GDR? Just nuke the hell out of enemies!

[LKx]

After a friend nuked the hell out of me in a vanilla game, i'm just wondering if something like the gdr actually has a purpose.
I now don't think there's a better finisher than about 20 nuclear/thermonuclear bombs which didn't leave me much chances, despite various SAMs / missile launchers placed around

(Do the missile launcher ships actually intercept nukes? Didn't seem so)

 

[Dearmad]

well does the GDR leave radiated ruins?

 

[Cakeathon]

Missed a great opportunity to test how much damage nukes do to a GDR.

 

[LKx]

well does the GDR leave radiated ruins?

As a finisher i don't think that means much

 

[anandus]

I concur. My enemy had a GDR and nukes and the nukes were a *lot* more devastating to me than the GDR.

Not sure why you'd want to build the GDR. The only reason I can think of is that WC motion were you get all your nukes removed.

 

[Deggial]

If you play with the HoF in mind, the nukes will reduce city population and thus your final score notably.

Another reason to prefer GDR over nukes could be role-playing (or even actual personal aversions).

Lastly, radiated tiles harm your own units when ending the turn on them. This makes moving inconvenient at times.

 

[L4Psha]

Missed a great opportunity to test how much damage nukes do to a GDR.

50hp

 

[L4Psha]

I concur. My enemy had a GDR and nukes and the nukes were a *lot* more devastating to me than the GDR.

Not sure why you'd want to build the GDR. The only reason I can think of is that WC motion were you get all your nukes removed.

It's not a superweapon it's a superunit. You could say "why should i build units if i have nukes". You still need to take cities. You still need to take out enemy units, if they left. And moving through wasteland sometimes quite hard and slow, even with help of decontamination.

 

[Victoria]

Do the missile launcher ships actually intercept nukes? Didn't seem so)

Only things adjacent to the target city/tile help.
R&F testing showed stopping a silo launched ICBM was easy with AA, with bombers if AA does 50%+ damage to the bomber it turns back... but sub launched does not seem to be stoppable, I have seen anecdotal evidence but it is not recreatable for me.

You still need to take cities.

With a scout yes, paratroops? Tanks are pretty fast, nukes do not blister roads that much.

GDR’s are a bit of sci fi fun at the end some love and some hate. Their usefulness matches their validity. The duke still wins the day.

 

[L4Psha]

With a scout yes, paratroops? Tanks are pretty fast, nukes do not blister roads that much.

GDR’s are a bit of sci fi fun at the end some love and some hate. Their usefulness matches their validity. The duke still wins the day.

But spec ops are ranged units. They can melee a city? Also they will die on a wasteland. -50 when they drop, -50 after taking a city due to contamination. If they can take cities.
Tanks fast yes, but as i think you also lose a lot or all mp if you end on contaminated tile. So progression also can be really slow. Yes sometimes it's hard to take cities even with rocket artillery armies and all other late game stuff, so it's easily just to nuke and move in. But still you need to have a lot of nukes, dozens maybe, to use them everywhere and on every city.
Maybe i wrong somewhere.

 

[Victoria]

But spec ops are ranged units.

Yes my bad there, I rarely play violent that late and it is typically tanks.
You do not cover the entire ground, that are called tactical nukes for a reason.
MP is not slowed by radiation, you just take 50 HP if you end in a radio tile. It’s pretty simple. If the opposition can beat you after you have seriously nuked them then perhaps it should be deemed lost. Nukes wipe out units, pure and simple, including units in cities. MAD scenarios are maybe more a draw?

 

[L4Psha]

Yes my bad there, I rarely play violent that late and it is typically tanks.
You do not cover the entire ground, that are called tactical nukes for a reason.
MP is not slowed by radiation, you just take 50 HP if you end in a radio tile. It’s pretty simple. If the opposition can beat you after you have seriously nuked them then perhaps it should be deemed lost. Nukes wipe out units, pure and simple, including units in cities. MAD scenarios are maybe more a draw?

I also take builders with unit who is going to take down a city after nuclear attack to decontaminate. But builder always loses all his mp. And some other units move less, as it seems. So that's why i thought that wasteland eats all or more than 1 mp. Also i thought that all features, including roads, are pillaged after nuclear strike. That's why moving after nuclear strike always seems to me as a tedious one, maybe your could take border cities in one push, especially with logistics military card, but afterwards i think things can be much slower.
And about range strike. Yesterday gdr recaptured a city somehow. I had a unit there, he somehow shot it down, didn't walk into the city, but the city became his. Can this be a bug?

 

[Victoria]

Can this be a bug?

Not a big fan of GDR but as I understand them they do both ranged and melee attacks a bit like immortals do.
Nuke each side of a road, it there are units on the road after, bomb them before going in if need be, if it takes 3 turns to clear the road is that a big deal?
Fallout does not slow MP at all, ever, the ground does not turn sticky. Stay too long and you start dying.

 

[L4Psha]

Thanks. maybe i really should consider more precise nuking.
As i remember in dev strem, they said that robot could not do everything, and you still need to capture with ordinary units. If i'm not mistaken of course.

I didn't like the look of new gdr that much when i saw it for the first time. It looked too sci-fi, with strange horns... But when i saw it in game i actually liked it. Horns apears to be a rocked launchers and model of a robot actually changing with upgrades. I was impressed with that touch. Like with new motorized infantry with pair of soldiers and not just single APC.

 

[Victoria]

I like sci fi, am a big fan, the game gets too boring for me bythe time of GDR so I play short faster games mostly. Also GDR is no longer rock, paper, machete.

 

[Tech Osen]

Encountered my first GDR yesterday, played by the AI (Kongo). I had a sizable fleet that already took most of his lands. I spotted it with a nuc sub armada and shot at it twice, putting it into yellow. He then did the smart thing and moved into a city and then almost one shot a missile cruiser armada at four tile range. So, that was an issue because I couldn't take that city down fast enough and would probably take heavy losses.
I retreated at first, then peaked again to see what he did. Of course he left the city and I took it out in one turn with two nuc sub armadas and three missile cruiser armadas.

 

[L4Psha]

Planes are somehow pretty effective against them. Both jet bombers and jet fighters. They destroy them with just two shots or leave with single digit hp. At first i thought it's because AI doesn't bother about resource upkeep so they have a debuff. But when i kill a bunch of them and they lost it, planes were still effective, much better then tank armies for example. And gdrs had that upgrade for AA. Also i thought that that upgrade will defend them from nukes. No it seems only mobile AA and maybe battleship and missle cruise can do this.