A way to implement "cold war" into Civ3

[Zopperoni]

Very cool idea

[manofthehour]

has fraxis siad anything about nukes yet?

[java4me]

Ok, here is the thing on nukes...

The Atom Bomb was the first nuclear bomb (which was dropped twice on Japan in WWII).

Later in the 60's they developed the nuclear bomb which was a little more powerful than the Atom Bomb.

After that, they developed a thing called the nuclear warhead which way more powerful than a nuclear bomb. ICBM's were created at the same time that nuclear warheads were created, which means that you could destroy the whole world in around 30 minutes. What they have created nowadays is the thermo nuclear warhead which people call the Fusion Bomb. That weapon is 100's of times more powerful than the nuclear warhead!!!

So, as time goes on the weapons get more and more powerful. Probably, the most latest weapon is the Neutron Bomb which isn't as powerful as the Fusion Bomb but kills all the people and not the buildings!!!

I hope that, that clears some of the questions up!!!

I read a lot about nukes, because they are so interesting and I know that if there is a WWIII then say goodbye to this wonderful world!!!

So, getting back to Civ3...I think that there should be different levels of Nuclear Weapons in the game!!!

[korn469]

yes i might have gotten carried away a little with my nuclear model 2.0 in terms of the number of nuclear units presented but i do have to say i pretty much stand by the rest of that post, especially the diplomatic options. yes they would need tweaking and changing but as far as the basic idea behind those options i think that should remain in the game

i still think that a good two mode nuclear targeting system of alert and counter strike modes would be good...

have a number of options on when your missles launch

your civ gets attacked (green light)
your civ or your allies gets attacked (yellow light)
your civ or allies gets attacked and/or your enemy launches reguardless if your civ or allies gets attacked (red light)

but i went MAD in Civ3!!

this requires, that when on a turn no matter if it is the first player or the last player, that when one nuclear missle gets launched then all nuclear missles launch and hit simultaneously right at that moment

you cool little multimedia effect would be when a player decided to launch his missles a voice would start counting down from ten and a box with a number of alphanumberic symbols would appear, and the symbols would go by (ala WOPR cracking the launch codes in War Games or the agents tracing trinity's call at the begining of the Matrix)

ten - one symbol locks in
nine - another symbol locks in
etc. - etc.
one - all of the symbols lock in and nuclear armegeddon begins

i think that this effect would be warranted because most likely a nuclear war would only occur once or twice in the game

some other thoughts

once a state uses nukes then there should be some kind of diplomatic/cultural reprecussion on this civ...maybe not something as drastic as in SMAC, but close to that

and their should be restraint on the AI's part on using nukes...really in most games nukes should not be used because they are too destructive, but all militaristic/expansionistic AIs should go for nukes as soon as they can build them...once one civ starts building nukes the AI should engage in an arms race...which would increase the chance of a full blown nuclear holocaust and increase the cold war mentality that shaped the modern age

also any SDI defense system should cost almost as much as a nuke and should only be between 25%-40% effective...MAD should be the cost effective strategy to prevent nuclear war

Ralf i have no idea why you suggest that cities with SDI not be able to launch nukes but i think that is a bad idea...and i think that you want an overpowered SDI

if it was up to me i would even put SDI into civ3, but if it must be in it should come well after nukes and it should be expensive (hundreds of billions of dollars) and it shouldn't be completely effective (no system exists to intercept a war head...patriots only blew up SCUD missle's fuel tanks) plus nuclear tipped cruise missles are virtually immpossible to stop

[Kevin Ar18]

A city cannot be expected to produce; store or launch ICBM's and be protected by SDI-defence at the same time. You really must choose. Once an SDI-defence is built in a city, then you cannot produce; store or launch your missiles from that city anymore.

SDI or whatever defense is completely separate from your nuclear attack ability. It doesn't make sense as others suggested to do this. And you say it would be too much power, but I argue it wouldn't. If you can survive the nuclear war with minimal damage and they can't... then, well, good for you right?

1. Nukeing someone because they are deafeating your ally seems unlikely. It seem logical that you would first declare war and see what you can do without Nukes. Than if they start deafeating you than would use you Nukes.

Before the collapse of communism in Russia, the Russians may have done it if we say, invaded China. Maybe only the agressive civs would be this trigger happy. You'd definitely know who they were in the game because they would keep making threats, like don't you attack my ally or do this or that or something is gonna happen. That'd be more cold war like 'eh?

Oh, that makes me think, maybe government can also have an effect on how trigger happy the civ is (in addition to how aggressive they are).

but dont try to make it into a game within a game ( read Korn469 ). Firaxis should limit themselves by extracting the quintessential idea of MAD - not try to cram buckloads of details into it. Too much and too little destroys everything. Different types of nuclear-bombs definitly feels unnecessary. No neutron-bombs for example (overtaking undamaged & fully equipped cities/ city-areas unbalances the game too much).

Some good points.... Yeah, we don't want nuclear missiles to be a hassle in the game. In Civ 2 they were too weak, but too much in Civ 3 and they'll be no fun (even though quite realistic). It's just something you gotta always consider. I've read how Sid Meir has said, when it comes to an issue of do you include the realistic option or the fun option he goes for the fun one.
But then, I also like those realistic (and challenging) type games -- Outpost 1 anyone? And I hate those games that are just so simply they are just childish -- Sim City 3000 anyone?

[Iskandar Reza]

if implemented, wouldn't this make pbem difficult?

[Ralf]

My original quote:

A city cannot be expected to produce; store or launch ICBM's and be protected by SDI-defense at the same time. You really must choose. Once an SDI-defense is built in a city, then you cannot produce; store or launch your missiles from that city anymore. If you choose to demolish that SDI-defense - well, then that city is back in ICBM-business again.

Geoff the Medio's response:

Why? Is this a game-balance thing, or a realism thing?

Either way, I don't get it...

Korn469's response:

Ralf i have no idea why you suggest that cities with SDI not be able to launch nukes but i think that is a bad idea...and i think that you want an overpowered SDI

Kevin Ar18's response:

SDI or whatever defense is completely separate from your nuclear attack ability. It doesn't make sense as others suggested to do this. And you say it would be too much power, but I argue it wouldn't. If you can survive the nuclear war with minimal damage and they can't... then, well, good for you right?

OK, I have give the idea another twist, that makes it simpler and perhaps more acceptable. Forget about the prior version - I want it replaced with below one instead:

The effectiveness of SDI-defenses should only be 100% if you have no nuclears at all in your empire weapon-arsenal. The more nucs you have however, the less effective the SDI-defenses becomes.

Now, why this connection between nucs and SDI-defenses? Well, as I said in a prior reply: "you shouldnt be able to launch full-scale attacks with the knowledge that each and every of your own cities are totally secure behind their SDI-defenses". It unbalances war end-games too much, in much the same way that "first player with Space-weapon access" did, in CTP.

And above should apply regardless if you are the initial attacker or the counter-attacking revenger, by the way. I want nucs & especially MAD-setups to be very SCARY things that should be launched with some hesitation. An AI- or human warmonger shouldnt be able to totally build away the backfire-consequences in advance with help of SDI-defenses.

On the other hand: Not all Civ-player want to play around with nuks and MAD-setups - or to have it forced upon them by some erratic AI-civ, or nucs-loving MP-player. So 100% effective SDI-defenses should most definitely still be implemented in the game, as long as you dont build any ICBM´s. Important!!

I see this gameplay-choice between SDI-defenses or ICBM's, as an biblical doomsday sheeps & goats kind-of-thing. You really must choose....

[java4me]

Lets just say that I am very glad that ICBM's are in the game!!! After explaining a little history of nuclear weapons in the previous posts I hope that you all understand it by now!!!

[korn469]

Not all Civ-player want to play around with nuks and MAD-setups - or to have it forced upon them by some erratic AI-civ, or nucs-loving MP-player

Ralf i disagree with you completely! (hehe not like it's the first time that's happened though )

i could only agree with 100% effective SDI on the weakest level, but on more difficult levels the players should have to come out from behind their SDI defenses and play the game. If you are afraid of nukes and afraid of losing in multiplayer then don't player multiplayer

the problem with SDI is that doesn't encourage peace; it encourages a nuclear first strike...the reason the Soviets were so afraid of Regan's Star Wars plan (which was more bluff than anything, another way to force the Soviets into increasing military spending) is because it would allow the United States to launch a nuclear first strike without fear of retaliation...add the first strike capability of stealth bombers into the mix and you have a one two combo that would have knocked the "Evil Empire" out permanently

Civ2 and SMAC only have first strike capability in the game, whoever uses nukes first has a huge advantage over the other player...so this gives incentive to start a nuclear war, the more nukes the other side has the more inclined a player is to attack first so they can counteract the other side's advantage

if firaxis implements MAD into the game then there will be NO inncentive to start a nuclear war with another player who has nukes, both sides will get hurt because the core of any MAD system in Civ3 is that ALL NUKES DO DAMAGE SIMULTANEOUSLY

MAD is a must for civ3, as are more powerful ICBMs, because unless a huge missle gap (a cold war element) exists then both sides have no reason to start a war in which they can't win and this will prevent direct confrentation...if the AI under most circumstances fires off its Nukes when it thinks its situation is hopeless then that will prevent the player from just trashing the AI (another cold war element)...both sides will be involved in an arms race where their nuclear arsenal acts as a counterbalance to any conventional superiority the other side might have

so by implementing MAD and tweaking the AI just a bit we could develop very interesting cold war situations in the game with little effort...once Nukes get implemented in a proper fashion then cold wars are bound to follow

so ralf scratch your idea...all we need is MAD

[manofthehour]

There definitly needs to be a way 2 make sure there is no upper hand to the person who launches first.

[Geoff the Medio]

Originally posted by Ralf
The effectiveness of SDI-defenses should only be 100% if you have no nuclears at all in your empire weapon-arsenal. The more nucs you have however, the less effective the SDI-defenses becomes.

While that might possibly be good for game balance (I leave the determination of that up to playtesters), perhaps a more... realistic and easily justifiable "fix" would be to make SDI defences extremely expensive to maintain, eg. 25 gold/turn or more. Since units are now supported by gold (or so I've heard...), if nuclear units (whether in traditional unit form or not) also had a large upkeep, a practical choice between having nukes, being defended from nukes or having any science output at all would have to be made (assuming traditional game mechanics). This would all have to be balanced for the new non-ICS cities situation of course, so the 25 is just an arbitrary number... It just needs to be big enough that it's not practically possible to have a city maintain a SDI and a nuke. Finding a perfect balance for these costs would likely be quite difficult though...

[Iskandar Reza]

i ask again, can it be implemented with pbem?

[korn469]

Iskandar Reza

there shouldn't be a problem at all in implementing it in PBEM once it's in the normal game...firaxis flags all of the nukes, and tells them to all hit their targets once one gets launched, it's as simple as that...

so yea i do think that we all kind of got carried away with how to implement nuclear weapons in the game but i think it boils down to this

Civ3 has to have ICBMs with infinate range, that can do massive damage to a city if not destroy it outright, and ICBMs have to have a target, once one ICBM gets launched they all hit their targets simultaneously (ie it's too late for diplomacy) and SDI has to be balanced accordingly so that it only increases the chance of surviving a nuclear war but doesnt make nuclear war obsolete

hehe firaxis doesnt have to turn civ3 into Dr. Strangelove or anything but once you add in MAD then the entire Modern age changes...the modern age becomes a scary place where nuclear deterrance and cold wars are the rule not the exception

in Civ2 there was no such thing as nuclear deterrance or cold war or anything even remotely like how nuclear weapons work today

in Civ2 nukes were the second best method of beginning a blitzkrieg across a continant (howies and mech infantry along railroads being the best method)

you nuke a city, knock out the stack of units guarding it and then you seize that city with paratroops...for the most part the cities were intact and a good enough player could get them to have we love days and balloon right back up to their pre nuke size

so in Civ2 there are no repercussions from using a nuclear weapon, the pollution is realatively easy to clean; since the cheating AI unites against you anyways there isn't any diplomatic penalties; and you get cities that are relatively intact and ready to serve you as well as the ones you have nurtured from the start; also you have incentive to attack first, because attacking second means will probably be severly weakened...so in Civ2 nukes are just really powerful conventional weapons

in Civ3 nukes need to be strategic weapons, and that revolves around MAD...if nukes were able to completely obilterate a city (as powerful as a fission or maybe even a fusion planetbuster in SMAC but leaves radiation behind instead of a hole) and all nukes hit at once, suddenly there wouldn't be any incentive to use nuclear weapons at all because you don't gain you just lose...unless circumstances were completely hopeless...it would also cause players to think twice before starting a war

also powerful nukes would discourage ICS...if your cities are really bunched together a couple of nukes could destroy your entire core

so please please please Firaxis include Mutually Assured Destruction into Civ3