Hi!

Recently as I was watching a playthrough of Civilisation that ended up in nuclear war, and I ask myself a few question about nuclear weapons in Humankind. I also saw that no one talkink about it in any thread, so sorry if I am repeating the subject.

With the last dev video, we know that certain cities may become really huge (even if the game is still in pre-alpha so it might change). Or, if you take a city like Paris, it will need 2 or 3 atomic nuclear head to be completly destroyed (it's oversilplified but its purely about theory for now). So if in real life cities are huge and and that one of those will need 2 or 3 heads to be destroyed, in the game, will a nuclear bombs automaticly touch the entire city or will it have a zone of efect of a few hexagones? And there is so much questions I have about those, here are the firsts comming to my mind:

 Will there be radiation? Will the hexagone(s) at the center of the explosion be completely annihilated and the other aroud damaged and radiated? If there is radiation will the hited zone become uninhabitable for a long time? Could you create a plan and use money and tech to restorate the hited zone? Will you have the possibility to create and/or signed a treaty about non proliferation or non use of nuclear weapons? Will there be A and H bomb with the diffeernce between their powers? Will their be a possibility to have have an end where everyone loose because everyone is dead because of a nuclear war? Will their be a test system where you need test them before using them and choose where you will make them blow like either underground or water or test it on land or make them explode in air? Will it be possible to develop a system in your contry that will automaticly send nuclear missiles to the player or AI that just throw a missile or bomb at you (russia have a system like that for exemple)? Will it be possible to threat someone to use them against him or her? And will it be possible to use the number of heads in our possesion to exert pressure on another nation? Or simply will there be nuclear weapons in the game? (if not its a bit disappointing I must say)

But let start by the begining. In first, for a nuclear weapon to be build, you need enough knoledge about atoms like fission (if I remember well its fission for A bomb and fusion for H bomb sorry if it's not the good english words). I don't think it will be a problem, it is obvious the dev will put a technology for it in the tech tree if they put nuclear weapons in the game but you will also need uranium. It will create tension around this ressources and create conflict for irs possision. Also, if you want a missil and not a bomb, you will need a specific technologie too. Aslo, to avoid a player having too many, a bomb should cost a lot, to be sure each game will not become a rush to nuclear weapon to win easly. Because, even if USA and Russia have around 15 000 nuclear heads in their posseision (by adding the resources of the 2 countries) so enough no destroy all the big cities in the world, you need to scale it for the game. Like, even with a lot of ressources, it should be hard to reach 50 heads. It will also be cool to have the possibility to upgraded you heads without having to create new one. For exemple, its what France does (and certainly all other countries that sigened the treaty of non proliferation of nuclear weapons.)

Because if as soon as you have unlock the tech and build the bomb you can already wipe out entire cities, it will not be very comform to reality and not very fun. It will be cool (it's my point of view) if a bomb could only affect a certain zone made of a few hexagones, but you will have the possibility to make the range of the bombe bigger with technologie (like having an atomic bomb tier one, two or three). And also, hydrogene bomb are more effective so I think it should be new technologie after unlocking the A bomb.

Well, that's it, I still have a lot to say but I think it's enough for now. Have a good day!

You really thought this through well. I personally hope that nukes will affect the world climate, like a nuclear winter. 

One of the Deves sad that they really thought a lot about nukes.

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1124300/discussions/0/1755780517350734027/  

The range is obviously should be limited. The doctrine of using nukes (that is probbly outdated) is not to bomb cities but to target important military locations in the immediate blast radius. This way some bases are to be targeted by several warheads to make sure that specific parts (for example airstrip) are completely out of order. Also nuclear pollution is affected by wind so area of effect shouldn't be a circle. Armies should recieve a debuff fighting in irradiated wasteland unless specific technologies are researched. There also should be "Wunderwaffes" that can withstand nuclear blast, at least an early tier (Object 279). The Perimetr system, known as "Dead Hand", could be a modern wounder.

I'm mildly opposed to the nuke range restriction idea. If a nuclear attack becomes somthing that can be blocked or prevented from happening, mutual destruction will not be assured. In other words, nuclear attacks will leave the area of diplomacy and become tactical decisions, which seems undesirable for me.

Another thought. Given how important terrain is to Humankind, maybe where you detonate the nuke will affect what happens? Launch it at a mountain to create an emp in the region, while lauching it into a valley will let the high ground block the surrounding areas from damage.

Aisu wrote:

TyraxLightning wrote:

Even if the Nuke is stopped, it's never really stopped... one might be able to try to prevent it from reaching intended destination, but there's no stopping its Radiation or Environmental Impact...

Thats very much false. If a nuke is stopped. Its stopped. Nuke cannot explode unless a very percise mechanism causes a reaction to trigger the explosion. They dont behave like conventional bombs.

Also there must be different nukes: bombs, stationary missiles (based in silos far from cities) and mobile missiles (land-based or sea-based), long-ranged strategic and short-ranged tactic (with different blast power). And "dead hand" system of course, but player must to set it manually.

Tactical nukes would be easier to model, as the effect would have the same results as a large bombing mission. However, I don't think tactical nukes are important for this game, certainly not in the initial release.

Strategic nukes were handled well in Civ6, although I would agree that some sort of system is needed so that the first to strike doesn't have an overwhelming advantage. Perhaps a quick-time event for things like nuclear launch or cyber attacks.

Maybe it could be similar to the battle map system where when you are attacked it shows the battlefield and you have a chance to respond, but the battle map for nukes is the entire range of your nuclear arsenal. They also talked about having reinforcements that can be called in to have world war type battles, so maybe your allies would have a chance to launch their nukes as well.

Maybe it will work on the same system aircraft will use, except a bombing action is a little more powerful. Now the question is how they're going to use aircraft.

Aircraft in battle would probably work best as an off-map call in during battle. But that really deserves it's own topic thread.