What is up with nuclear contamination?

[Kyl]

I have encountered some frustrating quirks related to nuclear contamination that caught me off guard. Even more bewildering is that these occur with no mods, so they had no effect on the game.

I was playing a late game with the online speed setting (post victory) and taking over the last remaining civlization, Kongo. I had painstakingly used jet bombers and missile cruisers to capture everyone else's cities, so for this last AI I thought it would be fun to just nuke the **** out of him. I declared war on him and launched four thermo-nukes on his cities, rushing in to capture four cities with level 5-6 Destroyer armadas on the same turn. Cool.

I noticed when selecting production that there is no option to decontaminate the city centers in any city. What? Whatever, I elect to decontaminate the districts and push next turn expecting that it takes a turn to be able to decontaminate. On the next turn, all of my Destroyer armadas that just captured the cities are gone. Dead. Disappeared. Obviously thats not 50 damage per turn, because they each were at 80-90 hp after the attack! Two of the thermo-nukes were not even directly centered on the city centers, if that would have had anything to do with. I also still am not able to decontaminate the city centers.

A few turns later I capture an inland city that was nuked, but Mzemba was able to decontaminate the city center before I captured it. So apparently he was able to decontaminate. I captured another nuked inland city that hadn't been decontaminated, and was unable to decontaminate the city center! Frustrated, I manage to move some builders in and manually decontaminate a few of them. Finally. Now, manuvering some builders, I prepare to make a slow trek with them through contaminated land towards some inland city centers (can't build or buy units in a contaminated city center, which is fine and makes sense). I expect to end the turn in a contaminated hex, decontaminate, heal, then move again. My full health builders and military engineers are killed in one turn! However, in other hexes some are only lowered to half HP, which is what I expected from the Civilopedia.

Are these bugs that haven't been fixed for a year? Is this related to a dumb, quirky game mechanic, similar to how my captured spies are forever lost now that I have taken over the entire world? Does contamination actually do random damage? Does it depend on the type of hex?

What gives, what is up with nuclear contamination, and why doesn't it give proper information about this mechanic in the Civilopedia?

[Paulytnz]

Not bugs, that's how they work. The idea behind nukes is that you use them when you want to wipe out massive armies/navies or to really lower the population of a city. So they are not for cities you want to capture in any quick fashion.

However there is a trick to all this that you are overlooking. That is you DON'T waste time trying to clear the polution up. This is not civ 4 or 5. The pollution DISAPPEARS all on it's own after a number of turns.

10 turns for a regular nuke.
20 turns for a Thermo.

Hope that info helps. :D

PS, no idea about the random damage to units, not seen that yet myself.