Nukes

[[Y]]

The discussion here doesn't answer the question of why would anyone in-game want to build and use those bombers as units when ICBMs are a couple of techs away? It feels to me such a unit would have an extremely short window of relevance (as it had IRL, for what it's worth).

What if they functioned like the cavalry given to the first to research Divine Right and found Islam? Whoever is first to research the nuke tech immediately gets that unit. It can be worse than all the other nukes, and the least mobile, and not something anyone would want to build... but it's free and it's there for the first person to cross the line.

 

[Alekseyev_]

The discussion here doesn't answer the question of why would anyone in-game want to build and use those bombers as units when ICBMs are a couple of techs away? It feels to me such a unit would have an extremely short window of relevance (as it had IRL, for what it's worth).

First, it would be that couple techs earlier, and in a dire war, 20 turns can be a long time, but then also: Because it doesn't get intercepted by SDI and has more inland range than SLBMs. Also easier to relocate (using rebase function) than submarines.

 

[AspiringScholar]

Because the current mushroom cloud animation is for a missile. While a kamikaze nuclear B-29 slamming into the target city will no doubt look awesome, it's a bit of an overkill from a realism perspective, I feel...

In that case, would it be possible to depict the unit as the bomb itself, and omit the plane entirely? That way, it would be the projectile itself slamming into the city and we would still get a mushroom cloud.

The discussion here doesn't answer the question of why would anyone in-game want to build and use those bombers as units when ICBMs are a couple of techs away? It feels to me such a unit would have an extremely short window of relevance (as it had IRL, for what it's worth).

I would, for a number of reasons:

1. Not only the technology, but ICBMs also require rockets themselves (and by extension, aluminum) and a silo. An entire manufactured resource can be a hard barrier many cases, and either way requires a significant investment with the Rocket Assembly Plant (1500) and construction of the silo (1250). For context, the United Nations itself is 2500, so each silo individually costs half the price of a contemporary wonder. The access to nuclear strike capability in lieu of these things is desirable, and I think in many cases would be advantageous. However,

2. ... that technology barrier is significant, even taken alone. If you already have Nuclear Physics researched, you also need to have Electronics and Radar researched, so 3 techs of the previous tier are necessary as well, making it difficult to beeline for; so if a player had already beelined for the former in racing to get nukes first, they are unlikely to have the others already and will therefore need to research 4 technologies from this position, which I do not consider trivial.

3. They are still decisively powerful, and the ability to annihilate an enemy army or city has a lot of military utility. I can envision many scenarios where it would come in handy, especially when the technology and production barrier until ICBMs could very well last the duration of entire wars. With Takofloppa's recent changes, too, whoever uses the earlier ones first will define create an interesting paradigm for any who build or use missiles, later.

What if they functioned like the cavalry given to the first to research Divine Right and found Islam? Whoever is first to research the nuke tech immediately gets that unit. It can be worse than all the other nukes, and the least mobile, and not something anyone would want to build... but it's free and it's there for the first person to cross the line.

This is a good idea, I think!