Nukes to weak

[aahz_capone]

I'm surprised no one mentioned the nukes in SMAC yet. Now THOSE were nukes. not only werte there 4 different grades of nukes which did different damadge, they totally made you FEAR nuklear war like yo' momma's boot!

BOOM! Not only is the city gone, but theres a massive crater were it was, screw pollution, it's tectonic turbulance! The biggest nuke could waste 3 cities if you placed it right, which is totally realistic considering the 50 megaton h-bombs the soviets had.

Ofcourse, civ3 missed out on a lot of SMAC advances and in many ways was a step back. wierd huh?

(I also hasten to add that diplomacy CAN be programmed with this destructive force: witness SMAC. The UN could vote out anti nuke laws and such. I am really sad the C3C didn't turn the UN into some kindof upgraded diplomacy forum. )

[vee4473]

ah yes, good ol' planet busters.

now THERE was a nuke

[jackl]

There should definately be some diffrent grades of nukes....based on power rather than range.

Free fall bombs (must be loaded onto bombers) could damage units/cities in a single square. with a 50/50 chance survival for all units, wonders, city improvements and population points.

Tactical Missile. Short range but more powerful than free falls. (can be loaded/fired from bombers for extra range) they have a 50% chance of destroying each unit but 70% chance of destroying wonders, improvement or pop point. They still only affect one square (while polution affects upto three random squares.)


ICBM...Built by cities but rebased to silos (and only targetable fron silos). Icbms pack a major punch. 70% chance of killing units and 90% chance against wonders, improvements and population points. They affect the target square and those adjoining and polution/terrain damage is catastrophic.

SLBM....built in coastal cities as a "super Unit" SLBMs are expensive and powerful systems. the unit itself represents the submarine AND its full flight of 8 missiles. Each missiles is independantly targeted and after firing the last missile the sub is lost. SlbM attacks have a 70% chance against units and 70% chance of destroying wonders, improvements and population.


The % attack values against diffrent sorts of targets should not only make nukes more "realistic" but that much more worrying. Knowing that im gonna lose half of my population i can cope with....the chance of losing every last one...thats worrying.
The diffrent grades of weapons means that a real "escalatory" situation can arise giving the chance to "turn off" the fighting before things get to the "stratigic level".

The other important aspect of nuclear weapons should be the political response. I find it difficult to see my allies declaring war on me when i just nuked our common enemy. Embargos and loss of rep...yes but declarations of war against a state willing and able to use nukes from a non nuclear state are pretty unlikely.

[Elias]

Has anyone else had the world declare war on them for using nukes? Thats happend to me a couple of times ill drop a nuke and everyone goes to war with me. What ever happend to cold wars? With incredably powerful nukes would you wever invade another country that possesed nucluar capabaities? I know i wouldnt Nucular plants should not melt down haw many times has this hapend in the real world? I modded this out.
For a story I once turned an entire country into a orange wasteland lol.

[Thoth]

Originally posted by Mad Bomber
Nukes do seem lame in CIV 3, but if it were to show the true destructive power of nukes (or even a close approximation) then we would just end up with an AI asking us if we would enjoy a nice game of checkers.

But would it play a good game of checkers?

[Rasputin]

This is a game not reality !!!!

[jackl]

Originally posted by Rasputin
This is a game not reality !!!!

We know its a game....but surely the point of THIS game is to allow us to "rewrite history" in our own image and if we can have realistic Tanks and Planes and Stratigic resources etc etc..then its not too much to ask that we can have realistic nukes....if we're suposed to fear the Sword men in ancient times and those damned cavalry in the early industrial age then we should be bloody terrified of the mad Fascists across the sea who after wiping out all oposition on their own continent turns their nuclear armed and beedy little eyes at us.

If i wanted to play something UN-realistic i would'nt be playing civ...i'd be playing star wars or something.

[Rasputin]

there are always trade offs between playabilty and reality. whilst i did prefer the nukes from civ 2 in that they complety killed all units in a city, and has taken ages to get used to civ 3 ones, i find that i still use them sparingly and hopefully have built missile defence before hand. it is so cool to see that laser from space wipe out the icbm before it hits my city

[cad4life]

I learned a lot about nukes from just reading in the post. one thing I do know about nukes is everyone loose when you use them. They are bad and we all know that. The only thing is the game should make that known. you use a nuke and there and you have to pay. the best representation of nuke in a game was Alpha Centauri. you use a nuke and what ever you hit was gone. no polution no this or that. the spot on the map was gone and water replaced it. no getting it back just gone. now that was beautiful to see but the consequences you suffered for using a nuke was even worse. all countries attacked you and you pretty much was in a bad situation. now it took forever to build one of these planet busters but it was worth it. and rule number 1 you never attacked a country with a planet buster that also had a planet buster because you don't know where they may choose to use theres. your most productive city? your capital? you didn't take a chance. in that game you rarely seen a nuke fly even if you were the first country to get them.

[MoonWolf]

It's very difficult to implement a realistic nuclear war effect as the world (thank God!!) hasn't experienced any full scale nuclear war yet. For playability, I think the current ICBMs should increase their effect range to all 20 squars in a city's production area, not only the 9 base ones. Also, using any nuke, should create some random pollution maybe in a range of 3 outside the effect area to emulate how radioactivity is brought with the wind.

I think however the global effects are good as they are. If you'll end up in a nuclear war, with maybe 50 launches, the effects would be catastrophic. Not only do you have lot of pollution to clean up, but IIRC the terrain might have changed as well where the nukes have stroke. And the global warming will take care of your healthy areas at an accelerated rate.

[Senator]

well, the problem with nukes is balancing. I mean sure they're underpowered in the game, but when you increase their power they might easily become overpowered and you'd just get a science race towards nukes. They're very tricky to balance.
Also it wouldn't be fun when a small country that has nothing to lose blows your civ back to the stone age and changes half the world into desert right when you're conquering his territory.

[cad4life]

you make a good point. there should be down sides to trying to even aquire nukes and down sides to nation having to maintain nukes. like cost being very high. and very hard to even becoming a nuclear state. there are not that many nuclear countries in the world. Just make it very hard to get, really hard to maintain and very bad for everyone once they are used. make the fallout of using a nuke in ones own nation almost unbearable or something. but they have to be more realistic

[Elias]

There should be a better diplomacy toward nukes and cold war's added into games two superpowers with hundreds of them aimed at one another everyone just waiting any second the world could turn into a nucular waste land. Also be able to get better peace agreements like a S.A.L.T agreement. I agree with the hard to maintain thing that ended the cold war well kind of. Ahhh nothing like nucular winter

[bongo]

Still haven't used or seen nukes in civ3(it's a matter of playing style) but I remember hating them passionately in civ2. The AI there didn't seem to have any restrictions on their use. On several occasions I conquered a city, only to get it nuked by a third civ. Just using it for the fun of it. From what I've been reading here, the civ3 AI has improved vastly on the use of nukes.

[Elias]

Only a few countries even have nucular capabilities and they know if the launched aginst us they would be totaly obliterated.
Well maby not weather to use nukes or not if we are nuked by N.Korea is a very conteraversial subject. nukes seem to be better at keeping peace then destroying.