Does the AI ever build nukes?

[Enigma_Nova]

Well, any wonders built in Rome might.

[Melloj]

at Enigma_Nova, well done old chap.

[gdijedi7]

Nukes should be devastating, but come in several flavors.

Explanation: Manhattan project gives 2 A-bombs. Have to be loaded onto bombers, say, 1/3 population dies, units have 50% chance to live.

Nuclear Missile- bigger area of affect, 2/3 population dies, 75% chance of killing units.

Tactical nuke- missile form of A-bomb to launch from subs (maybe hide from UN!!)

Thermonuclear missile (aka H-bomb) Wipes out any city under maybe 15 population, all units die. double radius of explosion.

The first nuke or so should have no diplomatic penalties as no one would realistically know what it really was. In WW2, they originally thought it was just a big bomb. They even went to ground zero at trinity site the day after it blew up! "What radiation?"

[rjwoer]

gdijedi7:
I think those are some really good ideas. The variety would certainly reverse the nuclear castration that Civ IV suffers from.

Now one of us needs to make the mod.

[Mujadaddy]

For its effectiveness, SDI comes WAAY too early...it should require Computers, or Satellites, or cost more, or something....

[Enigma_Nova]

To realistically stop missiles, you need a very accurate missile that flies faster.
Lasers are a dumb idea of stopping a missile, you make a missile shiny and make it spin and you can't point the laser accurately enough to burn it.

[Xuenay]

Actually, while I'm by no means an expert, I've read at least one essay that suggests that the 30 percent kill chance for buildings might actually even be realistic.

From http://p076.ezboard.com/fhistorypoli...picID=23.topic :

Take that marshalling yard; sounds easy doesn't it? Believe me railway marshalling yards are a whirling son of a ***** to take down. They are virtually invulnerable to airbursts; we have to groundburst a blast directly on the yard. 800 yards outside and you might as well not have bothered. The problem is those yards are not that big. So now we have a problem called CEP. This stands for Circle of Equal Probability. This is a measure of the accuracy of the missile and is the radius of the circle that will contain half the missiles aimed at the center of the circle. That means that half the inbounds will fall outside that circle. Now we have a second concept; the radius of total destruction, the radius within which everything is destroyed. Its astonishingly small; for a 100 kt groundburst its about 800 yards (now see where the marshalling yard came from). Now if the RTD exceeds the CEP we're probably Ok, if it doesn't (and in most cases it doesn't) we've got problems.

What all this ends up with is we have to fire multiple warheads at single targets in order to be sure of getting them. This is a complex calculation since the optimum number of warheads for Asylumville will depend on the attack pattern and priorities. But we'll eventually end up with number that represents the best compromise between destructive effects and warhead use. To estimate the effects on the area as a whole, take your demographic map, plot the event points, altitudes and yields on that map and apply your pie-cutter set for overpressure. The overpressure needed to destroy various types of building are public record (US houses are very very soft and vulnerable) so you know roughly what will be destroyed up to a given distance. Note that the blast circles will overlap in some places. Blast also isn't logical; ground irregularities will funnel it is some directions so that an area close in may be unscathed while others much further away will be flattened.

Now we have to get them there. Missiles are not terribly reliable and a lot can go wrong. A Rectal Extraction figure suggests that only about 60 percent of them will work when the blue touchpaper is ignited. So we have to add extra warheads to allow for the duds. To give a feel for the sort of numbers that we're talking about, the British calculated that they needed 32 warheads to give Moscow a terminal dose of instant sunrise. In other words, the British nuclear deterrent took down Moscow and that was it. That's why so many devices are needed - the inventory evaporates very fast.

[Strategist83]

I launched my first nuke yesterday against a medieval city and it suffices to say I was not impressed. Nukes definitely need a boost.

Also, since nukes make up a not so insignificant part of the game, the AI definitely needs to be able to build them.