Useless nukes

[Dis]

I thought they worked okay in SMAC. It was better that they were super powerful. At least in my case, I never dared use them for fear they'd be used against my precious cities. The effects were devastating. The loss of an entire base. I still fear planetbusters.

[patcon]

Originally posted by zeace
I think that you should only be able to nuke someone if they have less nukes than you have cities, because they can't completely destroy you otherwise. This would keep little countries from picking fights with big ones, but would let big countries take out little ones.

I assume you are only suggesting that this limitation is on the initiation of a nuclear exchange. If you launch a nuke attack on me, why would I not reply in kind even if that meant you could launch 10 more nukes against my 8 cities? I might very well say, "I'm not waiting to be whittled down by your nukes, I'm going to go down swinging."
But there are some issues with this idea.
1) Nukes don't totally wipe out cities, so you launching your 10 nukes against my 8 cities wouldn't completely destroy me. (Although it certainly would hurt.)
2) Are nukes incapable of being destroyed by a nuke attack? Unless you have a huge overkill capacity could I not hope for a preemptive strike reducing your counter-attack ability to an acceptable level? (MAD was based on the idea that the Soviet and American nuclear arsenals were so huge that no conceivable preemptive strike could make the (presumed) inevitable counter-strike an acceptable loss. US ballistic missile submarines were intended as a counter-strike arsenal that would survive a first strike by being undetectable until they launched.)
3) If I have 8 cities and you have 10 nukes, should I really worry that you would use your entire nuke arsenal against me if you have other enemies you would need to deal with even if you effectively eliminate me?

[Wiglaf]

civ 2 was fine, SDI was much better implemented in Civ2 (it wasnt overpowered, and units/moving armies were easier to hit)

[Son of David]

I still believe the simplest solution by far is to leave everything as is but to add tactical nukes, transportable via special nuclear submarines, which have a limited range. These would be immune to SDI and indetectable, although bomb shelters would still reduce their damage to manageable levels.

Seems straightforward enough - even Civ3 had tactical nukes - so I imagine tactical nukes will make a comeback in the next expansion?

[d474ang3l]

Originally posted by Son of David
I still believe the simplest solution by far is to leave everything as is but to add tactical nukes, transportable via special nuclear submarines, which have a limited range. These would be immune to SDI and indetectable, although bomb shelters would still reduce their damage to manageable levels.

Seems straightforward enough - even Civ3 had tactical nukes - so I imagine tactical nukes will make a comeback in the next expansion?

I was thinking about that too. I think it's a viable solution and would be good gameplay. That way you can still have a powerful SDI, but can also use tac nukes on subs that have to evade detection and so on.
The problem is having to go in and capture nuked cities. To be realistic, maybe not such good gameplay, a modern ICBM would completely wipe a city off the face of the Earth. There would be nothing left, regardless of how many bomb shelters you have. (How do you fit a tank division in a bomb shelter anyway?) They should put tac nukes back in the game and make their effect smaller then juice up the ICBMS so they leave nothing but rubble.

[Kc7mxo]

Originally posted by Dis
I thought they worked okay in SMAC. It was better that they were super powerful. At least in my case, I never dared use them for fear they'd be used against my precious cities. The effects were devastating. The loss of an entire base. I still fear planetbusters.

planet busters were the best idea. . . ever!

my favorite part of smac in fact.


just remembering it makes me want to go find the cd and turn another of deidre's empires into deep blue ocean. man, she was annoying.

civ2's nukes are a close second. the sound of that air siren was sweet sweet music.

and then there's starcraft's ghosts and their little red dot. you know you're in for a pounding when the "nuclear launch detected" sound effect stutters five times. . . .

[Whoha]

is it possible to overwhelm SDI?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by monkspider
I think there is a lot of potential for a future expansion pack to both make nukes more powerful and build a sort of MAD dymamic into the game.

\

Why spend tons of time modelling a scenario that will only occur for a short period in a fraction of games and only be really relavent in a fraction of those?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
civ 2 was fine, SDI was much better implemented in Civ2 (it wasnt overpowered, and units/moving armies were easier to hit)

In Civ2, SDI consisted of building a wall of airbases around your cities.

[Shadowlord]

Originally posted by Kc7mxo
just remembering it makes me want to go find the cd and turn another of deidre's empires into deep blue ocean. man, she was annoying.

civ2's nukes are a close second. the sound of that air siren was sweet sweet music.

Aw, I thought Deirde was great. Now Miriam and Morgan usually annoyed me. I usually found myself allied with Deirde and semi-allied with Zakharov.

P.S. I have the civ 2 nuke sound set to play whenever someone PMs me on IRC or says my name there.

[Kc7mxo]

heh. i ussually played morgan.

deidre and i didnt' get along.

[Gibsie]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


In Civ2, SDI consisted of building a wall of airbases around your cities.

Did that actually work with the AI's ability to send its nukes anywhere it liked?

[iapetus556]

Originally posted by Shadowlord
P.S. I have the civ 2 nuke sound set to play whenever someone PMs me on IRC or says my name there.

I have it for my "Program Error" sfx (Which replaced Duke Nukem's falling-to-his-death scream, and the dramatic and cultured but rather too long Carmina Burana extract)

PS I don't think I ever used Planet Busters in SMAC. I did have Deirdre use them against me though. (In fact, against one of her bases I had just captured, which contained several Secret Projects!)

I'm sure she's also declared war on me more times than the Spartans have. Usually because I'd been using Planned Economics. Ironically, she often ended up allying with Morgan to attack me! In fact, I'm pretty sure that - after the Yang/Miriam attack everyone wars - most of my wars in SMAC were Deirdre and Morgan forming an anti-Planned Economics alliance against me. (Often shortly after they'd called a truce after a long war during which I had been at peace with both. It seems that - as in most of the Civ games - the AIs view being at peace with their enemy to be a greater offence than actually being their enemy)


I've also seen Deirdre trigger Global Warming on a couple of occasions as well...

Pacifist Environmentalist indeed!

[SebP]

Deirdre is all i ever wanted to be

[Shadowlord]

I like playing Lal best, but I usually out-Deirde Deirde.