Nuclear Weapons and the Way to Unlock Them - Some Feedback

[rocky crag]

THE PROBLEM
Has anyone else thought it’s a bit sad that you can’t get nukes without conquering settlements? In previous games I personally liked playing pretty peacefully and then nuking everyone to oblivion once I researched them.

Now it feels like you’re funneled into a specific way to play if you want the nukes. With the current way of unlocking nuclear weapons you basically have to play wide and aggressively to get them. There's no way of becoming a "nuclear power" without declaring wars and being expansionist.

The current system also makes it really predictable which leaders/civs in a specific game eventually will get nukes.

The bottom line is basically that I’d like there to be a way of unlocking nukes without following the military legacy path.

SUGGESTION

I think they should introduce a couple of additional ways to unlock nuclear weapons. Maybe one route could be through a specific tech tree or a really expensive tech. Another could be through espionage on civs that already have nukes unlocked/researched.

If you have any other ideas on how they could implement this, please share them below!

**BONUS: **

I also think there should be some special system in place for nuclear war.

They could for example make it so that there's a delay of a turn or two when launching nukes so that the opponent has an opportunity to react. That way you could get to a "MAD" scenario which I don't think has been in a Civ game before. It could make the use of nuclear weapons feel a bit more interesting and impactful I think.

As it is now there's not a lot of thought that has to go into using a nuke. Having some sort of opening for opponents to retaliate could be really fun and make late game conflict a bit more exciting. You'd have to think twice before using nuclear weapons on another civ with the same weapons.

Maybe the "warning" that someone has launched a nuke on you should be dependent on you having a counter-spy in their civ though?

What do you think?

[austere pebble]

Also doesn't even remove the capability for the win condition for militaristic in modern. Operation Ivy can be your win condition still, but only sufficiently militaristic and tbh sadistic civs would want to pursue even more devistation than those plain ol regular nukes. Fits the headcannon still

I think the mechanic for air defence to stop nuclear strikes is still in since all nukes in modern are aircraft delivered. I'm interested to see if that evolves if/when they add additional eras ICBM style.

[rocky crag]

That’s true!

But yeah, once they add the Information Age it would definitely be interesting if they add some sort of system that makes the use of nukes more consequential.

Doesn’t Humankind actually have a delay for launching nukes? Don’t know if there’s any warning for the civ being nuked though.

But that’s really only my “bonus” point XD.

They definitely should patch in a way to get nukes without the military legacy path even before any DLC comes out.

[shy furnace]

This might be because I'm Japanese, but since I think it's unrealistic for a civ which hasn't waged a single war in centuries to acquire and then suddenly use a nuclear bomb, I'm sort of against this suggestion. I do understand the feeling that not being able to do something you were able to do in previous editions feels unsatisfying, though.

On the topic of depth conerning nuclear bombs, I don't really think the suggestion you made are really impactful, because there's very little you can actually do even if you know a nuke is coming your way.
I liked the concept in Civ V of enemy civs being "afraid" of you once you built a nuclear bomb, so implimenting that could be nice, but I guess in the current system (where you need to be a warmonger to build them in the first place), it's not so in-sync with the concept.

[paper hound]

i'm a very simple person, as long as they bring Nuclear Gandhi in, i'll be happy.

but yeah, what @shy furnace suggests is useful - a mechanic of nukes being a diplomatic equaliser of sorts.

[rocky crag]

I just think it’s s bit hefty to require you to conquer ~10 settlements.

There are also historical examples of nuclear programs in “peaceful” countries. Sweden is one example of a nation which had a very extensive nuclear weapons-program.

I think a few different routes to nukes would be more realistic. Doesn’t necessarily have to be exactly how it’s been in previous games though. I agree that was also kind of uninteresting.

[rocky crag]

Definitely agree with the last point too! Nukes should in general be more impactful

[rocky crag]

I guess what I’m thinking is that if there’s a delay on launching nuclear weapons (at least ICBM:s when they’re available) the opponent would have the opportunity to launch their own nukes.

That way you would have introduced mutually assured destruction as a gameplay mechanic.

[inner jackal]

This please