Bomb shelters are useless.

[miked1991]

My solution would be to

1) Dramatically increase the hammers cost of building a nuke, so that its far more like a massive project to do so. I'm thinking ~2000 hammers so even you best production city would take 20 turns to build one.

2) Increase the Uranium cost, say to 5. This would make it much harder to obtain the resources required and similarly prevent them from being mass built.

3) Nukes can only be used at the end of a long war. You shouldn't be able to simply declare war and nuke an opponent straight away. As in WWII, they're to end a long fought struggle... implemented this might be that nukes can only be fired if a war has lasted more than 30 turns.

With these rules I'd even consider making the nuke a bit more powerful to be worth the effort, as the damage they cause never seems too much. One city weakened... still not gonna hurt my science victory too much really!

 

[Darac]

My solution would be to

1) Dramatically increase the hammers cost of building a nuke, so that its far more like a massive project to do so. I'm thinking ~2000 hammers so even you best production city would take 20 turns to build one.

2) Increase the Uranium cost, say to 5. This would make it much harder to obtain the resources required and similarly prevent them from being mass built.

3) Nukes can only be used at the end of a long war. You shouldn't be able to simply declare war and nuke an opponent straight away. As in WWII, they're to end a long fought struggle... implemented this might be that nukes can only be fired if a war has lasted more than 30 turns.

With these rules I'd even consider making the nuke a bit more powerful to be worth the effort, as the damage they cause never seems too much. One city weakened... still not gonna hurt my science victory too much really!

1) Isn't that what the manhattan project is for? maybe increase its hammers sure.

2) perhaps using a nuke forever depletes your Uranium by 1 (2 for nuclear missile) unless you delete the nuke in which case you get it back. You are blowing up the uranium after all...

3) This was only because nukes weren't ready to be used until the end of the war. If one side had them before the war began, I don't know if there would have been a war to start with. If there was I can assure you it would have been used far sooner.

 

[JanghanHong]

I think it would make more sense for them to come after nukes. First nukes get created, then people realize how much of a threat they are, than they build a deterrent/protection.

The following situation seems silly to me:

Scientist: “Guess what? I just developed a new weapon called a nuke!”
Engineer: “What a coincidence! I just designed a shelter to protect against the nukes you just created”

No, you've just recreated every single piece of interaction between a scientist and an engineer to a tee.

 

[Peacemongerer]

The tech order nukes -> bomb shelters immediately afterward sounds about right. But it can't just be the tech right afterward... people will need time to build the Manhattan Project... if bomb shelters are just the next tech, then you can just spam bomb shelters immediately. Maybe make it so bomb shelters can only be built after researching a tech beyond fission and at least one civ has completed the Manhatan Project.

 

[Darac]

I'm still pretty sure they had bombs and bunkers well before nukes.

 

[smallfish]

I'm also pretty sure splitting the atom was just theory too


Anyways, bomb shelters are not meant for players to use. Its really simple. They are meant for runaway AIs to defend against you the player.

To wit:

Spoiler :

 

[Polisurgist]

I'm also pretty sure splitting the atom was just theory too


Anyways, bomb shelters are not meant for players to use. Its really simple. They are meant for runaway AIs to defend against you the player.

To wit:

Spoiler :

So, what you're saying is, "This game CHEATS," right?

I mean, I had that same problem with Contra.

 

[Kabloosh]

I've never had any of my cities nuked before. :/

The game im playing at the moment Japan has decleared attacked bullied and generally pissed off every CS they found if i was to nuke tokyo at the moment you wouldnt be able to hear the explosion for the sound of cheering from the CS

Why should i get a penalty?

There should be diplomatic consequences with more neutral and not so friendly nations. Plus, they need to bring back the climate change it may cause.

 

[smallfish]

I've never had any of my cities nuked before. :/

Move up a difficulty level.

There should be diplomatic consequences with more neutral and not so friendly nations. Plus, they need to bring back the climate change it may cause.

Using nukes cause climate change?

Horribly unfun, and glad they got rid of that. They are not even overwhelmingly powerful, there being only so many uraniums in the world, and now they are less so.


Also, notice that in that screenshot the aircrafts based in the Mayan city of Quebec were entirely unharmed.

Why is this the case?

Bomb Shelters

EDIT: DO NOT TRY THIS OUT WITHOUT SAVING FIRST

 

[Thry]

Nukes in their current state are fine.

Building a nuclear weapon as well as the manhattan project as well as having enough uranium is a significant investment.

By the time Nuclear MISSILES arrive and are around to cause a nuclear holocaust in your game, your bomb shelters should be fully operational.

Bomb shelters save 75% of your population. This is an exponential factor, which many people have missed.}


Nuclear weapons ARE meant to be a serious threat. That's why there's a diplo hit.

Depending on your tech path, a pacifist or warmonger will arrive at Nuclear Missiles or Bomb shelters at nearly the exact same time, assuming equal scientific research. Bomb shelters aren't meant to protect against nuclear bombs. They're meant to protect against nuclear missiles.

If you play on a huge map and you think they're too powerful, well, too bad. Just because you can't handle something doesn't make it overpowered. It is DEMONSTRABLY balanced.

) Dramatically increase the hammers cost of building a nuke, so that its far more like a massive project to do so. I'm thinking ~2000 hammers so even you best production city would take 20 turns to build one.

No. That's absurd. There are barely 8-12 uranium on a small pangea map. Warmongers are not capable of fielding huge cities able to produce massive amount of hammers. Nuke missiles are 670 Hammers, Bunkers are 201 hammers. Both techs are in the same horizontal row in the tech tree.

3) Nukes can only be used at the end of a long war. You shouldn't be able to simply declare war and nuke an opponent straight away. As in WWII, they're to end a long fought struggle... implemented this might be that nukes can only be fired if a war has lasted more than 30 turns.

No. That's absurd. I don't need to explain why.

With these rules I'd even consider making the nuke a bit more powerful to be worth the effort, as the damage they cause never seems too much. One city weakened... still not gonna hurt my science victory too much really!

............

Just because you have to put some more effort into defending against a nuclear maniac doesn't make it OP. If you're going for a science victory, you should at least be somewhat ahead in tech or at least get your shelters first. If you don't, it means you're playing badly and need to improve. It's because of this attitude that I'm a master league Starcraft 2 player. I'm still not grandmaster, but I'm in the top 3% of the horrible, horrible NA ladder. Which is kind of like being the thinnest kid at fat camp, to paraphrase Jon Stewart.

Other:

Nukes were OP in the vanilla version, but the exponential building is a great balance fix.
GIVE US SOME DAMN RALLY POINTS. OR AT LEAST ALLOW ME TO MOVE MULTIPLE UNITS AT THE SAME TIME. GAHHH

 

[Winston]

I think it's good that there are no bomb shelters for a long time - the cold war and the nuclear stockpiles were scary as hell and there was no real defence apart from MAD - this stage in the game should be scary too

If you think about it, we don't have the tech or infrastructure to defend modern cities from a nuclear strike even now - the bomb shelters that were made during the cold war were intended to protect key individuals such as politicians and military personnel - they weren't there to protect the hoi poloi, nor would they be able to even if the intention was there. If they wanted to make this game more accurate they would remove the bomb shelter entirely but for gameplay reasons they made it available far down the tech tree.

There are no counters to nuclear bombs, they are terrifying weapons of mass destruction and they should be scary in this game too

 

[Darac]

I think part of the problem as well is the first strike issue. If you get hit by nukes first. You lose all your nukes and can't hit back. Nukes should take a turn or 2 to arrive at their target. That could also introduce opportunities for gameplay, like early warning systems and nuke/cruise missile interceptions.

 

[Winston]

OK this thread got me thinking about an awesome old game called Megolomania - I loved that game and it had nukes too - the contemporary defence was MAD - i.e. if you nuke someone, their nukes would automatically nuke the source of those nukes

I would like to see something like this implemented for Civ5, it would be friggin awesome in fact. You could even have another tab where you tag your strike targets for destruction in the event of nuclear attack from that player - you could have different armageddon plans depending on who attacked you - Firaxis, if you read these threads this is definitely one for the 2nd xpac

With regard to defences for A bombs, I feel that fighters should be able to intercept and shoot down the bombers (I don't know if this is in the game already)

If they wanted to expand on nuclear warfare then nuclear missiles could be split into 3 types; a cheaper short range lower payload tactical missile, bigger scarier ICBMs, and the scariest MIRV ICBMs

 

[smallfish]

Confirmed test - Bomb Shelters protect your nuclear missile/stealth bomber/aircraft stacks, in addition to preventing pop loss.

Counterforce is now a viable strategy.

 

[Darac]

Confirmed test - Bomb Shelters protect your nuclear missile/stealth bomber/aircraft stacks, in addition to preventing pop loss.

Ah good, totally building these!

 

[thadian]

Didn't civ 3 have MAD? I was always afraid of the chaos that would follow a launch.

 

[Winston]

@thadian

Civ has never had MAD in the sense that a nuke would automatically strike the source that nuked it, I tried finding a megalomania video to illustrate my point. The best I could find is the one below - right at the end of the video a town is nuked and it automatically launches a nuke at it's attacker before it's destroyed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8a7NdgG54B0

BTW nuke wars were properly tense in this game because the missiles would wipe your town off the map (forget 25% pop loss) - they had futuristic defences (lasers) but the contemporary defence was MAD

I've never got to see nukes in civ5 so it's hard to judge them but it sounds like the bunkers are too effective IMO - they protect 75% of the population and all your units too? How much damage do they do to a cities health bar? I think this thread should be retitled 'bomb shelters are too effective'

edit: ok I've checked the civ5 nuclear units and rules and A bombs can be intercepted however they also have some evasion so they could still slip past fighters - I feel like testing these units out in my next game; I'll do a modern/industrial start to make sure I get them

 

[smallfish]

I've never got to see nukes in civ5 so it's hard to judge them but it sounds like the bunkers are too effective IMO - they protect 75% of the population and all your units too? How much damage do they do to a cities health bar? I think this thread should be retitled 'bomb shelters are too effective'

They still do quite a lot of damage to city health bar, just not the pop. Any ground units in the vicinity will still get heavily damaged (atomic bombs) or wiped out (nuclear missiles).

Short of spamming 20 nuclear missiles at the same city (if its 40-pop), you have to TAKE the city with ground or naval (if its coastal) forces to truly wipe out the stacks.

It makes nuclear wars with runaways a lot more hairy, because now you just can't simply wipe out their stacks in one swift blow if they get shelters up.

 

[Khadroth]

Confirmed test - Bomb Shelters protect your nuclear missile/stealth bomber/aircraft stacks, in addition to preventing pop loss.

Counterforce is now a viable strategy.

Actually wouldn't Bomb Shelters make Counterforce strategies unviable?

 

[Winston]

@smallfish

you're probably right, from a gameplay perspective the shelters probably need to be in there, Civ2 had SDI defence systems for a similar reason (I forget what 3 and 4 did) - but in many ways I feel it would spice up this stage of the game if there was no defence until a futuristic era