The AI and Nukes?

[Kekkonen]

How trigger-happy is the AI with its nuclear weapons?

I'm asking because I'm fairly sure the AI used nukes extensively in a game I just finished. Here's the situation:

Me (Indians) and 4 computer civs -- the Germans, the Romans, the Japanese, and the Zulus -- remain. The Zulus are the weakest of the bunch, having suffered from a poor starting position (alone on a relatively poor island), and the Romans (the big honchos in this game) along with their allies, the Japanese, decide to rip them apart. They do; eventually, the Zulus are destroyed by the rampaging Roman forces.

I noticed that the Zulu island, which used to contain about 6 cities, now only has 3. When I check them out, they all have population 1, and there's loads of pollution around. The obvious conclusion is that good ol' Julius Caesar must've used his nuclear arsenal (the Japanese didn't have fission -- at this point I was the only other nuclear power).

The Zulus didn't have nukes, they were the most backwards civilization on the planet, so it wasn't even a retaliatory strike, JC just decided to nuke them for the hell of it. How common is this?

[Solver]

I do like this alot! Haven't yet had any experience with Nukes, but I hope the AI will use them, and will also strike back when nuked. Finally we will see some nuclear wars and attacks. If only Nukes did some more damage than they do now...

[Warhammer]

That could actually explain a lot. I am currently in a game where Global Warming is rampant, and I have not been producing a lot of pollution, everytime I do it is instantly cleaned up. While this was happening there was a massive war between the Romans, Greeks, and Iroquois that started shortly before the global warming began to occur. I wonder....

[Kekkonen]

I do think that the game should let the human (and AI) player know if someone is using nuclear weapons. And since some of the effects of nukes are indeed global, there might be diplomatic penalties associated with their use. At least the civs that were friendly with the nuked civ should like the attacker less.

That being said, I don't have direct evidence that JC really did nuke Shaka in the game I was talking about, but pollution levels in former Zulu territory are awful high, and the AI usually seems to clean up pollution fairly quickly.

[Roswell]

I don't know if the A.I. is aggressive with nukes, but it doesn't shy away from using them. In my last game I invaded the Greeks, my closest rivals in distance and in power, with a large force of modern armor. In one turn I razed 3 or 4 size 15+ cities, and on their next, I had nukes raining down all over me.

[Kekkonen]

I wonder what part the razing played here. I mean, go back to the Cold War period and imagine the Soviets landing in California and then totally destroying Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco. Then you get reports of their forces moving in on Portland and Phoenix. Sounds like ICBM time to me...

BTW, did you have nukes yourself in that game?

[Roswell]

Yeah, I had nukes. I waited until every other country in the game declared war on him, then I started lobbing mine back... I'm sure the razing had a lot to do with it. They hated me already anyway, we'd been warring on and off the whole game. It still surprised me to see icbm's falling from the sky though.

I'm not sure if the diplomacy in Civ3 indicates possession of nuclear weapons, e.g. our words are backed with NUCLEAR WEAPONS.

I might have hesitated otherwise... well.. maybe until I had the defenses built up.

[Kekkonen]

Originally posted by Roswell
I'm not sure if the diplomacy in Civ3 indicates possession of nuclear weapons, e.g. our words are backed with NUCLEAR WEAPONS.

It doesn't seem to, at least not in those words. However, I don't remember whether the advisor in the upper left hand corner mentions this. He might, since you do get that "the Iroquois have riflemen" message occasionally.