Nuclear Warfare

[timberwolf4545]

I was playing as Persia against oddly aggressive India. They had declared war on me 3 times after wiping out America.

After about 20 turns of occupying my territory and being furious for no reason, I finally declared war on the squaters after asking them to leave each turn. I took one of their cities and razed it as I figured I could not hold on to it very long. (I assume this is what made them slightly angry) But I was not expecting what I got next turn.

Multiple messages that my SDI (very useful) was intersepcting incoming nukes!!! Now - I had switched production off of nukes each time, because like in the real world I figured them useless. You nuke them, they nuke you. Cities and improvements wrecked and it just would n't be worth it. Especially with an SDI and against INDIA I wasn't expecting nuclear war.

So - as I was going into this war, I figured I had a good strategy. I had planned on sending stacks of mech infantry into their territory to pillage their access to Iron, Rubber, Aluminum and other useful things. Then when they couldn't make powerful units anymore, I would just bleed them down and pick off their cities in a nice leasurly barrage of armor, artillary and offshore bombardment. I would still be able to build culture and commerce improvements elsewhere and increase my chances of winning by other means.

But, when they popped a nuke it changed my strategy - but not by much. I nuked their resources! This worked tons better than pillaging with armor. It took only one turn, ruined improvements and caused widespread nuclear polution which went uncleaned as the war went on. So - as they couldn't build any units up to par with mine, I kept churning out Mech and Modern and plowing their cities with artilary. Anyway, this would have certainly worked until end of game, but using nukes is addicting. I ended up using them when I got them.

This is, I think, a great way to use nukes without ruining the the game too much. Also, since I wasn't issuing a first strike I didn't feel as if I was guilty of bad play.

End of the day I had to build an Army of workers to clean up the resulting damage on the territory I had conquered. But 20 turns later, they still have nuclear pulution over their resources.

Any thoughts on my malice?

Tom

 

[betazed]

Originally posted by Ouchgeddon
If you nuke someone everybody hates, they won't declare war on you.

Ouchgeddon,

I am not sure that is correct. Maybe the first nuke will not entail an attack on you, but it will make everybody damn mad. And after the second nuke (which you have to use since no nuke war can be done with a lone nuke) you can be sure everybody will declare war on you. I have tested this many times

 

[betazed]

Originally posted by timberwolf4545
I was playing as Persia against oddly aggressive India. They had declared war on me 3 times after wiping out America....

timberwolf4545,

Great strategy. However, if I were India then I would have nuked each and every city of yours. Also since I was your neignour I would have nuked the cities near our common border with tacticals and used the ICBMs on your interiors.

Then I would picked off the undefended (or little defended) cities with MA stacks.

What would you have done then?

That is the reason I never initiate a nuke war unless I can nuke each and every enemy city with a first strike.

Edit: Well, you may be right. My strategy may not work. I tested it out and found out that Nukes are not destroyed by nukes as metntioned somewhere else in this thread. I will have to nuke your cities and capture them in the same turn. That should not be too difficult. But will not be too easy either.

 

[iggy_playing]

so what your sayin is almost exactly what the scary dudes during the cold war were sayin. the only way to win a nuclear war is to strike 1st and completely devestate your opponent.

i know its just a game but that's really scary dude. there's probablly a dude in n. korea thinkin the same thing. good thing we spend more on defense than their entire gnp by like 500 fold. maybe its more likely there's a guy at the pentagon thinkin this.

Originally posted by CivMonger
the trick to using nuclear warfare is to land the first rippling blow. Make sure you know where all HIS nukes are located, and blast those cities and move in. If there are more than just you and him, all other civs NOT at war with you target are gonna be and they'll line up to kill you be careful and your war will make you in no time.

 

[Blunt_Axe]

I found a good stategy using nukes against island nations. I can't remember what country was my target (this was a while back) but they had each city on their island right on the coast. I had transports with marines sitting off each of their cities (just outside their cultural boundary). Then I just declared war, popped a few nukes into each city, and then moved my transports in and offloaded my marines straight into the cities. I would have been able to take them out in 1 turn but one of the cities had only 1 sea square next to it and when i popped the nukes into the city that sqaure turned into a land square (has anyone else ever seen this before?). So i took all the other cities in the turn i started the war and got my marines in next to that city and took it the turn after.

Needless to say the other countries in the game offloaded all their nukes into my cities (SDI stopped most of them).

 

[timberwolf4545]

Betazed,

Ah - you bring up a few really good counter points. And just to be clear - I did not initiate the use of nukes. I checked with my spy right after the first strike and saw that India only had 2 tacticals left. I figured, if I get their aluminum, uranium etc. The most they'll be ever be able to launch at me would be those 2 and those would probably be caught by my SDI.

Turns out India DID not have an SDI. My retaliatory strike involved 6 ICBMs and 3 tacticals which all got through. I blasted all of their resources (aluminum, iron, coal, plutonium and maybe a few more - yes I got their gold too!). I had a few left over to hit a stack of Mech and artillary that was moving in on Houston and bring the hurt to their capital and 2 other 24+ cities.

My industrious Persians were popping out at least 2 nukes per turn after the first strike.

Later,

Tom

 

[Brewster]

I've only used nukes once (my first win on monarch). I wa two turns away from blasting off into space so I decided to make use of some of the goodies in my arsenal. After declaring war on everybody left, I switched production in every city I could to nukes and cash rushed them (over 14000 spent in one turn).

I lead my initial assault with stealth bombers (and regular bombers) cutting off access roads and resources. After securing my border with MI, I was ready for the counter attack. It was pathetic. The one nuke that came into my airspace was shot down by my SDI and the ground assault was lead by older troops.

When the next turn arrived, I had nearly 30 nukes to share with the rest of the world. I blasted 3 out of every 5 cities on the map. After turning the world into a radioactive cloud, my ship was ready for the trip to Alpha Centauri where the people of Carthage could live a normal nuke-free life.

 

[Knightblade pDM]

I love Nuclear War in general(have a lot of sites geared towards A-Bombs, WWII), and even more so in this game. Since all my games start in the Future Era, the first thing I look for is Uranium and Aluminum, and most of the time, I have both and build the Project right away.

BUT, despite that aggressive beginning, I stockpile nukes basically as a deterrant and won't use them unless I'm the focus of the whole planet's anger and impatience, which, from the way I play, is almost all the time.

I've been first striked before by the AI and have done the first striking. But if the whole planet has nukes and you have them, firing them back and forth only ruins it for everyone, turning the world into a radioactive dustbin of pollution and global warming. I've had numerous "Cold Wars" with the AI to the point where you can truly feel the tension between civs, worrying about who's going to push that little red button first and start the Apocalypse.

Yes most of my World Wars are nuke free, and only have two or three WWs per game, but it seems the last one always involves nukes, whether started by the AI or myself as a last ditch effort to save my skin or take the last few stubborn cities that won't fall the conventional way.

So I will launch nukes if I'm backed into a corner, not just for a fireworks show, it's opening a can of worms that's just not meant to be opened.

 

[betazed]

Originally posted by timberwolf4545
I blasted all of their resources (aluminum, iron, coal, plutonium and maybe a few more - yes I got their gold too!). I had a few left over to hit a stack of Mech and artillary that was moving in on Houston and bring the hurt to their capital and 2 other 24+ cities.

My industrious Persians were popping out at least 2 nukes per turn after the first strike.

Later,

Tom

Got to love those Persians. This really looks like an interesting game. Can you upload it?

 

[ShiplordAtvar]

Knightblade

How do you get your games to start in the Modern ages? Do you modify the scenarios so that you start out with the appropriate techs or what?

 

[player1 fanatic]

You have medivial/industrial/modern/future start scenarios at PtW.

Basicly, it's same as ordinary game, but you have extra tech.

 

[Knightblade pDM]

Yeah, when I make a scenario, I click on "Custom Player Rules" and modify each player in the Player Properties to start off in the Future Era. All my maps and scenarios are like that. I take all the terrains that are made(Snoopy's, Womok's..etc) and start them in the Future Era. You start off with all the techs and resources showing. Some Civ traditionalists don't like that but it's a hell of a lot of fun, and that's what it is all about.

 

[ShiplordAtvar]

So you give each player all of the techs from the ancient, middle and industrial eras? Hmmm... sounds decent, but your first cities would have really long build times for the first military units. Then again, if you're working around in the scenario editor, you can probably work around that too.

 

[Knightblade pDM]

Yeah, once you start in the Future Era, you get every single tech already discovered from ancient times to the modern era and all resources are available. You can build all the Wonders right off the bat. The main unit you start off with is Riflemen and Guerilla if you don't have any resources nearby. It's a race to hook up whatever you can, which makes the early land grab phase MUCH more important. It's good for a person like me who loves Modern Age warfare and the "Cold War" feeling of a nuclear arms race. You can still do an OCC, 5CC or any variant you'd like. It makes for one hell of an interesting game. But, the only winning conditions I play by are Conquest, Domination and Cultural. The Diplo and Spaceship are too easy to pull off.

 

[ShiplordAtvar]

I must be the only person that doesn't yet have Play the World. Amazon.com has it for $17.99 plus shipping.

 

[rickyson1]

i dont either

 

[rickyson1]

just kidding you are alone

 

[nickmandler]

I use nukes to kill whales offshore of enemy cities. Is this wrong? It makes no pollution, the neutral civs don't care, and it might frighten the enemy since they know that I have nukes. Cool, eh?

 

[frekk]

Originally posted by XOVER
If you don't start the nuke war, have any of you played where an a/i civ started a nuke war?

I've always stocked up on nukes, but I've never had to use them.

Yep. I'm playing right now an Emperor game on an Earth map with everyone in more or less correct places. No one has nuked me yet (its 1970 or so but everyone topped the tech tree around 1700) but sometime in the mid-1800s I noticed all the AIs declared war on the Zulu. I figured the Zulu must have shot off a nuke or something. I happened to be at war with the Zulu and I had a battle group of several warships and a carrier harassing their shipping and colonial cities in the South Pacific. Suddenly one of them was blasted by a nuke and my ships were very lucky not to have been caught in the blast. Most of them needed repairs as it was and there were plenty of hostile warships around.
So the AIs were now nuking each other, or more precisely, the AIs were nuking the Zulu and the Zulu were presumably nuking back.
A few turns later I traded for the German's world map, not really concerned with any of this, as it didn't affect my plans all that much. Much to my surprise, I discovered all of southern Africa - the former Zulu territory - had been reduced to radioactive slag. Not one city left. It's been quite a while since then and the Zulu are making a recovery based out of their Australian and South Pacific holdings, but have been basically knocked out of the game as a credible power.
If the AIs will go to nuclear war with each other, there's no reason to expect they will refrain from doing the same to human players. Judging that it appears to have been the Zulu, though, it would seem that Militant civs are probably the most likely to do such a thing as a first-strike.

 

[Mullet Crusader]

Heh heh, listening to you guys talking about your crazy nuke contests makes me think of the Mad Max movies, or A Boy and his Dog, where the world is a bleak desert with starving and impoverished cities in a world with no laws

I think i'm gonna go start a nuke war for fun, i've only used them once i think, and it was right before i blasted off to Alpha Centauri. I dropped a nice big bomb on Germany, impressed by the results. Then as the world descended into pure nuclear holocaust that would certainly doom all life i escaped the madness in my starship. Heh heh. Bastards.