They have GOT to allow a "no nuke" option.......

[Poogas]

Again, I don't think it should cost any more to build nukes, but the penalty should come if/when you launch them!!!!! This could build cool situations where both civs (who are enemies) have tons of nukes (kinda like the cold war, or any face off war) but neither wants to be the first to use them due to penaltys that will accure. You should have acces to tons of them, just make it a tougher decision if you want to use them or not!

[Dinner]

Nukes are great as long as your the only one who has them.

[Red Scorpion]

Originally posted by Poogas
Again, I don't think it should cost any more to build nukes, but the penalty should come if/when you launch them!!!!! This could build cool situations where both civs (who are enemies) have tons of nukes (kinda like the cold war, or any face off war) but neither wants to be the first to use them due to penaltys that will accure. You should have acces to tons of them, just make it a tougher decision if you want to use them or not!

I like this idea. Creating a Dialema situation. A 'Cold War'.

Also, maybe there could be some kinda radiation leakage (or something ) when you destroy a silo containing a Nuke. Perhaps with a 'chain-reaction' if close to another. Should put some people off building them too near Cities & such.

[Sky Dog]

I think the problem isn't so much the nukes as it is the Armageddon ending. The nukes ARE costly (hard to get the Missile Shield tech when you keep building nukes), but they are worth it to save a victory. My thought would be to have the Armageddon ending be an option, rather than automatic.

[PTM]

1. Armaggeddon counter should be user defined (ie user can set it ot 5, 10, 15, 20, infinite, etc)
2. Nuclear missiles should be renamed Tactical Nuclear Missiles/Weapons (since thats what they are) and ICBM's should be named "Nuclear ICBM" (unless they already are, I forget)
3. Nuclear Embargo is crap, and you know why? It's because trade isn't as important as it can be. By the time nukes start entering the theater people usually have mostrous stockpiles of resources unless they're playing something like 8 nations on a 4 player map. To rectify this, we need something better than a "nuclear embargo" to be the penalty.

How about protest rallies? A random number of citizens, between 20-30% of your total citizens, stop working and "go on strike," severely hurting your income. This affects caravans too. This lasts for 2 minutes base time plus 5 seconds for every enemy civilian and enemy non-military building (market, temple, smelter, etc) killed/destroyed in the nuclear blast, to represent the idea of targeting only military units. That kind of a penalty is bad enough to deter most leaders, but not so punitive as to deter nukes completely. It might be worth it to lose some of your income for a while if it meant doing the same to your enemy.

If you keep using nukes then your citizens might even stage a riot and destroy a building or two of yours.

I think that's an OK solution for AI.

I think an even better solution for human players, however, is deterrence.

I think there should be an option to alter nuclear missile strength. Normally it's set at 100%, but it can be set as low as 50% and as high as 400%. That way, players can play the game one of two ways.
1. They can set it at 50% and not worry too much if people start throwing nukes around like water.
2. They can set it really high, like around 400%, and tell other players that since both sides have nukes it'd be unwise to start a nuclear war since it'll decimate everybody in the end and everybody will just be reduced to crap. Since an ICBM already can wipe out an entire city, more or less, at 400% it would destroy half the map of a 4 player map. People would learn to put silos in weird places all over their nation, and the moment nukes are detected they'd launch in retaliation. If anyone had any real logic they'd learn to negotiate their nukes into oblivion instead of use them to burn their enemies cities. I think if enough nukes are fired it might even be fun to see all nations reduced to industrial times, losing all upgrades related to modern and information ages (exceptions include wonders).

- PTM

[Vesayen]

Nukes should just be taken out-or allow ONE nuke per player(period).

You'll never negotiate to "work it out"-because unlike the real world we cant live in peace-the winner is the one who kills the other guy.

[yin26]

Just get rid of Armegeddon! Nukes themselves don't do "that much" damage. It's the game suddenly ending that I think irks people most.

Instead of Armegeddon, along Tassadar5000's idea, just have resource production across the board drop with each nuclear explosion so that, say, after 6 nukes, it now takes twice as long to gather the same amount of pre-nuke resource gathering.

You'd then slowly have people reverting to a more post-nuclear sticks and stones type of warfare in which the only troops you could afford to field in any great numbers are the lower-level ones. This makes sense to me and doesn't simply end the game after NukeX has exploded.

Oh, and have villies start to suffer attrition!!! You know, from radiation sickness. This way you'd constantly have to watch and replace a dying workforce. Throw in a little glowing outline on these villies, and I'd be thrilled.