Missle Silos

[crimson238]

thumbs up to the Mad and Silo Ideas!

 

[sir_schwick]

Glad someone appreciates our work.

 

[crimson238]

WEll when an idea is good it's good ;-), we coudl even make the silos a worker function, help thin down the ranks late in the game by giving them something more useful to build than airfields.

 

[sir_schwick]

I just assume part of th eICBM cost is installing the secret bunker. Also means that you don't reuse silos, one silo one missle.

 

[crimson238]

True.
I was thinking, what if one of the req for the silo was to have it be on undeveloped terrain? I mean, technically, you wouldn't want ot build on right next to that mining facility, or, along that commuter rail line, would you?

 

[TheDarkPhantom]

Ok...firstly, I'm all for realism, but Nuclear Bombers on Patrol? 5% chances of Nuclear Vessels exploding? I have a feeling we're getting a bit over the top here.

What I do welcome is some revision of the nuke system. The idea of setting nukes with targets and when nuclear war erupts the whole game goes into a graphic mode so we can see the devestation being wrought would be an awesome display but I think a little impractical, it degnerates from Civ3s Turn-Based gameplay a little too much, I think most people are perfectly happy to give orders to units individual, watch them soar and explode and then get on with the next unit.

My main problem with ICBMS and tactical nukes is that they can't be destroyed. The whole balance of the cold war and nuclear warfare is about trying to destroy the enemy's nuclear weapons before they can be fired against you, but in Civ3 this is impossible!!! ICBMS and Nukes stay alive unless you attack them with a land unit then they are destroyed instantly. In my mod I've given both of them a defence value of 1 to at least let them get attacked by Bombers, but this still only happens when nothing else is in a square.

I assume that when ICBMs and Tactical Nukes are stored in Cities they are not in the urban area, but are indeed in Silos in the surrounding countryside. But I strongly feel that some kind of method of destroying them by bombers and other nukes should work.

Also, another thought. Frankly I firmly believe that nukes are not used enough. Just because the Cold War never erupted into a nuclear conlflict doesn't mean this was unlikely, indeed it is something of a miracle we never did have nuclear war. The massive damaging effect nukes have on your reputation simply make conventional warfare a far better option, you don't want to get your previous allies at war with you due to using nukes after all. I think the damage to reputation should be variable in the game dependant on how you use nukes. Using them as 'Battlefield nukes' that is, against enemy units rather than cities, should have a much lesser effect on reputation that using them against cities. And people who are at war with an enemy you drop nukes on, should only suffer a very slight reputation change from you dropping the weapons (imagine seeing Britain declare war on the US after they bombed Nagasaki!). Also I really think some smaller nuke effects should be possible, that just target one square, not one square and all adhacent squares , perhaps for the early Atomic Bombs and for small Tactical Nukes.

 

[sir_schwick]

My main problem with ICBMS and tactical nukes is that they can't be destroyed. The whole balance of the cold war and nuclear warfare is about trying to destroy the enemy's nuclear weapons before they can be fired against you, but in Civ3 this is impossible!!! ICBMS and Nukes stay alive unless you attack them with a land unit then they are destroyed instantly. In my mod I've given both of them a defence value of 1 to at least let them get attacked by Bombers, but this still only happens when nothing else is in a square.

I have to both agree and disagree. In the Cold War both sides tried to figure out how to win in a First Strike situation. Part of that was locating the other sides weapons. The fact was, though, that definitely after 1963, and maybe even after 1956, neither side could win even if they striked first. The other side's response would be fast enough to launch their missles and command their bombers. ICBM silos are under many many feet of hard concrete and earth. It would be extremely hard to destroy ICBMs with anything but a nuclear weapon. Also, you wouldn't store your nuclear weapons near a major urban center. Those would be the first targets, besides silos, hit by enemy nukes. The object in a nuclear war is to fire your missle and bombers. I think that maybe nukes could be taken out by sabotage, but not by bombers.

Now, the idea of tactical nukes in warfare is interesting. THis is one of those cases were precedent of the players in a game would be useful. Maybe the initial reaction to the first bombings would determine nuclear policy and ethics for many may turns afterward. If used against troops aggressively first, then maybe they would just be considered heavy artillery, until cities started dropping. Interesting concept.

 

[Colonel]

New Techs involveing Nuclear Weapons

Nuclear Power-Nuclear Bombers and Tactical Nukes (SRBM's)

Advanced Nuclear Weapons- ICBM's New Resourse Pultionium

Pultionium- Used in makeing ICBM's

The Need for the new resourse is to make it harder for every country to have Advanced Nuclear Weapons and to limit massive use of the Nuclear Weapons, Uranium would be more abundant then now So that at the very least the Countries without the ability to build ICBM's would still have a nuclear deturrent

 

[jst666]

One idea would, thou VERY unrealistic, would be having separate offensive and defensive nuclear weapons. Offensive would work as current ICBM. Defensive nukes would be MUCH cheaper to build, would have predefined targets, and would be automatically launched if your nation would be under nuclear attack. This would make it cheaper to have a nuclear deterrent, even if you are a small nation.

@Colonel: Uranium is used to create plutonium

 

[sir_schwick]

Because of the lack of facliites, at first, you could only start build at most one nuclear weapon a turn. Maybe in order to build multiple nuclear weapons you would need to first build the Plutonium Enrichment Center(300 Shields).

Both the Heroshima and the Nagasaki weapons used a core of enriched Plutonium.

On Defensive nukes, that would be a solution for the current civ game, but they really should add in NORAD and stategic level engagements. I know some would not like the simeultaneous almost real-time engagements, but several times nuclear exchanges almost occured in a matter of hours. That kind of tension should be modeled into a new and better MAD system.

 

[ManOfMiracles]

Because of the lack of facliites, at first, you could only start build at most one nuclear weapon a turn. Maybe in order to build multiple nuclear weapons you would need to first build the Plutonium Enrichment Center(300 Shields).

Instead of adding a new facility, why not require the civ to have a certain number of research labs in order to develop plutonium? After that number was reached, only cities with research labs could build the weapons.

 

[crimson238]

The whole point, man of Miracles,is to get the nukes out of the cities to keep them "safe" from a nuclear attack. It's what really did and does happens in the real world, also allows for "Spies Like Us" (if you've ver seen the movie) type espionage in finding enemy sites.

 

[sir_schwick]

Maybe Research Labs should also be a requirement to build in a city. The role of the PEC should be multi-faceted. First, since it is a wonder, enemy spies would know when you start building it. If there were already a couple big nuclear powers, they could insist you quit building a nuclear program. This could lead to a race against time to finish and deploy their nukes weapons, or appeal to one of the big nuclear powers.

I know many will disagree with me on this, but I think nukes should be a lot cheaper, since trying to use them for early world conquest will lead to nuclear winter anyway. Maybe ICBMs should be 250-300 Shilelds each, Tactical Nukes 180 Shields, Bomber Nukes 150 Shields, ARty Nukes(Some did exist in the Cold War) 150 Shields

 

[Yuri2356]

I the event of a MAD scenario or a smaller nuclear war, I belive the game should add a slight chance that a chain reaction occurs and the atmosphere is burned off of the planet. During the Manhattan project, it was found that there was a minute chance of this happening if a large nuclear explosion took place. of course the requirement for this to be even remotley possible (in-game) whould be dozens, even hundreds of high-yeild detonations happen at almost the same time. Just the fact that this doomsday scinario is possible would be another factor in controlling nuclear powers.

They could even add a cinima that shows a view of Earth from the moon suddenly being engulfed in flames and being left a charred rock. An interesting, though disturbing way to end a game.

 

[Mewtarthio]

Why don't we also include a random event in which a gamma explosion occurs near Earth, burns off the ozone layer, and destroys all life?

 

[sir_schwick]

I assume you were being sarcastic Mewtarthio, but I appreciate humour at any time.

I don't htink the atmoshpere should be burned off, but lets face it, lots of high yield nuclear warheads would completely ruin agriculture and infrastructure. The point is, a nuclear MAD exchange would lead in the destabalization of human civilization. As for the doomsday video, I think Superpower handled it best.

If you ended up raising radiation to a certain level, a simple text screen came up saying:
You have caused the end of humanity. There is no video showing body parts flying and buildings being flattened. You failed to keep humanity alive and this should not be rewarded.

 

[Mewtarthio]

I just think that nuclear waste should be some kind of "super-pollution" that cannot be cleared for a certain number of turns and can create Disease in adjacent tiles. Nobody likes seeing a popup that just says "Oops, you died!" It would be better if the radioactive wasteland after a nuclear exchange was simply inhospitable. You'd be pretty much unable to build things, all your cities would be in Civil Disorder, your people would all slowly starve out, etc. This would result in a natural (well, as far as game terms go) extinction. To prevent people from launching even more nukes and get into a "let's see who can stay alive the longest" contest, you'd have to be able to stabilize your population before victory was declared.

 

[sir_schwick]

If the pollution model is kept the same, yes. If they change it to something that effects systems rather than one random tile, then radiation could just mess up all the terrain, and lots of combined radiation would amke it nearly impossible to farm for a few years.

I do agree that if nuclear waste on a massive scale did what it was supposed to, the aftermath of a nuclear exchange woudl not involve foreign invasions. I just suggested the 'oops you lost' video instead of a cool one, because no one should celebrate nuclear holocaust.

 

[Yuri2356]

The apocalypse video I siggested wouldn't be cool, it would just be seeing the earth from a great distance, the moon or maby farther away in space, a quick flash, and then it's dead. This scene, like the historic photo of the Earth from the moon, would symbolize just how small the planet is on a universal scale and how in one moment you snuffed out everything on the planet over politics/resources/felings or something meaningless like that. It would be more like the abrupt ending to Dr. Strangeglove then any major rendered scene as a city being ripped appart by a blast wave, or anything you'd see in a terminator movie. Just a quiet, symbolic, and again disturbing ending to a game.

Like the Civ2: Thousands of years later people find the ruins of your empire, but on a far grander scale.

 

[Gelion]

How about having SDI only over 1 city/region like in real life?