Nukes

[Negator_UK]

I'll say it again: if you lose to nukes, you earned your loss.

Agreed, but....

What if you are losing to a space racer, but there is some bonehead with nukes with no chance of winning giving you grief. I had this once, and couldn't win (the end game was a "blast" though).

Any tips on that one ?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Agreed, but....

What if you are losing to a space racer, but there is some bonehead with nukes with no chance of winning giving you grief. I had this once, and couldn't win (the end game was a "blast" though).

Any tips on that one ?

My statement was for games with one other human.

Any FFA MP game can be completely screwed over by some human player sacrificing himself to put you too far back. You don't need nukes for that, just an immature kid with a lot of prats that never actually attack (they'd lose) blocking land for a 3rd opponent etc.

Of course, that's assuming that these bottom feeder scum don't just pause the game for eternity, completely ending the game regardless.

 

[Glassfan]

the BETTER EMPIRE WILL WIN REGARDLESS OF THEIR PRESENCE.

Amen. Couldn't have said it better...

 

[duckduckswan]

First of all, why are you or your friend letting the other lib physics?!
Your other counter is to get nukes yourself.

Some times we'll play advanced start and put on some ridiculous points, say 35k. That will take you right up to liberalism so that the first tech you'll research will be such. From that point it's simply a race to who gets it first. An imperfect way to start a game, I know, but still my point stands that the first person to go this route will invariably go the nuke route and achieve it well before the other has any counter. Again before you get worked up, I understand that this scenario isn't "normal" but the person who grabs liberalism has a run away lead toward nukes. SDI doesn't come into affect waaaay later, what else is there to do other that spam spies/espionage or rush cavalry hoping they will be affective. Which in the most likelihood they won't because he'll also have rifles by then. Again, I see where this problem is inherent in these type of games.

Now that said, if you guys are playing standard maps w/o AIs, you're talking about an abnormal game anyway. Even so, the reality doesn't change.

Sorry for playing the game a way we enjoy, heaven forbid we do so outside the original starting parameters.

 

[PieceOfMind]

If you don't want to get severely crippled by nukes then you're gonna have to distribute your forces instead of the civ-standard strategy of concentrating them (aka "Stack o' Doom"). If you can make sure that using nukes becomes an expensive way to achieve only small victories, then that is sort of countering them.

It also means you don't want to build up particular cities with improvements like towns that can be obliterated in one hit. Instead go with insta-build improvements like farms and workshops. Also, in your cities, keep infrastructure to a minimum and build more units instead.

Build nuke shelters when you can. Send spies or military against his uranium supply. Don't attempt cultural victory against someone who is very liberal in his use of nukes. Cultural victories rely too much on the protection of particular cities that nuclear war is too dangerous.

 

[Norseman2]

All you need to rebase tac nukes (which are better in this context no matter what, reduces the potential stupid ways an AI could use a nuke, although Rolo is saying you can't rebase ICBMs to AI's i've not tried it...) is open borders. They don't even have to like you other than that. They'll gladly take the nukes and any diplo penalty for firing them off. Neither side seems to be aware of this arms supply, which is really convenient .

If you have good nuke production, you decide who wins a war, if anyone. Remember, if it gets one sided you can always hand them to the other side . You do still have to find a way to win yourself however. Usually with that kind of tech it's domination, UN, conquest, or space.

You don't even need that. If you load tactical nukes on a submarine, you can send the submarine into enemy waters and gift it + plus the nukes. No open borders necessary.

 

[Negator_UK]

My statement was for games with one other human.

Any FFA MP game can be completely screwed over by some human player sacrificing himself to put you too far back. You don't need nukes for that, just an immature kid with a lot of prats that never actually attack (they'd lose) blocking land for a 3rd opponent etc.

Of course, that's assuming that these bottom feeder scum don't just pause the game for eternity, completely ending the game regardless.

Oops, never played a MP game myself, but looks like I'm bring back bad memories - was never tempted by MP Civ with strangers anyway......

 

[xchen08]

Sorry for playing the game a way we enjoy, heaven forbid we do so outside the original starting parameters.

I was under the impression that you didn't enjoy it, hence this thread. This is starting to sound like complaining about how powerful the Great Wall is when you always play games on a large map with few civs and raging barbs, or complaining about the lack of diplomatic options when playing with Always War.

 

[bestrfcplayer]

Nukes are the BOMB!!!

100th post

 

[Isikien]

Nukes are funny
But generally they're harassment tools unless you back them up with an army,
Usually I use them to attack a guy intercontinentally to . .. .. .. . up his cities

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Some times we'll play advanced start and put on some ridiculous points, say 35k. That will take you right up to liberalism so that the first tech you'll research will be such. From that point it's simply a race to who gets it first. An imperfect way to start a game, I know, but still my point stands that the first person to go this route will invariably go the nuke route and achieve it well before the other has any counter. Again before you get worked up, I understand that this scenario isn't "normal" but the person who grabs liberalism has a run away lead toward nukes. SDI doesn't come into affect waaaay later, what else is there to do other that spam spies/espionage or rush cavalry hoping they will be affective. Which in the most likelihood they won't because he'll also have rifles by then. Again, I see where this problem is inherent in these type of games.



Sorry for playing the game a way we enjoy, heaven forbid we do so outside the original starting parameters.

You are underestimating the ability to put up warfare against someone who goes tech-happy. If you funnel that much advanced start point into tech, it isn't going into units, workers, or settlers (the latter two being a huge advantage if they allow you to claim more land -----> simply produce 3 cavalry for each rifle he has before he makes it to nukes and stomp on him).

Anyway, I'm not criticizing your settings directly, but if they lead to situations you don't enjoy, you could always consider changing them.

Either that, or change the whole "going for culture" bit. Any serious attempt at culture necessarily neglects military to a material extent (or does something ridiculous and game-lengthening).

Try a game where you just spam cities, then units, then overrun him. Or try to beat him to lib and then pick state property and build a TON of cities using that + workshops to rapidly set up an empire. Or gamble and spend all your points on knights or whatever your best possible unit is and attack him right away (at least that one will be a short game ).

I don't think you're being creative enough if you're worried about getting nuked while pursuing culture. Where are the guerrilla II (or woodsman II) rifles running around in his territory pillaging (possibly razing weakly defended cities?). The cavalry PLUS airship strike? The "attack from sea and raze 3-4 coastal cities" trick? The "infantry come before nukes! Haha!" + airship strike?

There's probably more, and I'm betting some of them will work if you try them and execute them properly.

 

[Dumanios]

Anything that makes BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!! is awesome.

 

[Negator_UK]

Any serious attempt at culture necessarily neglects military to a material extent (or does something ridiculous and game-lengthening).

Like nuke the rest of the world ? good idea !!

 

[Lynxx]

the BETTER EMPIRE WILL WIN REGARDLESS OF THEIR PRESENCE.

True! BUT!!! One small exception! One can still fool the other player that you are weaker than you really are. In this case the thread-starter should have anticipated the response to his cultural attempt and kept one, or even better two, great artists for a sudden finish with two culture bombs (those are immune to "tha bomb" as long as you can manage to keep your artists safe). One can still pull of a win this way...

 

[Patak]

1. I play MP a lot and at the start of the game we agree not to use tac nukes. ICBM is o.k. (most of the games end without using them because all 6 of us are brut warmongers so the situation that one of us is finishing the space ship and you need to nuke him to hell is not happening very often. Most of the games end up in time victory because of coplexity of the diplomacy versus human player. If you start building space ship there are 5 players that will dow on you. The wars are usually very short and extremelly targeted even just to destruction of copper or iron at the beggining of the game, or capturing/razing one of the cities, because if the war lasts to long the other players will join usually all together, so even the all out war is not an option. We all build ICBM but again as soon as one uses it, most propably he will get a full 5 player salvo of ICBM-s.