How will nukes come into play?

[evonannoredars]

So in the Modern Age livestream, they talked about how winning each legacy paths involves getting enough points, unlocking the victory project and 'a sudden death victory once you achieve that' (at 1:23:45 in the stream recording). For the militaristic victory this involves:
(1:20:30)

Unless it's hidden behind one of those lightbulb icons, nukes subsequently do not seem to be part of the modern age tech tree. It would also be odd to lock being able to win the militaristic victory behind a tech, even if potentially developing nukes with pre WWI-technology would seem odd.

(0:18:10)

But of course from the gameplay trailer we know that nukes can be launched, or at the very minimum, nuclear explosions can occur - although doing a nuclear test on your own city would be odd, so presumably what we saw was indeed nuclear warfare. This, and the 'sudden death' mention, make me wonder how nukes will come into play. It's possible that the 'sudden death victory' is just the project itself in at least the case of the cultural victory they gave an example of, but I wonder if there's more to it that they're not telling us yet (they did say the victory dev diary would release around launch).

Although it'd make sense to test the nuke as part of the victory, what would be the point of developing nuclear weapons if you're not going to use them? Irl 'as a deterrent' is a reason of course, but it wouldn't be as fun in-game to get nukes and not use them. But if nukes only become available after you win, that'd leave them only usable in the 'one more turn' post-game. But that's assuming the one more turn option still exists - I saw something on reddit about how it wouldn't be in Civ 7, although the source was unclear?

Personally I'm hoping for my ideal end of game scenario where we get surprised by a final pre-victory crisis after all (in this case nuclear warfare), but I'm curious what other people think about how nukes might be involved in the gameplay, or if there's an obvious fact I've missed that explains all this.

 

[Civinator]

Developing the nuke with a final test and finishing the Manhattan Project could be the "sudden death victory" in Civ 7 with its current limitations. I remember in early versions of the Civ 3 Worldwar 2 scenario SOE (Storm Over Europe) we had the development of a nuke as a replacement of the space race victory.

 

[Taefin]

I guess if they call the victory operation ivy, maybe you really do develop atomic bombs partway through the victory path, and win with the development of the hydrogen bomb. If they are in the game, I hope a simple AI bug doesn’t prevent AI from using them.

 

[evonannoredars]

I guess if they call the victory operation ivy, maybe you really do develop atomic bombs partway through the victory path, and win with the development of the hydrogen bomb. If they are in the game, I hope a simple AI bug doesn’t prevent AI from using them.

That would make sense, hadn't considered seperate atomic and hydrogen bombs. Although if you win with the development of the hydrogen bomb, that still leaves the issue of how you'd get to use them.

 

[Civinator]

Yes, in the stream Ed spoke about Operation Ivy. This means normal nukes are in the game and developing the hydrogen bomb is the "sudden death victory" in Civ 7.

 

[Metecury]

If we get a 4th age I would be fine with nukes being more prevalent / usable then and only featuring at the end of the third age.

What would be interesting is to see the concepts and mechanics for wmds getting introduced in the third age.

Smaller scale / less impactfull unconventional weapons such as chemical warfare (ww1) should definitely feature in the modern era and it would be a nice tie in to a world Congress/ sanction mechanic and some interesting interactions spicing up late game warfare.

Anyway I expect we will see limited use and access to nukes in the modern age in the base game.

 

[Taefin]

I think it’d be fitting with VII mechanically to have atomic bombs be a deployable in era 3 (and hopefully the AI will retaliate meaningfully if they can) but then not be immediately useable in era 4, and instead have the triggering of a nuclear war be a crisis available if (for instance) 2+ nuclear powers are hostile plus some other conditions (and some ways of spending influence etc to moderate this) with the resulting damage being simulated by launching the stockpiled weapons. This would remove the challenge of programming AI to launch in retaliation, and be a board-gamey metaphore for MAD.

 

[evonannoredars]

I think it’d be fitting with VII mechanically to have atomic bombs be a deployable in era 3 (and hopefully the AI will retaliate meaningfully if they can) but then not be immediately useable in era 4, and instead have the triggering of a nuclear war be a crisis available if (for instance) 2+ nuclear powers are hostile plus some other conditions (and some ways of spending influence etc to moderate this) with the resulting damage being simulated by launching the stockpiled weapons. This would remove the challenge of programming AI to launch in retaliation, and be a board-gamey metaphore for MAD.

That'd be a v interesting way of doing that aye, being able to pre-programme immediate retaliatory strikes could also be one way of achieving that. My only worry is as an age-4-denyer that idk if the window between nukes becoming available and someone winning is big enough for a nuclear (or even cold) war to happen

 

[SirViss]

If we trust what is said in this stream:
So I interviewed Firaxis Games about Civ 7... Here's what they said.

I think we will have nukes in the game (let is run for 30 sec or so).