Conquest by Nuclear War: an Example

[cyberdebris]

Hi,

This is my first post, so bear with me. I recently won a Conquest victory and would like to share the synopsis.

Map: small continents
Opponents: Isabella, Peter, Frederick, Mansa Musa, Huayana Capac
Me: Cyrus
Difficulty: Noble

I was on a continent with Peter and Isabella, the rest on another continent quite far away.

The early stages of the game was played with me researching towards writing and iron working. I didn't attack but was more than ready when Isabella attacked me and I took two of her cities (~500BC). Then later on I wiped her out(early AD). Between Peter and I there was a jungle, which when cleared away triggered another war(middle ages). This time I fought defensively, simply holding him back until he wanted peace. By this time the Incas had claimed their entire continent though several wars.

After that I researched the military techs for WW1 and wiped him out quickly, razing all his cities. The Incas sent two settlers to the north of my continents where Russia was. At this point I realized there was only one option other than a spacerace victory - conquest. Huayna Capac has a larger military and a lead in military techs, but he didn't go for fission. He had mechanized infantry and I didn't. I had marines, tanks, bombers, subs, etc. I had made sure to build up a big fleet during my earlier Russian war and also had a lot of infantry. Here's where it gets interesting....

I started building Manhattan Project as soon as I could and in the meantime build up a big marine force (4 transports) and another invasion force (about 16 units too). By the time I had finished it, he was earing completion on the spaceship. As soon as I finished Manhattan I started building two ICBMs and turned my research to 0%, rushed them both. I had sent the marines to one side of his continent and the invasion force to the other. So I declared war, made a landing with the invasion force, nuked his capital, which was conveniently on the shore. I then razed his capital with my marine force in one fell blow. Man that would suck in multiplayer. The invasion force captured a city and held it. In the succeeding turns I simply waited with the invasion force and kept flying more troops into it. The marines kept going around the coast, razing 4 cities with the help of nuclear attacks. This worked so well that within a few turns he was completely crippled. I nuked every city, had a revolution to facism and nationhood and then finished him off.

It wasn't a record or anything, just a cool game and really fun. I think that's a great tactic for fighting a nuclear war - the marines razing city after city. On Pangeae one would have to change tactics a bit.

What do you guys think?

 

[moggydave]

I've never used nukes. Two q's:

Does virtually everyone declare war on you if you use them?

Do you have to beeline to Fission to get enough before Non proliferation if their are several people with you.

 

[phobos_mk1]

I find that I rarely get a chance to build nukes unless I build the UN. The AI seems to automatically vote "yes" to ban them. It's a pity there's not an option to disable the UN... or is there?

 

[tucnymaster]

I had a pangea map on noble. I made a nuclear war. I had tons of cavalry (that i upgraded for gunships) and one commando tank. I launched my nukes on all cities. My gunships all had 100% chance to win battle so I destroyed all armies and i used railroad with my commando tank to take like 3 cities/turn. It was pretty good.

 

[LordRahl]

I find that I rarely get a chance to build nukes unless I build the UN. The AI seems to automatically vote "yes" to ban them. It's a pity there's not an option to disable the UN... or is there?

From what I've read, if you disable diplomatic victory, the AI doesn't bother with building the UN...

 

[pi-r8]

You could also just nuke any city you see trying to build the Un.

 

[Tommy1234567890]

lol ya but then ud need like a billion spys to check out every city in the world!

 

[Wallisdj]

From my experience, no nation at peace with you automatically declares war on you should you use nuclear weapons. With each nuclear detonation, however, your opponent's anger increases almost exponentially.

I have seen in the diplomatic box that should a nation have friendly relations with your opponent, they will lodge a "protest" with a negative number: something like -4 You nuked our friend.

 

[Vonjan]

Well one nuking the city sounds great but you'll do more damage by #1 send spy's to locate ore,oil and all the main goody's he needs to fight.
#2 dont strike the city's but all of wich was mention,oil,food,luxury,mines,you name it.
#3 bomb,Bomb,BomB send wave after waves of bombers. at the targeted citys. keep your fighters flying for defense of your ground troops.
Now once you Starved him,stop research and keep all that cash to bribe the other civ to stop trading with them 2000 gold useally gets the job done.
send in the gunships to kill anything that tries to rebuil oil or anything that could help him.
now start hammering his city.Starved low on population it will not be producing anymore units.
now make sure your troops are diversified to ensure good Defence.
Nuking a city sounds practical but has useally little effect,take out his income,food,and supply lines. and watch his pop crash and burn and by god dont start a second front with another civ finish the job first cripple his war machine ) then let the pain begin.

 

[Wallisdj]

Good points!

Also, I found that it took four nukes to completely decimate the troops in one city (if I remember correctly, there were four to six units at the time). Also, the AI will not allow detonation of a nuke if friendly troops are too close to the objective.

And then, there is all that clean-up necessary afterwards! Secondly, the clock starts ticking on turning the planet into a wasteland (what? takes 50,000 turns or so, I think I read on another thread?) and usually it is my tiles that wither away!

 

[jimbob27]

And then, there is all that clean-up necessary afterwards!

Not nessesary! He was going for a conquest victory! Once his units have left the land, the barbarians can worry about the cleanup!

It only takes 2 nukes to kill all the units in a city, however you need 7 if they've built a bombshelter there. If they have SDI and a bombshelter, then you need 28!!!!

The main trick to nuclear war, is declaring war as soon as humanly possible. The AI seems to prioritise bomb-shelters during peacetime, but rarely builds them if they're at war and loosing units. To use them to their fullest, you need to do exactly what cyberdebris did. Build 2, and rush them, and then drop them on the biggest enemy stack you can see. The sudden loss of units will cause the AI to start replacing them with other units, and will rarely build bombshelters, to protect himself against the dozens on nukes that you're building.

 

[Wallisdj]

Good point, JimBob.

Had to laugh when you wrote that the cleanup will have to be done by the barbarians. Never thought about that. Thanks!

 

[civictor]

lol ya but then ud need like a billion spys to check out every city in the world!

Or spread a religion to every city that would allow you to see the production.

 

[Vonjan]

Here something to try Stockpile All the nukes you need then,while getting the U.N built once that done call an election on total Nuke Ban. see you got all the marbles you need,The idiots will automaticaly want the bill passed.
They can have the cake suuuure you just got firecrackers for candles for them.

 

[Sphinx]

Or spread a religion to every city that would allow you to see the production.

You will see the LOS of the city but not the production. Easyest way to get rid of UN is to disable diplomatic victory, then you cant build it.

 

[cyberdebris]

In my game Diplomatic was enabled, but the AI was going for spacerace victory. I didn't stockpile any nukes either. It was by far the funnest game so far!

Here's the saved game, right when I launched the first nuke if you want to try it out:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/97263/1156544152.civ4savedgame

 

[rustydusty10]

Here something to try Stockpile All the nukes you need then,while getting the U.N built once that done call an election on total Nuke Ban. see you got all the marbles you need,The idiots will automaticaly want the bill passed.
They can have the cake suuuure you just got firecrackers for candles for them.

So the bill prevents u from building Nukes but not from using Nukes that were previously built? Hmmm...smart tactic!

 

[Endovior]

Heh. I just got Civ4 recently... does the UN really have the power to force you to do something... IE, if you're at war with everyone, including the UN's founder, do it's edicts still affect you? Even if you aren't in a state of total war, can you choose to defy the UN?

 

[Raanraals]

Heh. I just got Civ4 recently... does the UN really have the power to force you to do something... IE, if you're at war with everyone, including the UN's founder, do it's edicts still affect you? Even if you aren't in a state of total war, can you choose to defy the UN?

I've always thought how unrealistic it is. The UN can't even force North Korea and Iran to stop building nukes let alone the whole world.

Sadly in Civ IV there's no defying UN resolutions.

 

[thomnipotent]

I tried nuclear war in my first game on Prince difficulty.
Bismarck got mad and xwned my ass.
It was a very sad day.