How about a nice game of thermonuclear war?

[Norselord]

I have only gotten to/had to use nukes once in my years of playing. I had a weak military and weak everything else. The only thing going for me was that my score was a little higher than another civ. I had no chance at any other win except for time/score. 20 turns before the end, the #2 player got ahead of me in points. I decided to unleash my nuclear arsenal and declare all out war on this player. I managed to knock his points down far enough to eke out a points/time win.

I feel like starting a game and getting to the point to be able to hit each city in the world with at least one, hopefully two nukes, and then coming in behind that to clean up the wasteland.

anyone got any advice on how to play with nuclear fire?

[Lord Avalon]

Nuke 'em till they glow.

or

Nuke them from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

[Ming]

If you are going to go nuke war, plan it properly. One advice, make sure you have lasers, so you can build SDI as soon as possible after you finish the MP. And don't toss your first nuke until SDI has been built

[rah]

I've never seen the mushroom. I should play a game where that is my goal.

[Norselord]

What type of damage can i expect to do to a civ if each of his cities + his SOD is nuked? (assume no SDI or bombshelters for the civ)

50% pop reduction + 50% buildings destroyed + 50% damage to troops stationed in city + 50% of improvements destroyed in tiles directly around city?

I should probably expect DOW from all other civs if i do this?

What happens if i follow up the all out nuclear attack with poisoned wells and unhappiness spy missions in each city?

[Ming]

Your biggest concern is them striking back with nukes. The minute you build MP, if other civs can build nukes, they will. (That's the reason to get the SDI built ASAP after finishing MP) The minute you nuke somebody, anybody with nukes will probably strike you the next turn. And yes, you will be DOWed.

As far as the damage you will do, feel free to strike critical targets with multiple nukes

As far as following up the attack with other "surprises"... Yeah, you will cause the AI or AI's SERIOUS problems.
I would also suggest you follow up the attacks with some actual troops as well

I've only played a few games where nukes have come into play. I pretty much did it for the same reason you are, to see how nukes work and in particular, to see the mushroom clouds

So my advice may be based on too small of a sample base. If there are any real nuke heads out there, you might get some better answers

[wodan11]

I think your advice is accurate Ming. But also I would say that it's best to send out your nukes in waves. There's no need and actually I think it's less optimal to build 100's of nukes and nuke everything in sight on the same turn. Send out a wave, then send your small elite forces to take those cities. Then, send another wave, and move your forces. Rinse and repeat until done.

[Norselord]

Hrmm, so everyone will DOW me...

Maybe i will do one of those advanced start games (never tried it) and see if i can't play the great general uber unique strategy initiated by a massive nuclear strike.

[rah]

That's the spirit.

[Ming]

Hrmm, so everyone will DOW me...

Maybe i will do one of those advanced start games (never tried it) and see if i can't play the great general uber unique strategy initiated by a massive nuclear strike.

If you are planning on the GG uber strategy, it may be better to start in the usual ancient time frame so that you have more time to "earn" those GG's that you will need. The more, the better

[Hauptman]

I use nukes often. There fun to watch, and cheap for the damage they cause.

Tactical nukes can be launched into your own territory, as long as you arent hitting any non enemy units. So keeping a couple taks in border cities makes suprise 100 unit SoDs melt away into nothing. 2 or 3 nukes might be needed to knock the stack down to 5 barely living units. Also very useful to plop a couple onto a sub in your fleet stack. Having an enemy fleet get to close to your own transport fleet can get scary. Nukem and forgettem. naval nukes cause NO global warming issues.

Massive ICBM strikes are a riot. However, you better already have the game in the bag before you do this. If your still trying to beat the AIs to a complete spaceship, loosing tiles to global warming could loose the game if your unlucky.

One other useful thing... Say your neck and neck with Justinian tech wise. And justinian has been steamrolling early game, so now he's huge and powerful. When he declares war on anyone else and you have nukes... Fly them bad boys (tacticals) over to his enemy and gift away. Now your rival gets nuked and u have no bad karma from it.

[Ming]

One other useful thing... Say your neck and neck with Justinian tech wise. And justinian has been steamrolling early game, so now he's huge and powerful. When he declares war on anyone else and you have nukes... Fly them bad boys (tacticals) over to his enemy and gift away. Now your rival gets nuked and u have no bad karma from it.

Yah gotta to love it

[James Lofton]

Once you've let the genie out of the bottle, there's no going back. I have played many games where nukes have been used, and it certainly alters the course of the game. You take an irreversible diplo hit, so if you are concerned with that, don't let the genie out.

IF you decide to use one, you might as well use a hundred. However, once you acquire them they become a huge deterrent to opponents, and you'll see that you don't have to use them often.

In one recent game(playing the mod 'Legends of Revolution'), there was literally a world war going on. Only country not in a conflict was Mao. Anyways, the strangest conflict in the war was 5 nations in a war with Vietnam. This war was really bogging the game down, so I went ahead and declared war on Vietnam, nuked his 5 cities, and Egypt immediately went in and did mop up duty.

I did take a diplo hit with most leaders, but I didn't care as the game quickly improved once that conflict was over.

The leader I never allow to acquire nukes is Gandhi. Once I see him on the verge of developing them, I quickly invade and either destroy him or turn him into a vassal. Gandhi goes from a peaceful, passive leader to wanting to become the Soviet Union after acquiring nukes, so I don't allow it to happen.


As far as SDI goes, yeah its great to have but not really a necessity. It only becomes priority number one if someone either gets nukes quicker than you, or acquires them around the same time, which rarely happens in my games. I always have a decent sized window where I am the only nuclear power, so I don't worry about SDI.

[kartinkent]

I don't see how they think they have the authority to let the president authorize a first strike. The power to declare war belongs to the Congress, not the president, and the War Powers Resolution of 1973 limits the power of the President of the United States to wage war without the approval of the Congress.
Of course, since W's administration doesn't seem to think the Constitution is worth the paper it's printed on, this won't stop them.
And Congress doesn't seem to hold it in any higher regard these days. The Constitution says that Congress has the power to declare war, not the power to issue an "authorization of force".

[James Lofton]

That goes back much further than W, so don't pin the blame on him. Clinton was involved in more military operations than W without using the approval of Congress, yet you don't mention him. Reagan invaded Grenada and had a minor conflict with Libya.

Regardless of any "War Powers Resolution", the President has the right to defend the U.S. or U.S. interests abroad, Congress or no Congress. While I am no historian, I'm pretty sure the only times in the past 30 years that Congressional approval was sought leading into conflict were both Gulf Wars, and both presidents said they would go forward with the war with or without congressional approval.