Does the AI ever build nukes?

[gdpdht]

As the title says I am wondering if anyone has seen the AI build (and perhaps even use) nukes.

I have played through about 10 games and have never seen the AI build nukes. I have used spies to go around every city on the map to check this. I assume that spies should be able to see nukes in AI cities?

For most of my games I have turned off space race, time victory and diplomatic victory, so the AI has the opportunity and time to build nukes. It ofcourse also has access to uranium.

I have used nukes a couple of times and the AI never responds by nuking me, which is very nice of them actually.

I am beginning to think this is a bug....can anyone confirm?

[Son of David]

Wouldn't blame them if they didn't. ICBMs are an expensive waste of time, since you need about 30 of them to do any appreciable damage.

[Nikolai]

Here's for introducing planet busters.

And no, I don't think I've seen the AI build any nukes...

[CrapFactory]

A fully stacked city takes probably at LEAST 3 nukes to kill and damage the stack greatly. Now in my normal games the enemy might have anywhere up to 10 cities. Plus everyone starts hating me once I use 'em. So I see why they don't use them.

[Son of David]

3 nukes? Well if the opponent has SDI you'd better make that about 9 or 10 because three-quarters will get intercepted.

Oh? And if they also have a nuclear shelter that reduces the damage by 75%. So you'd better make that 15 nukes per city

[CrapFactory]

Originally posted by Son of David
3 nukes? Well if the opponent has SDI you'd better make that about 9 or 10 because three-quarters will get intercepted.

Oh? And if they also have a nuclear shelter that reduces the damage by 75%. So you'd better make that 15 nukes per city

I forgot to factor those in. I usually have nukes before the AI builds those.

[linkhan]

Never got to the point of building nukes,
primarily from what I've been reading.

If the rules don't change then nukes are useless and
there's no fun or excitement having them in the game.
Not to mention that it's also unrealistic.
They should've tossed it out altogether.

[Shogun Gunner]

no, you can't throw out nukes. Civ is the epitome of the "what if" gaming. What if the Soviet Union and United States went from a cold war to hot? You can't take those options away.

However, the attempt to reduce the potential damage of nukes has been dialed down a bit too much. There needs to be a *bit* of catastrophic effect.

[Kc7mxo]

Neutered nukes are not needed!


Give us hot fiery death of all that lives or nothing at all!

[Shogun Gunner]

you need to have nukes....you just can't "not have them"

then throw out railroad because it's underpowered....

let's fix it, not throw it out.

[Melloj]

I have yet to see a game where nukes play a big part since as soon as the UN is built if an AI player is secretary general they introduce non proliferation as the first voting option..bye bye nukes...everyone always votes yes to this.

[Cordelayne]

Melloj, that's one reason I always play with diplomatic victory turned off.

I only acknowledge two victory conditions: conquest and domination.

[Russian_King]

i agree with planet busters
no i really do think nukes should reduce the size of a city to 1 if its bigger than 10, and totally destroy if any smaller, leaving nothing but dead terrains and NO units!!! NONE PLEASE!!
i generally don't think of nukes as a means of capturing cities theyre mostly there to demolish them or rub them to the ground. so i wont even attack a city that has been nuked.. unless its in civ 4 in which case the units MIGHT have sustained SOME damage.

[Enigma_Nova]

Nukes should halve the population, obliterate at least half the units and destroy half the buildings.
That'd be a powerful balance. =)

[Datajack Franit]

nukes should lower population by 80%, destroy all of the buildings and wipe off a large majority of the units. Like in the real world.