Increasing the Manhattan Project Requirements

[Sonereal]

The Project, in-game, is built in a single city regardless of whether or not the player has uranium.

Now, here's my proposal. The MP has the same hammer count but not only does it require uranium, but it also requires a number of Project Sites built before it itself can be built. The number shouldn't be killer but higher than usual.

Here's my reasoning behind the Project Sites using Wikipedia:

Though it involved over thirty different research and production sites, the Manhattan Project was largely carried out at four secret laboratories which the national governments established by power of eminent domain in four cities: Los Alamos, New Mexico; Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Richland, Washington; Chalk River, Ontario, Canada. The Tennessee site was chosen because of the vast quantities of cheap hydroelectric power already available (from the Tennessee Valley Authority) to power uranium enrichment processes. The Hanford Site near Richland, Washington, was chosen for its location near the Columbia River, which could supply sufficient water to cool the reactors which would produce the plutonium. The Canadian site was chosen for its proximity to the industrial manufacturing of Ontario and Quebec, and access to a rail head adjacent to a large military base, Camp Petawawa. Further, located on the Ottawa River it had access to abundant water. All the sites were suitably far from coastlines and therefore less vulnerable to possible enemy attack from Germany or Japan.

So, given that the MP has a requirement of 2500 hammers, I think the Project Sites should require 1000-1500 each which would make gaining nuclear weapons a task for larger empires. Maybe, if possible, replace the MP with the Project Sites and increase the hammer count to a 1000 each which would make the project overall pretty hefty and stretched out among a few or several cities depending on map size.

But to reflect that smaller nations do have nuclear programs themselves, there should be ways of gaining "Nuclear Secrets" from a nuclear power through espionage and diplomacy. It should also be possible to disrupt the building of the buildings through warfare which, if the city is captured with a site, would help out the invader immensely.

Here's some further ideas I had regarding this:

1. The Ban Nukes Resoulution should be dropped and replaced with the "Non-proliferation Treaty". The catch should be that if a nation doesn't sign off on the idea, they're not force to if the bill passes but this would result in unhappiness and a diplo penalty if other members do.

The AI shouldn't just sign yes however. Bigger nations with nuclear weapons are more likely to sign yes than small ones without nuclear weapons that are aggressive. A small, peaceful nation would sign off to the idea.

2. The AI shouldn't want to give out Nuclear Secrets except to nations that its Friendly to except vassals. As a matter of fact, it should be made impossible to trade Nuclear Secrets with a vassal.

3. Trying to steal nuclear secrets through espionage should be possible but extremely difficult.


Just another small idea I had and one I wouldn't expect to see in 1.74 or even 1.75. However, it could make nuclear diplomacy much more interesting.


Thoughts?