Nukes / cold war

[toft]

I am no expert in history, but always hear scenarios where the US and USSR were ready to launch nukes at each other, but fortunately held off. Both sides knew that retaliation was guaranteed.

Nukes in Civilization are working as conventional weapons, and arent as feared and shunned as they should be. How could this be changed?

My idea would be something along the line of the aircombat in civ4. You can order a fighter jet to intercept incomming bombers, and order it to attack - Nukes can only attack (obviously). But it would be pretty cool if you could build missile silos that could target a specific city. This bunker would automatically fire its nukes towards this city if that specific civilization launches a nuke at you (same turn). You would have to target several cities and civilizations with multiple silos. Espionage should be able to detect these targets, and possibly alter its target-coordinates.

Furthermore it would be nice with a delay from launch to impact. I know this isnt realistic that it takes years for a nuke to explode after being launched, but for gameplay mechanics it would be pretty damn exciting if we got told that a nuclear missile launch had been detected.

Nukes are just too easy to use at the moment in my opinion.

 

[Darkshadows]

More Nuke techs.

1945 Atomic bomb does not equal 1980s ICBM, does it now?

Also, Id wish for multiple warheads ability for the ICBM, if we are going to have single unit placement, I think it would be more interesting to target specific units in the army instead of shooting it to the middle.

 

[CHEESE!]

But in this case, we should probably make nukes more powerful to make them more feared.

 

[CivMyWay]

Not sure how I feel about the "auto" firing of the nuke. Possibly. Its growing on me.
But your ability to "see" the nuke and respond accordingly should be based on satellite coverage (see other thread) and NOT entirely automatic (e.g. you may not even see their nuke coming, so autofiring in that instance would be wrong.

 

[Camikaze]

Automatic retaliation to strikes would seem a good idea, but then again, it goes against the turn based structure of the game, so isn't really. I would personally just prefer that it be much harder to use nukes, and there be more penalties for doing so, rather than either altering the turn based structure of the game, and combat, or making nukes much more complicated and in depth.

 

[ARMOREDKING84]

tbh, i would like to see a larger penalty for using multiple ICBM's than for using a few tactical nukes against enemy forces inside your borders, especially if the other civ started the war

 

[Camikaze]

Welcome to the forums.

I don't have BtS, so you'll have to fill me in; is the diplomatic penalty the same for using ICBM's as for using tactical nukes?

 

[AtomicPhoton]

Nukes definitely should be more powerful, I think. I'd like them to be able to completely destroy a city, instead of just lots of the buildings inside it. Though, if you had enough of them you could completely destroy a civilization, so nukes should probably take more production to build, to even it out. I think the current consequences of using nukes is fine, with the victim's allies getting negative points against you.

 

[toft]

Nukes definitely should be more powerful, I think. I'd like them to be able to completely destroy a city, instead of just lots of the buildings inside it. Though, if you had enough of them you could completely destroy a civilization, so nukes should probably take more production to build, to even it out. I think the current consequences of using nukes is fine, with the victim's allies getting negative points against you.

That would just be worse than things are now. Nukes should be expensive, volatile and a last resort. Add this to all cities in your civilization for each nuke you have: +2 , +2 , -x and 1 penalty point in diplomacy to all other countries. Firing a nuke should give +10 for x amounts of turns. With these downsides to nukes, it could be reasoned that they should be stronger or cover a larger area.

 

[Inspector Javert]

That would just be worse than things are now. Nukes should be expensive, volatile and a last resort. Add this to all cities in your civilization for each nuke you have: +2 , +2 , -x and 1 penalty point in diplomacy to all other countries. Firing a nuke should give +10 for x amounts of turns. With these downsides to nukes, it could be reasoned that they should be stronger or cover a larger area.

I think that's a bit too far, no one would make nukes if the consequences were that severe, unless of course they were making a you-tube video...

I think it would be better to give nukes more destructive capacity though destroying an entire city may be a bit too much, perhaps instead nukes cause long term in a city in addition to the damage the already do.

As for global consequences a diplomatic penalty would be ok but perhaps the biggest drawback should be the possibility of nuclear winter.

 

[Ace4nyC]

I personaly think that nukes in civ 4 is too weak. It should wipe out 75% of city pop/buildings and units inside the and make the tiles around the city unworkable. I also like the idea of instant retalaration from 'bunkers' when nukes are fired. Also after nukelear exchange it should be easier to negotiate peace since there is not much of a civilization left. + nukelear winter, global warming etc...

 

[Soundwαvє ▼]

I think that nukes itself don't need to be a bad thing, but their use yes. I think that each 3 nukes should add 1 in every city. So if you got a war with 100 nukes, if you launch them on the enemy you will be affected too.

Also each 20 nukes should add a -1 diplo relations like: You are threating the world.
Also each 10 nukes should add a -1 on each city on the world.

Nukes aren't a good thing, I'm not feeling good with the possibility of extermination because of silly matters.

 

[Ace4nyC]

I think that nukes itself don't need to be a bad thing, but their use yes. I think that each 3 nukes should add 1 in every city. So if you got a war with 100 nukes, if you launch them on the enemy you will be affected too.

Also each 20 nukes should add a -1 diplo relations like: You are threating the world.
Also each 10 nukes should add a -1 on each city on the world.

Nukes aren't a good thing, I'm not feeling good with the possibility of extermination because of silly matters.

no way my brother!!! nukes should be deadlier. If you remember your history correctly US, and USSR went to cold war not becuase they had nukes but becuase they each had diffrent opionions on how each should run its goverment.

The more (deadlier)nukes we have and more counter attack options we have the more chance for peace to prevail, just becuase if i luanch you will luanch more people will die, more units destroyered more commerence lost, the more you will want to avoid nuklear inhilation so odds for peace increase.

 

[Soundwαvє ▼]

I didn't said that nukes needs to be weak, I just said that Nukes (The missile on the city) shouldn't be a bad thing thing as toft suggested.

I agree that nukes needs to be much more powerful but with those conditions I said too.

 

[Ace4nyC]

well i disagree on the -diplo becuase then all the sudden you going to find yourself surrounded by enemies and your going to have to use those .

The doesnt bother me becuase i can just bring in more soldiers and everything will be and if those get realy out of hand i can always order to have them and everything will be back to normal.

But diplo penalty is not a good idea becuase it will just increase chances for nuklear war and then global warming will screw up the entire planet.

 

[Soundwαvє ▼]

Global Warming isn't a problem anymore, I'm sure they solved the problem in new versions, and new mods comes without this stupid thing.

I think that any nuclear nation should be feared, even those with just 5 nukes... so they need to adapt that. The diplo penalty is a pressure to you to reduce the number of weapons.

HTH

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I don't really agree with you.
Nuclear weapons are a weapon like any other. A really mighty weapon but a weapon none the less.
I like the SMAC version of things where nukes made other factions fear but not hate you.

The main problem with nukes is that we newer get as many of them as the real nations did in RL.
Russia had some 20K of them in the high day. That is why everyone feared them.

 

[toft]

I don't really agree with you.
Nuclear weapons are a weapon like any other. A really mighty weapon but a weapon none the less.
I like the SMAC version of things where nukes made other factions fear but not hate you.

The main problem with nukes is that we newer get as many of them as the real nations did in RL.
Russia had some 20K of them in the high day. That is why everyone feared them.

Well you dont have 500.000 units for taking over a city in civ - you cant compare real life numbers to civ. It is a game, and I was just trying to mimic some of the actions of real life when dealing with nukes. I dont really care how it would be done in the game, I simply just think that nukes in civ4 are boring and too easy to use/make.

 

[LiDDiS]

To make for some cold war situations, maybe if one CIV starts stockpiling nukes other CIVs get happiness penalties "we fear for our safety" or something. This would encourage an arms race, up until you can get nuclear non-proliferation tech or treaty or something. This would naturally lead to weaker nations wanting to ally with the nuclear superpowers. It would make for an interesting game era!

 

[Camikaze]

There's already sufficient incentive to ally with nuclear superpowers (although this isn't specifically written in, as far as I'm aware) and create your own stockpile. I don't think that you need to penalise those that do not have nuclear weapons any further, when they already suffer a massive military disadvantage.