Culture points vs The use of Nukes

[Borels]

I don't think it is realistic to throw nukes everywhere on the map. There should be something to confine the use of nukes other than "the AI hates you more". In particular, this isn't going to work in MP games. Human players would not help out the victim like the AI does, they would throw more nukes to the victim like fireworks and grasp their share of the land.

I suggest that the use of nukes should lower the culture points of the nation e.g. -10% for every nuke used. With lower culture points, other AI nations hate you more and it would be increasingly difficult to keep the empire intact.

I think it's feasible because there's always people in the country who dislikes the use of massive weapons (and wars). Strong countries with immense cultural influence in the globe (e.g. the Americans try to put their values as the global standard) can tolerate the use of a few nukes (e.g. against Japan) but definitely not 20 nukes. There will be strikes everywhere in the country. Also countries with minute cultural influence in the world (e.g. Iraq) is difficult to tolerate the use of nuke because their values are not widely accepted in the world which makes it difficult for them to justify their use of nukes. They would face political pressures from all other countries...etc.

What do you guys think?

[Adagio]

Sounds interesting, that might make me stop the use of nukes

[Todd Hawks]

Instead of reducing culture (which doesn't really hurt you), I think it would be better to add some kind of nuke-resistance in your own population.
So whenever you use a nuke you will get lots of unhappy people and have difficulties in keeping your empire productive.

Maybe with some retaliation check so the penalty isn't as big if you don't strike first.

[Yodasplat]

All that plus this:
every second or third nuke you chuck at an enemy you are going to have a catastrofic increase in pollution squares planet-wide.
So much that after 5 or 6 nukes you are going to have world-wide starvation and if you keep that going you are going to have the whole planet covered in pollution.
Don't know what the AI would do about it but
#1 it's realistic cause 10 nukes going off in the space of a month would definetly do something NOT-nice to the world climate in the real world IMO.
#2 human players would not just stand aside and let you wreak their own civilizations by chucking nukes at somebody else. Only risk in this case is that you are going to have a human player trashing an MP game in nuclear winter just cause he's bored.

I say all this of course in the hope that someday we will have MP games with CivIII.... *sigh*

[ACooper]

Maybe something like 2 unhappy faces per city when you nukes and 1 unhappy face made content when you are attacked with nukes?

[Spec]

Originally posted by ACooper
Maybe something like 2 unhappy faces per city when you nukes and 1 unhappy face made content when you are attacked with nukes?

I agree. And it should also lower the gold/per turn you get or loer commerce somehow because other nations could stop dealing with you and all. Just a thought.

Spec.

[Worthingtons]

1 unhappy face content when you are attacked!?!??!

I'm not i'd make me very happy if someone nuked Sheffield or summat and killed a load of my friends!!

[Whoha]

nukes are already useless

6 tanks are a much better buy then one "ruins the whole world, causes global warming destroys all life and turns it into a desert, but only has a 50% chance to kill each unit in a stack and doesnt destroy cities" nuke, now they do have a cool animation, but its just not worth it. tanks can also raze cities.

[korn469]

just add in M.A.D.
mutally assured destruction would stop all of the nuking especially if you combined it would more powerful nukes
as it is right now you could nuke a size one city an infinite amount of times and it will never dies, basically if a town (a level one city that is 6 population or less) gets nukes it should be wiped off the map...that coupled with M.A.D. and cheaper nukes (no more than 300 or 400 for an ICBM) and suddenly we'd have REAL incentive not to start nuclear wars

EDIT:
whoha i completely agree with you (though iirc i think they lowered the cost of nukes to 500 in 1.16f but still they are WAY to expensive for what they do)

[Captain]

good ideas all, but I have to say that MAD is best idea so far.

without MAD, you can still have first strike attacks that are too advantageous - even with nukes as weak as they are.

with MAD, you could up the power and lower the cost to better values without worrying about first strike being too strong. it would also allow for a cold-war type feeling.

here's a simple way to do it:
1. set each nuke you own to a target city.
2. set retaliatory settings (which would automatically run when a nuke goes off, even if not your turn)
a. if N# cities hit, launch M# retaliatory missiles
b. if N#cities hit, launch all missiles targetted against aggressor
c. if N# cities hit, launch all missiles at everyone (holds entire world hostage)
d. if N# allied cities hit, do a, b, or c.

I can't imagine coding it would be more than a few days work, though setting up the interface to look nice might take a while longer.

I'm thinking ICBMs here, not sure what to do about tactical nukes.

[Goatguy]

remember the cold war?

I was reading this book on the cold war, and it talked about the russians having a "MAD boat". In otherwords if the communism fell or lenin died, the entire world would blow up. They should have one of those in Civ3, having 1 defense, 1 movment, and the power of like 100 nukes. When you bombard a square, the entire world is "ended" It might cost 2000 shields, and be classisifed as a small wonder, but its a hell of a way to "comeback" if your in last place

[Yodasplat]

Yeah but how about, instead of ending the game, you are left instead with a polluted world, each player is left with 1-2 cities and each player loses all or almost all of your techs and units, no matter if they started the war or not.

Or maybe most of the cities disappear and all remaining cities just get reduced to 1 or 2 in size and become "barbarian" cities?

So each player will find him/herself with 2 cities in a polluted cold-ridden world, half of the cities of the world are gone, most of the player's techs are gone and the rest of the surviving cities are bararian cities.

A post-apocalyptic civ game....

[korn469]

Captain

with MAD, you could up the power and lower the cost to better values without worrying about first strike being too strong. it would also allow for a cold-war type feeling.

my argument exactly! i'm not sure if you were in on any of the previous M.A.D. debates, but they came to the same conclusion as you did

as far as the actual sequence and way in which the nukes hit, while i would actually like to see a simultaneous strike i don't think it is required, right now firaxis has a M.A.D. system but that is only because ICBMs can't die from nuclear launches from my testing, but the city doesn't die either

what i would like to see is either an automatic system like the one you suggested, or a pretargeted system, or simply a nuclear strike turn, like when a player human or AI launches a nuke, all other actions freeze and then the only thing that can occur is nuclear launches, like the player who started it goes first, and then all other players get a launch turn, and then all of the nukes land before anything else happens

it doesn't seem like it would take that much work to implement, and once a form of M.A.D. was in the game, then making nukes more powerful (like kill 75% of a city instead of 50% and they would kill size 4 and smaller town automatically) wouldn't harm the game

[wervdon]

Definately, MAD Don't worry about setting pre-targets though. While its a tad more realistic its extra tedium.

Easiest way. Just make ICBM's take 1 turn to strike. You launch them on your turn, and they land at the beginning of your next turn. Everyone gets notice of ICBM's "in the air" at the start of their own turn so they can choose to respond in kind if they wish. Also, this way allows diplomacy options to negotiate for sending the abort codes to the ICBM

For example:

Military advisor: Queen Elizibeth, the evil Germans have launched ICBMs heading for London and York!

Elizabeth: Contact Bismark at once!

Bismark: By now you've surely noticed our ICBM's are coming your way.....give us 1000 gold and syntehic fibers and we may choose to abort them.....

Elizabeth: No...thankyou. Military advisor, authorize a full launch of our ICBMs. Now perhaps Bismark, you will like to both push our little red buttons at once......

NOTE: The actual abort button should be on the military advisor screen, and you can lie about aborting it in diplomacy, but it should be a HUGE black mark on your reputation

Also, tactical nukes (being short range) should not be subject to 1 turn delay. They should just operate like now, allowing first strike options and a strategic reason to keep nuclear subs and nukes around

[Captain]

hey, that's pretty good. i hadn't thought of that type of arrangement.

one question: if you abort the ICBM in midflight, you lose it, right? So this might add some strategy - retaliate with only some nukes so that if you abort, you'll still have some to use next turn?

on the down side, it's a bit less scary since they might just be bluffing, and if you did know where they were hitting, you could pull your units out of the blast radius on your turn.

still, an interesting idea...