stopping nuke bombers?

[TPQ]

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.

I hadn't thought about it this way, but you're right, nukes are unbalanced and overpowered in the hands of a human, as well as particularly annoying when the AI gets them.

Surely there's not much skill in buying nukes and then obliterating armies and cities until your score exceeds your target's, or you meet some other victory condition?

Not to say you are unskilled, or that getting to a point where you can do what you did didn't require skill, but once you're there, it's just buy, nuke, buy, nuke, win. Can't be all that satisfying, or particularly strategic at that point.

Nukes take much, if not all the strategy out of the game once you can buy/build them at will.

 

[trueblue]

if the game goes that far then nukes just ruin it.

im all for the way they are implemented right now i.e. not having any defense against them. but the Ai just drops them willy nilly, if it has them, there does need to be atleast some kind of severe diplo hit.

 

[Thalassicus]

The nature of nukes is why I added a nuclear-defense bonus to the Military Base in TBC. It doesn't intercept the nuke, but does reduce damage to the city, and makes Military Bases somewhat more interesting.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

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

That would be fun actually. Make it so a nuke on the silo would destroy the silo and the nuke inside, and a bombing run or cruise missile would "pillage" the silo making it inoperable but leaving the nuke inside intact. Pillaging via ground unit should destroy the nuke inside.

 

[EmraldOnyxx]

The best Defense is a good Offense.

Don't let the game get to the pinch point that you cant nuke them yourself or at least be able to launch a major ground, air, and naval offensive yourself. I really cant think of any solid game plan that wouldn't require an army that could attack late in the game, unless you plan to win by such a margin that you current solders out rank everything on the map.

If you are that far into the game I would hope you are closing on your victory goal and should have enough room to set up an army fairly quickly by gold or production or combination of the two. If not then you may want to consider that as your plan in future strategies. If you find your self running into this situation often enough you may want to consider setting up earlier in your game to anticipate the offense.