Nukes

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Has anyone ever given a good thought about nukes in RI? I've finished the game a few times but there are some things I really never appreciated about nukes in Civ4 in general and it looks like in RI they're working as in vanilla BTS. Specifically, I never liked they're immune to nukes. I mean, I get it that being a turn based game, allowing nukes to be destroyed by a first strike would make a first strike too powerful. But still (even without mentioning simultaneous turns multiplayer, which should make a fun scenario), there could be a chance to kill a nuke with a nuke, not a certainty. This would make the game more interesting as a player should disperse their nukes instead of building them all in the same city. It would also give more strategic depths to SLBM (or Tactical Nukes) as those should have a higher survivability while installed on ballistic missile submarines. Which leads to another thing I never appreciated, i.e. the short range of Tactical Nukes. While I get while Tactical Nukes should have a shorter range, those loaded on a sub could have an almost unlimited range, allowing again for a more realistic/strategic use of SSBNs. It's pretty dumb to load your sub with nukes and then having to move it next to the enemy coast.
Also I thought originally subs could move under ice but it looks like it doesn't work anymore: is that intentional?

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Has anyone ever given a good thought about nukes in RI? I've finished the game a few times but there are some things I really never appreciated about nukes in Civ4 in general and it looks like in RI they're working as in vanilla BTS. Specifically, I never liked they're immune to nukes. I mean, I get it that being a turn based game, allowing nukes to be destroyed by a first strike would make a first strike too powerful. But still (even without mentioning simultaneous turns multiplayer, which should make a fun scenario), there could be a chance to kill a nuke with a nuke, not a certainty. This would make the game more interesting as a player should disperse their nukes instead of building them all in the same city. It would also give more strategic depths to SLBM (or Tactical Nukes) as those should have a higher survivability while installed on ballistic missile submarines. Which leads to another thing I never appreciated, i.e. the short range of Tactical Nukes. While I get while Tactical Nukes should have a shorter range, those loaded on a sub could have an almost unlimited range, allowing again for a more realistic/strategic use of SSBNs. It's pretty dumb to load your sub with nukes and then having to move it next to the enemy coast.

Paging doctor @Takofloppa

Also I thought originally subs could move under ice but it looks like it doesn't work anymore: is that intentional?

This ability depends on the sub in question—WW1 and WW2-era subs can't (they couldn't stay submerged long enough to meaningfully traverse under a "tile" of ice), but modern subs can (both attack subs and ballistic subs).

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Specifically, I never liked they're immune to nukes.

My own thoughts on this is that it's a necessary abstraction due to how the game is designed:

1) In real history, by the time ICBMs rolled out, there was never a realistic chance of any nuclear power conducting a successful second strike denial attack, due to sheer number of targets one had to hit for that.
2) In Civ 4, you never build anywhere near the number of nukes - and more importantly, unlike IRL, they are stationed in cities, of which you have a finite and rather limited number, which means a very finite number of targets - both abstractions necessary from the scale of the game.

Therefore, it feels to me that to simulate a realistic nuclear war dynamic, ICBMs need to either be totally immune to nuclear strike, or, at worst, have a very very low probability of being destroyed by one.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Paging doctor @Takofloppa

This ability depends on the sub in question—WW1 and WW2-era subs can't (they couldn't stay submerged long enough to meaningfully traverse under a "tile" of ice), but modern subs can (both attack subs and ballistic subs).

Wait, I undestand that, and I agree, but do you mean in-game? Because I tried and in-game a ballistic submarine can't travel under ice right now, unless there's some recent update which allows it and I'm using an outdate version.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

My own thoughts on this is that it's a necessary abstraction due to how the game is designed:

1) In real history, by the time ICBMs rolled out, there was never a realistic chance of any nuclear power conducting a successful second strike denial attack, due to sheer number of targets one had to hit for that.
2) In Civ 4, you never build anywhere near the number of nukes - and more importantly, unlike IRL, they are stationed in cities, of which you have a finite and rather limited number, which means a very finite number of targets - both abstractions necessary from the scale of the game.

Therefore, it feels to me that to simulate a realistic nuclear war dynamic, ICBMs need to either be totally immune to nuclear strike, or, at worst, have a very very low probability of being destroyed by one.

Yeah, I understand, I guess I'm simply more inclined toward a very low probability instead of a total immunity. But I think it requires dll work because changing the bNukeImmune tag isn't enough to make nukes vulnerable to other nukes. The fact remains that this combined with their limited range makes embarked tactical nukes rather useless; I suppose one would need 2 different nukes, one for tactical nukes and another one for SLBM (that is, beside ICBMs). I think I recall I did something similar for my RAND mod years ago, but I can't remember the details.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Wait, I undestand that, and I agree, but do you mean in-game? Because I tried and in-game a ballistic submarine can't travel under ice right now, unless there's some recent update which allows it and I'm using an outdate version.

Hm, I guess it didn't make it into any release versions yet, as it's a change from March, so for now it's only in SVN. Because yes, at some point in the past it was removed by accident and fixed again relatively recently.

Yeah, I understand, I guess I'm simply more inclined toward a very low probability instead of a total immunity.

I'll leave it to our resident nuke expert Takofloppa to decide whether he wants to implement it this way.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Oh, I'll try an SVN version then and thanks for considering my hint. I guess I'm able to do it myself although some years have passed since the last time I modded a dll, but I was curious to see if these changes had ever been considered before. Thanks again.

 

[Takofloppa]

I kind of like the current state of things and see nuke immutability as a necessary abstraction due to the turn-based nature of the game and the fact that ICBMs are somewhat awkwardly stored in cities - it would probably make more sense if we had a missile silo as a separate tile improvement like Civ6 has, so giving them some chance for being destroyed would be interesting.

 

[GreedyManul]

it would probably make more sense if we had a missile silo as a separate tile improvement like Civ6 has, so giving them some chance for being destroyed would be interesting.

I'm torn between endorsing a new missile silo improvement and advocating for allowing forts to have nukes rebased on them. I'd be fine with either of those possibilities, myself.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

I'm torn between endorsing a new missile silo improvement and advocating for allowing forts to have nukes rebased on them. I'd be fine with either of those possibilities, myself.

Using forts is something I did in my mod a long time ago. It gives more depth and meaning to countervalue vs counterforce strikes. The problem is teaching AI these strategies. It's fun in multiplayer but AI needs to be taught about this difference or it becomes to great an advantage for human players (if you make nukes vulnerable to nukes as I proposed)

 

[GreedyManul]

The problem is teaching AI these strategies.

I'm operating under the assumption teaching the AI how to exploit that new mechanic would come hand in hand with forts getting nuke storage capabilities. If the AI knows how to use spies or the recon action of aircraft to figure out the forts that house nukes, then use that knowledge to do first strike chicanery, it gets VERY butt-clenching for the player.

It's also a big shame only the SDI can intercept nukes (unless I'm misremembering for realism invictus, please tell me if I am); the MIM-104 Patriot has adequate hypersonic and anti-ballistic missile interception capabilities on even the terminal phase, so they can serve as very slight defensive measures.

 

[AspiringScholar]

It's also a big shame only the SDI can intercept nukes (unless I'm misremembering for realism invictus, please tell me if I am); the MIM-104 Patriot has adequate hypersonic and anti-ballistic missile interception capabilities on even the terminal phase, so they can serve as very slight defensive measures.

Yeah, shouldn't the ability to intercept nukes be something available to the Air Superiority and Advanced Fighter classes, even if it remains a fairly small percentage?

I do quite like the whole dynamic around nukes as they currently exist (particularly that huge spike in volatility in the brief window between ICBMs and SDI), but an Enola Gay wonder unit for a strategic bomber nuclear weapon that isn't contingent upon rocketry would also be great, even if the animation for it is missing, in my opinion.

 

[Alekseyev_]

My biggest gripe with nukes in Civ games has always been the missile focus. I always miss the plane-dropped ones existing, which predate the missile ones by a fair bit and were the only ones actually used in war.

 

[GreedyManul]

My biggest gripe with nukes in Civ games has always been the missile focus. I always miss the plane-dropped ones existing, which predate the missile ones by a fair bit and were the only ones actually used in war.

Very true and now that you mention it, they're an essential future addition to RI, as Civ in vanilla and lots of other mods miss the Bomber part of the Nuclear Trinity.

ICBMs? They're in.

SLBMs? Tactical nukes + missile submarines are in.

Bombers? Why are they missing? Very glaring omission.

 

[AspiringScholar]

Bombers? Why are they missing? Very glaring omission.

And it's also the perfect niche for RI's "wonder unit" system, too.

 

[Alekseyev_]

I don't agree here, airdropped nukes remained a staple for decades and can even be considered to remain in importance today (though much eclipsed by ballistic and cruise missiles).

 

[AspiringScholar]

I don't agree here, airdropped nukes remained a staple for decades and can even be considered to remain in importance today (though much eclipsed by ballistic and cruise missiles).

Your disagreement here is that the "wonder unit" system is a poor fit, and that this should be a generic unit available to everyone with nuclear capability?

On the one hand, I understand what you're saying in that there's nothing revolutionarily spectacular about the concept of dropping a nuclear bomb out of a conventional airplane instead of from a missile, but in real life, this was only ever used in such a capacity in warfare once (or technically twice, if we want to get really granular), and it was shortly thereafter pretty much completely obsolete, which to my mind fits the criteria for what a "wonder unit" in RI should represent: not something conceptually unprecedented and which nobody else could ever use, but rather some kind of breakthrough in military technology which had a narrow actual application and which shortly thereafter would be superseded for all practical terms. I think a propellor-driven bomber wielding a nuclear warhead fits this concept, the same way an enormous cannon does in the XV Century, since people knew about giant cannons and their potential firepower, and obviously several smaller cannons which are well-organized and coordinated could inflict greater damage than a singular one firing only one shot a day at a bastion of a fortress. One could make it a generic unit available to all, but it remains true that this was only used in war once, and in an extremely narrow technological timeframe where air defense wouldn't have had an overwhelming trump card.

At the same time... if it were to be a world wonder unit, planes like the Avro Vulcan would have no use case for existing, since they were the United Kingdom's "nuclear power projection" through much of the Cold War and well in to the "missile dominance" era of the strategic question. They existed, they could deliver a nuclear attack, but were nevertheless inferior to missile delivery systems, so the punishing disadvantages of trying to "fly in" your nuclear payload may indeed be already well-modeled by the existing "interception/evasion" paradigm, and "middle powers" who possessed nuclear capability should be better represented by this than not being an exclusively confined to the missile strike paradigm of the US and USSR? After all, if the game seeks to emulate the arms race, then the countries which actually did manage to achieve nuclear capability even if they were secondary should still have some skin in the game, IMO.

 

[Alekseyev_]

Your disagreement here is that the "wonder unit" system is a poor fit, and that this should be a generic unit available to everyone with nuclear capability?

Yeah, this.

And while nukes from planes were only used once/twice in war, nukes in any other delivery vehicle were used never. Thankfully.

I also think that a decent range nuclear bomber with an evasion bonus only enough for basic-most ground AA could be interesting, since unlike the more advanced missiles it would require gaining air superiority first.