nuke-a-forming

sophist · November 28, 2001, 23:31

So I was playing around with nuclear weapons earlier (forgot what mom said about playing with thermonuclear fire...). I got curious to see if tundra got turned into desert, because desert in the (ant)arctic would be weird. So I played around. nuke-a-forming results:

Old->New
-------------
Plains -> Desert
Grassland -> Plains
Tundra -> Tundra
Desert -> Desert

We all knew these. However, you might not know this:

Jungle -> Grassland (mostly. sometimes becomes plains. not sure why. I think it may have to do with latitude)
Forest on Plains -> Plains (haven't tried this; no available forest on plains; could become desert as above)
Forest on Grassland -> Grassland (maybe the same two step as before)
Forest on Tundra -> Tundra

But the best one of all? If you have plains by a river, and you nuke it, you get.... Flood Plain. Uh huh. So a plan occurs to me. Say I've got 6 plains on either side of a river. Along one side is grassland and more plains, only not bordering river, like:

|P|R|P|G
|P|R|P|G
|P|R|P|P

The bolded plain is my target. So I plant forest on the grasslands and plains to the east. Then I nuke right there in the middle. If all goes well, I now have:

|F|R|F|G
|F|R|F|G
|F|R|F|P

Along with a whole lot of pollution, of course. Naturally I have a bunch of settlers around to push into there and re-improve and clean up.

Now, if you nuke one of your own cities, you lose half population. If you nuke NEXT to one of your cities, you only lose 1 pop. Either way you get only 8 pollution squares. And remember that water doesn't get polluted. So if you've got a bunch of plains next to the sea with a river going through them....

Too bad nukes come so late. This would be handy.

HugoHillbilly · November 28, 2001, 23:40

WOW that radiation must help grow super-crops! that explains the EXTRA food after a nuke!

smellymummy · November 29, 2001, 02:36

interesting method to terraform. I'll have to give this a try; it's a shame though that we dont have a cheat mode to do it quickly

Badtz Maru · November 29, 2001, 03:21

I wish you could level mountains with nukes. This was something that was actually seriously being considered in the 1950s here in America, when they were trying to find new uses for nuclear weapons.

Barchan · November 29, 2001, 03:52

Hey, nuclear radiation is how Homer Simpson developed "Tomacco"!

sophist · November 29, 2001, 04:02

I believe there was once a semi-serious suggestion to dig a canal using nuclear weapons. I don't think it was Panama, as we already had the canal well before atomic weapons were ever taken seriously, but that's the only thing that comes to mind.

Llama · November 29, 2001, 08:26

And the Russians wanted to use nukes to create large underground cisterns. Perhaps they'll use Chernobyl to store grain

MarshalN · November 29, 2001, 10:33

Hmmm, terraforming. I miss those engineers in Civ2.... tundra is so useless and given enough engineers, they can become grassland

Dyrlac · November 29, 2001, 13:03

Oh but I miss SMAC planet-bust-aforming .... I would like a nice lake [here].

gfrazieror · November 29, 2001, 18:35

The Soviets actually planned to use nukes to reverse the flow of rivers flowing to the Arctic to send them down to Khazakstan to irrirgate the steppes there.

I also miss the CivII Engineers, who could transform tundra into something useful. Workers are considerably less interesting in that regard.

War4ever · November 29, 2001, 19:17

Quote:

Originally posted by Dyrlac
Oh but I miss SMAC planet-bust-aforming .... I would like a nice lake [here].

here here

Buckethead · November 29, 2001, 21:51

that nuke-a-forming testing oughta be the craziest thing i read this far on this forum. Man... Not that it is useless, but holy crap !!! Were there farmers begging for a landpiece near Hiroshima the day after the big KABOOM ?

Incredible stuff...

Buckethead

MarshalN · November 30, 2001, 11:03

Yup, I miss those engineers.

Question -- do ALL the plains turn into floodplains, or just the ones next to the rivers??

Gamer at heart · November 30, 2001, 12:41

Quote:

Originally posted by Buckethead

that nuke-a-forming testing oughta be the craziest thing i read this far on this forum. Man... Not that it is useless, but holy crap !!! Were there farmers begging for a landpiece near Hiroshima the day after the big KABOOM ?

Incredible stuff...

Buckethead

That's a funny one indeed! Did you care to quantify the civil unrest related to nuclear use when you did your testing? Interesting stuff, even if unexpected !!

sophist · November 30, 2001, 15:36

It wasn't a serious attempt to do this in a game, so I have no idea of the unrest effects.

Only plains with rivers become flood plains. Otherwise they become desert. Hence the need to protect with forests.

sachmo71 · November 30, 2001, 17:33

Well, the army currently does have low yield nukes that they would use for demolition in a war...quick way to clear landslides on a road, or make a path thru a forest. I don't really see it as cheating...not REALLY. Although the demo charges are REALLY low yield...i.e. wouldn't turn a 100 square mile grassland area into plains, but a multi-megaton weapon sure would...