Post Apocalypse / Nuclear Winter

[Varick Korso]

What would be really cool is if there was a mechanic that if too many nukes were shot off. That the there would be a nuclear winter and the game would change drastically.

Also if there was an option to start off after a nuclear winter has come and gone, and you have to rebuild civilization by competing with other factions, exploring derelict cities for lost tech, so forth and so on.

[mmmcheesywaffles]

I'm not sure its a good idea to imply that a Nuclear Winter is actually a survivable event.

Personally I hope none of us will ever learn if that is truly possible. I'm not sure I would want to be a survivor in a world following a Nuclear Winter as the things I love about our planet will have to change beyond recognition.

This week I heard that the officials will allow tourism to the are destroyed by the Chernobyl disaster, however, we are still many thousands of years away fro allowing re-settlement. Yet Chernobyl was essentially a successful containment by comparison with a Nuclear Winter!

[Oaks]

Originally posted by mmmcheesywaffles:

I'm not sure its a good idea to imply that a Nuclear Winter is actually a survivable event.

Personally I hope none of us will ever learn if that is truly possible. I'm not sure I would want to be a survivor in a world following a Nuclear Winter as the things I love about our planet will have to change beyond recognition.

This week I heard that the officials will allow tourism to the are destroyed by the Chernobyl disaster, however, we are still many thousands of years away fro allowing re-settlement. Yet Chernobyl was essentially a successful containment by comparison with a Nuclear Winter!

Nobody wants a nuclear winter, much like no one wants a war either. Games let us experience these situations without it actually happening. Are you familiar with the Fallout series?

[mmmcheesywaffles]

Originally posted by oaks2nin:

Nobody wants a nuclear winter, much like no one wants a war either. Games let us experience these situations without it actually happening. Are you familiar with the Fallout series?

Yes I am, though not the later games. There is a fine line between post apocalyptic and all - out global Nuclear Winter. Time scales of such games are often very long after the apocalypse. Incorporating that dynamic in a game that involves the apocalypse itself is another matter.

Someone somewhere will likely survive a Nuclear Winter, but at what cost? If they can't leave their bunker for generations they can't rebuild civilization either.

[Oaks]

I don't quite follow you. Are you suggesting its ok for games to take place a long time after the apocalypse, but not immediately after? What is your fear of games portraying this?

[Scar Glamour]

Originally posted by oaks2nin:

I don't quite follow you. Are you suggesting its ok for games to take place a long time after the apocalypse, but not immediately after? What is your fear of games portraying this?

The effects of the nuclear winter (as it is currently understood) have to be downplayed significantly to allow civilization as we know it to survive this scenario. If it is not survivable then for intents and purposes of a Civ game, nuclear winter is a game-over.

Post-apocalyptic games portray events long after the nuclear war has blown over. They concern themselves with the descendants of the lucky few who found shelter during the nuclear war and the following environmental disaster. In Civ terms it's like starting in a new area on a new world. So, it can be a separate scenario maybe?

[LextheMighty]

I could see this being done in a mod or scenario but not in the actual game.

After so many nukes are set off all civs that survived would be sent back to the ancient era. A civ would only survive if they built at least one bunker in a city. You would get a settler for each bunker you've built and the settler would spawn near the city that built the bunker. All the districts that were built would be ruins on the map. You could explore ruined campuses for an eureka. You could explore ruined encampments with a unit to upgrade the unit.

It sounds like a lot of fun to me but probably not very realistic.

[thekilledjoke]

I'm totally behind this as a scenario

[mmmcheesywaffles]

Originally posted by Heresiarch:

Originally posted by oaks2nin:

I don't quite follow you. Are you suggesting its ok for games to take place a long time after the apocalypse, but not immediately after? What is your fear of games portraying this?

The effects of the nuclear winter (as it is currently understood) have to be downplayed significantly to allow civilization as we know it to survive this scenario. If it is not survivable then for intents and purposes of a Civ game, nuclear winter is a game-over.

Post-apocalyptic games portray events long after the nuclear war has blown over. They concern themselves with the descendants of the lucky few who found shelter during the nuclear war and the following environmental disaster. In Civ terms it's like starting in a new area on a new world. So, it can be a separate scenario maybe?

I couldn't have said it better myself ;) Thanks Heresiarch.

Originally posted by LextheMighty:

....
After so many nukes are set off all civs that survived would be sent back to the ancient era. A civ would only survive if they built at least one bunker in a city. You would get a settler for each bunker you've built and the settler would spawn near the city that built the bunker. All the districts that were built would be ruins on the map. You could explore ruined campuses for an eureka. You could explore ruined encampments with a unit to upgrade the unit.

It sounds like a lot of fun to me but probably not very realistic.

Quite right... not at all realistic as it requires everything we already know about radioactive fallout to be ignored. A Nuclear Winter is more than the radioactivity. The cause of the 'Winter' is the dust clouds thrown into the air and it is a combination of the fall-out and the lack of adequate light that is thought to be the vegetation killer... without veg the animals will die and without those and the veg the insects will die. Recovery might very well NOT be an option. Rather a Nuclear Winter is very likely to be an unseen [by humans] extinction event. Such a nuclear war might cause tectonic motion that sets off cataclysmic changes to the land and seas... so even the most protected bunkers would probably be as safe as landing your broken submarine on the bottom of the Mariana Trench .. eventually your resources will exhaust and death would be a thin skin away. But Hey! if you want a game based upon such unlikley events ... who should stop you?

[LextheMighty]

Originally posted by mmmcheesywaffles:

Quite right... not at all realistic as it requires everything we already know about radioactive fallout to be ignored. A Nuclear Winter is more than the radioactivity. The cause of the 'Winter' is the dust clouds thrown into the air and it is a combination of the fall-out and the lack of adequate light that is thought to be the vegetation killer... without veg the animals will die and without those and the veg the insects will die. Recovery might very well NOT be an option. Rather a Nuclear Winter is very likely to be an unseen [by humans] extinction event. Such a nuclear war might cause tectonic motion that sets off cataclysmic changes to the land and seas... so even the most protected bunkers would probably be as safe as landing your broken submarine on the bottom of the Mariana Trench .. eventually your resources will exhaust and death would be a thin skin away. But Hey! if you want a game based upon such unlikley events ... who should stop you?

That is very interesting. I didn't know it could cause tectonic movement. Yes, civilization surviving such an event would be a very unrealistic scenario but still interesting to think about.

[Oaks]

I understand the difference between the, though the discussion was interesting. My initial question is simply why not in a game?
You are afraid it downplays the severity, therefore people are not afraid as much as they should be?

[mmmcheesywaffles]

Originally posted by oaks2nin:

I understand the difference between the, though the discussion was interesting. My initial question is simply why not in a game?
You are afraid it downplays the severity, therefore people are not afraid as much as they should be?

We live in a world influenced by individuals who lie almost more than they tell the truth. My worry is that their ignorance of reality will be allowed to fool our young people enough that they do not realise how little time we have to fix many of the ills we face both socially and physically.

We must be afraid of MAD [Mutually Assured Destruction] and causing a Nuclear Winter if we are to hope that future generations will have time to solve the issues we have created for them.

My Great Grandfather was alive at a time that there was no Radio; no TV; no Computers; no global corporations and we had yet to learn what fossil fuel usage might do to our planet. Now some 70% of the planets young people not only accept there are global issues that were avoidable, but that we must try to fix what we can now! So all us old folks who grew up learning about these issues but never sure what to believe will be in our graves whilst our offspring try to fix what could have been avoided.

So yes I am worried that a game reinforcing the almost certainly false premise that a Nuclear Winter is survivable could lead to some of our brightest young people [many of whom play these games!] getting lulled into thinking there is a way to survive.

Perhaps you think ...' oh I am intelligent enough to realise the difference between a game and reality.' However, advertising works on the basis of repeated exposure to a premise that a product or service is a 'must have' If it didn't work companies would not waste vast amounts of money it it. So playing a game with a too soft approach to what might be a reality within even my lifetime [I'm old] could result in some key invention or discovery failing to be made simply because the potential inventor has inadvertently developed a bias against beleiving there is an imminent threat. On a social level the younger people might allow idiotic old timers who refuse to learn modern truth to hold on to power and at best leave them with a major social mess that might take generations to repair.... let alone the damage to our planet their ignorance may have encouraged.

We come here to relax and play... but I hope that the brightest of you still have the mental energy to go fix real world issues, perhaps honed a little by the skills you develop in these games. I wish I could have developed some of my game based skills back when I was young. Perhaps I would have been able to do more to help the younger folk following me rather than just hope the odd one or two of you read something like this and get inspired rather than offended.

Anyway I had better shut up. An old guy ranting is soon boring and that truth has always been so :)

[Oaks]

I think we are misunderstanding each other here, that is all.
Also, don't assume everyone here is an teenager. Your "you whippersnapper" way of talking down makes it seem you just assume you are the only old person here

[mmmcheesywaffles]

Originally posted by oaks2nin:

I think we are misunderstanding each other here, that is all.
Also, don't assume everyone here is an teenager. Your "you whippersnapper" way of talking down makes it seem you just assume you are the only old person here

I assumed that anyone who asks such a question as concise as you did, would recognise that my reply was not all directed to you as an individual. When I referred to younger readers I made no assumption of your age. I was generalising. I'm sorry if I failed to make this clear. I genuinely did not assume I knew better than you. The only other assumption I made was that some readers of this thread may not have considered some of the points I was making.

Most people who know me recognise that whilst I am quite ancient, I am also someone who recognises intellect and knowledge applied to any particular issue can span all ages and not all relies on personal experience. In other words I am as willing to accept a young persons view on a subject as much as a supposedly older and wiser view. I always hear out all parties then make up my own mind. I also am painfully aware that I am not always as wise as I think I am ;)

[LostStorm]

Originally posted by mmmcheesywaffles:

Originally posted by oaks2nin:

I think we are misunderstanding each other here, that is all.
Also, don't assume everyone here is an teenager. Your "you whippersnapper" way of talking down makes it seem you just assume you are the only old person here

I assumed that anyone who asks such a question as concise as you did, would recognise that my reply was not all directed to you as an individual. When I referred to younger readers I made no assumption of your age. I was generalising. I'm sorry if I failed to make this clear. I genuinely did not assume I knew better than you. The only other assumption I made was that some readers of this thread may not have considered some of the points I was making.

Most people who know me recognise that whilst I am quite ancient, I am also someone who recognises intellect and knowledge applied to any particular issue can span all ages and not all relies on personal experience. In other words I am as willing to accept a young persons view on a subject as much as a supposedly older and wiser view. I always hear out all parties then make up my own mind. I also am painfully aware that I am not always as wise as I think I am ;)

Humble brags aside, you are still taking a game far too seriously.

I think that having a nuclear winter event happen is both interesting from a gameplay standpoint and accurate from a reality standpoint.