After having the joy to using nukes for the first time in Humankind (game) because the map finally spawned at least two oil, it was ironically on humankind difficulty. There are many gameplay issues with them in their current state which makes them more or less broken. Humankind (game) is its own game, thus have its own mechanics, concept and implementation of certain well known elements, which one of them are Nukes. However you may compare some gameplay element with other similar titles, for example Civilization (IV, V and VI) or other 4X and/or RTS games where Nukes also appear (Anno 2070, Command & Conquer, Supreme Commander).

• You should be able to relocate nukes as it is possible with every other unit too.
• The game contains aircraft carriers for aircraft. And the game contains a nuclear submarine which desription explicitely states that it carries nukes arround. However there is no implementation of this feature as a mobile missile carrier
• Currently the only valid target for nukes are cities. This is a severe limitation and lack of fun for several reasons. First, when a nuke destroys a city, and its surroundings, including wonders and armies, you should be able to target any hex-field the first place. The map and its territories are often far stretched and maybe you want to destroy an army or wonder placed elsewhere. Think of some islands where I often place all of my wonders on 2-3 tiles mini islands.

• There is a civic where you either chose nukes or be against them. However this choice should be more impactful, especially in combination with actually owning nukes that result in an AI reaction, especially by those who don't own nukes, they should be freightened
• There is no reaction by third-party AI to your usage of nukes against anyone. That shouldn't go unnoticed. Like you should get a warmonger penalty or something
• Maybe if a player choses the no nukes civics, those then should exclude the trading of uranium ressources in general. What is the purpose of not allowing nukes when you happily sell the ressources to somewhere else.

• They have the same building (14k industry) and maintance costs (90 gold) of the multipurpose jetplane. That nowhere reflects their strength. In most games they cost a ton of industry (or time) to build and the maintance cost reflect their strength. Additionally because of their sheer power some games even increase the total costs for each subsequent nuke build. You could just spam build them and nuke entire continents which you can't do in the same time and manner as you could with tanks or planes with similar costs.
• Because of the sheer power of nukes nearly everygame I know and listed above includes some kind of protection against them, each in their own way. The most common way are anti ballistic missiles and/or an anti ballistic silo which can intercept those missiles. Think of Israel's iron dome. Usually they are available as early or not long after with a technology, they are cheapter but the disadvantages are normally that you have to build them everyhwere or there is not a 100% chance of interception. However that is commonly enough for a gameplay perspective to protect you from them or let the nuke owner attack someone else

• As its current implementation, there doesn't exist any possibility of clearing fallout. While from a real-life immersive perspective this is, todays knowledge not really possible, the gameplay balance is heavily disrupted by it. I encountered an ingame example. I was the first be able to build nukes. There are only two sources of oil on the map (enough to build basic nuke). One ressource in my territory, the other on orange player in the direct proximity of one of his cities. I nuked the city, resulting in fallout and destruction of the ressource depot. Even after claiming the territory, I wasn't be able to build a ressource extractor on it, effectively removing the ressource for everyone in the game. Thus you can deny ressources for everyone in the game. Which in this case was very problematic because in comparison to the common horses, copper and iron there were only two oil ressources in the whole game, so noone (including me) is able to build any unit and most buildings using oil anymore. Game broken. So please implement some way for fallout clear (maybe as a unit, slow and steady? or a city project like forestation) or re-use of those ressources
• There is no reaction of affected third-parties after getting hit by a nuke. Think of any by-passing army by a third-player or even districts from another city in the range of the nuke because of territory layout. No reaction at all at the moment.

Drullo321 wrote:
Which in this case was very problematic because in comparison to the common horses, copper and iron there were only two oil ressources in the whole game, so noone (including me) is able to build any unit and most buildings using oil anymore. Game broken. So please implement some way for fallout clear (maybe as a unit, slow and steady? or a city project like forestation) or re-use of those ressources

Very sound feedback, but this bit caught my attention. Now all I can think of is how I'd love to have some (maybe hidden) tech that would let us adapt and continue surviving Mad Max/The Postman style after Nuclear War apocalypse.

This is a really important thread and I cosign everything. It should be bundled with my ideas on my thread:

https://www.games2gether.com/amplitude-studios/humankind/forums/169-game-design-and-ideas/threads/47609-fleshing-out-the-nuclear-option-in-humankind?page=1#post-363014

Wald