Bomb shelters are useless.

[pensivepeppers]

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?

obviously the pissed-offness should be counteracted if the city state is less than neutral against the target Civ, and the sympathy bonus shouldn't be given to a Civ hostile with the nuked Civ.

 

[Aaron90495]

Idea: maybe nobody gets a notification when someone completes the Manhattan Project? Then, we implement the MAD idea that some others have had, where another nuclear-armed civ will automatically launch nukes back at you if you launch nukes at them.

By using this system, you never know if the civ you're attacking has nukes. There's a chance they can retaliate, but there's a chance they can't. All you know is you're taking a big risk, and obviously there would be a bigger diplomacy hit than there already is.

 

[Jatta Pake]

Instead of diplomatic penalties, which are fairly useless anyways in the late game, I think you could introduce some Alpha Centauri type UN rules that modify the game. For example:

A vote could be taken to hit a country that uses nukes with Sanctions that eliminate trade bonuses within a civ and heighten Global Unhappiness.

A vote could be taken on Non Proliferation that prevents anyone from building more nukes.

I think we are way off topic of useless Bomb Shelters, but I hope the next expansion includes some of these elements.

 

[AiTenshi1]

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.

This is a pretty good summary of the issues with nukes in real life, as well as other physically destructive weapons.

As has been said, we're kind of veering off topic about bomb shelters. However, I wanted to offer one more point. It's a very controversial topic, but it's also very true for real life considerations.

Notice that nuclear weapons were considered to be a major concern by the general public due to their obvious and physical nature. The governments have played up this factor. However, how would you go about weakening or eliminating an enemy without damaging the physical infrastructure so that you can move in afterwards and have minimal rebuilding and lack of resources issues?

Well, various governments answered this question in the latter half of the twentieth century by focusing research on biological weapons. The solution was to use some type of virus to weaken or wipe out enemies but immunize troops. It is based on actual history, of course. Examples include the devastation wrought by Europeans trading with Native Americans and transferring diseases such as small pox which the Native Americans had no immunity to. This happened unintentionally and probably caused far more deaths than any military confrontations. Places such as Fort Detrick in Maryland http://www.detrick.army.mil/ were an important center for such research during the late twentieth century (and in some ways still are, although the official stance today is that biological research is for health care and defense). This became an extremely divisive topic in the scientific community. It is portrayed very well in mass media such as Michael Chrighton's "The Andromeda Strain" and Robin Cook's "Outbreak."

I'm sure that Firaxis deliberately avoided including any such option in Civilization in order to avoid the enormous controversy that would result if it was there. Today, it is more likely that artificially engineered organisms would be considered, perhaps even nanotechnology products that are inorganic but function in a way that is dangerous or deadly to humans. Think about where bioengineering and nanotechnology can take us. It isn't all creative and positive because we can choose to use such tools in a destructive way.

Okay, enough of my off topic post.

 

[whyidie]

Just to be clear, I think bomb shelters are too effective The Manhattan project should be like the two minute warning, or the clock striking midnight. Games almost up, get ready for the end.

The reason MAD doesn't work with current nukes is because destruction is not assured. Make nukes stronger, implement a rule that any Civ that is attacked can auto launch their nukes and thats it.

 

[PibbZ]

The Manhattan Project should require Uranium in my opinion.

How can they research on building a uranium-dependant bomb when they got no uranium to research on?

 

[smallfish]

The Manhattan Project should require Uranium in my opinion.

How can they research on building a uranium-dependant bomb when they got no uranium to research on?

Civilization hax-magic

 

[AiTenshi1]

The Manhattan Project should require Uranium in my opinion.

How can they research on building a uranium-dependant bomb when they got no uranium to research on?

No, you don't need the physical material in order to do the research. This has been true for many types of studies. Hypotheses are the basis of research. You don't need the physical material or equipment until you are actually conducting a study that attempts to support or deny a hypothetical line of reasoning.

The Manhattan Project in CiV is simply the research/theory, not the actual application. It's the development of an explosive device based on hypotheses about how uncontrolled nuclear fission might work (and its results).

The A-Bomb is the application (well, one application, anyway).

 

[AiTenshi1]

Just to be clear, I think bomb shelters are too effective The Manhattan project should be like the two minute warning, or the clock striking midnight. Games almost up, get ready for the end.

The reason MAD doesn't work with current nukes is because destruction is not assured. Make nukes stronger, implement a rule that any Civ that is attacked can auto launch their nukes and thats it.

That would not make sense from a real life perspective. Nukes are not world-ending in real life, either, not unless you launch an awful lot of them. Think about how many nukes have been set off since the original invention of them.

 

[whyidie]

That would not make sense from a real life perspective. Nukes are not world-ending in real life, either, not unless you launch an awful lot of them. Think about how many nukes have been set off since the original invention of them.

I see where the confusion is. I mean the clock is ticking as in the end game is near, not that the world will be destroyed. Should a Civ build many of them and be inclined to use them on you, it may well be the end as far as you're concerned, but it doesn't mean the world will be destroyed.

 

[Der Golem]

This is a pretty good summary of the issues with nukes in real life, as well as other physically destructive weapons.

As has been said, we're kind of veering off topic about bomb shelters. However, I wanted to offer one more point. It's a very controversial topic, but it's also very true for real life considerations.

Notice that nuclear weapons were considered to be a major concern by the general public due to their obvious and physical nature. The governments have played up this factor. However, how would you go about weakening or eliminating an enemy without damaging the physical infrastructure so that you can move in afterwards and have minimal rebuilding and lack of resources issues?

Well, various governments answered this question in the latter half of the twentieth century by focusing research on biological weapons. The solution was to use some type of virus to weaken or wipe out enemies but immunize troops. It is based on actual history, of course. Examples include the devastation wrought by Europeans trading with Native Americans and transferring diseases such as small pox which the Native Americans had no immunity to. This happened unintentionally and probably caused far more deaths than any military confrontations. Places such as Fort Detrick in Maryland http://www.detrick.army.mil/ were an important center for such research during the late twentieth century (and in some ways still are, although the official stance today is that biological research is for health care and defense). This became an extremely divisive topic in the scientific community. It is portrayed very well in mass media such as Michael Chrighton's "The Andromeda Strain" and Robin Cook's "Outbreak."

I'm sure that Firaxis deliberately avoided including any such option in Civilization in order to avoid the enormous controversy that would result if it was there. Today, it is more likely that artificially engineered organisms would be considered, perhaps even nanotechnology products that are inorganic but function in a way that is dangerous or deadly to humans. Think about where bioengineering and nanotechnology can take us. It isn't all creative and positive because we can choose to use such tools in a destructive way.

Okay, enough of my off topic post.

I think it would be less controversial if those features are in a less realistic oriented game like the sci-fi classic Alpha Centuari.

 

[gaiko]

Well the post was a bit over the top, but could not agree more with the below.

Nukes in their current state are fine.

Other:

GIVE US SOME DAMN RALLY POINTS. OR AT LEAST ALLOW ME TO MOVE MULTIPLE UNITS AT THE SAME TIME. GAHHH

 

[PibbZ]

No, you don't need the physical material in order to do the research. This has been true for many types of studies. Hypotheses are the basis of research. You don't need the physical material or equipment until you are actually conducting a study that attempts to support or deny a hypothetical line of reasoning.

The Manhattan Project in CiV is simply the research/theory, not the actual application. It's the development of an explosive device based on hypotheses about how uncontrolled nuclear fission might work (and its results).

The A-Bomb is the application (well, one application, anyway).

I don't mean to start a war here, but remember that 90% of the cost associated with the real life Manhattan Project was related to the factories that produced the fissionable materials. Theories are proven in labs, not factories, right?

You're either stuck with going for the Uranium version, that obviously requires uranium, or you could go for the plutonium version, that also required uranium to produce.

My opinion for this particular project is that it should require uranium

 

[DemonMaster]

You don't need that much to develop a bomb. I guess a Resource Unit represent a large steady supply base of that resource, something you don't need to do research, even of that research uses small experimental bombs.

... or something like that.

 

[lollibast]

CIV showed the way, bomb shelters unlocked with Manhattan Project, what's so wrong or difficult to implement in CiV? I don't like to whole nuking thing in CiV:
so I have 1 uranium resource and can use it to build a nuke in say 10 turns. Or i can buy a nuke, set it off, buy another one the next turn and so on. One resource being used for each power plant makes sense, at it is used to power it. But once i built a nuke it doesnt need any more.

I think nukes are good for defense, keep on in a border city and wait for enemy go move his nukes to a city. You can destroy several enemy nukes and do lots of collateral damage with a single nuke of yours.
Same goes for destroying an enemy airforce. Boy did i ragequit when i got 11 planes instakilled by an enemy nuke once.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

You don't need that much to develop a bomb. I guess a Resource Unit represent a large steady supply base of that resource, something you don't need to do research, even of that research uses small experimental bombs.

... or something like that.

You actually do need quite a bit to get started. Uranium 235 is the isotope that is fissile (i.e. you can make bombs out of it). It makes up less than 1% of natural Uranium. So you have to take a whole lot of Uranium and enrich it (basically, find a way to siphon off the U 238, leaving behind the U 235) to get enough material to make a bomb. Advanced bomb designs can get away with as little as ~30kg of U 235, but crude, first-draft weapons require >50-60 kgs, plus what you need to run tests. But before you even get to that, you need to refine natural Uranium ore, which means you need to start with much more than the 6000kg that it would seem you need if you only look at the 1% of 6000kg to give you 60kg for one bomb. And that's for one bomb. That's not even enough for a Fat Man and a Little Boy combo, just one bomb.

I don't mean to start a war here, but remember that 90% of the cost associated with the real life Manhattan Project was related to the factories that produced the fissionable materials. Theories are proven in labs, not factories, right?

You're either stuck with going for the Uranium version, that obviously requires uranium, or you could go for the plutonium version, that also required uranium to produce.

My opinion for this particular project is that it should require uranium

Agreed.

No, you don't need the physical material in order to do the research. This has been true for many types of studies. Hypotheses are the basis of research. You don't need the physical material or equipment until you are actually conducting a study that attempts to support or deny a hypothetical line of reasoning.

The Manhattan Project in CiV is simply the research/theory, not the actual application. It's the development of an explosive device based on hypotheses about how uncontrolled nuclear fission might work (and its results).

The A-Bomb is the application (well, one application, anyway).

You do need the Uranium for the research. Let's also not forget that the Manhattan Project culminated in the Trinity test shot - they exploded a Plutonium device to test their theories. They would have tested the Uranium device as well, but they had so little of it and the design was inherently less risky than the Plutonium device, so they didn't. (And the Plutonium used came ulitimately from Uranium)

You need Uranium or you don't have a Manhattan Project.

That would not make sense from a real life perspective. Nukes are not world-ending in real life, either, not unless you launch an awful lot of them. Think about how many nukes have been set off since the original invention of them.

Agreed, you actually need a whole lot of them to wreck the world. And they would all have to go off in a relatively small timescale.

Countries detonated thousands of bombs throughout the world during the cold war - no nuclear winter followed.

 

[Agamemnon582bc]

Nukes are game-enders. If you reach a point in your game where Civs are nuking one another, then the game is telling you you're too damn slow at trying to achieve victory. Nukes are supposed to expedite the end to a game, they're supposed to bring the game to a close quickly. They're a wake-up call to all the Civs that sat idly by thinking turtling for 500 turns is the only way to play a Civ game.

 

[Snuffleupagus]

I'm surprised propsed solutions to a perceived 'nuke issue' don't utilize CSs.

Rather than having a diplo hit with other civs, it seems that relations with all CSs should decrease by a set number. This number increasing exponentionally with the number of uses of nuclear weapons. CSs declaring war at -60 relations for 15 turns, afterwhich they are set at -59.

 

[Socratatus]

Nukes are game-enders. If you reach a point in your game where Civs are nuking one another, then the game is telling you you're too damn slow at trying to achieve victory. Nukes are supposed to expedite the end to a game, they're supposed to bring the game to a close quickly. They're a wake-up call to all the Civs that sat idly by thinking turtling for 500 turns is the only way to play a Civ game.

I pretty much agree. Once nukes start flying about it`s pretty much over. However, I do believe that nukes still aren`t quite the game ender they should be. I liked how they used to cause gradual global warming depending on how many were used.

I also don`t like how Civs don`t suffer a massive dip negative modifier for using them or civilian one.

 

[Smokeybear]

This is a necro thread from back in August. In my experience, if you have a chance to build bomb shelters in your threatened city front before the attack, you can easily withstand enemy nuclear attacks and take them out with your payback strike. The AI isn't smart enough to launch them on military concentrations, only on cities. So if you keep your aircraft and nukes behind the frontal cities, and spread out your ground forces outside their 2-ring nuclear zones, most of your assets can survive and continue on. Bomb shelters mean a city that would have gone from 17 to 3 pop with a couple of A-bomb strikes, will still have 14 citizens afterwards. Seen it happen. Lot of cleanup for your workers later, but that's life in the hotzone...