You're first nuke...

[SandMonkey]

Inspired by a couple nuke-related topics in this forum and in the Strat forum, I now ask the question:

Do you remember the first time you used a nuclear weapon in a Civ2 game?

For myself, I remember it well. I was playing the WWII scenario that comes with Civ2 v2.42 as the Axis powers. I decided to take my hand at Russia, and was fighting an invigorating war, until I got the power to build nukes. Not knowing what they do, I turned their awesome power towards an unsuspecting Moscow, which had been a thorn in my side. I dropped the bomb, and was mesmerized by the blaring horn, and then all the sudden BOOM! The mushroom cloud shocked me! I had no idea what I had just done. It took me time to realize the extreme power that I had at my disposal ... and the negatives that surfaced with using a nuke.

So what's your story??

[Smash]

Well,kinda.
First game ever my musket filled city was blasted by the French nuclear program.I was not impressed.When the paratroops started flying in I decided to search the net for some info.And here I have stayed.
Next game was different story.No French in that game sadly but the poor Japanese payed a heavy price.I completely destroyed their 20+ city continent.Nuked every city multiple times until they were all size 3 or less.Disbanded all captured cities,pillaged every terrain improvement and left it a sespool of radiation.

Then there was this global warming message......

[Wiglaf]

My first nuke -- hmm. Oh yeah, that was funny. I think it was on medium diff, I was the Mongols. The Celts started building the Manhattan Project, and being the curious person I am I looked it up in the civolopedia. When I saw it had to do with nukes (yes, I am very slow ) I bought it in a turn to see the new unit. So I declare war on the Celts and call up the Babylonians to request an alliance and they kept on yelling "your nuclear tests are alarming! destroy your weapons!" So I worked about 10-15 turns to finally get them to "worshipful" and got the alliance. The second I get out of the diplomacy screen, I hit "enter" a few times too many and it was the Celts turn. Ouch. Four of my cities were decimated. Naturally I responded but they had the SDI defence up and stopped it. Guess that counts .
Oh well. From then on I never used nukes again

[Hendrik the Great]

Ah, those days! I still remember how I used my first nukes still in the days if Civilization I. I was the Egyptians I believe and at war with the Babylonians for a long time. All previous attempts of a naval invasion, they held a continent and I a few large islands, failed miserably. I lost far too many tanks and my economy was suffering from decades of warfare. I started running out of ressources and was not able to force a breakthrough.
Out of sheer desperation I used my first nuke. Steadily I increased usage of them and in the end that was all I was doing - shooting over several nukes each turn and getting an almost equal number back. SDI was too expensive to maintaine for me and them.
I was never able to force a decision and I played long over the normal end time. Global warming gave my economy the rest. In the end I was just stuck with famine and an eternal deadlock.
In the end the war just came to a standstill because we had just run out of ressources. A war in which neither side was able to do anything usefull with the little ressources we had left - except for the occasional nuclear attack on one of my cities...

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Mathias' Civ II Page
http://members.nbci.com/thalys

[Lefty Scaevola]

. Never used one. Have used conquest and spies to make sure AI has never used one on me. Have not played multiplayer.

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Gaius Mucius Scaevola Sinistra
Pontificator Pendanticus
older richer & wiser than you

[Mercantile]

I too played civ1 for my first Nuke experience and had pretty much the same reaction and outcome. Playing as the Romans on the large world map on the easiest setting, this was my first ever experience with this sort of game i too ran into the tit for tat experience with the zulus whom had all of africa and alot of the mesapotamian (damm i am sure thats spelled incorrectly) region. Although I started the war not exactly sure what effect global warming had, i soon realized the devastation it brought on as well as the cool explosians, sounds, and sheer destruction that nukes brought into the game. I didn't realize the Zulus had nukes as well. I thought they were bluffing even though the diplomacy screen told me otherwise Needless to say , i soon found out about the indefinite range of nukes and other units. It was a seasaw battle and i just barely escaped with my own life, although i sacrificed many millions on both sides. I came out the victor in a world that was /3 it's origional size and easily would have been alot smaller had I not won by sheer luck, thus ending the famine worldwide. Earth was so polluted that global warming happened 4 times I couldn't stop sending them once the Zulus nuked me. To make matters worse the Indians nuked me as well out of sheer agressiveness, which is why i will always bully them now Anyways long story short, i won, the planet was brown, hardly anyone was alive and just as small part of me realizes the full extent of a real nucleur war, however i believe the real term used by history would be holocaust. Still i firmly believe in one or two tactical nukes if the "right situation" presents itself. I really try to be nice, but that hostile tone always is enough to make me angry. Nothing like dropping a nuke on an Indian Capital, bribing the next 10 large cities for dirt, and dropping your tanks on their rail system and mopping up the rest of their pathetic towns. Pah, doubt me will you? Never again Nothing like swallowing a country whole!

[Scouse Gits]

Here SG2 and I disagree - my first nuke was in Civ1 and was also my last! I HATE NUKES!!

meanwhile back at the ranch ...

well, to tell the truth way back in the "Warlord Years"
I did nuke the F R E N C H ! YES! (SG2)

Well - given that it was the French - I guess it can be forgiven!! (SG1)
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The SGs Glowing in the Dark

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

I don't like nukes in 'conventional' Civ. Since I'm going to own the city I nuke, why make work for my engineers and destroy the (gold producing) population base and improvements? Spies and howitzers are a lot less costly in the long run, usually. The exception is stacked ships at least 2 squares from land (I think others have pointed this out - no global warming from nukes at sea!)

In scenarios, it's a different story. Everytime I play the 'WWIII-79' scenario, I wind up slinging nukes from just about turn 1. And in 'East Wind, Rain', the Americans have so few cities that it's actually practical to nuke them all from the sea and capture in one turn, rather than going the howitzer route.

CivI? Yeah, I had those global warming experiences. The way combat worked in that game, a mech. inf. on a mountain was pretty much indestructible short of nuking it. I recall one game, playing as the Germans, I lost something like 200 bombers against various Chinese cities, then decided to nuke the bunch and took them all at once via railroad. The Aztecs then nuked the same cities again, and captured them from me. This process repeated a few times, and spread to my core cities and Aztec cities as well. Not only had I never seen water levels rise 4 times before that (or since), I've never seen so many Wonders 'lost' due to cities being obliterated...

STYOM

[Ken Hinds]

I don't normally use nucs and haven't been very successful when I have used them. My first experience with them was on king level not long after I had started playing CivII V2.42. I was getting trashed real bad in the game and the only wonder available to me was the Manhattan Project which I foolishly rush build without having discovered rocketry. It did not take long for everyone else to change from pesky cruise missles to something more devastating. In fact the whole thing turned out so well that the populus was soon banging on the door and demanding their throne room impovements back that they had just built for me.

Ken