Nukes: Good vs. Bad

[MattH]

I just finished a great (my first, now I'm on like my 100th) ptw game. I took it real slow and easy, building up to the modern+ age. The whats-their-names were getting too frisky, so I decided to teach them a lesson. A quick spy for troop locations showed me that some cities were just overrun with defending infantry ('tanks bane'). Ok, off with the neuclear bombs. Pow. One turn, 6 smoking orange puddles and 1/2 of the 100 or so infantry done. It took the tank forces only about 2/3 turns to mop up. Then I realized: That was extremly satisfying, but now the game's over! Blah. Who else thinks that nukes are too powerful? Maybe you should have to have 3 citites for every nuke, or something.

[planetfall]

MattH,

Let the AI get SDI and then try nukes. Unless you are at an extremely easy level, you will probably find you can't produce enough nukes to be effective.

== PF

[georges bonbon]

Re: Nukes: Good vs. Bad

Originally posted by MattH
That was extremly satisfying.

Do not tell this to George Bush.

He is playing for real.

[Inverse Icarus]

Matt, you're either 1. playing a very easy level or 2. a very small AI, or, 3. you got to nukes first.

1. The AI sucks on anything lower than monarch (personal opinion) They don't know how to retalliate or anything.

2. One of the biggest problems with invading an AI is the whole "no railroads in their land" rule. if you're playing against a small AI or a culture deproved one, it's easy to tear right through them.

3. if you get to nukes first, they SHOULD be the end-all-be-all power, if you choose to use them. think of america's power after we perfected them and nuked the japs. they ended a war that could have cost tons of lives.

on the harder levels, it's almost impossible to take out an AI on the first turn of a war. and if you nuke, and don't have an SDI, good luck. last game i nuked Egypt with 5 tac nukes (from subs) and 3 ICBMs (they had like 9 cities on their main island, i hit the 5 biggest ones), and the next turn i got hit with 4 myself, 2 in Beijing

[MattH]

Yeah... I did play my first game on really easy. And about 5 minutes after I posted, I realized that oops... thats the way nukes should be.
You know what I wouldn't mind? Bieng able to change the dificulty in the middle of the game.
Also, is this ridiculous or what: ?

[shamus62]

Hands down the most satisfying experience in PTW ever was to have the "big bad" Germans declare war on me and then launch 7 nukes from subs lurking off their coast (placed there for just such an occasion ) Long story short, I wish I could read the AI's mind and hear Bimark say to his aide "That didn't go exactly like we planned Wolfgang,....bring the car around,...we're going on vacation." Man I love this game!

[lmtoops]

It's great when you have SDI, but don't. You hit them hard and then watch the nukes bounce off your cities. I love it!!

[Boris Godunov]

I never liked have nukes. They ruined games, because the AI never seems to understand "deterrence." I usually edit them out.

[Bone]

You are right, they don't understand detterence at all. If you have 3x their number of nukes... spread out over more cities than they have ICBMs... DUH

I'm currently in a big middle 20th century can of whoopa$$ with France on one side and England on the other . I have about 20 ICBM's... England has 5 and France has 3. I have SDTI, neither of them do .

England launches all five, SDTI takes out 4. I did not retaliate (yet), because I knew she had none left and I eliminated her access to Uranium via waves of bombers on my first turn. Next turn, she gets France to join on her side, for uranium. France launces all 4 of theirs, SDTI gets them all (whew). Of course, now I have to retaliate as I cannot defend both borders without inflicting some major production pain to them, so I nuked both capitals, and all 4 oil fields between them (nuke on oil field is very effective for long term denial?).

I never wanted to nuke anyone though, as I hate global warming and it's effect on my giant metropolises (sp? - metropoli?)... but oh well .

Ok, so I got long winded there , but the fact is I have 20 nukes w/SDTI all in different locations, they have 9 between them... ummm... why would they nuke?

edit: doh, it appears I cannot count or spell

[ayronis]

I do not presume to have any answers regarding why the AI does the things it does. But I did have a thought -

It seems to me, that if I were one of those losing nations and I had a chance to drag another nuclear nation against a substantially more powerful nation (even with many more nukes) I would still consider firing all the nukes. Why?

Because my chances of winning in an apocolyptic world is probably better than winning in an ecological paradise. Ultimately the dominant nation is going to suffer the most from global warming, and if I can rally support from the other nations against you, then all the better. Sure I'm probably still going to lose, but if your winning by as much as it seems you are then what have I got to lose by trying?
(Given our own current political and military situation in the world, the reality of this post is a little unsettling..)