SDI defense: cheap and too quickly available?

[syneris]

ICBM is available with Rocketry (plus others). Rocketry leads to Satellites. SDI is available with Satellites. I never checked prepatch but it seems SDI becomes available AFTER nukes.
ICBM has a cost of 500. SDI has a cost of 500 (double IF you have plutonium). SDI pretty much makes bomb shelters not worth building.
I've never had the AI launch a nuke at me, but destroying tons of tile improvements, crippling my city's population, damaging/destroying my units nearby just doesn't sound like something i want happening.
I'm thinking SDI is more in place for mutliplayer rather than single player as even 75% of nukes landing could ruin the fun quickly, since nukes are very overpowered (well they are nukes).

 

[Exavier]

Tecnically the SDI is avalible after ICBMs and Manhattan if you go by the research list format shown in game... However you can usually (and i always do it) completely ignore Fission (Manhatan Project Tech) and go strait for satalites. Yes i end up not getting the manhattan project doing this but I usually have an SDI built long before the AI completes the Manhattan project. Of for that matter on lower dificulty levels usually before they even have Fission Researched lol.

In most games aginst the AI the only time that nukes are effective is within the first 10-20 turns after Manhattan Project is built... any longer and the AIs usually have an SDI. In my games i have noticed the AIs don't seem to build the SDI untill after the Project is complete...

Most decent players would know better.

 

[Exavier]

@Exavier: I did a similar nukerush strategy like you, after getting so disappointed through SDI/shelters. Was an MP game, i was way back from Nr.1 who was on another continent. Additionally to what you described i had 4 Spies and Kremlin(-50% hurry production cost) ready, so the first round after Manhattan finished he had to eat 6 nukes, then 2-3 for the next 20 rounds or so
Victory! I conquered all of his citys with 4 Mechs!

hehe i am currently playing a conquest ownly map with a friend and 7 AIs... we have been sharing techs (basicly i am teaching him to play). when uranium appered on the map he realized he didn't have any. (i had 2 patches and refused to trade, i'm nice but not that nice). He attacked Greece to get his... he ran into some problems with Athens so i told him to back off after Manhatan Project was complete (by me) and landed the first nuke... the year - 1775... was rather entertaining

 

[Nessin]

In Civilization, you need a solid defense against Nuclear attacks because they are devastatiingly powerful, and without the whole "This is not only killing my enemy but ultimately the world" factor you get from an actual nuclear strike, there is no counter-balance with the nuclear warhead. Sure you could eventually lose the game over launching too many, but a few isn't going to make a difference in the game like it would if it actually happened outside the game. As such you have to provide a more abstract defense mechanism, hence the powerful SDI.

As for the subject of actual defenses against a nuclear strike; people here have given good reason in why people shouldn't talk about subjects they have no knowledge on.

We don't have a perfect defensive mechanism for intercepting nuclear strikes yet. Probably never will, but that doesn't mean we don't have defenses that act as such. For example, for years the DoD has invested money in missiles that are capable of intercepting an incoming ICBM, and they are actually deployed (well, being tested in life-fire exercises). On top of that, several current weapon systems have that capability if we really need it like the AEGIS project.

Through those weapon systems we've been able to defend against an ICBM missile since before they were first rolled out of a factory. We've just never had a dedicated defensive measure strictly for that possibility, just options of weapons designed for another mission.

So, in conclusion, stop whining about the SDI project in Civilization IV. It makes you sound like the idiots who can't get past the fact that strength is an abstract value, which ultimately means spearmen don't always represent a soldier carrying a spear.

 

[Exavier]

I personally understand that civ is based on a world type setup so 1 unit may equal an army. But on the case of the SDI its just 2 over the top for the game. Yes we have countermesures and like you said they may never be perfect. So why should a game that is more or less based off hystory have an absolute defence? Cause in all the games i have played 2 things are always constant...
1) SDI protects more then 75% of the time... i can handle 1 in 4 successful launches... 1 in 10-20 is rather annoying (which is usually what i get).
2) AIs in civ 4 don't seem to build nukes like they did in civ 3... at least i have yet to see it.

 

[AER]

I'm amazed by the incorrect information being passed around in this thread. The US does not have anything close to an effective national missile defense (NMD) in place right now. We have tried and failed repeatedly to develop a sattelite, land, air or naval-based system for years now, but we have not found anything that works. The US has spent well over a hundred billion dollars attempting to develop an effective NMD, and we have nothing to show for it except for a handful of 'successful' test failures.

Compare that to the cost of developing nukes originally, or to the cost of developing nuclear submarines. The Manhattan Project cost us about $20 billion in today's dollars, and the project to develop a nuclear sub about $50 billion. A NMD is not an easy, or a cheap, asset to develop.

If realism is valued, then I think it should work much like nukes do. It should require it's own technology (as it obviously does in real life...a technology that we haven't developed yet,) and the SDI wonder should work like the Manhattan project. Once the SDI is built, any civ can build a NMD. If we are going for realism, a NMD would undoubtedly cost many times what a single ICBM costs: a NMD requires a high number of intercept missiles, each of which is nearly as complex as an ICBM. It would not require uranium, though.

 

[Thalassicus]

I think the best way to go would be to just remove the current SDI project and add a Missile Shield research project. After completing it, you could build ground or space-based interceptor missiles, just like in SMAC. This method has a lot of benifits towards better gameplay:

- The more interceptor missiles you build, the better your defense becomes
- The system can be overwhelmed by a massive number of attacks
- After intercepting nukes, you have to replenish your missile supply (thus the defense isn't permanent)

The interceptors would individually cost much less than ICBM's, and have a high chance of intercepting any given nuke attack.

To replace the Bunkers, there could also be expensive, localized missile defense systems for individual important cities (again, like in SMAC). These local missile shields would cost a lot, but once in place, act as a permanent high interception chance for two or three tile's radii around the city. These could be used protect the vital cities in the core of your empire, while your interceper shield provides good coverage overall.

 

[PekkaM]

-UN that can forbid future building of nukes.

And everyone always votes yes on that one

 

[BaneBlade]

@Nessin: I've read enough about SDI to know that it is far from a "defense" system, if defense means protection against something! Sure, basically there are lots of AMM-Sytems, you could even use patriots against modern ICBM, and there are missile shields around every major american city since when? '70s? Problem is the life fire exercises have shown that u must be lucky to intercept even one ICBM, salvoe, forget it, multiple warhead after splitup even more. If i'm not up-to-date please show me a source where i can become so...
Another point you mentioned, and thats stressing me with the current nukesystem is the so-called destroying of the world. I have in atleast three games used 30-40+ nukes(+ the enemy ones, but that was never more than a handful), and simply ignored the problems caused through this. Why not, my enemies will suffer the same and the game is long over before that matters! Maybe they should be more devasttating on an
1)diplomatic level, so everybody hates me when i saturate an enemy who hasn't even one ICBM just for fun or to save conventional troops
2)global level, somebody suggested nuclearwinter, or maybe worldwide extreme unhealthiness through radiation

 

[player1 fanatic]

By the way only thing currently that can be done with moding is to increase cost of the project.

Projects, countary to buildings or untis can't require mutiple techs (so it needs to be Satelites for consistance), nor it's possible to limit them after Man. Project, nor give them building requrements (like 6 theathers for Globe Theatre).

So the minor modification I would suggest is upping the cost to 2000 hammers (1/2 with aluminium as it is).

That way it won't be no brainer, at least when doing SS win.

No more, "hey, SDI for 6 turns, let's build it just in case".
(it would be more like 24 turns in such case)

 

[elderotter]

There sure as hell wasn't an SDI when the USA nuked Hiroshima & Nagasaki.

yes but roughly 40 years later there was lets see 1945 to what 198?..how many game turns is that? 32?

 

[NinjaGnat]

Maybe they could give the SDI a ramping effect, so that each time you built it your protection increases by 25%, up to the current 75%. It would keep the same costs, just be less immediately effective. It doesn't make sense to simple have no protection and jump to being nearly invulnerable, SDI seems to be more of a constant work.

 

[travathian]

Part of the problem with SDI is the fact that ICBMs already are pretty sucky given the cost. SDI only compounds the problem. And between bunkers and the SDI, there's no point in even building ICBMs. I have to believe this was done as a social statement or to appease all the whiners from Civ 3 who complained about nukes. Sure there are ways to balance this out, they are all painfully obvious and existed in previous Civ games, its just a fact of the matter that Firaxis purposely chose to not implement any of it.

As far as no tactical nukes. Can you say infinite missile bug? I'm sorry Soren, but I am still seeing glitches in Civ4 that I saw in Civ3, so I can only assume that tac nukes were taken out cause this bug couldn't be squashed in the code carried over between games.