Why even put Nukes in the game?

[carn]

Nukes are certainly not useless or why do you think North Korea, Pakistan and Iran put/ are putting so much effort and diplomatic risk in getting them?

FYI Pakistan is a known nuclear power.

I know, i should have written "has put/are putting". I tried to use both past and present, because i do not know how much a nuclear power North Korea is now and what Pakistan might still be missing(e.g. maybe a decent missle tracking, when US used cruise missles against al quida in ~98, the pakistanis did not notice the cruise missles flew over their territory, bad if India decides to do a first strike and has cruise missle equivalents).

It couldbe simulated by cooling relations with practically everyone in the world. I can't remember whether the tradition of using a Nuke would cause a world war is maintained, but suppose that even the worse enemy of the nation would take a negative in relation for saying that you've used a nuke. This would make players think twice about using it - because damaged relation can cause trade to be broken off, or embargo, or making a previously friendly country less friendly with you. I'd think if the US now uses even a tactical nuke without being struck first would make UK not very happy about it in public.

I meant moral issues like "100 million people will die", do not destroy my illusion, that most rulers in history would think about alternatives before doing that.

Carn

 

[carn]

Nukes are horribly underpowered, and i think i heard ppl say that this is much like the real world. Well if all the nukes juz get shot down by some starwars program, and some bunkers and reduce all teh dmg they deal by 75%, including building and ppl actually listening to the UN and dont use nukes, why the hell would there be a problem with pakistan developing Nuclear Technologies?

Becoz Nukes dont get intercepted at 75% and hell not ICBM's they fly trough space and disapear of the radar only to repear over the target, much to late to react, and becoz nukes do erase a city from the face of the earth, this is an ICBM talking and they are by far more powerfull then any traditional Tactical Nuke used, comparison: Tactical Nuke = downtown New York, ICBM=Whole state of New York and then some, and this includes the majority of its populus. And bunkers dont help unless they are within an entire mountain. And not everyone gives a **** about what the UN says, and i dont juz mean the countries like Pakistan and Iraq.

AFAIK tracking of ICBM is possible, since US already tested a few years ago to intercept test missiles that were launched 4000 km away, though they missed most of the time, so its pretty hard to establish a missle defense system.

Also nukes are not underrated in their effect against unprotected cities, if nukes describes the bombs developed during the Manhatten Profect.
These were fission bombs, which have a technical limit of 500 kilotons of explosive power, while deployable versions normally do not have more than 100 kilotons, which is about buildings destoyed in 3km radius, wooden structures(e.g. dry trees) set aflame in 3.5-4km radius and 3rd degree burns in 4.5km radius.
I think its reasonable that that would reduce a big cities population by half though a smaller one should suffer higher losses. Bunkers actually might offer some protection for the area more than 2 km away, so would help to keep human losses down.

But there are also fusion weapons, first test 1.11.1952, the day mankind acquired the ability to self destruct.
"standard" weapons have 20000 kilotons and destroy buildings in 17 km radius, wooden structure set aflame in 30 km radius and 3rd degree burns in 38 km radius. Technical limit is 100000 kilotons, maybe there exist some actual models in russian arsenal, that doubles that radiuses again.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_explosion)

With fusion weapons it is possible to remove a country from the map and turn it into a lifeless wasteland, if one does not mind a few thousand own deaths via fallout.

I do not think fusion weapons can or should be integrated into any strategy game, because it would all turn into a race towards the big blast.

Carn

Edit:
Though of topic, fusion weapons are the reason, why all science fiction movies/books about alien invasions are unrealistic. Any race able to bring an invasion fleet with lots of soldiers, could also bring several thousand fusion bombs along, deploy them in an hour and avoid all that stupid close combat or parking above cities. They would have just to wait a few decades before colonizing, but either they have hyper drives and fly home to celebrate victory for a few years or they traveled for centuries and can wait a few years more.
And the realy clever ones would fetch a few 10 km asteroid on the way and drop them - same effect minus fallout.

 

[SPQR300]

I agree with the first post. Nukes are 99% useless. The only way you can use them, is to sabotage the enemy URAN resources, and nuke them whilst they cant retaliate, but you only have time until the nuclear proliferation is voted. This hardly ever happens.

Nukes are supposed to be an extreme threat, a country with nukes in reality is absolutely unattackable. Because more powerful countries are afraid of the possible retaliation. So nukes are supposed to be the diplomatic weapon of the weak. Not a common military weapon. I think what made the world peacuful in the last decades is the power of the absolute devastating allmighty nukes, and WMD. No one dares to attack, because they know a war would destroy both nations. Wars happen because the aggressor thinks he will have more profit from the conquests, then war-losses. But with nukes no one will gain. But of course this woud make the late game very boring and way too peaceful. So I just changed a few things to make them useful(based on a mod) , they are a crucial element of the game now, which is of course kind of unrealistic, but it adds a LOT to the gameplay experience, there are limited nuclear wars now in the game(think about Rise of Nations, the nuclear wars in the late game has always been the most fun part of the game :

-Increased SDI cost from 750 to 2500
-Decreased SDI power from 75% to 60% (making chance of succesful nuking from 25% to 40%)
-Decreased bomb shelter efficiency from 75% to 20%. (Eventually they cost only 100hammers, and it was way too unrealistic to defend a city that much.)
-Manhattan project cost decreased from 1500 to 750.
-Increased needed votes to ban nukes from 51% to 62%.

If I were able I would make the UN vote: nuclear proliferation not ban nukes(which is impossible in reality), but make them cost 3 times more...

I can send the XML files if anyone wants

 

[SPQR300]

Possessing some nukes should have notable diplomatic effects --- your opponents worry about it, their cits become unhappier, they must accept your peace offering etc. --- but they don't.

Exactly!!!!

 

[Blazer6]

I don't see why every civ can build nukes the same turn, as so few countries in real life have them and others take many years to research. Their reasoning is so flawed it is funny.
Why does dropping them use up so many resources (and lag the computer) anyway?

 

[Goodenuf]

Has anyone had the AI in Civ IV initiate a nuclear arms attack against you (or another civ)? I haven't had the AI come after me with nukes at all; regardless of level and/or situation in the game. I've seen the AI build the Manhatten Project, but never actually use nukes (unless I use them first).

Seems to me that the inclusion of nukes is for the human player to initiate; if we don't use them, then the AI doesn't seem to initiate their use.

Of course, in multiplayer, all bets are off...

Have others had the AI initiate the use of nukes in a game?

 

[SPQR300]

late game war AI suxxx extremely hard. That makes an AI beatable in war, even if he has enormous economic andtechnological advantage...

 

[SPQR300]

up .

 

[Nilrim]

A warrior will lose to a tank. Hard to dispute that, must mean warriors are useless .

The point is that it's more a question of timing and situation. How big is the window from nukes to an operational SDI to a ban on nukes and how broad or narrow is the set of situations in which you will find yourself with nukes? Those facts you mentioned mark qualitative changes in situation, they don't prove anything by themselves.

Very valid point but then why have them at all? The problem I have with nukes is not that they get inercepted by some future tec called SDI but with how little damage they do. If you dropped a modern nuke on any city that city would cease to function as a city. Sure some people would survive but the city would stop producing anything but bad health.

 

[SPQR300]

Very valid point but then why have them at all? The problem I have with nukes is not that they get inercepted by some future tec called SDI but with how little damage they do. If you dropped a modern nuke on any city that city would cease to function as a city. Sure some people would survive but the city would stop producing anything but bad health.

agreed, but that would outbalance the game. There wouldnt be any wars,(just like in reality) because everybody would know, that a nuclear war cannot be won, and both civilization would get back to the middle ages. In the game nukes are a nice strategic element (but only if you buff them a little, the nukes in the standard game have 0.0000 use.)

 

[MarcoPolo]

Why put any modern day technology or weaponry in? Don't most players win the game long before that stuff is researched? It's put in for completeness for the people that want to research everything and make use of everything.

 

[Zekrazey1]

Very valid point but then why have them at all? The problem I have with nukes is not that they get inercepted by some future tec called SDI but with how little damage they do. If you dropped a modern nuke on any city that city would cease to function as a city. Sure some people would survive but the city would stop producing anything but bad health.

It's my opinion that they only do little damage relative to people's expectations. A major modern city with national wonders could easily have around 5k hammers worth of buildings. ~1k worth of damage is only 1/2 what 4 nukes cost, but that doesn't take into account the reduced population, fallout, and lost turns of production/commerce/research that you can never get back. If you can get just one nuke in before SDI (even if they have bunkers) it's worth it just on hammers alone.

 

[romelus]

nukes are a waste of shields in civ 4. SDI is so damn cheap and easy to research everyone has it before a good nuke stockpile can be built. what's even more stupid is that UN can ban something that doesn't exist yet, and then a defense system can be built against something that doesn't exist. total BS

 

[Zekrazey1]

Last I checked, Satellites comes after Rocketry... If people understand the concept of rockets loaded with explosives, they can dream up methods (unrealistic ones involving lazers from the sky, no doubt ) of stopping them.

 

[romelus]

Last I checked, Satellites comes after Rocketry... If people understand the concept of rockets loaded with explosives, they can dream up methods (unrealistic ones involving lazers from the sky, no doubt ) of stopping them.

yet, without nuclear warheads ballistic missiles are not worthy of a complicated and expensive (well not expensive in civ evidently) defense system.

also we are ignoring the fact that while all other modern units/projects in civ 4 exist in real life, SDI does not exist, and SDI certainly wasn't built when the russians launched the first satellite , or before modern tanks were made. if anything SDI should be enabled by future tech, and cost a hell of a lot more, AND require aluminum.

i'm fairly certain that firaxis had MP in mind when it tried to "balance" nukes. the easy solution is to have a "disable nuclear weapons" option when starting a game, so that if we want to mess up the world and rain down doom we can do so without silly UN embargos against nothing, and fantastic starwars anti missile lasers aboard sputnik!

 

[microbe]

Well I've used nukes in my first or second game where I had a huge tech lead and nuked the AIs before I launch just to see the graphics.

I agree nukes aren't very useful; however, I seldom like it anyway - in RL it's rarely used (ok, two instances). So it's actuall GOOD for me that it's kinda useless.

I would think that its main use is strategic. "Our words are backed by nuclear weapons!" anyone?

It would be cool that AI fears you more if you have nukes, and is more likely to cave to your demands. Also, I am not sure how the Nuclear Non-proliferation Pact works - does it provent everyone from building nukes, or just prevent new members from joining the club? I suspect the game works as the former but the latter is the reality.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I think they DEFINITELY need to alter the way nukes work in the game. Mobile but low range/low power Tac nukes AND ICBM's, lowering the power of SDI and Shelters respectively AND finally making Manhatten Project a National Project that gives only the builder access to nukes. It is HIGH TIME this last one was done .

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Zekrazey1]

yet, without nuclear warheads ballistic missiles are not worthy of a complicated and expensive (well not expensive in civ evidently) defense system.

Of course, that's not actually what you said in your previous post . In any case, there's nothing ridiculous about planning ahead.

 

[SPQR300]

Well I've used nukes in my first or second game where I had a huge tech lead and nuked the AIs before I launch just to see the graphics.

I agree nukes aren't very useful; however, I seldom like it anyway - in RL it's rarely used (ok, two instances). So it's actuall GOOD for me that it's kinda useless.

I would think that its main use is strategic. "Our words are backed by nuclear weapons!" anyone?

It would be cool that AI fears you more if you have nukes, and is more likely to cave to your demands. Also, I am not sure how the Nuclear Non-proliferation Pact works - does it provent everyone from building nukes, or just prevent new members from joining the club? I suspect the game works as the former but the latter is the reality.

But there is nothing like that! With the world builder I added ~20 nukes for myself in 1800, when Gandhi was really planning on attacking me. He had tanks and marines. Still 20nukes didnt stop him for attacking me! I thought that I must show somehow the power of nukes to the other nations, or else it doesnt have a diplomatic power yet. So I loaded the game again and just the turn before Gandhi was going to declare war I dropped a few on a minor nation, just to show off. But Gandhi still DIDNT CARE! He didnt have SDI etc... There is NO diplomatic effect of nukes. Which is a real pity...

 

[romelus]

Of course, that's not actually what you said in your previous post . In any case, there's nothing ridiculous about planning ahead.

the point is without nuclear warheads nobody would bother to plan to counter conventional missiles with SDI (hence your point of SDI could exist without nukes does not make much sense)

basically if we didn't have nukes on earth, bush wouldn't try so hard to get a missile shield project. very simple