A Novice Question On Nuclear War

[Cervus]

I've got some experience with Civilization IV (now playing Warlords), however most of my games end up with Cavalry and/or Riflemen (conquest or domination victory).

I'm playing an OCC game right now and I'm worried about my rivals being too advanced, so they can win by score or Space Race. Since I have just one city, I don't feel like getting into a generic war, as that would likely slow down not only them, but myself too.

What if I get to Manhattan Project, build a bunch of nuclear missiles and launch them all at once? This is a Duel map (with 6 players though), so just a few bombs would be enough to strike all rival cities. Has anyone tried such a strategy? What would be my chances of beating my opponents?

Just want to know before I really try anything. Thank you.

 

[CynicalMagician]

Nukes hurt, but nuked cities will grow back before too long. To really use nukes well get a small but fast stack of something like calvary or tanks and use them to capture and raze a city right after you nuke it. I think you'd find that if you just nuked and didn't raze the cities, the AI would be back in action after only ~15-20 turns. But if you really thrash a few cities and level them, that'll slow them down way further, especially if each civ has so few cities in the first place.

Just make sure that you smash everyone down to about the same level. You don't want to blow up a bunch of hatty's territory just to let napoleon resettle it and become twice as big. Instead you want to smoke the most productive cities of all the civs and force them to all resettle and fight amongst themselves.

 

[T_Khan]

Also, be aware: everyone will hate you. Even if you don't attack everyone, then they still might all attack you (nuke=-1 diplo/nuke). Make sure you can handle the inevitable assaults.

 

[Chance]

T khan is right.....and also there will be global warming which could weaken your economy

 

[synthboy]

If you're going down this route make it a game ender. The diplo penalty plus the possible global warming will put you at a serious disadvantage once your rival civs have recovered from the initial set back.

Just as CynicalMagician says, you'll need at least one (preferably one per civ) fast attack stacks to go through and wipe everyone out post nuke. Hit each city just before the stack reaches it. Means you end up with a Conquest victory again but hey, a victory is a victory, right?

On a Duel map you shouldn't have any problems with this unless you're set to continents and your one city isn't on the coast in which case I'd try bribing people to go to war with each other instead.

 

[Cervus]

Thanks to everyone for your answers.

That is an Oasis map, so there should be no problems with capturing cities with tanks or whatever once they have been nuked.

I feel like trying this strategy as soon as I can get to the game (unfortunately, not so much time for it right now) and see whether being a very bad boy may also work.