Bomb shelters are useless.

[smallfish]

Actually wouldn't Bomb Shelters make Counterforce strategies unviable?

Both you and say... runaway America can still spam nuclear missiles at each other, from the same cities that got nuked repeatedly, if they are sheltered.

@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

Bomb Shelters come way late in the "Future" Era - now called Information.

 

[Winston]

@smallfish

I meant a proper future era, the information era is pretty much present day apart from a couple of things like fusion tech, mech robots and space programmes to distant planets

 

[Khadroth]

Both you and say... runaway America can still spam nuclear missiles at each other, from the same cities that got nuked repeatedly, if they are sheltered.

Well yea but what I gathered from the wiki was that the point of counterforce strats were to prevent retaliatory strikes. If the bomb shelter protects your nuke stacks then I don't the counterforce strike did it's job.

 

[cecilbturtle]

That's a really good idea, I hadn't thought of that. Maybe the closer you are to being able to build nukes the quicker you can build a bomb shelter? I.e. A civ that's 2 eras behind takes much longer to build a shelter, thus preventing nukes from being too nerfed?

+1 - makes perfect sense from gameplay and logic perspectives.

 

[smallfish]

@smallfish

I meant a proper future era, the information era is pretty much present day apart from a couple of things like fusion tech, mech robots and space programmes to distant planets

Yeah I would love that too - aside from the Call to Power games, Civ has never really dabbled with hypothetical future ages.

One thing I would like to see is exponential increases in your strategic arsenals and the defenses as you move further into Future - like having access to better nuclear missiles that'll cut through shelters like Swiss cheese, and force shields to slightly defend your units in adjacent tiles.

 

[Winston]

@smallfish
Civ 4's 2nd expansion did a nice job at future eras a with the 'next war' scenario, which could also be added to a basic game too - it would be nice if they did something like that again I think

I remember watching a documentary about US bomb shelters and it was very interesting but the documentary also stated that the Soviets had designed bombs that would basically obliterate anything they hit - even bunkers buried deep in mountains (with a direct hit I think) which is:
a) very frightening considering some of the idiot politicians that have been in control of these weapons
b) shows how inadequate bomb shelters were as a defence - the US government started looking at things like Airforce 1 instead, they figured in the event of nuclear attack it's better to be mobile than a static target

 

[Antalia]

Do nukes still destroy all the super-upgraded intercept aircraft in the target city? I haven't been nuked in G&K yet to find out, but I've seen the AI painting the continent orange. I didn't get the culprit to attack me in that game to find out :/

Edit: My eyes skipped right past the post that explained that the aircraft are saved by the bomb shelter!

 

[afedyuki]

The way the bomb shelters are implemented is just silly IMHO. In order to survive a 20 megaton blast it would have to be a mile underground. There is simply no way to build enough such shelters to house several million people. Besides, even if the people somehow survive the blast they will die from fallout and starvation. Overall it feels like a workaround instead of a fix.

They should simply make nuclear missiles mass producible and have infinite range (ICBMS). They should also launch automatically at the aggressor's cities if a nuclear strike is incoming (might add a special building for that). Oh yeah, they should obliterate all the buildings in the target city including wonders. This will make full scale wars between superpowers simply impossible. Oh yeah, if you don't have nuclear weapons, you better be friends with a superpower. Just like real life.

 

[DemonMaster]

The way the bomb shelters are implemented is just silly IMHO. In order to survive a 20 megaton blast it would have to be a mile underground. There is simply no way to build enough such shelters to house several million people. Besides, even if the people somehow survive the blast they will die from fallout and starvation. Overall it feels like a workaround instead of a fix.

They should simply make nuclear missiles mass producible and have infinite range (ICBMS). They should also launch automatically at the aggressor's cities if a nuclear strike is incoming (might add a special building for that). Oh yeah, they should obliterate all the buildings in the target city including wonders. This will make full scale wars between superpowers simply impossible. Oh yeah, if you don't have nuclear weapons, you better be friends with a superpower. Just like real life.

Sorry for the necro

Bomb Shelters in CiV doesn't protect the entire population but they can be large



I know that the text is in Swedish, but the pictures can perhaps say something. This was (is?) a civilian version, but other Bomb Shelters exist that could house more military equipment, like vehicles, ships, planes, god knows what.

 

[Der Golem]

In both G&K and vanilla, nukes are incredibly powerful. They probably SHOULD be incredibly powerful, as they are weapons of mass destruction.

The problem is, in real life, there are massive diplomatic consequences of using nukes, and morals come into play as well. Morals don't really come into play in Civ; if someone's closer to a victory condition than me, I simply nuke them into oblivion (that's how I win about half my games on King). Don't get me wrong, nukes need to be powerful, but there needs to be a bigger diplomatic backlash than a bullet point for foreign civs.

And then the biggest problem is the bomb shelters. I was hoping G&K would make it a viable option to defend against nukes, but the problem is the shelters come INCREDIBLY late in the tech tree, even later than nuclear missiles. First of all, as a game concept, that makes no sense - if you want to even the playing-field, why not make them available a little earlier? I figured nuke shelters would be a way for tall civs (likely going for a cultural victory) to defend themselves when they get a little behind in science. And in real life, the concept makes no life either. You're telling me I need to be able to build the UN before I'm able to build a measly bomb shelter?

It makes no sense.

Agree on all points.

From a gameplay perspective there is no counter balance

There shouldn't be any counter balance against nukes. They are Nukes for chrissake!

IRL, United States were the only nation to use two atomic bombs against another nation. For that, there really wasn't any real diplomatic backlash.

 

[fdelbene]

IRL, United States were the only nation to use two atomic bombs against another nation. For that, there really wasn't any real diplomatic backlash.

At that point of the war Japan didn't have many allies worldwide. And, anyway, it had diplomatic consequences.

As I think nuking an opponent should have a backlash, one possibility could be having all friendly/neutral civs of the nuked one declaring war (probability proportional to friendliness) without diplomatic negative modifiers.

 

[Der Golem]

As I think nuking an opponent should have a backlash, one possibility could be having all friendly/neutral civs of the nuked one declaring war (probability proportional to friendliness) without diplomatic negative modifiers.

You mean all of the non-nuclear friendly/neutral civs of the nuked one? That wouldn't be realistic because it would only result of them being also a target of an nuclear attack.

 

[fdelbene]

You mean all of the non-nuclear friendly/neutral civs of the nuked one? That wouldn't be realistic because it would only result of them being also a target of an nuclear attack.

Good point. I didn't differentiate between nuclear or non-nuclear civs.
I don't know... maybe nuclear ones can declare war and non-nuclear go to hostile.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

There shouldn't be any counter balance against nukes. They are Nukes for chrissake.

Call To Power II had a nice feature to create a balance with nuclear weapon:
Retaliation Strike.

You could place your ICBMs in "counter-nuke" mode and target a tile of your choise. Should the enemy launch a nuclear missile on your city where the ICBM is stationed, the nuke would launch for a retaliation strike before the enemy nuke attack was resolved. That was actually a great way to create cold-war like scenarios, where several CIVs owned nuclear weapon, but were afraid to use them, since first strike (unlike in CIV5) did not annihilate the enemy arsenal.

And yes, bomb shelters are useless. To little, too late.

 

[Glassmage]

imo the tech tree with nukes and shelter is fine as is.

 

[college_civ]

In RL a country that uses a nuke risks losing it's relations with other nations. In Civ this doesn't mean much because civs are pretty self sufficient. In RL being cut off from the rest of world trade pretty much means your economy is doomed. Perhaps Civ V needs a more inter civ connected economy in the end game, so war and nukes mean that your gold per turn pretty much goes to 0 if not negative if you use a nuke, at least in the short term unless everyone really hates who you're nuking ofc.

And if they do all hate who you're nuking, perhaps you need to ask other civs permission to use a nuke on an enemy before using it. If they agree then you don't get any diplomatic hit from that civ.

And while we're at it, let's tackle corruption, because it has a tremendous presence in RL. Or how about how different countries have different currency rates, so that should be in place for RL authenticity.

Honestly, I feel that CiV has brought us one of the most friendly, immersive strategy games that has been released thus far. For what they trade for realism, they gain in not requiring a 200 page mandatory manual ala Civ 3 and before. While not perfect, they've nevertheless created a great, enjoyable experience. Isn't that what it's about, in the end?

 

[whyidie]

I like nukes to be threatening end game weapons of mass destruction. I like the sense of doom that seeing someone complete the Manhattan Project gives me.

I wouldn't be against diplomacy modifiers against the Civ that used them first. Only problem is the degree. If its just a normal denouncement that may not mean a lot considering how late in the game it is.

 

[s0nny80y]

Near obsolete appearance of bomb shelters forces an arms race realized since ancient times.

 

[AiTenshi1]

I've said this elsewhere, but nukes are not OP in Civilization and are automatically limited due to the very extreme lack of uranium (standard settings). I state this and I play Russia always (getting double uranium) so it certainly applies to any other civ. This is even more apparent when we consider that uranium is also required for both nuke power plants and GDRs.

Spam nukes? Yeah... with what? It's unlike that you'll have more than a half a dozen or so uranium (more if Russia, if you're lucky). Even if you do, you have to build Manhattan, then build the A-bombs and/or Nuclear Missiles. Assuming you are roughly on par with the AI in tech, it's not going to be much as far as war is concerned.

Example: in one Emperor game on Immortal, I took Wu out and only had Ghengis left. He had been my best friend all game long, and I had protected him extensively against the Polynesian invaders, literally fighting his war to keep him alive as well as trading him horses to help him a little bit against city states on his small continent (who were allied with Polynesia at the time). Once China was out, I had to decide if I wanted to take out Ghengis with my brand new nukes (they had just completed and were originally meant for Wu) or do a longer, more tedious VC. I chose the former. His capital had about 100 defense/health. Dropping a Nuclear Missile and TWO A-bombs didn't reduce it to zero. It hurt it, but he still had units in the area and it still had health. I had to use a sub, a battleship, and ironclads to actually finish the victory in the turn I attacked him.

That's quite typical. 4 Uranium used up and the attacks still didn't take out an end game capital, let alone any other cities. That's hardly overpowered at all.

 

[Jatta Pake]

I think Civ could model nukes better but it requires enhanced diplomatic mechanics. Although the stereotype image is the shaky hand hovering over a red LAUNCH button, the reality is quite different. Building and maintaining a nuclear weapons program is immense and requires a very robust infrastructure. Due to these vast size required, it is comparatively easy for intelligence systems to penetrate.

MAD works because of second strike capability. Neither the Soviets nor the US could guarantee that the first strike would eliminate the enemies ability to strike back. From a strategic perspective you face diminishing returns from an arms race. The more nukes you must use in your first strike reduces the habitability of the planet for yourself after your victory.

The problem with tactical nuclear weapons falls within the constraints of military feasibility. The US decided not to use nuclear weapons against the Chinese in Korea because there was no way to prevent escalation into nuclear retaliation by the Soviets. Same with China and Vietnam. These constraints also bind Pakistan and India. It is more of a diplomatic consideration than a true tactical decision. If tactical nukes are justified it becomes impossible to stop escalation into total war. Diplomatic brakes are removed and the resultant conflict eliminates any chance of winning.