The majesty of a mushroom cloud...

[blitzkrieg1980]

Okay, so I'm playing my game last night and I"m noticing that my #1 rival is swiftly putting together the Space Ship and he has too many air units and defense for a land invasion to work. So I decide to push out Manhattan Project/SDI and nuke him into the stone age.

I was wondering how many people use nukes and how often.

 

[KingMorgan]

If i can use them i do, i find you need to follow them up with an invasion, your target recovers quicker than you'd think. Found this out the hard way a few times.

Nothing says 'I love you' more than a ICBM with nice tasty warhead.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Yeah, usually the invasion is necessary, but I dropped 10 nukes in 1 sitting and kept following up with more and more as they were built. I dropped a total of 15 that war and hit every city and 1 twice. There was no need to invade since he's on another continent and I had a massive coastal defense of missile cruisers.

The guy had like 10 cities with population over 17 and they were all reduced to 7 - 9. Crazy.

 

[KingMorgan]

I've dropped 20+ on Pacal and within 40 turns he's cleaned up and launched a ship, emergency invasion fleet was required to raze his capital.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

You may have waited too long to attack. My enemy was only building the casings and didn't have most of the required techs. By nuking, I killed his economy/research/production. If he cleans up... drop another 15. He'll never recover in time before 2050

 

[Orzio]

One game I was playing as Jao going for space but ragnar keep DOW on me. And since all nations except I was his vassals it was me against the world and that delayed my space race allot. In the end I got so mad that I build around 70 Nuke and nuked all his cites and all his vassals cites. That day 33% of the world died by the hands of my nukes.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Nice! now that's a good nuke story. Anyone else have any good ones?

 

[Iranon]

In my first game after moving up a level (I think it was to Emperor, might have been Immortal), the game ended up with two superpowers, each dominating a continent (me as Huayna Capac, Zara Yaqob).
I didn't know anything about modern-era war (previous games had always been decided earlier) and we exhausted one another without really getting anywhere.

It actually came to time, because of the constant warring and very poor land for both... a few dozen nukes managed to eliminate his score lead on the last turn.

Since then I've had a soft spot for glowing wastelands.

 

[madscientist]

I voted to build them but use sparingly, although this does not fit my usual game.

Usually I will only use them against an AI who has not teched up to them as I do not want to see any retaliation. If I see and AI have rocketry and fission, I'll try to get them banned by the UN ASAP.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

I hear you madscientist. But if I have access to Laser or am near it, I'll go for the SDI before banning nukes. Having SDI and an arsenal of nukes vs. another nuke holding enemy withOUT SDI, I'll take it bring it on I'll say.

 

[Orzio]

Nukes is the best naval defense ever 2 nukes on there naval invasion force and there goes there army

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Yeah, the AI figured that one out on me in a game I lost a long time ago.

I pulled well over a dozen transports, several battleships, and another dozen destroyers along with 4 or 5 full aircraft carriers up to the capital of my strongest rival. In other words, this was my stack for the final push for a domination vic on Huge continents map. It was meant to take out 2 rather powerful civs and another 3 civs.

4 nukes and several dozen destroyers did me in.

 

[civvver]

In my last game on prince I was hannibal and well ahead heading for a space victory. My ship was to launch in about 5 turns while only one other civ even had rocketry. Then something inexplicable happened: Mansa musa of all people dows me and takes this wasteland city I had settled on his continent just to grab silver for the corporation hostile takeover quest.

Then monty ups and dows me with a stack of about 6 gallons and 6 caravels. I had no navy, since I'd been peacefully building spaceships and had mech infantry while my opponents were using rifles, I figured I was safe, but monty can be dumb. But instead of landing his stack of cats and maces (he was the most backward civ on the map) next to my city, he hightails it all the way around my continent to a small city I had settled as a bridge in a pennisula between my empire so I could pass through without open borders with the ottomans to the north. He takes that city, I have the units to take it back but ended the war with the UN (I was UN leader).

So now I'm pissed, I have 23k gold and launch my spaceship. I buy nukes, build them one turn then buy them and it costs about 1.5k per so as soon as I am able to dow monty again I nuke his capitol and about 5 other cities, then nuke every single mansa city. Dropped each's score about 200 points, then I won space before they could do anything, not that they could retaliate anyway.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

My ship was to launch in about 5 turns while only one other civ even had rocketry.

Eh... time to move up a level?

 

[midwaymas]

It takes a lot of effort to get Nukes, and although they are devastating, they're also cataclysmic to use if you want to have decent relations with anyone else. On top of this, I'm pretty sure it speeds up Global Warming which can seriously mess you up.

All in all they are not worth the effort. Building the Manhattan project means anyone can build Nukes anyway, so it's hard to leverage that advantage. I prefer to have the U.N. jurisdiction thing to make it so no one can build them.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

That's a personal choice, i guess. But if you're the first to lasers, building ManProj followed immediately by SDI and having all production cities pump out 1 nuke each seems to work for me It's situational though. This game was one of the only ones that I built nukes at all. It was desperation because Justinian was really pumping out the space ship parts. He built 5 casings and a life support in the space of 2 turns (well that's when they were produced, although it wasn't all that long after he built the Apollo program).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I don't use them much...the game varies heavily the later you go on - in the time of nukes I'm usually way ahead winning or too close to parity.

However, if you get rocketry and fission before the AI's and the game isn't decided yet, it's a worthy consideration. Very worthy. It doesn't matter if they get there a little later. You can see the uranium. You can nuke the uranium of anyone that would retaliate. Ecology is a long time later usually, so what's the AI going to do? Build nukes with coal?

WW is terrible though. Consider police state/jail/rushmore to get rid of it entirely.

 

[tycoonist]

the only times i have used them is to prevent the AI getting a diplomatic victory when i was going for space. 20 nukes do wonders to their population...

 

[grandad1982]

If I build them I use them.

My problem is that they cause global warming. WTH?!

The global warming mechanic is rubbish.

Still nothing like being in the end game when you have it in the bag and taking revenge on any fool who crossed you or slightly annoyed you! Yer thats you Pacal.....

 

[PaulusIII]

Except for the first times of 'hey, I can use nukes, let's try some!' I've only gotten myself into a full-scale nuclear war once. Shaka had wiped out one civ and crippled/vassaled two others, while I had not even met him. Decided to take him on because I was being out-teched badly.

It was then that I discovered a new way of dealing massive collateral damage. I simply nuked my way through his lands, winning domination in the end.

For those of you that remember that game, that was LHC 22 with Sury.

Generally my games don't last long enough (or the remaining opposition is not worth the effort of nuking) to justify all-out nuclear war.