Tall empires are extremely vulnerable from nuclear weapon. Disbalance?

[Thalassicus]

The mod is fine for those who don't like Civ 5, but want something slightly different.

More accurately... the balance mod is for fans of Civ 5 who basically want to play vanilla, but enjoy more fun, challenging, and evenly-matched options... such as between tall and wide empires, or equally useful early world wonders.

 

[MadDjinn]

More accurately... TBC is for fans of Civ 5 who basically want to play vanilla, but would like slightly more balanced strategies, such as between tall and wide empires.

yeah, not so much. we've been over that part already.

 

[d80tb7]

I actually think that the current implementation of nukes is better than in any previous civ game, but I still Agree with Thal's core point that they're overpowered. As with any civ game mechanic they have to tow a careful line between being a) somewhat historically accurate and b) good for gameplay. I think you can make a case for them being overpowered judged against either of these criteria. (The following discussion assumes we are talking about ww2 style fission bombs rather than the later hydrogen bombs).

Taking first historical accuracy.

1) Civ 5 atomic bombs always cause 50% casualties on a city. If we compare this to real life then the Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused somewhere between 25% and 50% casualties. Admittedly the sample size here is pretty small but given that a) these bombs were dropped on a completely unprepared populus, b) these cities were carefully chose to maximise casualties and c) the bombs had a fixed yield so dropping them on a larger city wouldn't have lead to higher casualties it seems unlikely that a 50% casualty rate for a city would be the norm.

2) Bombs dropped from planes are heavily dependent on control of the air. The US was only able to drop Atomic Bombs on Japan with impunity because it had complete control of the air. In real life, it is therefore reasonable to assume that strong air defences would be a good defense against atomic bomb attack. The lack of interception of Atomic Bombs is therefore completely unrealistic.

3) The concept of fallout in the game is completely over the top as air burst weapons produce relative little fallout. The population of Hisroshima for example took less than ten years to return to pre war levels and today is a bustling city of well over a million.

Now granted this would all be irrelevant if the Civ developers had simply sacrificed a bit of historical accuracy for a more fun game, however I don't believe thy have:

1) As Thal has stated, in many situations Atomic bombs means game over (meaning a victory for the human just as often as the player I might add). This is a situation that I think Civ games should avoid as much as possible. For an comparative example consider that it would be historically justifiable to make the first civ that gets machine gun era technology (infantry?) virtually unstoppable. This isn't done because it would be detrimental to the game.

2) There are no negative consequences to using atomic bombs so there are no reasons not to use them. This is slightly immersion breaking for me as I want to believe I'm controlling a civilization, not playing a spreadsheet. Yes, you should be able to use atomic bombs, but firstly it should make all other powers extremely cautious of you (and those without nukes actively distrustful/hostile) , secondly it should make your own people seriously unhappy and thirdly it should make the people you used it on even more unhappy!


So that's the argument, now what do I think shout be done about it:

1) Reduce A-bombs to kill only a third of the pop. Maybe introduce a maximum number of pop to kill.

2) Allow interceptions of A-bombs

3) Give an unhappiness penalty for using a-bombs. Ideally they'd bring back war weariness here so it could be built into that.

4) Much reduce the effect of fallout.

sorry for the long post

 

[Becomedeath]

3) Give an unhappiness penalty for using a-bombs. Ideally they'd bring back war weariness here so it could be built into that.

If you're interested in historical accuracy, I would look at the only civilisation to have actually used nuclear weapons. They weren't exactly unhappy at their use, and the rest of the world didn't react all that badly, well, maybe Japan.

Yes that could be debated endlessly, however, my point is, that there is a distinct difference in using a nuclear weapon as a first strike weapon and using it as a sort of "does this make my point clear enough" weapon.

A civilisation that makes unprovoked nuclear attacks should of course be penalised by the international community and run the risk of open rioting, however, a civilisation that uses a nuke as a retaliatory weapon is less likely to suffer either of these consequences.

Equally, there is a difference between taking out a point of stratetic and economic importance to a civilisation, and just plain old atomic carpet bombing, so some sort of compound effect should be implimented.

The in game mechanics should reflect this and those consequences should then influence your decision to use atomic weapons.

Personally, I agree that if you let someone get the Manhattan Project and don't consider your relationship with them against their supply of uranium then you're asking for trouble anyway.


Tricky problem though. Interesting to see how many people want the games most powerful weapons virtually nerfed to allow "safe" game play.

PS - As my name suggests however, I'm sorta in favour of open atomic warfare, in fact, just last night I sent the French to a "simpler way of life" as they rudely built the Apollo Project...to my flatmates cry of "show some mercy!"

 

[d80tb7]

If you're interested in historical accuracy, I would look at the only civilisation to have actually used nuclear weapons. They weren't exactly unhappy at their use, and the rest of the world didn't react all that badly, well, maybe Japan.

Yes that could be debated endlessly, however, my point is, that there is a distinct difference in using a nuclear weapon as a first strike weapon and using it as a sort of "does this make my point clear enough" weapon.

A civilisation that makes unprovoked nuclear attacks should of course be penalised by the international community and run the risk of open rioting, however, a civilisation that uses a nuke as a retaliatory weapon is less likely to suffer either of these consequences.

Equally, there is a difference between taking out a point of stratetic and economic importance to a civilisation, and just plain old atomic carpet bombing, so some sort of compound effect should be implimented.

The in game mechanics should reflect this and those consequences should then influence your decision to use atomic weapons.

Personally, I agree that if you let someone get the Manhattan Project and don't consider your relationship with them against their supply of uranium then you're asking for trouble anyway.


Tricky problem though. Interesting to see how many people want the games most powerful weapons virtually nerfed to allow "safe" game play.

PS - As my name suggests however, I'm sorta in favour of open atomic warfare, in fact, just last night I sent the French to a "simpler way of life" as they rudely built the Apollo Project...to my flatmates cry of "show some mercy!"

Yes I agree with all of this. My suggestion regarding unhappiness and war weariness would be something like the unhappiness generated from using nukes would be inversely proportional to the length of the war. Thus launching a first strike would be costly but using them to bring a long war to a close would have a negligable effect if any.

The challenge is to mkae the rules simple enough that the AI can effectively use them. it has enough problems identifying 'the aggressor' as is.

 

[Becomedeath]

The challenge is to mkae the rules simple enough that the AI can effectively use them. it has enough problems identifying 'the aggressor' as is.

It should penalise the Aztecs in all games by default then!

It is a tricky problem I agree, effective nuke rules vs gameplay has always been a challenge.

Civ 4 got it completely wrong IMO as a nuclear war was virtually impossible without a severe tech advantage. Civ 5 is an improvement, but the early arrival of the A-Bomb in the game (i.e. before any serious defensive techs) could use rebalancing.

There are strategies that can be employed to prevent an early nuclear war, but the AI could use an incentive to not use them with such careless abandon. (Like I do!)

 

[Sonereal]

The counter to A-Bombs should be AA Guns and SAM Missiles. It would make Fighters useful for soaking up the attacks. The problem is that the A-Bomb is a one-shot weapon so interception doesn't matter unless it does a full ten damage but that would be unbalancing. Suggestion? Make Atomic Bombs and Nuclear Missiles more expensive but the former reusable and only do 25% damage, minimum 1 pop.

 

[d80tb7]

The counter to A-Bombs should be AA Guns and SAM Missiles. It would make Fighters useful for soaking up the attacks. The problem is that the A-Bomb is a one-shot weapon so interception doesn't matter unless it does a full ten damage but that would be unbalancing. Suggestion? Make Atomic Bombs and Nuclear Missiles more expensive but the former reusable and only do 25% damage, minimum 1 pop.

Actually I think that A-Bombs should be completely lost if intercepted. It's historically justifiable and would lead to the counter against a-bombs being a strong airforce/AA which would be good for gameplay. The odds of interception might need to be made less than normal to reflect the fact that you're trying to shoot down one particular plane, rather than damage a squadron of them, but I think the principle still holds.

ICBMs pose another problem as in reality there *is* no defence against them. There is an amusing (at least after the event) passage in one of my history books which details that research done by the British showed that the country could be brought to its knees by 5 well placed Hydrogen bombs. It then goes on to say that at the time it was estimated that the Soviets had over 100 warheads targeted at British Cities. Now if this was CIV where genocide is not frowned upon but actively encouraged it really would have been game over....

 

[Becomedeath]

Like I've said, I do like nuclear war (in game obviously!), but I tell you what does need fixing.

Get flight, build X number of carriers. Move carriers off to borders of civs with thier capitals nearly in view. Build A-Bombs, rebase to carriers. Nuke All. Collect win.

Surely you shouldn't be able to insta-transfer these things across the world in a single turn, especially when the better part of the world will have little or no defence against them.

Does seem a little cheaty.

 

[bcaiko]

Granted, the diplomacy system should be adjusted a little to take that into consideration. A civ without nukes shouldn't DoW you (if you had nukes) unless they can overcome getting nuked.

That doesn't take into consideration Multiplayer games. Who cares what the the one or two AI think in those? They're dead in the water by the Modern Age anyway.

There are several ways to prevent an atomic bomb attack:
1. Don't let the opponent be that advanced
2. Don't have any opponent cities within range
3. Do not, under any circumstances, let them have acccess to uranium
4. Destroy any missle-bearing vessles before they reach you

So, basically you're saying the only way to prevent nukes is to be a warmonger. Sorry, but I don't accept that (and that's as the player who's Civ buds call the local warmonger!). While some war is inevitable, Civs should be allowed to play their own way. And, frankly, this won't work well in multiplayer either.

There does need to be some type of counter to nukes. Even if it's nowhere near a 100% effective counter. Early on nukes should be very scary, but there should be some kind of counter mechanism up the tech tree. You're telling me that in the future we won't have some kind of anti-nuke mechanism? That we wouldn't scramble jets to at least try to do something about an incoming nuke now? Sorry, not only are nukes hurting game balance (mutual annihilation isn't a real prevention mechanism in a video game), but it's unrealistic to think they'll reign supreme forever in the arms/defense race.

 

[Sonereal]

An anti-nuclear mechanism just means that nuclear weapons are used more often, not less. The problem with CivIV is that once SDI came around, all it did was make ICBMs useless which is highly unrealistic and kinda defeats the purpose of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons should be game-changers. You don't throw in counters because the AI isn't smart enough to grasp concepts.

 

[MadDjinn]

That doesn't take into consideration Multiplayer games. Who cares what the the one or two AI think in those? They're dead in the water by the Modern Age anyway.

Diplomacy in MP:

player A builds the Manhattan Project

Everyone launches a full scale assault on that player to ensure that they have no access to uranium (or are dead).

done.

While I'm not opposed to fighters/AA having a shot at intercepting the Abombs, it can't be '100%' all the time (Ie building or tile improvement) and there should not be a nerf to the Abomb or Nuclear Missile.

and frankly, for all of those complaining about it: mod the game to turn them off if you hate them so much. Don't ruin everyone else's SP experience due to your 'play style'.

 

[bcaiko]

While I'm not opposed to fighters/AA having a shot at intercepting the Abombs, it can't be '100%' all the time (Ie building or tile improvement) and there should not be a nerf to the Abomb or Nuclear Missile.

I completely agree with this.

and frankly, for all of those complaining about it: mod the game to turn them off if you hate them so much. Don't ruin everyone else's SP experience due to your 'play style'.

Mods don't work in multiplayer.

 

[Furycrab]

I completely agree with this.



Mods don't work in multiplayer.

Building the Manhattan Project in Multiplayer gives you such a big Diplo hit I think it's perfectly balanced

 

[Spatzimaus]

There does need to be some type of counter to nukes. Even if it's nowhere near a 100% effective counter. Early on nukes should be very scary, but there should be some kind of counter mechanism up the tech tree.

See the previous page, where I point out that my mod (the one linked in my sig) has a perfectly functional nuke interception mechanism built along those lines. It CAN be done, it's just not trivial.
I'd split off the SDI logic into its own mod, but frankly, that never seemed important enough for me to spend the time necessary. But if enough people want it I could do it.

The big hangup in most mods like this is the AI. In my mod, a certain percent of nukes launched just won't reach their targets; the AI, when choosing to launch, won't realize that. The beauty of that is, though, that even if it COULD know, it wouldn't change its behavior; if a war starts and the correct move is to launch all of your nukes, then the fact that half of them might get shot down won't change whether you were correct to launch all of them. There's no benefit to holding back, which means there's no advantage to the player who knows about the existence of the SDI project.
That's why it's worked well in my mod for a good three months now; I've seen some massive nuclear wars, but they tend to still be survivable since you can't stockpile up so many nukes that your first strike overwhelms the interception percent. (Even more so when you use things like Thalassicus' change to where nukes just knock off a fixed number of population instead of always taking half.)

 

[MadDjinn]

oh, one thing that might help with your nuke problem is to 'balance' out the rush buy costs. (which the AI uses far more effectively than production)

I just noticed that the hammer cost (1000h) for a nuclear missile is very inefficient given the rush by cost of just over 2000g. (I had Big Ben at the time, so it was ~1960 or so for the nuke)

given that everything else has a rush buy multiplier closer to 3-4 (at least) I'd expect the most powerful weapon in the game shouldn't be pez if you've got a massive gpt. (Ie, the AI)

bringing the rush buy costs back in line with everything else might keep the nukes down to a minimum.

 

[Thalassicus]

That was done in the mod half a year ago.

 

[Callonia]

Meh, its nothing.

They need to fix atomic bombs to be interceptable by aa gun sam missiles and air force. geez.

And, nuclear Missiles isn't icbm, they're more of tactical nukes.

ICBMs isn't in Civ 5 yet.

And yes, Completing manhattan's project definitely should make everyone guarded/hostile to the said person who completed the project.

A detonation of such weapons against its target will get its usual you nuked us!

And to everyone else, you displayed such willingness to use nuclear weapons! Need to do something to make them recognize, that such person is willing to use it to kill his enemy= he possibly could use it to attempt to take over my lands too. At this point, everyone probably should prioritize completing their own Manhattan projects to start the MAD.

There needs stuff to be put in to guarantee MAD if they gets the ball rolling. Stuff like Missile silos to allow relationary strike to happen so you can't just preemptive strike and win tit for tat.

I did an massive stealth bomber / atomic bomb/ nuclear missile strike on french across the ocean, granted the stealth bomber could only reach avignon but hey, that metropolis had access to 4 uranium node.

Production centers and uranium cities got missile'd and atomic bomb'd and the stealth bombers mopped up the rest.

France fell in 20 turns, only had egyptian puppet cities left. I think I lost two mech infantry and that was it. maybe three. His navy were sunk by my navy and air force. And I got mah domination win, french was the last xD

Its a game changer yes, and the features in civ 5 isn't complete yet to handle them.

Missle Silos should be a hex improvement and it should station up to several nuclear missles max or icbms.

 

[SpearMan153]

I like that nukes in civ5 are so powerful - nukes are supposed to be

yes - make atomic bombs 50% interceptible like their meant to be, air defence should be a viable counter

the missile silo terrain improvement has merit - must take a direct hit to destory nukes inside, can be build away from your pop centres for 2nd strike capability

a bomb shelter building for reduced pop damage from nukes is reasonable (and also reduced bomber/stealth bomber damage while we're at it) - requires the appropriate defence building

yes - to a M.A.D. system

yes - to an AI that correctly evaluates nuclear threats in diplomacy and in war decisions:

"Our words are backed by NUCLEAR WEAPONS"

no - having nukes should not automatically make everyone guarded, but it should polarise existing friendships and animosities

non-nuclear civs should seek protection from friendly nuclear civs - defence pacts

create an arms race mentality - once someone has nukes everyone wants them (or wants to be friends with someone who has).

hostile powers should be paraniod about nuclear attacks - any carrier or sub in range should be surrounded by navy and a "back off or war" declaration

no - to a magical SDI defence national wonder, nuclear missles are meant to be scary

if you must have a counter to missles, then I suggest laser satellites:
maybe cost 2 aluminium, 50% missile interception (but not atomic bombs), each satellite can intercept at most 1 missle per turn, satellites can target each other, satellies can protect friendly civs not just you

there was a really cool strategic game with the above that worked really well (name escapes me) - each continent was a super power

once satellites are up - more arms races

 

[Becomedeath]

TBH, this should be an option.

Interceptable Atomic Bombs/Nuclear Missiles (Yes/No)

Personally, I really do like the fact that there is sweet FA the AI can do about you bringing nuclear rain down on them, (Yes, Mongolia last night I mean you! ) sure they do occasionally get the chance to fight back, but as I'm usually first to the post with Manhattan it's not much of an issue.

Bearing in mind that this is a game and not reality, a nuclear attack should cause you massive inconvenience, not utterly cripple your game. Less damage to cities, fallout harder to clean up perhaps?