ihatejanniiiiiies
Chieftain
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2020
- Messages
- 1
I am playing a multiplayer game with a “friend” and we are getting to the later stages of the game. We are neck and neck, with me leaning towards a culture victory and him a science victory. I was considering how a nuclear war might play out and if it is possible to “win” one.
Here is the save game I downloaded for these tests and the original post discussing it:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/how-to-intercept-nukes.651293/
Here is the reddit post:
https://reddit.com/r/civ/comments/dpmrd5/how_to_intercept_nukes_in_civ_vi/
However, since the original post some of the interception mechanics have changed. I am not the creator of the original post, and I am curious how he managed to set up the scenario so that I could do more tests. I am also interested on his thoughts regarding my research.
Here are some of my main findings regarding different interception methods:
Ground and ship aa can intercept as many times a turn as they want. I am assuming fighter interception can do the same.
There doesn’t seem to be a percent chance of intercept, and it being a normal atomic bomb or a thermonuclear bomb does not matter. A mobile sam at full health will always 100% intercept a submarine launched nuke targeted within a 1 tile radius of it, even multiple nukes for example.
Health of the defending unit seems to matter. A full health gun aa will stop a jet bomber, but a heavily injured one will fail.
When the full health gun aa intercepts, putting the jet bomber under 50% health, the jet bomber doesn’t drop the bomb and flies back to base. You lose that nuke from your inventory.
Now let me talk about some of the specific interception platforms:
Missile Cruiser: Notably, missile cruisers can no longer intercept a submarine launched missile even though the original document said they could. However they can intercept everything else, including bomber, silo, and jet bomber within a 1 tile radius.
Battleships: Will intercept a silo nuke in a 1 tile radius. Will injure bombers, but not enough to stop full health bombers from dropping their nuke.
Gun aa: Will intercept silo nukes and successfully stop even a jet bomber. Can’t stop submarine nuke.
Mobile SAM: The only aa that can stop a submarine nuke. Will successfully stop all nukes launched. Perhaps if the mobile sam is at really low health it might fail.
Destroyer: I don’t know if it can intercept because there isn’t one on the map for the enemy. I don’t know if it has a 1 tile intercept radius like the battleship and missile cruiser, or if it only has anti-air for aircraft directly targeting it.
Fighter and Jet Fighter: There are no enemy fighters patrolling on the save file, so I don’t know for sure. However, based off the other tests, and how when intercepted the bomber must use its much weaker melee stat instead of its bombard stat, I believe a basic propeller fighter will successfully do enough damage to stop a jet bomber from dropping its load. I don’t think fighters can stop silo or submarine nukes.
Conclusions:
Submarine nuke is clearly the best, only stoppable with a mobile sam. However, each submarine can only launch 1 nuke per turn. A single missile silo can launch every nuke in your arsenal in a single turn, and a military engineer can build 2 extremely quick compared to the production and research cost to build nuclear submarines. There is a fear that after launch your submarine is discovered by an enemy ship like a destroyer and sunk with airstrikes before it can launch your entire arsenal.
Once you unlock gun aa, you should start producing it and placing one in each of your core cities while you research nukes. It will stop all silo and bomber/jet bomber nukes. Maybe upgrade the one in your capitol and a few of your largest surrounding cities to mobile sam when you get a chance just in case of submarine nuke. You want to conserve gold though for buying bombers, missile silos, and nuclear subs.
I wonder if a spy placed in an opposing city gains visual on the surrounding area to see if air defense is present. Might be useful for deciding how to target your nukes. Thermonuke can get through AA by aiming 2 tiles away from a city with a mobile sam in it, but that requires you knowing that the sam is exactly in the city center, when it might not be and could be off a tile to the side guarding the space connecting two large cities. You also may not get a chance to research and produce thermo nuke if your cities are getting bombed with normal nukes.
The other player is on another continent. I plan to build a secret city in the artic that I don’t think he will discover right away, with two missile silos spaced in such a way that the other player has to spend two nukes to destroy both silos. This will help ensure second strike capability, as theoretically my opponent could easily sink a carrier with jet bombers in their initial strike and find and destroy a nuclear sub when it has only fired off one or two nukes. Land based jet bombers on my home continent can only reach his outermost cities. Using the carrier based nukes will be difficult because the carriers are very visible and likely being shadowed by my opponent. I am hoping carrier based fighter patrols will prevent the carrier from getting airstriked, and the destroyer escort will discovering a lurking sub.
My plan is that when my opponent strikes first, he will only knock out like 3 outer perimeter cities while he is surprised that nukes launched at my inner cities get intercepted. I am hoping my opponent has less ground based AA built up and positioned in his cities and that my silo nukes in the south pole will prevail. If I only lose a few cities and he loses the majority of his main cities I will come out on top and his ability to build a new military or more nukes will be crippled.
If anyone has additional questions, input, or experience in multiplayer games I’d like to hear it in the comments.
I am new to this forum, so if anyone has advice about where to post this that would be appreciated.
Moderator Action: This is an appropriate forum for this. Browd
Also, if anyone has some links to interesting threads on this topic and late game war in general I would greatly appreciate it.
Here is the save game I downloaded for these tests and the original post discussing it:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/how-to-intercept-nukes.651293/
Here is the reddit post:
https://reddit.com/r/civ/comments/dpmrd5/how_to_intercept_nukes_in_civ_vi/
However, since the original post some of the interception mechanics have changed. I am not the creator of the original post, and I am curious how he managed to set up the scenario so that I could do more tests. I am also interested on his thoughts regarding my research.
Here are some of my main findings regarding different interception methods:
Ground and ship aa can intercept as many times a turn as they want. I am assuming fighter interception can do the same.
There doesn’t seem to be a percent chance of intercept, and it being a normal atomic bomb or a thermonuclear bomb does not matter. A mobile sam at full health will always 100% intercept a submarine launched nuke targeted within a 1 tile radius of it, even multiple nukes for example.
Health of the defending unit seems to matter. A full health gun aa will stop a jet bomber, but a heavily injured one will fail.
When the full health gun aa intercepts, putting the jet bomber under 50% health, the jet bomber doesn’t drop the bomb and flies back to base. You lose that nuke from your inventory.
Now let me talk about some of the specific interception platforms:
Missile Cruiser: Notably, missile cruisers can no longer intercept a submarine launched missile even though the original document said they could. However they can intercept everything else, including bomber, silo, and jet bomber within a 1 tile radius.
Battleships: Will intercept a silo nuke in a 1 tile radius. Will injure bombers, but not enough to stop full health bombers from dropping their nuke.
Gun aa: Will intercept silo nukes and successfully stop even a jet bomber. Can’t stop submarine nuke.
Mobile SAM: The only aa that can stop a submarine nuke. Will successfully stop all nukes launched. Perhaps if the mobile sam is at really low health it might fail.
Destroyer: I don’t know if it can intercept because there isn’t one on the map for the enemy. I don’t know if it has a 1 tile intercept radius like the battleship and missile cruiser, or if it only has anti-air for aircraft directly targeting it.
Fighter and Jet Fighter: There are no enemy fighters patrolling on the save file, so I don’t know for sure. However, based off the other tests, and how when intercepted the bomber must use its much weaker melee stat instead of its bombard stat, I believe a basic propeller fighter will successfully do enough damage to stop a jet bomber from dropping its load. I don’t think fighters can stop silo or submarine nukes.
Conclusions:
Submarine nuke is clearly the best, only stoppable with a mobile sam. However, each submarine can only launch 1 nuke per turn. A single missile silo can launch every nuke in your arsenal in a single turn, and a military engineer can build 2 extremely quick compared to the production and research cost to build nuclear submarines. There is a fear that after launch your submarine is discovered by an enemy ship like a destroyer and sunk with airstrikes before it can launch your entire arsenal.
Once you unlock gun aa, you should start producing it and placing one in each of your core cities while you research nukes. It will stop all silo and bomber/jet bomber nukes. Maybe upgrade the one in your capitol and a few of your largest surrounding cities to mobile sam when you get a chance just in case of submarine nuke. You want to conserve gold though for buying bombers, missile silos, and nuclear subs.
I wonder if a spy placed in an opposing city gains visual on the surrounding area to see if air defense is present. Might be useful for deciding how to target your nukes. Thermonuke can get through AA by aiming 2 tiles away from a city with a mobile sam in it, but that requires you knowing that the sam is exactly in the city center, when it might not be and could be off a tile to the side guarding the space connecting two large cities. You also may not get a chance to research and produce thermo nuke if your cities are getting bombed with normal nukes.
The other player is on another continent. I plan to build a secret city in the artic that I don’t think he will discover right away, with two missile silos spaced in such a way that the other player has to spend two nukes to destroy both silos. This will help ensure second strike capability, as theoretically my opponent could easily sink a carrier with jet bombers in their initial strike and find and destroy a nuclear sub when it has only fired off one or two nukes. Land based jet bombers on my home continent can only reach his outermost cities. Using the carrier based nukes will be difficult because the carriers are very visible and likely being shadowed by my opponent. I am hoping carrier based fighter patrols will prevent the carrier from getting airstriked, and the destroyer escort will discovering a lurking sub.
My plan is that when my opponent strikes first, he will only knock out like 3 outer perimeter cities while he is surprised that nukes launched at my inner cities get intercepted. I am hoping my opponent has less ground based AA built up and positioned in his cities and that my silo nukes in the south pole will prevail. If I only lose a few cities and he loses the majority of his main cities I will come out on top and his ability to build a new military or more nukes will be crippled.
If anyone has additional questions, input, or experience in multiplayer games I’d like to hear it in the comments.
I am new to this forum, so if anyone has advice about where to post this that would be appreciated.
Moderator Action: This is an appropriate forum for this. Browd
Also, if anyone has some links to interesting threads on this topic and late game war in general I would greatly appreciate it.
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