More realistic WMD in Civ4 needed

[Mr. President]

More realistic WMD

You mean ones that don't work?

[mrmitchell]

This has 2 problems:
1) It still doesn't solve the third party problem.
Turn 1 - Civ A launches at Civ B
Turn 2 - Civ B launches at Civ A
Turn 3 - Civ A's nukes hit. Civ B's are in the air, but Civ C, which was waiting to see the nature of the retaliation, only now launches.
Turn 4 - CivD which was waiting to see what Civ C would do...

Because the civ's decision making on whether to launch or not is dependant on the actions of other civs the time from the start of the nuclear war to the end of the nuclear war could be a lot of turns.

1) The Foreign Advisor, at the start of your turn, jumps at you and grabs you, screaming 'PLAYER A HAS LAUNCHED HIS NUKES AT PLAYER B! OH NO! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!1' (Even if you aren't A or B)
2) Civs whose airspace is crossed by the nukes' paths are notified. (Nukes simply travel in a straight line.)

2)Other Unit's movement.
If it takes 2 turns for a nuke to arrive, you can have all of your units safely away from the blast zone before they hit.

You aren't told where the nukes are headed, just that they're ready to toast your civ.

[Kuciwalker]

I think Tactical Nukes shouldn't give this warning. Think - the whole thing about the Cuban Missile Crisis was that they'd be able to launch and we'd have essentially NO warning.

wrylachlan - what's wrong with that? The problem of a first strike being unbalance is solved, because you never get hit without notice.

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by mrmitchell


1) The Foreign Advisor, at the start of your turn, jumps at you and grabs you, screaming 'PLAYER A HAS LAUNCHED HIS NUKES AT PLAYER B! OH NO! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!1' (Even if you aren't A or B)
2) Civs whose airspace is crossed by the nukes' paths are notified. (Nukes simply travel in a straight line.)

This does nothing to fix the problem which has to do with where in the turn order you are. Say the turn order for a game happens to go - Canada, Russia, US, Mongolia, Mexico, China.
Turn 1 - China launches against Mexico.
Turn 2 - Mongolia figures Mexico will retaliate, but maybe they won't. Maybe they don't have nukes, or maybe they won't nuke any Chinese cities near the mongolian border. So Mongolia has to wait to see what Mexico does. Lets say Mexico does launch, and they do launch at a city near the Mongolian border.
Turn 3 - The missiles china launched in turn 1 hit. Finally Mongolia Launches and happens to launch at a city near the US border
Turn 4 - for the same reason that mongolia waited, the US only now decides to launch.
Turn 5 - Russia launches
Turn 6 Canada launches (heh).

Do you follow what I'm saying about how the order of the turns can effect the outcome, which IMHO shouldn't be the case.

You aren't told where the nukes are headed, just that they're ready to toast your civ.

That's not very historic, since there has never been a time when we had ICBMs but not radar. Not to mention the fact that even though you don't know exactly where they're gonna hit, you probably have an idea that they'll be concentrated in the biggest cities, and you'd be able to minimize damage by moving your troops out of cities.

I think Tactical Nukes shouldn't give this warning. Think - the whole thing about the Cuban Missile Crisis was that they'd be able to launch and we'd have essentially NO warning.

Two things. Firstly my main concern was ICBM nuclear exchanges, which are the more deadly and more likely to lead to a MAD scenario. If you were to put enough tac nukes in possition to replicate the effects of an ICBM salvo, that would be a ton of tac nukes, and there would be politcal repercussions long before you got them all in place. I would have no problem with tac nukes getting a first strike, or even having tac nukes behavior totally unchanged from the way it works currently.

And secondly, essentially NO warning is not the same as NO warning. If there were ICBM's in Miami, there would be plenty of time to get them off between first radar contact with an incoming from cuba and the actual detonation. You'd probably even have time to scramble a few fighters and bombers if they were based there.

[Fosse]

Originally posted by wrylachlan
This has 2 problems:
1) It still doesn't solve the third party problem.
Turn 1 - Civ A launches at Civ B
Turn 2 - Civ B launches at Civ A
Turn 3 - Civ A's nukes hit. Civ B's are in the air, but Civ C, which was waiting to see the nature of the retaliation, only now launches.
Turn 4 - CivD which was waiting to see what Civ C would do...

Well, it can if that's really needed. Anybody with the proper technology will receive the note, "Russia has fired off several ICBMs. They appear to be heading toward America."

So everybody knows what is going on. If a nuclear exchange takes 3 or 4 turns then I don't see that as a problem. The system mrmitchell proposed is designed for MAD and simplicity, not being over with in one turn. Also, this method is well suited for MP

2)Other Unit's movement.
If it takes 2 turns for a nuke to arrive, you can have all of your units safely away from the blast zone before they hit.

But you can't move your cities.

Make it so that the target knows the nukes are coming, but not to which cities. If he manages to save a few garisson units, so be it.

The last thing I should worry about in a nuclear exchange are a few infantry divisions. I have my entire industrial base to worry about.

I would much rather have some sort of simultaneous launch mechanism. I think the easiest thing would be to stop time when the first launch is declared. Then each civ picks its targets in some sort of order.
Round 1 - China targets Washington.
2 - US targets Beijing
3 - India passes
4 - Russia passes
5 - France passes
6 - China targets San Fransisco
7 - US Targets Shanghai
8 - India is pissed that US is targeting something near its border so India targets Los Angeles.
9 - Russia was content to leave it US vs. China, but since India is in the fray, Russia targets Bangalore.
etc. etc.

An ugly an invovled minigame that would make nuclear war tedious, in my opinion. I like that you have tried to incorporate targeting, but it comes at such expense that it hardly seems worth it to me.

Regards,
Fosse

[Panzeh]

The most realistic way to implement nukes is just to have a big red button on the bottom right of the screen that says "NUCLEAR WAR"

when you hit it, world goes poof, game ends

[Fosse]

Panzeh,

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Panzeh
The most realistic way to implement nukes is just to have a big red button on the bottom right of the screen that says "NUCLEAR WAR"

when you hit it, world goes poof, game ends

That's the idea, we just want to play it out

[Nikolai]

I for one haven't tried to have a nuclear war since Civ1, if you don't count the planet obliteration I've had in SMAC to remove the last, irritating cities of my neightbours!

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by Fosse
But you can't move your cities.

Make it so that the target knows the nukes are coming, but not to which cities. If he manages to save a few garisson units, so be it.

The last thing I should worry about in a nuclear exchange are a few infantry divisions. I have my entire industrial base to worry about.

That's all well and good in a true MAD situation, but what about when you don't have enough Nukes For MAD. Lets say on a real world map Inca holds all of SA, and US holds NA. They each have one ICBM. Inca decides to invade the US and sends a ton of MA to Mexico. The US realizes it is caught with its pants down and decides to use its nuke. In a case like that what would the US target? Cuzco? Or the legions of MA in Mexico? If the Nuke took 2 turns to arrive and the Inca get a warning which allows the MA to retreat, to me, that's a game breaker.

Not only that but the ability to move units out of the way devaluates intelligence in terms of picking city targets where the enemy has more units garrisoned.

I think that though your suggestion is simpler, there is a very strong argument that simultenaity is the only way to model realistic behavior.

An ugly an invovled minigame that would make nuclear war tedious, in my opinion. I like that you have tried to incorporate targeting, but it comes at such expense that it hardly seems worth it to me.

Regards,
Fosse

I don't disagree that the method I outlined could be tedious, but to me, that is an argument against the implementation, not the basic idea of simultenaity.

What about if ICBM's are targeted when built? Then you could have a "Retarget Mission" which changes the ICBM's target. By the time the MAD scenario begins all your targets are set and you just need to say which ones you want to launch (From a list with checkboxes maybe).

If you want to change the targetting of a individual missile, you could do that. If you want to try to do last minute diplomacy "I'll stand down if you will". You could do that too.

[Kuciwalker]

That's all well and good in a true MAD situation, but what about when you don't have enough Nukes For MAD. Lets say on a real world map Inca holds all of SA, and US holds NA. They each have one ICBM. Inca decides to invade the US and sends a ton of MA to Mexico. The US realizes it is caught with its pants down and decides to use its nuke. In a case like that what would the US target? Cuzco? Or the legions of MA in Mexico? If the Nuke took 2 turns to arrive and the Inca get a warning which allows the MA to retreat, to me, that's a game breaker.

That's why you have tactical nukes. You aren't going to spend a huge amount for an ICBM you're using on an attacking stack. You spend a lot less for a tactical nuke, and it hits the turn it fires (but has to get in range).

[Fosse]

skywalker, that was exactly what I was going to say. Well put.

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by skywalker
That's why you have tactical nukes. You aren't going to spend a huge amount for an ICBM you're using on an attacking stack. You spend a lot less for a tactical nuke, and it hits the turn it fires (but has to get in range).

That misses the point. In real life, you wouldn't use a bunch of pikemen on the offensive against a group of Knights either. But if for some reason you wanted to do that in Civ, the results would be kind of what you'd expect. They get slaughtered.

Sure, if I had a tac nuke, I'd use that. But if I didn't have a tac nuke, or one wasn't in range, in that situation but I did have an ICBM, I would launch it. And I don't think I'd be asking too much to expect it to behave in a reasonably realistic manner i.e. not hover in the air twiddling its thumbs long enough for all the enemy units to leave its blast radius.

[Kuciwalker]

Sure, if I had a tac nuke, I'd use that. But if I didn't have a tac nuke, or one wasn't in range, in that situation but I did have an ICBM, I would launch it. And I don't think I'd be asking too much to expect it to behave in a reasonably realistic manner i.e. not hover in the air twiddling its thumbs long enough for all the enemy units to leave its blast radius.

I think it would. If you are going to get a unit with an insanely cool power - it can unleash enormous destruction ANYWHERE ON THE MAP - then you gotta pay the price, which is that it takes a turn to do so.

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by skywalker

Quote:

Sure, if I had a tac nuke, I'd use that. But if I didn't have a tac nuke, or one wasn't in range, in that situation but I did have an ICBM, I would launch it. And I don't think I'd be asking too much to expect it to behave in a reasonably realistic manner i.e. not hover in the air twiddling its thumbs long enough for all the enemy units to leave its blast radius.

I think it would. If you are going to get a unite with an insanely cool power - it can unleash enormous destruction ANYWHERE ON THE MAP - then you gotta pay the price, which is that it takes a turn to do so.

Depends what you're going for. Realism. Fun Game Mechanics. Interesting tactical decision. Ease of implementation (low micro). My point is that the 2 turn solution sacrifices realism in favor of ease of implementation. That's an argument which can go back and forth forever. But I'm not ready to give up on the possibility of an implementation that preserves both. In other words keep throwing ideas out there, because I don't think we're there yet.

[Kuciwalker]

How does it sacrifice realism all that much? You've supposed an unlikely occurance - just a few ICBM's and no tac nukes. It's the player's fault if he doesn't build any tac nukes (which are available before ICBM's, at least in C3). This improves realism AND strategy AND fun by using a simple system that creates a significant strategic decision (do I use tac nukes or ICBM's?) - a decision which existed in the real world. Why do you think missile subs were invented? So they could conduct a quick strike before the enemy could respond.