Tired of Askia Nuking Me

[bcaiko]

I've only been playing Civ5 for a couple of months, and in the past few weeks, I've tepidly moved up to playing on Level 5 (King?). I've usually all but won on Level 4 before the modern era really gets in full swing, so I've never seen nukes come into play.

In my latest game, boy did I. I played on a 6 person map, but reduced the amount of players to 5 (trying to ween myself on Level 5, still). Unfortunately, this meant the Greeks and Songhai got a continent to themselves while I had to fend off the Aztecs and Babaylon (who made an early warrior rush at me). By the time I'd fully explored the world, Songhai had managed to gain a lead in tech on me. And was sending settlers to found cities on my borders. I managed to close the tech gap, burned his cities on my borders and mounted an invasion of his continent.

Songhai did a really good job using his airforce to protect his borders (something I'd rarely seen the AI do), but I eventually captured 3 of his cities on my push to his capital. One of his attacks made me thing, "Hmmm...that's a strange looking bomber..."

Nuked. Then nuked again. Then nuked AGAIN. All three of my Songhai cities were nuked. In one turn. My army was destroyed. Songhai nuked his own people to prevent me from controlling the cities!

I fended off an attack on the Songhai cities and started to rebuild. A few turns later, all three cities were nuked AGAIN. One of them got literally blown off the map. I have literally been nuked 10 times in this one game.

Now I see what people have been saying about nukes on these boards. They're extremely powerful, but seem to have no reprocussions for the person using them. No way to fend them off, no diplomatic negatives, I don't even think Askia's nearby units were destroyed when he decided to nuke his own people. Is this really the case? Do I have no hope of dealing with Askia except to nuke him back?

 

[Strategist83]

I believe the grievances you have been put through to be completely outrageous. Please accept my condolences.

Oh, and - yes, there's precious little you can do about the nukes.

 

[Thry]

You could just use choppers to pillage his uranium source. It isn't that hard.

 

[Lyoncet]

I'd just like to say that this is the best thread title ever.

 

[GenjiKhan]

Once I've attacked Iroquois at west and east. He didn't hesitated to nuke my east army when they conquer a city near Iroquois' Capital and he destroyed the city I conquered. I think his target was your army. The cities are just on nuke's way.

 

[Superluminal]

I don't always use weapons of mass destruction, but when I do, I prefer Nuclear Missiles. Nuke him back my friend, you'll like it. I guarantee it.

 

[Randall Turner]

Yeah, this is why I bumped the Uranium requirements for A-bombs/Nuke Missiles up to 4/8 respectively. Controls the madness, while allowing limited nuclear exchanges.

 

[Sonereal]

Now I see what people have been saying about nukes on these boards. They're extremely powerful, but seem to have no reprocussions for the person using them. No way to fend them off, no diplomatic negatives, I don't even think Askia's nearby units were destroyed when he decided to nuke his own people. Is this really the case? Do I have no hope of dealing with Askia except to nuke him back?

A first strike would've destroyed his arsenal. As such, seriously think about planning ahead next time. I would be surprised if his nearby units weren't damaged though.

 

[Helmling]

You could just use choppers to pillage his uranium source. It isn't that hard.

Oh, that's a good idea...

Unless those uranium sources are really deep in his territory, or you don't have aluminum...

But it's a good idea.

Here's a question, if deprived of his uranium, will his existing nukes work at all? I know units are supposed to take a combat penalty if they're deprived of a vital resource, but what about nukes?

 

[bcaiko]

You could just use choppers to pillage his uranium source. It isn't that hard.

Hmm...I did at some point go for his unanium sources, but he has a few of them. And, well, like I said, Askia had become a runaway Civ with his own continent and I had to play catch up on science, so I really focused on getting toward stealth bombers to remove his cities quickly and give me a landing zone. I had only recently gotten choppers when the last round of nuking happened.

I don't always use weapons of mass destruction, but when I do, I prefer Nuclear Missiles. Nuke him back my friend, you'll like it. I guarantee it.

haha. I'll have to do that next time I pick up this game. It'll be a while, though. I just got so tired of seeing nukes fly every other turn.

A first strike would've destroyed his arsenal. As such, seriously think about planning ahead next time. I would be surprised if his nearby units weren't damaged though.

You know, I didn't really think too much about it since I haven't played a game where nukes really became a factor. I was more worried about the 15 planes he had stationed in each city, which I successfully managed to work around.

 

[EndoConvert]

Nukes are not a big deal. Ways (some of these may not apply to your specific situation, but these are general methods around which you should plan toward early on) to deal with them include:

(1) Bribe civs into wars with other civs so they'll blow their nukes on each other instead of you.

(2) Pillage their uranium.

(3) Trade for all the uranium of other civs so that they never get the chance to build nukes in the first place.

(4) If they're getting their uranium from CSes, buy the uranium CSes out from under them.

(5) Spread out your units and don't keep them all around your capital, which is often target #1 for the nukes. This is easier on non-Pangaea maps, wherein you have more of a focus on a navy and wider space to spread the ships out.

(6) Build fewer military units. It is better to have a few, up-to-date units, and to maneuver/use them well, than to have a large number of out-teched units. Fewer units will make nukes less cost-effective against you (each nuke will kill fewer units) as well as saving you money on unit maintenance.

(7) If they have nukes, then the game is in the Modern Era. So just win the game already, via, say, Diplomatic Victory.

(8) Build nukes yourself.

(9) If what's preventing you the two previous points (from winning or from building nukes) is a tech disadvantage, then next time, use more RAs to outtech AIs so that you win the game or get nukes before they do.

 

[Randall Turner]

(1) Bribe civs into wars with other civs so they'll blow their nukes on each other instead of you.

Yep, they're bad about using them up even on a weak opponent.

Be prepared to feel like a Machiavellian dick, though.

 

[cccv]

Nukes are not a big deal. Ways to deal with them include:

(1) Bribe civs into wars with other civs so they'll blow their nukes on each other instead of you.

(2) Pillage their uranium.

(3) Trade for all the uranium of other civs so that they never get the chance to build nukes in the first place.

(4) Spread out your units and don't keep them all around your capital, which is often target #1 for the nukes. This is easier on non-Pangaea maps, wherein you have more of a focus on a navy and wider space to spread the ships out.

(5) If they have nukes, then the game is in the Modern Era. So just win the game already, via, say, Diplomatic Victory.

(6) Build nukes yourself.

1. No guarantee they'll use the nukes on each other instead of you.

2. If it's deep in their territory, good luck.

3. If they hate you enough to nuke you, they're not going to keep selling their uranium to you, except maybe at the price of all your gold, luxuries, gpt, and open boarders for 30 turns >.>

4. Spreading your army out when you're trying to invade is a problem. And when you're being nuked every 5 turns, you will want to get that army together to invade.

5. There you go.

6. Mutually Assured Destruction does not exist in the game.

Number four there is the only guarantee-- win the game before they get the chance to get nuke-happy with you.

 

[Randall Turner]

Late game wars have some fun stuff. (Which nukes sorta spoil.) With a few XML edits they're really fun, moreso than any other time period in my opinion.

In other words, you're right as far as it goes w/the "just win" approach, but you give up the opportunity to use all your new toys.

 

[Aristos]

No way to fend them off, no diplomatic negatives, I don't even think Askia's nearby units were destroyed when he decided to nuke his own people. Is this really the case? Do I have no hope of dealing with Askia except to nuke him back?

You obviously didn't watch Independence Day, did you?

Seriously: I envy you. You witnessed a true AI miracle. I just had a game where Ghandi sat on his pile of gold (at Emperor) while I invaded his continent, liberated half his empire, while he did nothing at all even if he had atomic capabilities... not a rush buy, nothing. I just finished his lead of the game like that.

What did you do to have the Shafer AI behave like that in your game? Give her a shot of Sorenade?

 

[Mods]

I think that it should be almost impossible to take out a nuclear superpower, in real life nobody will ever invade America, Russia or China, because of their nuclear arsenals.
Also, historically invasions from overseas have always gone pretty bad.

Anyway I hope you won the game after that blunder

 

[TPQ]

Nukes are a legitimate balance problem in the game imo. They need a defense that actually works. Atm, afaik, fighters of all types don't ever seem to intercept atomic bombers, although, supposedly they should do with a 50% chance of intercept (with no intercept promos). Hopefully this will be fixed in a patch.

Nuclear missiles have no defense at all atm. I think there needs to be a late game defense against them, like the SDI national wonder in Civ4 and nukes need to have repercussions for the person/AI using them.

Many players like to play into the modern era and nukes, as they are now, ruin the late game imo. Combat is perhaps one of the best elements of Civ5 with the 1upt rule. It's is spoiled in the late game by AIs going nuke-happy on each other and the human player.

The suggestions above as to how to stop/limit AI use of nukes are valid, but if your AI opponent has settled ON uranium there's little your choppers/paratroopers can do about it, especially if the settled uranium city is deep in enemy territory.

I think nukes, as they are now, are badly implemented and often ruin the late game.

 

[EndoConvert]

Nukes are a legitimate balance problem in the game imo.

Nukes are a legitimate balance problem IN REAL LIFE. No one ever tries to invade a nuclear power. As I stated in an earlier post above, I do not think nukes are imbalanced in-game, but if they were, then that would actually make them realistic.

 

[lordsurya08]

See, the AI can nuke me all it likes, but nuking the AI back is not an option. If I want to annex his awesome cities (I play on legendary start) why should I nuke them and halve their population? It's a loss for me.

So I came up with a simple solution: Make the Manhattan Project require 100 Iron. Problem solved. I like the idea of nukes, but they were poorly implemented. If they were harder to build and had universal diplo consequences, and if diplo even mattered in this game, then I would enjoy the concept a lot more.

 

[TPQ]

Nukes are a legitimate balance problem IN REAL LIFE. No one ever tries to invade a nuclear power. As I stated in an earlier post above, I do not think nukes are imbalanced in-game, but if they were, then that would actually make them realistic.

Yeah, but I play Civ as a form of escapism from the real world.

I like a fair bit of realism in Civ, but there is a tipping point at which realism starts to negatively intrude on gameplay and enjoyment of the game. It is a game after all and as such it's sole purpose is to entertain.

Nukes, as they are now, frankly, ruin late game warfare and warfare is, quite possibly, Civ5s biggest strength and where much of it's entertainment value lies.

If I've nurtured my army over the millennia, promoted them highly and finally have a great, seriously powerful, professional army to defend my lands and conquer others, the last thing I want to see is them get vaporized by multiple nukes.

Now, if there was a defense that worked and I didn't plan for it and didn't build it in time, that would be my fault and I'd just have to suck it up and move on. But having no defense against nukes at all, once the AIs gets them, I can pretty much say goodbye to all my troops and the kind of conventional warfare that Civ5 makes fun.

Of course there are many different solutions to the problem of having nukes in the game, but the developers didn't have to look far to find suitable ones. Fighters for nuclear bombers (which they sort of did, but doesn't seem to work) and an SDI national wonder for nuclear missiles (which was in Civ4).

Now, if you like, you could balance it so that jet fighters were more potent than WW2 era fighters against nuclear bombers, and you could have SDI come later than nuclear missiles in the tech tree and cost a lot to build (maybe requiring 2 great engineers worth of production in a size 20 city) and possibly requiring some strategic resource like aluminium.

There are many ways nukes could be a really good feature in Civ5. They could maybe even have diplomatic repercussions on use (or excessive use), if that could some how be worked into the "playing to win" diplo model.

The way they are now though is as though the developers didn't have time to finish their integration into the game off before shipping it. They just seem to be stuck in there with no consideration of their impact at all.

Uuugh. I'm starting to rant... Hmmm. Never mind. Just, imo, a really, needlessly lackluster implementation of what could otherwise be a fun game element.