Nukes should cost research

[Heraclitus]

I just had an interesting idea. If you have ever played Rise of Nations you know that several late game units, including Nukes, cost some research to build. I’ve also been thinking what’s wrong with nukes in Civ. And I’ve come to the conclusion that they aren’t underpowered, but overpriced. The simplest way to fix this is, to in a patch reduce their shield cost. Yes Firaxis I’m talking to you!. The 75% resistance nuke resistance for ICBM’s (and the 50% lower one for tactical nukes) are overpowering only if it is not cost effective to launch several nukes against a single city. Perhaps the nuclear power plant could give the city a 50% bonus on building nukes?


But if we are creative as well as reasonable. We could do the following…


I propose that building nukes would cost research in a similar way as building settlers and workers costs food. This would allow civs that focus on science, a decent deterrent. Also the tech tree ends soon after nukes, and the +1 health/happiness are usually not worth it.
It would also bee realistic, I mean just look at the vast nuclear stockpile of the US! Building nukes is a lot more like building scientific equipment than tanks or rifles. Building nukes would also become a “interesting decision”, do I build an extra nuke or should I get stealth first?

What do you think?

[Blaupanzer]

Doesn't work for me. Building nuke missiles plus multiple warheads is very expensive resource-wise. However, the fact of their building does not seem to affect research costs/progress in the least. The idea of food for settlers and workers is the implication they are building a stockpile for use before production cuts in. Don't see how nukes cause research fund stockpiles.

[MoonWolf]

You would get the same effect if you'd have nukes costing gold (and hammers) to build and it would also be more realistic than using research breakers.

[Yaga]

The idea does have some merit, but I would handle it by breaking the tech to build nukes off into its own research tree, much like what was done with SoLs, Grenadiers, and Military Academies. This would result in a 3-tiered need for building both ICBMs and TacNukes:

Nuclear Theory
-> Nuclear Power (Nuc Power Plant)
---> Continued research line
-> Nuclear Deterrence
---> Manhattan Project (As before -- only one Civ needs to build it, but also gives X% reduction in cost of ICBMs, Tac Nukes)
------> ICBMs (with satellites)
------> Tac Nukes (with Rocketry)