Nuke Defense; Lack Thereof

[wcbarney]

I went back to Page 9 of this forum trying to find a thread that I read sometime back in November or December 2010 which dealt with defense against nuclear attack. Couldn't find the derned thread, so will risk the ill-will (& Denouncements?) of everyone by starting a new thread.

The conventional wisdom of the thread I was searching for was that there is no defense against nuclear attack -- except to make sure that all your cities are at least 10 tiles away from your enemies. 'Course I've found that he can move his nuke missile-laden submarines much closer & fire at will.

One post said that, while there was no defense at all against incoming nuclear missiles, your fighter-interceptors would intercept incoming atomic bombs. Everyone seemed to agree that this was so. Well, let me say from recent experience, that in three separate cities, each protected by 1 to 3 jet fighters on interceptor duty, these jet fighters never left the runway and just got vaporized along with everything else! And those jet fighters in neighboring cities -- in range to intercept incoming air strikes -- just stayed in the hangar!

Want a little protection against nukes? Then play Graves' "History in the Making" mod. It doesn't offer any more protection (and even makes the problem worse by introducing ICBMs whose long-range I forget) but lets you build bomb shelters, which limits the nuke damage to 50%, and you don't automatically lose every single unit in the blast radius.

-- Cliff in Virginia

 

[Iberian]

In what is a historical irony I was playing as Washington and had my capital city nuked 3 times in a sneak attack by Tokugawa. It is nice to know there was nothing I could do.

 

[CaptainKapow]

It'd be nice to have some defense against Nukes or at least something to reduce their effect like shelters or something.

My last game I faced a runaway science Cathy who went on a nuke rampage. It was all I could do to throw enough troops in her way to slow her advance enough to finish the UN and wait out the vote.

It did feel rather annoying to be basically defenseless but I have to admit it was some interesting, if hectic, gameplay.

 

[Ironlyon]

I usually put a ring of destroyers around my continent/island to intercept any aircraft carriers/nuclear subs/missile cruisers that come into range. But I don't think the AI really ever does that over water. If they are on the same continent then you are screwed I guess.

One game recently turned into a nuke fest from 4 or 5 of the civs and me. I was on my own island and so separated from everyone that I couldn't even meet then until I had caravels. I was 4th to complete the Manhattan project and used probably 12 or 15 A-bombs and 4 or 5 nukes to slow the progression of AI or turn the tide in a war between two AI's. One AI targeted my units with an Atomic bomb in the water, but never even attempted to come towards my continent, despite being the closest to me, having loads of uranium and at least a dozen or so nuclear subs to get them too me. I saw one or two sitting in his zone of control with an aircraft aboard. Whether they were guided missiles or nukes, I don't know.

 

[Bobafett0610]

I agree that this game really needs somekind of defense against nukes. It needs a building that you can build in the cities that will provide a (50% or 75%) chance to intercept nukes. Having no options at all is just silly not to mention that these civ games are loosly based off of history in general and as we know civs IRL have developed and advanced various methods over the ages of defending againts nukes or having some kindof chance.

 

[Callonia]

There's some kind of defense possible but it requires you to be primed and ready with your own nukes too.

Me vs India, I had nukes ready in almost all the cities, and so when he shifted the most of his cities to one of the city up north to start his offense down from there, I had a nuke ready xD while his wasn't so the missle went flying and blasted that city down to half hp and killed his entire stash of nukes despite for one missle he threw at one of my biggest city at the start of the war. That single missle alone did more damage than anything else he did, coz that city that got hit reduced my gpt by 200 pieces down from 400 to 200 gpt D= Coz of that, I turned two of his cities into ashes. >.>

Noone would be happy losing 200gpt with an growing monster nuking the beejzeus out of ur enemy which's ur neighbor.

So.. only surefire way is to nuke the cities taht got nukes ready to launch against you for preventing the damage.

And before you start battling against an nation with nuke capability, take ur troops off the border and hide em some where and after that first turn or few, send in the troops. xD

 

[NukeAJS]

Atomic bombs should be able to be intercepted by aircraft (which would make air-sweep really important) but not intercepted by AA units, but the nuclear missile shouldn't have a "counter". For nuke missiles, the only defense should be the "duck and cover" defense because outside of being three hundred yards underground or outside the blast radius there's no defense against these weapons. All you should be able to do is mitigate the damage. Normally I don't dig the "reality" argument, but nuke missiles should be absolutely devastating.

On a different note, making a defense against atomic bombs but not against nuke missiles would add yet another technological advantage to the game. Someone with fission but not ballistics would fall prey to the nuclear arsenal of someone with ballistics (and intercepting airplanes). This would make the less-technologically advanced player think twice before going up against someone with ballistics. Also, it would make ballistics more valuable. I often find myself putting ballistics off because A-bombs are "good enough" and fighters/old tanks are not.

 

[flp_ndrox]

Back in Civ II, they had an SDI building to prevent/stop nuclear weapon attacks (I don't remember exactly because the AI had a no-1st-use policy) within 3 tiles of cities that built it. I don't know when the series lost them. Of course, there was a counter to the SDI: a spy could plant a nuke at the loss of the spy and a severe rep hit. Perhaps there's no SDI because there are no spies?

 

[Iberian]

I just noticed I said Toku attacked me. Probably wasn't Toku but Oda considering this is Civ V.

 

[wcbarney]

Back in Civ II, they had an SDI building to prevent/stop nuclear weapon attacks (I don't remember exactly because the AI had a no-1st-use policy) within 3 tiles of cities that built it. I don't know when the series lost them. Of course, there was a counter to the SDI: a spy could plant a nuke at the loss of the spy and a severe rep hit. Perhaps there's no SDI because there are no spies?

In an earlier post I mentioned Graves' "History in the Making" mod, in which you can build bomb shelters in your cities to reduce nuke damage by 50%. You can also build a national SDI wonder which supposedly will intercept 75% of incoming nuke missiles. But it doesn't work & I don't know why. Maybe the devs could incorporate these features in the next patch/update/DLC??? <--hint, hint!

Anyway, in my experience, it seems that playing on Emperor or above on a standard map ends up in a nuclear holocaust nearly every game when you get to the last 2 or 3 civs who are all big & strong and advanced to future tech. You get used to it, but it is still a big mess and there ought to be some counter other than "he who nukes first nukes best!" Oh yeah, I could have gone for diplo or spaceship victories, but switched off these victory conditions because these wins are too boring.

-- Cliff in Virginia

 

[glaivemaster]

Personally I don't think that there should be a defense against being nuked, per se. I was also nuked by Japan in a recent game (I think they've got some vengeance issues), and I hated it, but it did do the job of a nuke, completely destroying my military power and will to fight.

However, I don't believe that nukes should be flying left right and centre. Civ is not a perfect historical simulator, but it tries in some way, and it'd be nice if there was some sort of nod to the actual devastation of a nuke. I'm not talking about power, but just the sheer, unnecessary loss of innocent lives, one of the main reasons modern major powers don't use nukes (I'd like to believe at least). I think there should be a different disadvantage for nukes: not a minor diplo hit as in previous Civs (that rarely led to much until you'd set off about 5 or more), but something major representing people's disgust at your reckless genocide. Unhappiness penalties, maybe, and major diplomatic hits with all civs who aren't at war with the person you nuked. Alpha Centauri seemed to have a pretty good idea - if you nuked without permission, people didn't get -1 "wah wah wah", they really hated you.

As it is, being nuked is really harsh, there is no defence against it (unlike being rushed by a strong military) and the AI will do it willy-nilly, ignoring any sort of sensible nuclear use. I think, with the power of nukes, there should come a significant disadvantage (which isn't just cost, because that's very easy for the AI to ignore with their vast treasuries and bonuses)

 

[KrikkitTwo]

There should be a defense against the earlier nuke... tha Atomic Bomb Should be able to be intercepted.

 

[thetank4302]

I agree! Nuclear bombers should be able to be shot down. It seems right now with nukes that the best defense is a good offense.

 

[kell_the_kyuss]

leave not thy enemies behind thee.

 

[Luderhow]

I think that you shouldn't be able to build a bomb shelter until after the first nuke is launched. Also, since there was no way for any of the other nations besides the US to know the potential of of the A-bomb, all nations should first react to the A-bomb as "scared" and any subsequent usage of the any of the other nukes should provide a large enough diplo hit to make all other AIs "hostile" and much much more likely for them all the declare war against the user to make the user think twice about using it.

And I agree with NukeAJS about the point that nuclear missiles shouldn't have any counters. As of this patch, there just isn't enough incentives for me to even get ballistics.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

No, no, no!! For both realism and gameplay, there must be no defenses against nuclear missiles!

Realism's more obvious: the world is a MAD place, nuclear powers do not fight head-on.

For gameplay, the general idea is to always favour offense so you move the game along and encourage people to go out and win rather than turtle and sit back. Every (sensible) turn based games I played give offense an overall advantage. Games must have a mechanism to end.

Besides, late-game techs fly by quickly and advanced ballistics is so deep in the tech tree that you can't really use it to stop a diplomatic or science victory anyway. If anything I think they need to be much cheaper and uranium much more abundent. At least guarantee the city's toast, and reduce capital down to 1 pop with all buildings/wonders destroyed.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

No, no, no!! For both realism and gameplay, there must be no defenses against nuclear missiles!

Realism's more obvious: the world is a MAD place, nuclear powers do not fight head-on.

For gameplay, the general idea is to always favour offense so you move the game along and encourage people to go out and win rather than turtle and sit back. Every (sensible) turn based games I played give offense an overall advantage. Games must have a mechanism to end.

Besides, late-game techs fly by quickly and advanced ballistics is so deep in the tech tree that you can't really use it to stop a diplomatic or science victory anyway. If anything I think they need to be much cheaper and uranium much more abundent. At least guarantee the city's toast, and reduce capital down to 1 pop with all buildings/wonders destroyed.

Well you Should have Defenses against Atomic Bombs... And an SDI woud be a nice Future Era Tech (on the Peace Path... to make the enemy favor GDRs)

 

[glaivemaster]

Realism's more obvious: the world is a MAD place, nuclear powers do not fight head-on.

Realistically, major world powers give a damn when people start tossing their nuclear arsenals around. Without a defense, there should be a diplomatic penalty

 

[skallben]

As above posters; A-bombs should be interceptable. Nuking should give diplo hits and AI really need to think twice about declaring on a nuclear nation (Our words are backed with NUCLEAR WEAPONS).