Nuclear Weapons in Civ3

[ApocalypseKurtz]

Has anyone used the ICBM or tactical nuke weapons?

If so, are they more powerful or less than in Civ2?

Would you recommend using them when they become available?

 

[DaEezT]

They are less powerfull in the way that they only have a 50% chance of killing military units. but they are more powerfull in the way that they permanently transform terrain! grassland becomes plain and plainbecomes desert. Since there is no more terraforming in civ3 this is a very destructive weapon!
It still kills half of a city's population, destroys all terrain improvements in it's 9 squares and pollutes them. I think it also destroys city improvements but I am not sure.

 

[NickWJM]

hmm i havnt yet got that far but i would of prefered nukes to be far more powerful, perhaps having tac nukes with the kinda power talked about but with the ICBM they should be terrain destroying, city, and unit obliteratin monsters!. It should be a weapon which is feared to be used because of the effect of someone launcing it against u also. Lets face it at the moment if u know theres only a 1 in 2 chance of killing any enemy units would u really risk not only the reprimand of all nations but also all out Nuclear War?.

Like I say i havnt used them yet so i cant say ive game tested the effect. I hope im wrong and that it actually works very well. Lets hope so anyways.

 

[Maj]

Well let me tell you that using ICBMs is not a valid way of "encouraging" a Civ to come to the table with a lot of goodies to exchange for peace. I nuked the Americans (sorry ) a few times with ICBMs, targetting their capital and two other largest cities. Not only did they refuse to make peace, they got the rest of the world on my case. Let me tell you that being very technologically advanced doesn't always bring about much benefit, especially if they have bombers. The malfunctioning of the Air Superioriy option for interceptors really makes it a pain in the buttwhen they send wave after wave of bombers to destroy you terrain improvements.

The only nukes I choose to launch are the tactical ones, and only at ships. They're great at taking out naval task forces, without the pollution (so I believe) and global reprisal. But it's a two way street; if opponent civs have them they'll probably end up using them on you and your cities as well.

ICBMs, as far as they fit into my strategy, are useless and can end up being more dangerous to yourself than the intended target. They're expensive, not very damaging (only half pop and half chance of killing military units) except when dealing with your reputation, plus they render the city you nuked pretty weak as the intense heat produces global warming effects in the immediate tiles (9).

I only build ICMBs for one ofthe same reasons the Cold War started; to make sure I can retaliate if the other guy chooses to use his. From my experience, you probably need to really infuriate your opponent before he uses one or more.

 

[Eliezar]

I recently won a spacerace game where I had built up 15 ICBMs as I awaited the finishing of my spaceship. After I won I went back and cancelled my spaceship to see what would happen if I used my nukes.

Well it was funny. I had 2/3s of one continent to myself with England sharing the other third. Persia had a continent to itself and Rome had a continent to itself. So I decided that I would nuke Persias 15 biggest cities which happened to be all of its cities larger than 12 population 8)

In the aftermath I was hit by 3 nukes from Persia, but not in my main cities. They chose to nuke my city with my forbidden palace and two other cities with high military unit concentration. I think if I didn't have 8 bombers sitting in my forbidden palace city they would have just nuked another outskirts nothing city, but who knows.

The next turn I asked England to go to war with me against Persia and they agreed. I asked Rome to go to war with me against Persia and they declined, but didn't declare war against me either.

I was able to load up transports and head over to Persia and roll over them in the end. It seems that the nukes crippled Persia pretty well. Persia was pretty much even with me in science except they hadn't researched the laser so it wasn't a tech type military win. I did roll over Persia but Rome researched laser and started to try to finish their spaceship so I just ended the game.

The point being that nobody decided to declare war on me after I had mass nuked the Persians. Leveling a continent like that is quite fun though.

Eliezar

 

[Phoenix]

Are there any SDI defence (or any other defence) against ICBM or tactical nukes? I thought that in Civ2 nukes became useless very quickly as after reserching nuklear missiles the first thing civilisations did was reserch the laser and the bulid lots of SDI defence lasers.:rocket:

 

[Sparrowhawk]

SDI defence is now a small wonder. I believe you have to have at least 5 SAM sites, and researched the laser before you can use it. It doesn't stop all nukes though, and since I haven't used it (or nukes) yet, I don't know to what degree it is usefull.

 

[DaEezT]

The SDI is a small Wonder. You can build it after you have the Laser and at least 5 SAM batteries. It has a 75% chance of intercepting ICBMs. That would mean that tactical nukes are unaffected, but I haven't had the chance to test that yet.

 

[Leonidas]

ICBM and Tactical nuke seem to have the same effect. The only difference is that Tactical nuke has limited range, thus typically you have to deliver it closer to enemy before launching.

As for the effect, I think nukes are very powerful in the game. 50% chance to destroy any enemy unit/reduce population by 50% are great, plus it completely wipes out all squares right next to the city(roads/rails included). This means you cut the city off all the strategic resources(except if enemy city has Airport) with a single blow. So if you have enough nukes to send one on each enemy (major) city they will be stuck, since no resources will be available(in that case,even Airport won't help!). I had similar situation, nuked all major enemy cities, and bombed other smaller ones, and after I wiped out his existing units, he lost city after a city quickly.

Also I haven't noticed any particular anger among my allies when I used 5 nukes(anyone who played SMAC knows what problems faced a player who used Planet buster - whole world turned against him permanently). But still nukes in Civ 3 aren't even close to what Planet busters could do.

So yeah, use them if you don't have enough airpower to isolate enemy cities.

-- Leo

 

[SkidiWili]

I would like to see some SMAC planet busters in the game (just for humor). Making enemy's capitol to a big crater really makes everyone happy, but it even isn't possible to create planet busters to CivIII(at least I think so), because there really doesn't seem to be anyway to make the crater... but still...

 

[D_L_26]

If the manual is right and I think it is it is not a 50% chance of destroying every unit it hits, it is 100%, just like the other games. Forgive me if I am wrong.

 

[Ohwell]

I was in a modern age game on regent level, when i wanted to see what would happen if i launched a couple of icbms at the germans. when i moved some units near berlin, then nuked it, some of the units still survived. I did a test on myself (saving beforehand) i launched a icbm on my best defended city, Poitiers. Roughly 3 quarters of the units were gone, a couple were damaged, some were unscathed. I believe there is a 50% chance of being destroyed, a 25% chance of being damaged, and a 25% chance of being unscathed.