Nukes are a bit ridiculous

[Grimnar]

TL;DR - Nuke barrages destroying every army in a region outright is not fun at all.

A single nuclear weapon is not a good tactical weapon - and would not outright destroy an 'army' as represented in TI

A barrage of nuclear weapons as described in TI, enough to evaporate 10 armies, would not only leave a small permanent malus on a region (as it does currently in game) - it would render that region barren & completely uninhabitable for decades. And the armies located there would still likely not be completely destroyed.

I had 10 armies taking back Eastern Ukraine (far too topical) after it had been taken by Russia. At 96% completion, a message about a nuke being used pops up. All 10 of my armies have been vaporised. Welp, that's a dozen real life hours of army building vaporised too!

IMHO: a very immersion breaking mechanic. Have nukes severely damage armies, destroy armies with less than 40% health, etc. But wipe out 10 armies all with 90%+ health/cohesion? Hurricanes release more energy than 10,000 10-megaton nuclear weapons (Google it), and yet in game they barely scratch regions or armies in them. Nukes are a strategic weapon, not a tactical one. And definitely not an effective tactical one. For a game that does so well simulating the gamification of so much near-future-Sci-Fi, the current nuke effects could be closer to reality!

[Toblm]

Originally posted by Grimnar:

I had 10 armies taking back Eastern Ukraine (far too topical) after it had been taken by Russia. At 96% completion, a message about a nuke being used pops up. All 10 of my armies have been vaporised. Welp, that's a dozen real life hours of army building vaporised too!

Dont stack armies 10 deep. Dont stack armies period if you can avoid it...

[ulzgoroth]

If you read things, nukes are stated to represent a barrage of strategic nuclear weapons.

Not sure whether that should suffice to totally annihilate armies throughout a region either, but it isn't one missile.

[Brakiros]

The nukes in this game are not city killers, they're strategic missiles they're targeted weapons and also modern nuclear weapons have significantly lower fallout signatures then the nukes used by America in WWII.

[Lovecraft]

The US in game has about 30 nukes.

IRL the US has thousands. So I assume each nuke in game represents hundreds or thousands of nuclear warheads.

[Brakiros]

Originally posted by Lovecraft:

The US in game has about 30 nukes.

IRL the US has thousands. So I assume each nuke in game represents hundreds or thousands of nuclear warheads.

The US and Russia have around 2000 operational nuclear warheads and tens of thousands of non nuclear missiles

[Chimp Factory [M04]]

I remember an ingame event for one of the ships had nuclear warheads not being accounted for; wish I saved on it so I can re-read it for it wording and ship stats that resulted in '1 loose' nuke on the world stage.

I figure a nuclear strike ingame represents less than 10 megatons or so.

[Brakiros]

Originally posted by Chimp Factory M04:

I remember an ingame event for one of the ships had nuclear warheads not being accounted for; wish I saved on it so I can re-read it for it wording and ship stats that resulted in '1 loose' nuke on the world stage.

I figure a nuclear strike ingame represents less than 10 megatons or so.

1 loose barrage, it's realted to nuclear terrorism which can happen based on country stability and ideology

[Chimp Factory [M04]]

Originally posted by Brakiros:

Originally posted by Chimp Factory M04:

I remember an ingame event for one of the ships had nuclear warheads not being accounted for; wish I saved on it so I can re-read it for it wording and ship stats that resulted in '1 loose' nuke on the world stage.

I figure a nuclear strike ingame represents less than 10 megatons or so.

1 loose barrage, it's realted to nuclear terrorism which can happen based on country stability and ideology

Oh neat; didn't know nuclear terrorism is included. Thankfully I ran the event and RNG was in my favour.

[Blockhead]

Originally posted by Grimnar:

Hurricanes release more energy than 10,000 10-megaton nuclear weapons (Google it), and yet in game they barely scratch regions or armies in them.

The argument to be made here is that you can see/prepare for a hurricane (and indeed, when a hurricane event pops up you can often spend resources to mitigate the damage, although not entirely). There's no time to prepare for a tactical nuclear barrage.

You could also make the argument that the health of your armies doesn't necessarily represent the raw manpower/armour of the unit, but rather it's fighting potential. If all your soldiers survive a nuclear barrage, but all their support equipment is destroyed, for example, that will severely hamper their fighting potential/cease to make them a fighting unit.

[Mistfox]

Originally posted by Chimp Factory M04:

I remember an ingame event for one of the ships had nuclear warheads not being accounted for; wish I saved on it so I can re-read it for it wording and ship stats that resulted in '1 loose' nuke on the world stage.

I figure a nuclear strike ingame represents less than 10 megatons or so.

MIRV can mean that a single "missile" can be up to 10 warheads, a whole ship's worth of missiles can run into the hundreds of warheads.

[BanDHMO]

Originally posted by Blockhead:

Originally posted by Grimnar:

Hurricanes release more energy than 10,000 10-megaton nuclear weapons (Google it), and yet in game they barely scratch regions or armies in them.

The argument to be made here is that you can see/prepare for a hurricane (and indeed, when a hurricane event pops up you can often spend resources to mitigate the damage, although not entirely). There's no time to prepare for a tactical nuclear barrage.

You could also make the argument that the health of your armies doesn't necessarily represent the raw manpower/armour of the unit, but rather it's fighting potential. If all your soldiers survive a nuclear barrage, but all their support equipment is destroyed, for example, that will severely hamper their fighting potential/cease to make them a fighting unit.

It's generally a pretty pointless comparison, IMHO, because energy spread out is a lot less destructive than when released concentrated on a small area. e.g. bringing 1L of water from room temperature to boil takes about 300K Joules. Muzzle energy of a 7.62 AK round is 2K Joules. The fact that the energies are the same as what's involved in making your tea doesn't mean two magazines of AK rounds aren't dangerous.

Whether or not >100 strategic nukes would be enough to effectively destroy combined forces of US and Chine (6 + 4 armies at game start) if they were all deployed in one map area has nothing to do with the energy of hurricanes.

[Chimp Factory [M04]]

Originally posted by Mistfox:

Originally posted by Chimp Factory M04:

I remember an ingame event for one of the ships had nuclear warheads not being accounted for; wish I saved on it so I can re-read it for it wording and ship stats that resulted in '1 loose' nuke on the world stage.

I figure a nuclear strike ingame represents less than 10 megatons or so.

MIRV can mean that a single "missile" can be up to 10 warheads, a whole ship's worth of missiles can run into the hundreds of warheads.

Ships ingame have individual warheads ranging from 300kt to 1.2mt with all nuke [and antimater] launchers holding up to 5 missiles with single warhead.

Wish I saved the event to read the description better for the event's flavour text if it specified how many were miscounted, but a miscount to me would be a small amount.

[Blockhead]

Originally posted by BanDHMO:

It's generally a pretty pointless comparison, IMHO, because energy spread out is a lot less destructive than when released concentrated on a small area. e.g. bringing 1L of water from room temperature to boil takes about 300K Joules. Muzzle energy of a 7.62 AK round is 2K Joules. The fact that the energies are the same as what's involved in making your tea doesn't mean two magazines of AK rounds aren't dangerous.

An absolutely valid point, and well made.

"Perhaps the world wouldn't be in an energy crisis if we just powered everything with bullets?" -Chairman Soren Van Wyk, comments made as he was taken away to the lunatic asylum

[maxoverload91]

Originally posted by Grimnar:

TL;DR - Nuke barrages destroying every army in a region outright is not fun at all.

A single nuclear weapon is not a good tactical weapon - and would not outright destroy an 'army' as represented in TI

A barrage of nuclear weapons as described in TI, enough to evaporate 10 armies, would not only leave a small permanent malus on a region (as it does currently in game) - it would render that region barren & completely uninhabitable for decades. And the armies located there would still likely not be completely destroyed.

I had 10 armies taking back Eastern Ukraine (far too topical) after it had been taken by Russia. At 96% completion, a message about a nuke being used pops up. All 10 of my armies have been vaporised. Welp, that's a dozen real life hours of army building vaporised too!

IMHO: a very immersion breaking mechanic. Have nukes severely damage armies, destroy armies with less than 40% health, etc. But wipe out 10 armies all with 90%+ health/cohesion? Hurricanes release more energy than 10,000 10-megaton nuclear weapons (Google it), and yet in game they barely scratch regions or armies in them. Nukes are a strategic weapon, not a tactical one. And definitely not an effective tactical one. For a game that does so well simulating the gamification of so much near-future-Sci-Fi, the current nuke effects could be closer to reality!

funny to me that doom stacking got you killed bc in my game doom stacking is what i use to get around nukes - might just be a tech level difference tho. 8 armies at 5.1 miltech is enough to cap a low GDP region in about 48 hours or so.

[Dark Willow's Stoner Friend]

armies are way more fragile than you imagine, a tactical nuclear assault that would completely cripple an army's ability to conduct offensive operations may not kill even a single civilian. whereas a strategic strike to cripple the economic output of a region would probably functionally annihilate military units not even in the region. Realistically nuking the economic centre of a nation should have a chance to destroy/damage armies of that nation even if they are not in the region targeted.