No nukes in CivBE?!?!

[SupremacyKing]

Watched the AngryJoe interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9IS6JD4lSw&feature=youtu.be

Around the 11 mn mark, the Firaxis representative says that there are no nukes in CivBE but that the covert ops where you get a Siege Worm to attack a city will be CivBE's version of a Civ5nuke.

A few thoughts:
1) Obviously a Siege Worm attack on a city will be pretty devastating if it will have a similar gameplay effect as a nuke.
2) Perhaps, there will be other WMDs different than the traditional nuke and Firaxis just does not want to spoil too much of the "cool parts" of the late game.
3) The Siege Worm attack seems like a very Harmony-like tactic. Will the other affinities have their version (I would think Purity factions would have no issue with nukes) or is the siege worm attack the only WMD in the game?
4) Perhaps Firaxis is still changing features in the game and nukes will be added before launch?
5) Perhaps the Great Mistake involved a big nuke war so the factions have definitely banned nukes once and for all now because of how bad it was. So, nukes really won't exist at all in CivBE?

I'm kinda hoping that there will be some sort of WMD like nukes or SMAC's planet busters in CivBE.

It seems odd to me that there would not be any nukes at all in the game, only the option to have a siege worm attack a city as the biggest WMD in the game. Surely, in the late game, the factions should have the tech to build some pretty big bombs (anti-matter bombs, fusion bombs, nanite bombs, etc)

 

[Darsnan]

the Firaxis representative says that there are no nukes in CivBE but that the covert ops where you get a Siege Worm to attack a city will be CivBE's version of a Civ5nuke.

So will a siege worm take out workers and hex improvements (as well as damaging the targeted city) the way a Civ5nuke would?

Regardless, I remember playing Spatzimaus' Civ5 mod of Alpha Centauri, and nukes were a huge unbalancing issue: as soon as everyone got the ability to build nukes it was build-em and sling-em, with the end result the planets were all glowing with radiation. And both the human player and the AIs couldn't build workers fast enough to clean the radiation before the next round of bombs and nukes fell. Not fun at all!

I'm assuming the developers reached the conclusion that trying to put in balancing options to counter nukes (such as anti-missile defenses, satellite defenses, mobile shields, prayer) wasn't going to be viable, so they came up with this to replace nukes.

2) Perhaps, there will be other WMDs different than the traditional nuke and Firaxis just does not want to spoil too much of the "cool parts" of the late game.

I like your idea of nanite bombs! Also, the poor man's nuke (aka chemical/ biological weapons) would be a good option

5) Perhaps the Great Mistake involved a big nuke war so the factions have definitely banned nukes once and for all now because of how bad it was. So, nukes really won't exist at all in CivBE?

+1 That sounds very plausible and is actually rooted in recent history: after the devastation caused by chemical weapons in World War 1, all warring nations refrained from using them in World War 2, even though they all had the ability to generate and deliver them in unprecedented numbers and strength.

D

 

[SupremacyKing]

Regardless, I remember playing Spatzimaus' Civ5 mod of Alpha Centauri, and nukes were a huge unbalancing issue: as soon as everyone got the ability to build nukes it was build-em and sling-em, with the end result the planets were all glowing with radiation. And both the human player and the AIs couldn't build workers fast enough to clean the radiation before the next round of bombs and nukes fell. Not fun at all!

I'm assuming the developers reached the conclusion that trying to put in balancing options to counter nukes (such as anti-missile defenses, satellite defenses, mobile shields, prayer) wasn't going to be viable, so they came up with this to replace nukes.

I definitely agree that if nukes were unbalanced, it would ruin the fun. I think I read somewhere that spies in CivBE can plant a suitcase nuke. So maybe that is how they are balancing nukes to address your concern. Nukes will still be in but be smaller so that the destruction won't be as game-changing. Perhaps, they are just eliminating the ICBM nuke since the destruction was too big and unbalancing. But I would think that satellite defenses should be an easy counter-nuke to implement since they already have an orbital layer that plays a big part in the game.

Ideally, I'd like to see each affinity have it's own WMD so that each affinity would have its own unique way of inflicting mass destruction:
1) Harmony could have the siege worm "city-buster".
2) Purity could have a nuke.
3) Supremacy could have the nanite bomb that I mentioned.

 

[bhavv]

Civ II had the best approach to this where the SDI defense completely protected a city vs nukes.

 

[Fabio1701]

I find it a shame not to have nukes. Yes it can be unabalncing, but they are unbalaning IRL too. That's why they are not often used. In Smac the biggest nuke was literally a game changer, yet o don't recall them used all that much unless the AI was really really pissed/desperate.

I would find it a bit unrealistic not having nukes in a sci-fi game. Yes, after ww1 chemical weapons were not used, but they were still stockpiled. They existed and the deterent and political effects of their existence also were important. Get rid of nukes and you get rid of a pretty big deterent to total war. If there were no nukes the usa and Russia would have gone into total war decades ago.

 

[m15a]

I would find it a bit unrealistic not having nukes in a sci-fi game. Yes, after ww1 chemical weapons were not used, but they were still stockpiled. They existed and the deterent and political effects of their existence also were important. Get rid of nukes and you get rid of a pretty big deterent to total war. If there were no nukes the usa and Russia would have gone into total war decades ago.

But "no nukes" in BE (probably) just means that it's not a feature you can use as a player. It's not a factor that affects the balance between the players or the individual progress of the players. Chemical weapons might actually be a really good analogy to nuclear weapons in BE. In Civ V, there aren't explicitly chemical weapons, but that doesn't mean that the game takes place in an alternate reality where chemical weapons don't exist. It just means it's not a gameplay factor.

 

[Darsnan]

I find it a shame not to have nukes.

Won't disagree with that at all -absolutely love the craters (and crater lakes!) that are created with SMAC nukes!

I would find it a bit unrealistic not having nukes in a sci-fi game.

Agreed. For reference, in Spatzimaus' AC mod, he was sort of caught in a no-man's land in that he was trying to keep a bridge between the base Civ5 game and the future eras he was tacking on. Very difficult to implement given that nukes came so early in the game environment he was trying to address, and I think to a certain extent creating things like the SDI, mobile shields, missile defenses, et al were a Rube Goldberg solution to the problem of nuclear weapons: you ended up spending significant resources to address a specific unbalancing aspect to the game. So I think if nukes are placed towards the end of the BE tech tree then that might be a viable gaming approach (assuming they keep their potency). Otherwise I don't think nukes in the early game for BE is the way to go: you want to create an environment for the players that allows them to expand, and not an environment where they are expending significant resources trying to maintain their status quo.

If there were no nukes the usa and Russia would have gone into total war decades ago.

I'm not so sure of this. IMO the firebombing of Dresden was just as much a message to the advancing Soviets as it was to disrupt the Nazis on the Eastern Front: from '43 onwards the Soviet military was geared towards massive buildups and overwhelming the forces opposing them (a la Bagration). Whether intended or not, the complete devastation of Dresden by firebombing was a clear message to the Soviet high command that the Western Allied Air Forces were very skilled at targeting and completely annihilating a position, whether this be a city, or the accumulation of resources necessary to sustain the impetus of an attack, as the Soviet spearheads were predicated and dependent upon. Or to put it slightly differently, the Soviet high command had to be made acutely aware via Dresden that the Western Allies had the perfect counter to their preferred method of military advance, and with the defensive terrain afforded the Western Allies (such as the Rhine), the Western Allies could fall back, dig in, and then use their Air Forces to completely pulverize the supply lines the advancing Soviet Armies were so dependent upon. Once the Soviet Armies collapsed from starvation (literally, as well as militarily), the Western Allies could then have struck out against the shell positions, similar to the approach the Western Allies took in the first Iraqi War where their Air Forces completely took over and destroyed the Iraqi supply lines before the ground forces advanced against the Iraqi frontlines, broke thru, and encountered no significant sustained resistance after that.

D

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Didn't they say there would be suitcase nukes in espionage? I think they will just do away with the traditional nukes and possibly blame it on the Great Mistake. "Nobody uses nukes because they know better now."

 

[Civ'ed]

Alternatively, it's not economical to pack a nuclear arsenal on a colonizing journey.

 

[GeoModder]

That doesn't stop an upstart colony to create the infrastructure necessary for making nukes.

 

[3of5]

That doesn't stop an upstart colony to create the infrastructure necessary for making nukes.

Quite an expansive infrastructure that would be. Finding fissible material in high enough concentration, mining it, producing yellowcake, enriching it, assembling warheads and ballistic missiles, storing it all and maintaining the respective infrastructure: thats not a small feat, compared to building some mediocre reactor using liquid thorium salts, an element thats far more common and easier to handle, and can amount in respectable quantities while mining other minerals. While BE colonies can build thorium reactors (low to medium yield) for energy and industry needs, it seems they have neither uranium or plutonium fission (medium to high yield), nor workable fusion reactors (high yield) on planet, which might suggest that at least from what we know today, weapons grade fission infrastructure is not in the colony blueprints for quite some time. It might just not be interesting economically, compred to outfitting a respectable army, or building a siege worm thumper or a dirty bomb (where you don't need highly defined fissionable material, but just decaying isotopes, which are not that hard to find, especcially in a highly technicised society).

 

[3of5]

Yes it can be unabalncing, but they are unbalaning IRL too. That's why they are not often used.

Thats not why they were (luckily) only used once. No general cares about imbalance, they rather embrace it when its on their side. They were not used, because not only the actual, but also the political fallout from using them would have been desastrous.

Ideally, I'd like to see each affinity have it's own WMD so that each affinity would have its own unique way of inflicting mass destruction:
1) Harmony could have the siege worm "city-buster".
2) Purity could have a nuke.
3) Supremacy could have the nanite bomb that I mentioned.

As far as i know the worm thumper and the dirty bomb work differently. A dirty bomb would target city population and health, while the worm targets infrastructure around the city. Both seem less harmful than a real nuke (that would obliterate anything in a sizeble radius). I really like the idea of different affinities having different desperate options though. The nanite bomb could target copper and iron, for example, destroying some buildings in the city, before they could be evacuated and flooded with hard radiation or EMP to contain the hazard.

 

[boghog]

Quite an expansive infrastructure that would be. Finding fissible material in high enough concentration ...

And right there they have a comfortable explanation (if they want to give any) for not having nukes in BE: There are no suitable elements on the planet.

I agree with SupremacyKing that different kinds of WMDs would be cool. The only downside: You can't really expect the other affinities to be quick in developing the corresponding counter-measures. Does miasma help against nanites? Probably not.

 

[Cyon]

The new PCgamer article repeats the claim that it will be suitcase nukes and also said 'satellites can nuke your enemy from the stratosphere' (att the middle of page two) so it looks like space nukes are in but not ICBMs , they are way cooler anyway!

Skickat från min GT-I9195 via Tapatalk

 

[3of5]

Some satellites are good at spotting spies, others can be used for terraforming, and some carry big guns that let you nuke your enemies from the stratosphere.

If he would have written "blast enemys from space" you would have thought that those must be satellite mounted blasters? If they are big guns, they are not nukes. But then again the author thinks that the satellites would orbit in the "stratosphere". Good luck with that. Long story short: the article does not make a qualified statement on whether there are space stationed nukes in BE. Personally i don't think there will be.

interesting is, that he specifically states that "harmony players will be able to call worms". Might be an assumption too, but who knows...

 

[bhavv]

Maybe the new planet doesn't have radioactive minerals.

 

[Lancor]

Rockets are very easy to shoot down with that kind of beam weapons we will see. Apart from not having any uranium on the new planet it is also a good explanation for no icbms.

 

[SamBC]

Maybe the new planet doesn't have radioactive minerals.

Thorium reactors have been mentioned. It's difficult, but not impossible, to use those to produce weaponizable fissiles.

 

[Lord Shadow]

Nuclear bombers were largely phased out in favour of ICBMs because they were relatively easy to shoot down (not to mention slower and shorter ranged). The same fate could befall ICBMs themselves.

Frankly, I couldn't care less in the presence of alternate delivery methods for similar weapons, like anti-matter, singularity, nanite or neutron bombs. The ICBM itself would likely be seen as crude and antiquated in 200+ years as a V2 rocket today. Especially if forced to co-exist with beam defenses and widespread military orbital assets. And let's face it: game-wise, the ICBM isn't a very interesting weapon. There's no positioning nor tactical considerations: you build it, fire it and at most it has to contend with a die roll to see whether largely abstract missile defense intercepts it. Yawn.

Nuclear weapons themselves will be featured in Beyond Earth at least in the form of suitcase nukes (assuming "nuke" means that and not generic WMD explosive). To give them a larger role than that is a wasted opporunity in a science fiction context full of interesting alternatives.

 

[GeoModder]

Rockets are very easy to shoot down with that kind of beam weapons we will see. Apart from not having any uranium on the new planet it is also a good explanation for no icbms.

You don't need a nuclear warhead to make ICBM's. They can as well carry a biological or chemical payload. Or even a conventional one.