Do the AI players ever use nukes?

[Ashcristokos]

Seriously, do they ever? For that matter, do the players?

I got really bored in my last game of Rome and bought 6 nukes and subsequently obliterated Sparta, Argos, Athens, some Greek-occupied Persian city, and Corinth, utterly decimating Greece in one blow. Still, I am not sure it was a sound strategy, since each nuke cost an exorbitant sum and the time I spent afterwards cleaning the fallout and rebuilding the devastated countryside seriously slowed my further conquests...

Honestly, I suck at Civ and generally play on Warlord, so maybe higher level AI use nukes, but I have never seen it.

 

[beestbijnacht]

Yes. On king difficulty I've been nuked by China, and in my game yesterday Rome and I exchanged a few nukes.

The thing is maybe, don't go quite so crazy with them because as you can see it left you with a ridiculous mess that became your problem.

I like saving them for cities surrounded by units and/or stockpiled with aircraft, also cities that are cranking out the majority of new military units, and the capital. A pretty cool thing I found out yesterday is if 2 cities are minimum distance from each other (4 tiles) you can aim for the middle and do full nuke damage to both!

Really, rocket artilleries are absolutely brutal. I often DOW someone as soon as I have a few. Nukes are great for thinning out the well fortified or very tall cities.

 

[Cedbird]

Seriously, do they ever? For that matter, do the players?

I got really bored in my last game of Rome and bought 6 nukes and subsequently obliterated Sparta, Argos, Athens, some Greek-occupied Persian city, and Corinth, utterly decimating Greece in one blow. Still, I am not sure it was a sound strategy, since each nuke cost an exorbitant sum and the time I spent afterwards cleaning the fallout and rebuilding the devastated countryside seriously slowed my further conquests...

Honestly, I suck at Civ and generally play on Warlord, so maybe higher level AI use nukes, but I have never seen it.

To answer your question YESSSS the Ai uses Nukes . I remember on game in particular Ghandi of all people lost a few cities to me and then I see a bomber overhead going slower than the regular sorties BOOOMMM Mushroom cloud . He just kept nuking me . Wasted most of my army . I laugh now it was many games ago on Emperor level but I lost any hope of beating Arabia with most of my army burnt to crisp .
My present game on Emperor with Egypt Catherine just A bombed a city that I took from her . I think there should be a penalty for nuking your own city when someone invades it . Your really killing your own people .

 

[Colmar]

I have never been nuked, but I've had AI build nukes before. I've noticed Catherine always seems to be the first to Manhattan Project. I play on King with quick speed usually, so that might change it.

 

[Princeofnigeria]

Well, I wasn't nuked, but there was once a... Minor Nuclear Skirmish. To put it lightly. Way back in pre dlc vanilla, Elizabeth used a nuclear missle on the city of warsaw so she could take it. I didn't actually care about the city, (it was Siam's after all) but by that point I hated elizabeth and just wanted to screw her over, and seeing as how warsaw sat in the dead center of the continent, with 3 luxuries and 12 oil, it seemed like a good idea to take it from her. So I packed up, puppetted one of her coastal cities to use as a base of operations, brought in an atomic bomber, marched my army inland, and nuked warsaw so my men could take it without a fight. I liberated it, and defended the city until elizabeth signed a peace agreement. 22 turns later, elizabeth invades it again... And bombs it again... The city went from 22, to 1 population after all the wars, and by the end of the game they were up to... 3.

 

[Irkalla]

My Sumerians and I exchange nukes like it's nothing. He usually has missiles when I have bombs, though

 

[Unresolved]

I've never used a nuke or ever been nuked by the AI, but I have seen the aftermath of a nuclear war between two computer players. A good portion of the map was covered in fallout tiles.

 

[Lorf Yimzo]

Monty nuked me on Prince, and also nuked Theodora so they can on that difficulty.

 

[Catan_Settler]

Yes, that AI does use nukes once in a while. I've noticed it's very rare for them to be the first start tossing nukes around though, so if you avoid using nukes yourself there's a pretty low chance you're gonna get nuked. I did get pounded once by Ramses out of the blue because I was building my last spaceship part. That hurt. I think I've seen Ghandi and Korea go a little nuke happy before too. Usually though, if you don't nuke anyone you won't get nuked.

 

[kkapalk]

Unresolved, how do you manage this? I usually end up getting nuked by a number of AI civs whatever I do. If I initiate a war without using nuclear bombs I get nuked, if I try and keep out of trouble and build quietly an AI player dow's me and sends nuclear warheads my way. I see a couple more players haven't experienced nuclear war either. I thought it was a natural progression for the AI to research the tech, get uranium and then use atomic and nuclear bombs. Maybe I just rub them up the wrong way. I do find them handy, though, for when an enemy city has a massive defence number or a stack of aircraft based in a certain city.

 

[BrokTheFanatic]

I never see the AI using nukes, though I only play 1/3rd of my games all the way to the end (I rarely finish a match that is going great or doing poorly, prefer to have a 'challenging race' rather than racing away or eeking by as I battle 3 mediocre civs while some across the map AI civ has happily planted 15-20 cities and consumed some weak enemy).

I guess it seems sometimes they do, maybe I cut-off their uranium before they could. I do go for that resource when battling an opponent, if possible at least.

 

[zyk0001]

I got into an all out nuclear war against the Iroquois on King. We both started at the top on points and both ended up losing. They wouldn't stop tossing them at my capital. I got so mad I responded in kind. It was kind of fun though.

 

[mintcandy]

I have been the target of an AI nuke.

The good thing about 1 upt is that the AI can't actually take out that many land or sea units with 1 nuke.

The bad thing about 1upt is that it doesn't apply to air units, which was an extremely nasty surprise.

 

[whyidie]

My present game on Emperor with Egypt Catherine just A bombed a city that I took from her . I think there should be a penalty for nuking your own city when someone invades it . Your really killing your own people .

Egypt did the same thing to me. Took their cap, and they nuked it the next turn. One of those "I can't believe that happened" moments that really drew me in.

I've been nuked on Emperor, King, and I think Prince. Overall its a fairly rare occurrence in my games. Nukers were Russia, Egypt and I think Byzantine.

 

[Unresolved]

Unresolved, how do you manage this? I usually end up getting nuked by a number of AI civs whatever I do. If I initiate a war without using nuclear bombs I get nuked, if I try and keep out of trouble and build quietly an AI player dow's me and sends nuclear warheads my way. I see a couple more players haven't experienced nuclear war either. I thought it was a natural progression for the AI to research the tech, get uranium and then use atomic and nuclear bombs. Maybe I just rub them up the wrong way. I do find them handy, though, for when an enemy city has a massive defence number or a stack of aircraft based in a certain city.

I always win before they get Atomic Theory. If they manage to finish the Manhattan Project, I bribe them to DoW everyone except me.

 

[McBean]

I have been the target of an AI nuke.

The good thing about 1 upt is that the AI can't actually take out that many land or sea units with 1 nuke.

The bad thing about 1upt is that it doesn't apply to air units, which was an extremely nasty surprise.

Planes aren't affected when doing a one city challenge. Found this out a few games back when I decided to continue playing after having already won. Got nuked repeatedly and my planes were never affected. Population and gold were hit way hard though. The city would have taken an eternity to recover from the repeated nuking.

 

[blackcatatonic]

Very rarely, but yes.

I had a really fun Domination game as Catherine once where my last opponent was a runaway Bismarck on the other continent. He did nuke my cities a few times, although this was only after I'd nuked about 10 of his

 

[IkM]

Never been nuked but I brought democracy to Washington.

Spoiler :

 

[BAshley]

I only remember being nuked once, when I was still playing on king. The AI I was invading could have had me, since 75% of my units were in a 2x2 radius of a single tile, but they chose to attack a small puppet city which I didn't care about and which had nothing nearby.

This was ages ago though, they may have improved AI usage of nukes since then.

 

[janboruta]

I have never been nuked by the AI, but I was always afraid of that and developed my own nuclear weapons to deter other civs from attacking me. However, I remember Hiawatha and Elizabeth bombing each other relentlessly for several turns so one of them could take control of their half of the continent - all cities were reduced to 5-10 pop from 15-30, and the landmass became a wasteland.

All the while I peacefully won a diplo victory before I even finished the spaceship.