Nuclear war

[egosumcarlo]

In a future patch or expansion pack, wouldn't it be nice to have a new bargaining option once you have produced a nuclear weapon? Historically, the advantage of having nuclear weapons does not lie in their actual use but in the threat of using them, classically called deterrence.

We can have new diplomatic messages like "Remove your forces from our territories at once or face massive retaliation." Or we can have Nuclear threats as a bargaining item (e.g. asking for cities, luxuries etc. by threatening nuclear strikes.) This will be simply an extension of gunship diplomacy already present in the game, threatening use of force unless the enemy civ gives you what you're asking for. The threat of weapons of massive destruction far surpasses that of conventional weapons so I think we should include separate diplomacy options once you are a nuclear power.

What's your take on this?

 

[Maverick]

Originally posted by egosumcarlo
JUST an idea i got from seeing the film, Chain of Command


Instead of making ICBMs invulnerable to nuclear strikes, why not configure MAD into the game by making nuclear attacks take 2 turns to complete. On the first turn, the recipient of the attack will be notified and so he will have a chance to :

1.) launch his own ICBMs and nukes so they wont be destroyed
2.) or negotiate with the aggressor so the latter may abort his attack

i realize that the timing of this procedure may not be consistent with the timing of the rest of the game but just an idea.

Like in starcraft where you get warned when the enemy has launched a nuclear strike, but how many years will two turns be? i dont think launching a nuclear strike should take that long, in my opinion, there should be an command where you can set jet fighters and ICBM to scramble and strike the nuke while its in flight.

 

[Ackrite99]

ICBMs and Jet Fighters intercepting ICMBs in flight?! That is a bit silly, seeing how ICBMs enter their terminal stage of flight at up to mach 7! I think that the relative difficulty of destroying ICBMs through a nuclear strkie (see other posts in this thread) is good enough to give a deterrence.

 

[dannyevilcat]

Originally posted by Maverick
Well, lucky those who live in US, Canada who has great army and can protect themselves, and lucky those who live in country like New Zealand, cause your land is so peaceful, no one will touch you, but my country, Philippines, hell! we are in a strategic location for a base (proven in WW2), so it is most likely those big warmongers would want to establish base here, thus making us prone to nuclear strike, so we are also relying to US for protection cause we don't have the right machinery for a war, like air fighters, our fighters are so rusty a .45 caliber can gun it down.

LOL! Canada's great army is weaker than my grandmother!

 

[Gosemys]

before nuking anyone i first build SAM defences in all of my cities. then i stockpile nukes. ive actually managed to build so many nukes that the option to build one has dissappeared from the production menu (can it really be true that it should!?). then i choose the most powerful civ and i nuke him without warning! last time i nuked every city of his about 1,7 times + tactical nuking his gathered units!

NOTE: no other civ declared war on me! and the "victims" land was absolutely destroyed and useless for the next million turns

 

[Exocet]

Originally posted by Gosemys
before nuking anyone i first build SAM defences in all of my cities. then i stockpile nukes. ive actually managed to build so many nukes that the option to build one has dissappeared from the production menu (can it really be true that it should!?). then i choose the most powerful civ and i nuke him without warning! last time i nuked every city of his about 1,7 times + tactical nuking his gathered units!

NOTE: no other civ declared war on me! and the "victims" land was absolutely destroyed and useless for the next million turns

Gosemys, you have a disturbing lust for blood. Very, very, vaporized blood

 

[Gosemys]

let me put it this way. what goes around, comes around. even for the computer... except if he plays against me it comes around x10.

 

[Sarcastro]

Originally posted by Ackrite99
ICBMs and Jet Fighters intercepting ICMBs in flight?! That is a bit silly, seeing how ICBMs enter their terminal stage of flight at up to mach 7! I think that the relative difficulty of destroying ICBMs through a nuclear strkie (see other posts in this thread) is good enough to give a deterrence.

No kidding. Maverick, you're a bit optimistic there. A jet couldn't possibly shoot down an ICBM, unless, I suppose, it was armed with long-range missiles specifically designed for that purpose.

ICBMs are proving spectacularly hard to shoot down. Witness our "missile shield" tests. The only way they've gotten them to work is by planting a homing beacon on the incoming warhead.* I somehow doubt the enemy would be so courteous.

I remember reading here at some point right after the game came out that ICBMs and tactical nukes could not be destroyed by nuclear attack. So that's kind of a built-in MAD factor. I do definitely like the 1- or 2-turn delay idea, though. Not that you could counter the attack, but you could move units out of the city, etc. This delay would only affect ICBMs, though, so it would take a tactical nuke to hit field units, as seems appropriate.

* This has been documented in the news after each of the "successful" tests, yet somehow some people keep missing it. I clip and save the articles at home so that when my more conservative friends start spewing praise about it, I can slam those articles up their dickholes.

 

[PekkaM]

I'd like new diplomatic options after nukes too. In Civ2 we had this "Our words are backed by nuclear weapons"-thing, even though I'm not sure it actually did a thing.

Retaliatory attacks (like in MAD) should also be somehow made possible, like predetermining a target for each of your ICBM's beforehand so that they could be immediately launched upon enemy launch.

 

[zebomba]

Yup, this is specially important if it's a human vs human game.
As it is now, whoever strikes 1st wins or at least has the satisfaction of making every foe useless.

 

[Maverick]

Originally posted by Sarcastro


No kidding. Maverick, you're a bit optimistic there. A jet couldn't possibly shoot down an ICBM, unless, I suppose, it was armed with long-range missiles specifically designed for that purpose.

ICBMs are proving spectacularly hard to shoot down. Witness our "missile shield" tests. The only way they've gotten them to work is by planting a homing beacon on the incoming warhead.* I somehow doubt the enemy would be so courteous.

I remember reading here at some point right after the game came out that ICBMs and tactical nukes could not be destroyed by nuclear attack. So that's kind of a built-in MAD factor. I do definitely like the 1- or 2-turn delay idea, though. Not that you could counter the attack, but you could move units out of the city, etc. This delay would only affect ICBMs, though, so it would take a tactical nuke to hit field units, as seems appropriate.

* This has been documented in the news after each of the "successful" tests, yet somehow some people keep missing it. I clip and save the articles at home so that when my more conservative friends start spewing praise about it, I can slam those articles up their dickholes.

Sorry for my ignorant, I'm not a missle expert, what I mean is don't US have any defense for nuclear strike? Like a patriot missle or something? I think there must be a missle that will auto launched when a nuclear is launched to intercept it.

 

[Ackrite99]

re: Intercepting nukes in flight

quote:
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Sorry for my ignorant, I'm not a missle expert, what I mean is don't US have any defense for nuclear strike? Like a patriot missle or something? I think there must be a missle that will auto launched when a nuclear is launched to intercept it.
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The only missiles that would be launched at the moment in the event of a nuclear stike, would be actual nuclear weapons themselves, so that they would not be destroyed. That is how MAD works. But as I said, when you nuke a city in Civ III, the ICBM often avoids destruction, so this provides a second strike capability; along with tactical nukes on subs. (I edited their carrying capacity up to 4 per sub, a little easier to deter then!). This is the Civ III "MAD" if you will.

 

[Teemu]

Well during Gulf war patriotsdidn't even stop recular cruise missiles (Scuds I think). They got only nice defence percent . because Pentagon dudes had their own definition to succesful defensive strike. They counted missile launching succesful when flight path of defensive missile and target missile cutted. It didn't matter even if defensive missile hit or even explosed near target missile. It was enough if their paths touched each other once then the defensive strike was counted succesfull. That was told in one document.

They had made up that interesting definition that they would get more money from congress to continue missile resercearch. Dark side of that wrong info was that people in bases didn't even react to scud alerts something quite small whenthey thought that defensive percent was near 100 when it was something 20% or less. I'm not sure about that right percentace but I remember that it was

So I don't think that patriots would stop ICBM's.

 

[Sarcastro]

Originally posted by Maverick
Sorry for my ignorant, I'm not a missle expert, what I mean is don't US have any defense for nuclear strike? Like a patriot missle or something? I think there must be a missle that will auto launched when a nuclear is launched to intercept it.

Well, that's what our President is working on building now. In theory, it's a fine idea, but at the moment, no, no such defense exists. Incoming warheads are just moving so fast that it's extremely difficult to get a missile to intercept them.

To borrow and an image (based in fact) from Tom Clancy, an incoming ICBM is moving faster then an anti-missile missile would explode. So even if the interceptor exploded right next to the ICBM, the warhead would outrace the blast of the explosion, and would thus escape unharmed.

So the challenge is to be able to put the interceptor missile either directly in front of the ICBM (very hard), or actually hit it (even harder).

Plus, there's the problem of distinguishing real warheads from "dummies" launched by the enemy along with the real ones with just the purpose of confusing a defense system. Fake warheads are comparatively cheap, so it would seem to be pretty easy to simply flood the sky with fakes, and at least some of the real ones would almost certainly get through.

It's pretty comparable to creating a defense system that would stop incoming bullets by shooting bullets of its own directly at them - and I'm sure you can imagine how hard that would be.

I'm no expert, and I have no idea if the technology is feasible, but I think it'd be easier and more effective to create an energy-based weapon to shoot down incoming warheads. Perhaps some sort of laser or beam that can physically destroy the warhead, or an EMP-type gun that could somehow destroy the electronic part of the warhead.

Ideas, ideas.... In short, Maverick, no, there's nothing existing today that can destroy an incoming ICBM, except perhaps for another ICBM. Which is hardly ideal.