What's the best way to handle SMD with nuke attacks?

[planetfall]

Background: Got stuck in current monarch game and let Korea get too strong. It is about 1970 and there are not many turns left. SMD is supposed to give 75% success rate versus ICBM's. Korea has about 30 ICBM's and Rome has about 10. Korea does have SMD and assume Rome does as well. Korea has about 35 cities. Rome has about 12 cities.

Problem: not enough production capability in turns remaining to build the 300+ ICBM's needed for a 20% success rate for preemptive strike. I only have 100 ICBM's and about 30 tacticals. Even if I just build tacticals, could not build enough tacticals and SSN's in turns left.

Question: does this have any chance of success?

1. Launch as many ICBM's as need to remove city with SMD.

2. On same turn drop paratroopers on leveled city and abandon city.

3. When attack other cities, will they no longer have SMD protection? Or will SMD protection remain until next turn?

Thank you in advance for your suggestions.

== PF

[Unconquered]

A paratrooper cannot dop into the city like they could in Civ 2 (you can drop outside a city). You'll have to land lots of troops and take the city on the next turn. I would think as soon as the city is razed the lose the SDI benefit until they rebuild it and will not get it on the next turn.

[planetfall]

Originally posted by Unconquered
A paratrooper cannot dop into the city like they could in Civ 2 (you can drop outside a city).

Didn't play civ2. Disk is still in original case. But that is good to know. I'll have to use guerrillas.

You'll have to land lots of troops and take the city on the next turn. I would think as soon as the city is razed the lose the SDI benefit until they rebuild it and will not get it on the next turn.

More questions:

1. Why lots of troops? Won't ICBM take out all troops within 9 tiles of impact?

2. So if take city and raise, SDI/SMD{civ name} won't protect rest of cities from normal ICBM's hits and it will be just the odds of A) whether the city has SAM and, B) luck of RNG for success. If no SAM, then instant success?

== PF

[FNBrown]

ICBM doesn't kill everyone... will leave most troops wounded, but if they have a barracks, they could recover before you get there. It will have to be a carefully coordinated attack.

I would be more concerned about the counter-strike. I would have most of my troops spread out outside the boundaries of most of your cities, because you can be the Koreans are gonna shoot back...

[planetfall]

Originally posted by FNBrown
ICBM doesn't kill everyone... will leave most troops wounded, but if they have a barracks, they could recover before you get there. It will have to be a carefully coordinated attack.

I have a good 40 ICBM's to throw at Korea capital and Rome {?, don't know where SDI is for Rome yet}.

I would be more concerned about the counter-strike. I would have most of my troops spread out outside the boundaries of most of your cities, because you can be the Koreans are gonna shoot back...

Not to mention the Romans. :-)

Do you see any flaws in my plan:
PRESTRIKE
~~~~~~~~~
1-- build > 100 ICBM. [x] done
2-- build > 6 carriers [ ] 5 built
3-- build 1..2 AEGIS/SSN [x] built, most in position over SSN
4-- build 6 transports [x] done
5-- move 1 strike force within 1 turn of SDI city [ ] waiting for units. Strike force is:
3 carriers, 3 transports, 6 guerrillas, 16 MA, 2 settlers, 6 jets, 12 bombers, 3 SSN, 10 AEGIS, 4 BS, and 3 tactical nukes.
6-- build > 8 guerrillas [x ] done. {In this game was experimenting with 6.6.2 for guerrillas. So they should be able to go inland two tiles to cities in one turn. All terrain penalties for guerrillas turned off.}
7-- load as many tactical nukes on SSN's as possible. {I have 24 of them}.
8-- move SSN's with covering AEGIS 1 turn out from coast line.
9-- Disperse units in cities

STRIKE ORDER
~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. Nuke Korea SDI city til no troops
2. Nuke Rome SDI city til no troops
3. Land guerrillas
4. abandon SDI cities
5. nuke rest of cities with ICBM's
6. keep tactical Nukes as reserve

== PF

[FNBrown]

Seems like a sound strategy to me... have fun cleaning up the mess. ;-)

[ChaotikVisions]

Heh, you could wait a bit longer and try to get a ROP with them. Then position troops in range of all the citys and hit them after you nuke. Took out America in 1 turn by nuking all their citys and capturing them on the same turn, really pissed the rest of the world off though. That is kind of cheating though, I also felt bad about it since I only did it to make sure Japan didn't grow stronger then me when he was annexing a neighboring civ of his. Ah well. I'd expect to lose all your large citys, and some useless ones. The AI has odd nuking habbits, once watched it nuke the same city 8 or 9 times.

[planetfall]

Originally posted by ChaotikVisions
Heh, you could wait a bit longer and try to get a ROP with them. Then position troops in range of all the citys and hit them after you nuke. Took out America in 1 turn by nuking all their citys and capturing them on the same turn, really pissed the rest of the world off though. That is kind of cheating though,

I agree. I won't use ROP like that. I have never had a nuke war so will be a new experience. With so few turns left, the only other reasonable option is just to sit tight and finish the game with no aggression.

I think if I started a normal war at some point Korea or Rome would decide to use their 40 nukes. When Iroquois fell, they let their nukes disintegrate rather than use them. I don't trust the Koreans or Romans would do the same. Thus the plan to try a nuke war and see what happens.

== PF

[Jaybe]

SMD defends against nucs within their cultural border is my understanding, based somewhat on personal experience. If 1 nuc gets through to a city, subsequent nucs are still subject to the SMD.

[Bambul]

I have never had a nuclear war where the AI has nuked me. I did have one game where there were only 2 Civs left. The AI attacked me and took 3-4 cities in one turn, raxing 2-3 of them. I had strategically positioned nuclear subs on the other side of the continent with tac nukes before hand in case of a losing war, plus after recapturing by lost cities my tac nukes still in my cities could target border AI cities AND then my ICBM's went for the inland cities.

I nuked 3/4 of their cities. That'll teach them for attacking a nuclear power! >:-)

I had already launched my ship and was playing for fun, I probably wouldn't do it in a normal game. But having strategically placed subs was fun from a long term planning point of view. Unfortunately, my carriers and transports weren't enough and I was only able to raze one city on the other side of the continent. Then I unloaded all my marines and put the workers in the transports, they held their ground pretty well until I declared peace and was able to get them out. That was rather fun too, the feeling of holding out against the enemy until you can evacuate them safely!

[planetfall]

Aborted game. Too few turns left. The problems with the Nuke plan:

1. ICBM's do not destroy ICBM's.
It looks like ICBM's have to be taken out by land units and not bombardment.

2. Underestimated SDI. It is more like 1/10 or 2/15 that get thru.

3. Guerrillas and marines get stopped when disembark. No way to land and move inland in same turn.

4. Paratroopers can't sit on carriers, so too far away to help.

Interestingly Rome did not have SDI.

Anyway, the idea of following thru with a preemptive nuke strike did not hum after discovering there was no way to remove SDI in turns left. Since leading in score by 300 points and didn't want to just play for score, ended game.

Time to get 1.14 and start a new game and see if can do better before Modern Era. If not, I have preferenced next game so ICBM cost is double and tacticals are up a bit so Modern Era is a mixture of nukes and Modern Forces. Also following player1's idea of having ironclad's upgrade to destroyers. That should keep me busy as now I have to deal with AI destroyers instead of worthless ironclads.

Thanks for the ideas.

== PF

[Jaybe]

planetfall,
100 ICBMs and 30 TacNucs seems to be a VERY high number. I would think that it would be very uncommon to approach half that in most games, ... well, maybe 1/5 of that at the most.

Of course, it's possible that someone INSTIGATED the arms race, someone who everyone else would have "perfect" knowledge about (nudge, nudge )

[mullenstephen]

Originally posted by ChaotikVisions
The AI has odd nuking habbits, once watched it nuke the same city 8 or 9 times.

i find that it goes for your cities that have resources located around them. then, i think they just get confused and keep hitting the same one.

[planetfall]

Originally posted by Jaybe
planetfall,
100 ICBMs and 30 TacNucs seems to be a VERY high number. I would think that it would be very uncommon to approach half that in most games, ... well, maybe 1/5 of that at the most.

Of course, it's possible that someone INSTIGATED the arms race, someone who everyone else would have "perfect" knowledge about (nudge, nudge )

Guess I started arms race. Korea was always 1..2 techs ahead of me. They also were about 6 turns away. I had no navy and miminal air force. Great army, but with Korea having 50 SSN's I could not see a successful invasion without taking the time to build air and navy. With only about 100 turns left I didn't think I really had the time. Previously I had only created 2..3 nukes just to see what they would do. I had never tried building an nuclear force before, so.. why not?

I started with tacts for the SSN's and then started adding the ICBM's. Korea initially started matching my production at a rate of 1 for every 2 or 3 I build. But when they reached 28 they stopped. I have build almost all improvments, so thought might as well keep on building nukes. Korea had about 50 cities so with an expected need for 2 strikes/city; I build 102 ICBM's. Then my son told me SDI would wreck plans as so few would get thru. I didn't have the time and production levels to produce another 200 ICBM's before the game ended. Realized then I should have only built ICBM's for inner cities and used tact/sub/AEGIS for coastal cities. {Another game ;-) }.

Really didn't want a nuclear battlefield, but that is what ended up with. As long as I had spies and my tacts were spread out I wasn't worried as I had counter strike capability. I was shocked that ICBM's had to stay in the city and couldn't be moved to N.Dakota, or Nev. or Siberia. Thus for next game doubled cost of those buggers so I wouldn't be tempted to build so many.

== PF

[Zero]

last time i had a nuke game with ai was in civ I...

wasnt fun when they were nuking my cities.