Things still missing from Civ...

[Jaybe]

Nuclear warfare is not realistic because no one knows what realistic nuclear warfare IS! After all, there have been just two nucs delivered, and that was an instant end to that war. All concepts of "realistic" nuclear warfare are just theories, and theories are the first to go out the window when the reality of the next war appears.

Presently, I think that politics will dominate the next war in which nucs are used. The first one is detonated, and the horror of the thought of escalation gives everyone pause. Either that or it's armageddon time.

[Brael]

Two nukes have been used in war, the first one didn't end WW2 (though a strong case has been made that it could have ended it, given more time for the Japenese emperor to see the effects), the second one most certainly ended it though. Countless nuclear weapons have been detonated since then however which means it's quite easy to see the effects a nuclear weapon has on an area.

Realistic nuclear warfare varies depending on who is and isn't involved. If a nation overtly nukes another nation there will almost certainly be retaliation to varying degrees. For example, if Kim Jong Il were to launch a nuke at the US but it was only capable of hitting a fairly empty part of Alaska the US would probally respond with a small nuke hitting Pyongang (and probally not even take out the entire city). If Russia on the other hand launched 20 nukes at the US, the US would end up retaliating with a rather large nuclear strike. Also if an independant terrorist organisation which doesn't have ties to a particular country obtains and uses a nuke, the response likely wouldn't be a nuclear strike (a nuclear retaliation would involve nuking a country who had nothing to do with the attack in the first place) however there would still be retaliatory action.

Diplomatic issues and appropriatley devastating/mitigated nukes would make nuclear war in Civ realistic.

[sparkyal]

Nukes, my favorite. Nuclear warefare is quite complex because: (1) no one really knows the most effective way to use them; (2) they vary quite widely. There are the city/state killers (500M and up) tacticals which are designed for battlefield stuff (Tommahawks are actually "dial-a-yield") and then anti-ub nukes which are all less then 10K (they are the only kind of weapon that the US could use to sink things like an Oscar II, Typhoon, etc..). How to improve how nukes are used? I liked the one post that spoke about people being able to relatiate and so forth, not a bad deterent.

Someone mentioned modern naval warfare. there is nothing more complicated then modern naval warfare. There are whole gamews out there that try to mimic it so for CIV to try is pretty hard. they would have to write whole new codee just for ships and how they move and fight. So, it may be better to leave most of it alone.

Since this thread is about things we miss. How aboput powerful subs??? Modern nuclear Subs are by far the msot powerful warships in existance (think Seawolf, virginia, Improved LA, Akula II, and Oscar II). So, nuclear subs should come back with say strength 28 and +100% against BB's and CV's and transports. Against DD's and SS's they would not receive this bonus since they can see them. I also think they should be able to choose their targets again.

sparky

[Dis]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Nukes are good, Civ 4's implementation of them is bad.

Because they are basically impossible to implement well. The dynamics of nuclear warfare are so drastically removed from any of the other game mechanics as to make their own subgame, and they only appear at the very end of some games. There's really no point.

To a lesser degree this is why the espionage system and the UN suck.

I have to agree, though it would seem strange having no nukes.

The fact is, only 2 small nukes have ever been used in warfare against another nation.

There is no way to implement MAD. Basically, if a player uses nukes, they should expect to be nuked. though if you are playig low difficulty levels that will never happen. But so what. I hate it when they try to "balance" things just because players can totally dominate the lower levels. If they want challenge, play higher levels. Then the human player is certain to face an AI who also has nukes.

And then comes the question of nuking countries without nukes. Never been done. Why exactly? The diplomatic penalty. How could this be implemented? Complete shutdown of all trade and borders for one. But that doesn't seem to be enough. But that is a failure of the trade system if you ask me. Trade in the later game should be much more important to a nation's economy. Losing that should hurt like a *****.

[LzPrst]

I agree with the subs part. make them actually useful.

but one thing that is interesting. boats and rivers...
throughout human history ships have sailed up rivers to trade and conquer. the viking longboat was designed so it could sail up very shallow rivers. Gambia in west africa is a thin strip of land on both sides of a river because that was what english gunboats could control. and traders used rivers as extensions of oceans. it should be possible to build port cities on rivers (provided you own the river mouth). any takers?

[Blaupanzer]

Inland ports are a factor that is missing in Civ. Also missing are canals -- both for early irrigation and for moving ships either inland or through narrowed isthmuses. I know you can use a city to handle the isthmus issue, but you wait until civil service to extend irrigation, not a reflection of RL where both the Babylonians and ancient Chinese used canals for irrigation. China also used such canals for commerce in the very long ago.

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by Brael
Nukes are good, Civ 4's implementation of them is bad. They shouldn't cause global warming and should be more devastating to a city (if they hit). If a nuke hits a city, it should be a city you wouldn't want in the future, atleast not for many turns... like a successful nuke being the equilavent of temporarily razing the city, it would just be useless for awhile.

The problem with this is that most people over-estimate the power of nuclear weapons. Though people like to talk about the Tsar Bomba and other high-powered nuclear weapons that start fires 50 miles from ground zero, the vast majority of modern arsenals are weapons in the app. 1 MT range. A single nuke hitting a large modern city would not drive all population from it or make it worthless, or even directly effect the majority of the population (although there would be plenty of indirect effects - full hospitals, disrupted infrastructure, contaminated areas, etc. It would be comparable to Hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans - most of the population would be evacuated in the short term, but within a year or two most would be back, although people who lived and worked in areas near ground zero might be permanently displaced.

I once did some fiddling with blast radius calculators and a map of the city I live in, and it would take at least a dozen 1 megaton warheads to make sure that everybody in Dallas and it's surrounding suburbs had a good chance of having minor damage to their home (i.e. cracked windows, etc.). It would take something like 50 carefully distrubted 1 MT blasts to make sure that everybody in the city had at least a 50% chance of dying in the initial attack.

I think an accurate game effect of a typical nuke going off in a city would be to increase unhealth and unhappiness by a large amount for one or two turns, and then have an additional 1 or 2 unhappiness and unhealth for 5-10 turns after that, with a chance of an improvement or two being destroyed. It should not have an appreciable effect on military units, or maybe a small chance of damaging one of them, because any military are likely to be so widely distributed that no more than one unit would be likely to be within the blast radius of the nuke.

[Dis]

yeah but nukes aim for military bases. For instance my city. What reason would they have to nuke my city? The air force base of course. The only other reason to nuke my city is to kill off the population. We have very little industrial base. Even Henderson (which was an industrial town during ww2 and used to make fuel for the space shuttle) isn't much of an industrial town anymore. I just can't see significant numbers of military units surviving a nuke blast.

I have no idea where the russians aimed their missiles. But I'm sure they'd send at least one nuke to Nellis air force base. Which would obliterate the entire base. Maybe one nuke to downtown, and one nuke the the strip.

3 nukes would be enough to decimate my town economically.

So in light of this, I guess I am satisfied with the damage nukes do. But there still shouldn't be any global warming from their use.

[Jaybe]

Well, though Henderson (my home town) doesn't make sodium perchlorate for the shuttle anymore, it still is a prime producer of titanium for the aerospace industry. Regardless, both would be long-term industrial targets, while Nellis AFB is the largest military airbase in the world! There was a larger Warsaw Pact base in Poland while the cold war was still in place.

If nuclear weapons weren't going to produce desert tiles to simulate global warming/nuclear winter, it could still cause long-term 'unhealth' in nearby (or further) cities. Say 2 or 3 per nuke, attenuating with range, scaled for map size. As it is, fallout cleanup is way too easy.

[alms66]

Originally posted by Destroyer
There is a huge ai bug (which I mentioned in another thread). When any barbarian city appears, any AI civ seems to launch its entire nuclear arsenal at it (40+ nukes!).

I am not sure if this is because they (the barbarians)have no nuclear deterant, as I have been at war with them, and not been hit once.

I think everyone missed the big picture here...
How do you have barbarian cities appearing during the time when everyone has nukes? I think you need to be worrying about improving your gameplay than about global warming... namely, build more cities!






...and yes I'm just having a bit of fun there...

[LzPrst]

if I was gonna nuke someone I would aim according to the following priority.
1. missile silos,
2. military installations,
3. industrial base,
4. political leadership
5. as many large cities as possible just to drive down morale.

I would spend 75% of my nukes on nr.1 and spread the rest evenly over the other five. hitting the enemy's nuclear arsenal assumes a very very very good intelligence dossier.

[Brael]

I'm similar for my top 5 targets, I would do:

1. Nuclear weapons (unlikely to be a valid target, in Civ it's possible but in real life it's almost impossible with current technology since it would involve hitting submarines whos exact locations aren't known by anyone other than some members of the crew).

2. Military installations, anything with planes primarily, ships secondary.

3. Military equipment factories (tank, aircraft, shipyard, rocket factories)

4. Economic centers.

5. Military leadership.

[Tattila the Hun]

One thing still missing, so to speak... Let's say I've improved all of my squares, and my workers have nothing to do, and are idling at a city somewhere. Then, I discover Scientific Method, and find oil in some desert, without improvements. If automated, one of my workers will head there to build a well. One. Out of a dozen. The rest just sit on their asses doing nothing. I don't get it. The more workers I have doing something, the faster it gets done. So why aren't they doing anything? Grrr...

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Tattila the Hun
One thing still missing, so to speak... Let's say I've improved all of my squares, and my workers have nothing to do, and are idling at a city somewhere. Then, I discover Scientific Method, and find oil in some desert, without improvements. If automated, one of my workers will head there to build a well. One. Out of a dozen. The rest just sit on their asses doing nothing. I don't get it. The more workers I have doing something, the faster it gets done. So why aren't they doing anything? Grrr...

That's a gas! Trying to build a well with scientific method is pretty useless (I've tried a couple times myself). Need Combustion.

When I'm about to learn combustion, I stack (manually) 4 or 5 workers on or near the oil site, ready to drill.

I will NOT say automating workers is for hippies, but putting workers on automatic limits your civ substantially, like limiting yourself to stacking only 3 bombers in a city. I never automate my workers, but I won't put more than 3 bombers in a city until the opponent has something to counter them with.

[Unimatrix11]

what was wrong with nukes in Civ3 ? why did they change them at all ? There were two kinds, right ? One you could put on subs and that had a rather short range and one that had a longer range and could only be fired from cities (air bases ?)... i just remember how much i enjoyed putting a ring of subs loaded with nukes around my cold-war enemy... that was fun - and it was affordable and the nukes actually did a good deal of damage when i used them... i just want that back - and more if possible: How about more kinds of nukes - target and destruction ranges could vary as well as costs and deployment options. I also like the silo idea. SDI should be very expensive (though thats easily mod-able). In general i dont think that just because something comes up late in the game it is okay if it sucks.