the world and that's the very threat that people lived under. These two powers who could annihilate the world with just 3 minutes warning.

If you are advanced enough for satellites, you're advanced enough to spot a big green glowing patch of land and presumably smart enough spot the big flashing gold icon telling you that your long time enemy just got themselves the capability to exact a little revenge for that 500 years border war you've been skirmishing over because you wanted a little extra Iron.

Administer some responsibility and accept that the arrival of the Manhattan Project in another Civilisation spells trouble. The game enters a new level where you experience the real power of nuclear weapons, fear.

EDIT - And can someone please explain how the burning wreckage of a hospital is supposed to help anyone?

 

[Sonereal]

It doesn't. Even assuming the hospital networks survive in-tact, they're quickly running out of supplies such as fuel and medicine, operating on generators (which also require fuel which is not dreadfully short in supply), and are being filled way pass the point of overcapacity.

 

[Becomedeath]

So really your hospital should add extra unhappiness after a nuke attack!

 

[Sonereal]

So really your hospital should add extra unhappiness after a nuke attack!

Actually probably should, given that nuclear war makes civilizations happier.

 

[Teutorian]

I love nukes. I had 25K saved up, had all the discount wonders and policies and was buying atomic bombs for like 1.5K a piece. Annexed a city in the center of a huge rival I was carving a path through and wow... Poor bastards.

I just think it would be cool if you could set nuclear missiles to a trajectory and they would fire on the AI's turn and vice versa if ICMB's were coming your way.
Or something like that, I don't know.

I don't think the OP wants nukes gimped out, he just wants a more sensationalized MAD system.

 

[Becomedeath]

I love nukes. I had 25K saved up, had all the discount wonders and policies and was buying atomic bombs for like 1.5K a piece. Annexed a city in the center of a huge rival I was carving a path through and wow... Poor bastards.

I just think it would be cool if you could set nuclear missiles to a trajectory and they would fire on the AI's turn and vice versa if ICMB's were coming your way.
Or something like that, I don't know.

I don't think the OP wants nukes gimped out, he just wants a more sensationalized MAD system.

I am in complete favour of any and all changes to ICBM's in the current game version.