good side of nukes?

[RichPowers]

Nukes in Civ IV = comedy gold

 

[Verision]

In my current game, I built the UN thinking that I could win a diplomatic victory; I had a good number of votes and two of the remaining 5 AIs had been my friends since very early in the game, so I figured they'd vote for me.

Well, the jerks didn't vote for me, they voted for the number 2 AI (Russia) and neither of us had enough to win the game.

So I built an "army" of nukes, declared war on everyone and nuked all the AI capitals, plus a few of the larger non-capital cities.
I then sent out my armies, captured/razed a few AI cities, and tried voting myself in for the diplo victory.

Well, it didn't work. I still don't have enough votes, and time is running out (<40 turns left). I'll prolly end up winning a time victory, which is a little lame.

How does show the "good side of nukes" you ask? Well, nuking everyone made me feel better...

 

[Lincoln3457]

I hate them too, they destroy perfectly good, high population cities, and I mainly fear being nuked back, even though it never happened yet I hate the fact the manhattan project makes it able for everyone to get nukes, if every nation would have to construct their own nuclear test national wonder then all I'd build were nukes in the late game lol .

You wuss, Nukes rock. I once was playing as Roosevelt. I had tons of uranium but NO soliders, I just nuked anybody who declared war on me. It was funny, it got to a point when all my cities were builing nukes! Let's just say: I won conquest

 

[Bobbtjoe]

In my current game, I built the UN thinking that I could win a diplomatic victory; I had a good number of votes and two of the remaining 5 AIs had been my friends since very early in the game, so I figured they'd vote for me.

Well, the jerks didn't vote for me, they voted for the number 2 AI (Russia) and neither of us had enough to win the game.

So I built an "army" of nukes, declared war on everyone and nuked all the AI capitals, plus a few of the larger non-capital cities.
I then sent out my armies, captured/razed a few AI cities, and tried voting myself in for the diplo victory.

Well, it didn't work. I still don't have enough votes, and time is running out (<40 turns left). I'll prolly end up winning a time victory, which is a little lame.

How does show the "good side of nukes" you ask? Well, nuking everyone made me feel better...

yay, confidence!

 

[Verision]

yay, confidence!

Yeah, I was a little over confident there. Oh well, I did eventually win the time victory, so it wasn't all bad.

I don't think I'll be going for a diplomacy win again any time soon, though.

In retrospect, I should have just built all the spaceship parts instead of building all those nukes. I would have won much sooner, and the game wouldn't have taken so dang long (each turn in a world war after year 2000 takes forever....)

 

[JonathanStrange]

For all the talk of nukes, I rarely use 'em myself: though I always try for them. I do like the security but I haven't used nukes much since Civ III. Just got over the bomb.

 

[Rusty Edge]

The good side of nukes is that they have prevented war between the major world powers for the longest period in history...

As far as the game goes, Nukes look wicked cool when you use them!

 

[Whiskey_Lord]

I've only read the first post so I don't know if this has been mentioned already: Nukes can sometimes help edge out late game domination or 'diplomation' wins. If you need to win by just a few more population points, reducing your rivals' population with nukes is the fastest and easiest way if they don't have SDI.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Tactical nukes still have 62.5% chance to penetrate SDI - more than twice that of ICBMs (25%). Tactical nukes also cost half as much as ICBMs.

After SDI built:
With 4 ICBMs, expect 1 to get through. What a waste of hammers!
Or for the same cost, use 8 tactical nukes and expect 5 to get through!

Fact-Tactical nukes are the superior.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Tactical nukes still have 62.5% chance to penetrate SDI - more than twice that of ICBMs (25%). Tactical nukes also cost half as much as ICBMs.

After SDI built:
With 4 ICBMs, expect 1 to get through. What a waste of hammers!
Or for the same cost, use 8 tactical nukes and expect 5 to get through!

Fact-Tactical nukes are the superior.

I keep meaning to use nukes more, but they're on such an awkward tech path. You need fission for the manhattan project and to build them, but then you need rocketry too. Neither of those things require assembly line, so you can nuke with renaissance units and SAMS, off wooden ships (or possibly battleships). Of course, you're not going to build nukes with any appreciable speed unless you either HAVE assembly line (for the whopping 75% hammers available in each of your cities through hammer buildings) or you went cottage crazy to the point where $$$ rush is competitive (nasty with kremlin).

I do mean to try it, but so often in my games my "ultimate strike" is nothing more than massed infantry, artillery, and some anti-tanks to intercept air and beat AI tanks back. It's probably different in MP, but in SP those 3 things are all you need for an excessively long time. I attacked freddy while down at least 10 techs, it was my above stack vs fighters/panzers/paratroopers/marines, and guess what? It was easily favorable k/d to me, because if the AI can't get good odds on your stack, it doesn't attack it, and if it doesn't attack it, it gets shredded by artillery while it camps . What beats infantry in the field before modern armor or mechs? Not a whole damn lot, other than tanks. But we get anti-tanks with artillery, convenient! Give them some terrain or CG promos and the tank odds are even crappier! Air trouble? Couple extra anti-tanks and you intercept a lot of it...!

Niche as the panzer might be in MP or SP in human hands, it's utter garbage in AI hands. To completely smear an immortal AI with a tech deficit while it has it's UU, which come so late you'd expect something awesome...ugh. At least the german leader traits are good and the UB is ok.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Hmm, I was mainly talking about the tactical nuke compared with the ICBM. Strategies that ignore nukes altogether are probably more effective. It depends on the size and geography of the map IMO.

 

[klauz619]

How do you use nukes anyway? they're stuck on my city and I can't seem to make them explode at a location I want.

 

[6K Man]

The problem with Tac nukes is delivery. I often have a large stack of Attack Subs just covering 1-2 regular Subs that are my missile carriers. In wartime, it's just too easy to lose a shipload of missiles.

Sneak attacks, on the other hand..

 

[Whiskey_Lord]

How do you use nukes anyway? they're stuck on my city and I can't seem to make them explode at a location I want.

Press the red button and click on the target city.