stopping nuke bombers?

[templar99]

Last night at the end of my game I was nuked by an enemy bomber. I then placed
fighters and SAM in my cities but they didn't react to the subsequent attacks and the carnage continued. How do you defend your cities from this?

 

[dojoboy]

Fighters or jet fighters? I've not been nuked by the AI, so I've no idea per say.

 

[ImperialSteeze]

You can't directly intercept atomic bombs or missiles.

 

[Pac-Dragon]

The only defense is to capture, or nuke first, the enemy city that has the nukes.

 

[Alex_K]

Or take enough of their other cities that they will sue for peace.

 

[kamex]

I think your supposed to be able to intercept Atomic Bombers, but you can't for some reason. I believe its a glitch, which still hasn't been addressed after 9 months.

 

[TPQ]

Last night at the end of my game I was nuked by an enemy bomber. I then placed
fighters and SAM in my cities but they didn't react to the subsequent attacks and the carnage continued. How do you defend your cities from this?

The Civilopedia says nuclear bombers have a 50% chance to be intercepted, but this doesn't seem to have been implemented. I believe that it is a bug, or oversight by the devs.

Hopefully nuclear bomber defense will get sorted out in a future patch and an SDI-eske national wonder will be added to combat nuclear missiles, but in the mean time, there is no defense.

I'd recommend spreading your air force out over a few cities as the AI loves to vaporize your planes if you leave them all in one city and try to keep your troops spread out and away from your cities if you can.

 

[Pazyryk]

There seems to be no interception (too bad) but there are also no ICBMs in the game (yet). So just make sure that there are no AI cities, carriers or subs within 10 tiles of your core cities. And don't bunch your units, as stated above.

 

[Bibor]

I agree that there should be at least a chance to intercept regular nuke bombers. It's okay that ICBMs cannot be intercepted (hefty prod. cost + 2 uranium), but the regular nuke is just too cost-effective to make it unstoppable.

 

[Pazyryk]

ICBM? There is a bomb and a missile, both relatively short range (8 and 10 tiles, I think). I haven't seen anything like an ICBM. (But perhaps I just overlooked it and will feel like a fool after the next post...)

 

[Bibor]

ICBM? There is a bomb and a missile, both relatively short range (8 and 10 tiles, I think). I haven't seen anything like an ICBM. (But perhaps I just overlooked it and will feel like a fool after the next post...)

Well, you're right but I consider the missile to be the ICBM-sorta-thing

 

[sebasm]

Btw, in case somebody doesn't know this already: nuclear bombs can be used from puppeted cities. So when working on getting buffer zones up as protection from the trigger happy AIs, get rid of puppets in the area!

 

[Pazyryk]

Well, you're right but I consider the missile to be the ICBM-sorta-thing

I figured that was what you meant. But the stats are closer to some kind of tactical nuke (or maybe some kind of pre-ICBM... I don't know my history very well). I'd guess that a real ICBM will be introduced into the game, but not until the nuke diplomacy is modified substantially (or I hope not anyway). [Edit: real ICBMs + current AI/diplo system = a whole new meaning for M.A.D.]

 

[Sonereal]

Unless you make ICBMs cost 3 or 4 uranium but even more powerful to boot. Still, with the current AI, it's very much possible to win a nuclear war if you nuke first. MAD only works if the other side is able to retaliate (which they won't if you gut them first). Unless the AI is smart enough to use Missile Subs (are they?)

 

[Pazyryk]

The nice thing about MAD is that it is a very simple logic (even if not entirely predictable) and so could be implemented in AI without the difficulty of other AI activities (such as real tactics). The developers would have to back off on the "AI plays to win" approach and moderate it with at least a little "AI wants to survive." (I'm generally in favor of "AI plays to win" but it clearly won't work with MAD.) If this were true, then both "nuke first" or don't are both rational options (one is a "high-cost-safe" option, the other is "probably-no-cost,-possibly-infinite-cost option").

 

[dojoboy]

There seems to be no interception (too bad) but there are also no ICBMs in the game (yet).

Yet there is a Giant Death Robot.

 

[bryanw1995]

I don't see why everybody seems to hate GDR's so much. I don't hate them at all, I just usually don't have enough uranium to build GDR's instead of nukes. Also, now that you can promote your horseman all the way to modern armor, it's not that difficult to fend off a couple of GDR's, anyway.

 

[Txurce]

Yet there is a Giant Death Robot.

I don't see why everybody seems to hate GDR's so much. I don't hate them at all, I just usually don't have enough uranium to build GDR's instead of nukes. Also, now that you can promote your horseman all the way to modern armor, it's not that difficult to fend off a couple of GDR's, anyway.

I think dojoboy was pointing out that there is a goofily titled fantasy unit, but not ICBMs or SDI.

I agree that they aren't OP, and would have no problem with futuristic units (including SDI). But I do wish they had a different name.

 

[Callonia]

ICBMs won't work in civ 5 unless they implement a missle silo which protects the missle from being preemptively nuked therefore enabling MAD.

Make the Missle Silo a Hex Improvement. And the ICBMs can be built in cities then transferred into a missle silo.

Missle Silos can be pillaged as well. xD

 

[GlobularFoody]

I think it's defintely time for some nuke defense. I just finished a game playing as Rome and I should've lost that game but nukes saved me. Genghis Khan had completely taken over the other continent and was on his way to win any way he wanted to, Mongolia was completely unstoppable at that point. I had all the reduce buy cost SPs and Big Ben. Nuclear missiles only cost about 900 gold to buy...and I had about 40,000 gold saved up (lots of GAs). So, I just kept on rush buying nukes and completely destroyed all of his cities. The entire continent was a smoldering, radioactive wasteland. It was fun at first, since the AI often builds 3 cities in range of one nuke, but it felt like cheating when I won.