Atomic Bombs need a Rework

[Elordis]

I told you why and you seem to ignore the other huge part of my post (like the first 2/3s). I am arguing for the atomic bomb to have a war winning effect because it should be incredibly costly to produce (like 50-100 civs for years) limited to nations with the right scientists, limited to the nations with access to uranium, and limited to the nations that can develop a system of delivery.

The problem is, your proposition is completely ahistorical because:
1) Atomic bomb wasn't THAT expensive. It cost around $2bn, while USA budget at the time was somewhere in the ballpark of $70bn.
2) Atomic bomb wasn't THAT effective. Neither in terms of actual power nor in terms of "perceived" power. A hundred B-29s can deliver the same amount of explosive of power over a week of raids. As for "perceived" power, while official US position on the matter is "bombs ended war", it is very much controversial one. You know what else happened at the beginning of August 45? Soviet invasion of Manchuria which destroyed Japans continental forces in the following week.

 

[AskingForIt138]

The problem is, your proposition is completely ahistorical because:
1) Atomic bomb wasn't THAT expensive. It cost around $2bn, while USA budget at the time was somewhere in the ballpark of $70bn.
2) Atomic bomb wasn't THAT effective. Neither in terms of actual power nor in terms of "perceived" power. A hundred B-29s can deliver the same amount of explosive of power over a week of raids. As for "perceived" power, while official US position on the matter is "bombs ended war", it is very much controversial one. You know what else happened at the beginning of August 45? Soviet invasion of Manchuria which destroyed Japans continental forces in the following week.

Wasn't that expensive? It was the second most expensive project of the war behind the B-29 project.... which was intended to carry an atomic bomb. The US had the largest war budget in WWII and for you to say that claim that the MP wasn't that expensive because of the total US budget is ridiculous.

Wasn't that powerful?
One atomic bomb with one B-29> 100 B-29s...... you said it yourself?

Also if you had bothered to read the rest of the thread, I acknowledged the Soviet Invasion of Manchuria's impact but you're wrong to assume it had a more significant impact on the Emperor's decision to surrender than the atomic bombs dropped. Sorry bud.

 

[LordWahu]

When it comes to their in game utility, I would like to say something

I mostly play mods, specifically Equestria at War. That mod has 15 years of content, and though you only usually get 10 years of gameplay, that's still 5 years where atomic weapons are available for widespread use

While in vanilla atomics are a niche device, mods have them much more available

And therefore, I really want to see an update that makes them more interesting, better balanced in any way possible

 

[pnt]

I wasn't going to make any further posts, but since I am getting all these emails, let me just make a final to say that even "small" nuclear weapons are extremely destructive. The TNT equivalent is only a measure of the blast, but to deliver 20 kT of explosives over a meaningful distance you would need 4,000 - 5,000 B-29's. In addition, even a small nuke creates its own local "weather," where air rises quickly. Thus, after the initial outgoing shockwave, there is a large inflow of air (oxygen) at ground level from the surrounding area, creating a fire storm that sustains itself. This happened in some raids with incendiaries, but not always. And while the first raid on Tokyo caused large casualties (in large part due to the fact that it was unexpected and Tokyo was a mostly wooden city), the casualties as fraction of the population were lower than in the areas hit with nuclear weapons. And even if you survive the shockwave and fire, the fallout reduces access to the area close to the impact point for some time - a factory can be rebuilt, but it is not easy to operate normally in an area with high levels of radioactive contamination. Air bursts (like the ones in Hiroshima and Nagasaki) minimize long-lived contamination, which then mostly comes from the heavy elements in the bomb itself. However, it is worth noting in fusion devices, the LiD that fuels the main explosion does not produce much fallout, which mostly comes from the fission device that serves as a detonator. All-in-all, even "small" nukes are quite terrifying and the "psychological" effects are rooted in well-founded fears.

 

[AskingForIt138]

As it is we are having a fairly long-winded discussion about a fringe issue for HOI4 for the reason others have mentioned that they only appear at the end of the game. If, as often happens when I play, the war moves on into a second phase with the cold war immediately turning hot then a more realistic simulation makes sense but the main change needed is do something about the excessive effects. The main use I have for A-bombs is the destruction of enemy air power by attacking enemy airbases. This usually leads to my first wave of about 10 bombs destroying 10,000+ enemy aircraft.

I would argue that the technological arms race between the Axis and Allies was important and interesting and should be more meaningfully represented in the game, which should include an atomic bomb rework. Even though the atomic bomb is a late game technology that shouldn't preclude it from being better represented in the game. The late game lacks flavor and content anyway. I'd also argue that including the systems I suggested would make it a mid game process with a huge late game pay-off.

 

[Kanitatlan]

...

Wasn't that powerful?
One atomic bomb with one B-29> 100 B-29s...... you said it yourself?
...

I think that the claim that the A-Bomb wasn't that powerful is actually perfectly sound. US production for the foreseeable future in August 1945 was effectively equivalent to having something around another 200 B-29. The real threat to Japan was that after the US forces had dropped the second one there was a major question of how many more were going to be dropped. We know in hindsight this wouldn't be many but that was very far from public knowledge at the time.

Having said that, use of an A-bomb on a suitable city target would be approximately as effective as a full firestorm raid typically involving bombers on the 1,000 scale. The reason for equating A=bombs to fewer bombers is how few bombs there was going to be.

 

[AskingForIt138]

I think that the claim that the A-Bomb wasn't that powerful is actually perfectly sound. US production for the foreseeable future in August 1945 was effectively equivalent to having something around another 200 B-29. The real threat to Japan was that after the US forces had dropped the second one there was a major question of how many more were going to be dropped. We know in hindsight this wouldn't be many but that was very far from public knowledge at the time.

Having said that, use of an A-bomb on a suitable city target would be approximately as effective as a full firestorm raid typically involving bombers on the 1,000 scale. The reason for equating A=bombs to fewer bombers is how few bombs there was going to be.

No one is claiming it was all powerful, just that it contributed significantly to a Japanese surrender, who otherwise might not have surrendered until Operation Olympus. In an alt-history setting it could have contributed to an early German surrender as well for mostly morale/leadership reasons.

I don't see why people are so hung up on this instead of engaging more meaningfully with the point of the discussion.

 

[Kanitatlan]

No one is claiming it was all powerful, just that it contributed significantly to a Japanese surrender, who otherwise might not have surrendered until Operation Olympus. In an alt-history setting it could have contributed to an early German surrender as well for mostly morale/leadership reasons.

I don't see why people are so hung up on this instead of engaging more meaningfully with the point of the discussion.

Actually, a point that hasn't been made is that the game has an event system built in to trigger Japanese surrender from the dropping of two atomic bombs. The mere presence of this event in the game indicates that Paradox don't really consider the built in behaviour adequate to cover this.

 

[AskingForIt138]

Actually, a point that hasn't been made is that the game has an event system built in to trigger Japanese surrender from the dropping of two atomic bombs. The mere presence of this event in the game indicates that Paradox don't really consider the built in behaviour adequate to cover this.

I have actually acknowledged and covered that in this thread. I was saying that I'd like to see a similar decision expanded to all nations: if two atomic bombs are dropped, the enemy holds core territory, low war support/stability, and low strength/industry compared to enemy the AI would have a decision to unconditionally surrender unlocked and would be heavily weighted to take the decision.

 

[Kanitatlan]

I have actually acknowledged and covered that in this thread. I was saying that I'd like to see a similar decision expanded to all nations: if two atomic bombs are dropped, the enemy holds core territory, low war support/stability, and low strength/industry compared to enemy the AI would have a decision to unconditionally surrender unlocked and would be heavily weighted to take the decision.

apologies, I guess I read through too quickly

Ought to be something that doesn't need events. I would be inclined to go for a scheme where dropping A-bombs has large morale impact short term but fades away reasonably rapidly once it becomes obvious you aren't going to continue dropping them one every few days

 

[AskingForIt138]

apologies, I guess I read through too quickly

Ought to be something that doesn't need events. I would be inclined to go for a scheme where dropping A-bombs has large morale impact short term but fades away reasonably rapidly once it becomes obvious you aren't going to continue dropping them one every few days

How would you translate the morale factor into the game? I don't think the stability and war support drop from the a-bomb really cuts it.

 

[Kanitatlan]

How would you translate the morale factor into the game? I don't think the stability and war support drop from the a-bomb really cuts it.

I think I would go for temporary surrender progress values. If you are close to the surrender point then it should push you over the edge. The key aspect is the "either it works now or it wears off" effect. There is definitely some shock and awe involved but once there is realisation that there isn't going to be a deluge of these things it should count much the same as the equivalent in strategic bombing. One of the problems with this is genuine terror bombing on this sort of scale has never really been tried to get a realistic impression of the impact. We know that relatively mild terror bombing can be sufficient to get governments to surrender (again this is very much a "what next" effect) but that even quite substantial conventional bombing can have very limited impact. The collapse of German civilian morale in 1945 was realistically more about food than bombing. It's difficult to know how this should be handled as we are always talking about two different effects - the impact on civilian morale and what that leads to and separately the impact on government morale.

You might consider the contrast between British civilian morale and British government morale after the fall of France. Government was quite clearly discussing the "are we going to have to make peace no" position whilst the Civilians were pretty much as ready to fight on as before the fall of France. Clearly two different effects and what I'm suggesting is the threat that there are a lot more bombs would be a Government morale issue, Civilian morale would probably only be fully affected by more bonmbs being dropped.

 

[LordWahu]

How would you translate the morale factor into the game? I don't think the stability and war support drop from the a-bomb really cuts it.

This might be a bit difficult to balance, but war support could provide a bonus/penalty to organization

I think War Support needs to do more in general, and that would be a good first step

 

[Dryhad]

I think there is a balance to be struck between a workable level of abstraction and representing both the cost of development and the ultimate decisiveness in the war - and however you interpret the role of nuclear weapons in the historical capitulation of Japan it is nevertheless the case that the native mechanics do not represent this well. Surrender progress is based on lost cores, so the baseline way to capitulate Japan is to invade the home islands. The decision to force a capitulation after two nuclear strikes and the loss of outline islands is a stop-gap and should not be considered a satisfactory resolution, it's also not very practical in a gameplay sense. The progress of the Soviets on the mainland is and has always been irrelevant in-game unless they can invade Japan proper. So I feel like the hair-splitting about what actually caused Japan's surrender is a bit misplaced as we all ought to be in agreement that such a thing is not well represented in game currently.

I do like the idea of nuclear weapons being a high cost and high impact element, at present they are moderate to high cost and low impact and therefore do not figure prominently in any gameplay considerations. It would be interesting to see what kind of balance is possible here; how much more impactful would they need to be even to earn their keep under the current paradigm, not to mention under a more restrictive research mechanic such as the kind suggested in this thread?

 

[AskingForIt138]

I think there is a balance to be struck between a workable level of abstraction and representing both the cost of development and the ultimate decisiveness in the war - and however you interpret the role of nuclear weapons in the historical capitulation of Japan it is nevertheless the case that the native mechanics do not represent this well. Surrender progress is based on lost cores, so the baseline way to capitulate Japan is to invade the home islands. The decision to force a capitulation after two nuclear strikes and the loss of outline islands is a stop-gap and should not be considered a satisfactory resolution, it's also not very practical in a gameplay sense. The progress of the Soviets on the mainland is and has always been irrelevant in-game unless they can invade Japan proper. So I feel like the hair-splitting about what actually caused Japan's surrender is a bit misplaced as we all ought to be in agreement that such a thing is not well represented in game currently.

I do like the idea of nuclear weapons being a high cost and high impact element, at present they are moderate to high cost and low impact and therefore do not figure prominently in any gameplay considerations. It would be interesting to see what kind of balance is possible here; how much more impactful would they need to be even to earn their keep under the current paradigm, not to mention under a more restrictive research mechanic such as the kind suggested in this thread?

You would think we're all in agreement, even about atomic bombs needing some sort of rework, but we have a lot of people arguing that the current system is fine and even if its not fine, atomic bombs are late game anyway and their game ends in1939 so who cares.

But yes I would like to see an extreme cost to build atomic bombs but with an extreme pay off. I think a larger "Wunderwaffen" DLC it could be framed as an arms race of sorts: what's more impactful the Allied atomic bomb, strategic bombing weapons, or the Axis jet/rocket program? (I mean history has answered the question already but I think it would be a fun game mechanic.)

 

[Kanitatlan]

I'll be honest, I think it would be nice to have a rework but the current implementation isn't awful. If I was reworking them I would do something like the following

1. Change the atomic bomb techs to lots of separate much smaller techs that can all be researched at once. I would make it so only some of these were required for achieving atomic weapons but you don't know which ones. Each tech would, on completion, make a decision available that spent IC on the practical side of that research and when complete generated bonuses for future research and practical projects along with a point (or not) towards a score required for developing bombs. This would nicely simulate the Manhattan project principal of do everything right now irrespective of cost and we'll sort out what was useful later. Lesser nations can still develop nukes but would have a major temptation to do it slowly and more efficiently. The chance element would make the time when they appear less predictable.
2. Change the impact of the first use of atomic weapons to generate a significant but temporary bonus to surrender progress on the target. Dropping the bomb has pretty much the same impact of civilian morale as conventional bombing on the same scale but country leadership is going to suffer the worry that they really don't know the scale of what happens next. In effect, if the get past the first flurry of bombs and realise the scale of what they are facing it becomes much less scary.
3. I would definitely change the aspects of air warfare that allows me to destroy enemy aircraft on a massive scale by dropping bombs. The idea that I can eliminate all 2,000 enemy fighters scattered across airfields in South East England with a single bomb is not right. This could be addressed by splitting up the airfields which is a significant change in the air warfare rules or simply stopping it being so total. Currently this is my main measure for dealing with the USA's 8,000 B29s in the follow on war.

 

[AskingForIt138]

I'll be honest, I think it would be nice to have a rework but the current implementation isn't awful. If I was reworking them I would do something like the following

1. Change the atomic bomb techs to lots of separate much smaller techs that can all be researched at once. I would make it so only some of these were required for achieving atomic weapons but you don't know which ones. Each tech would, on completion, make a decision available that spent IC on the practical side of that research and when complete generated bonuses for future research and practical projects along with a point (or not) towards a score required for developing bombs. This would nicely simulate the Manhattan project principal of do everything right now irrespective of cost and we'll sort out what was useful later. Lesser nations can still develop nukes but would have a major temptation to do it slowly and more efficiently. The chance element would make the time when they appear less predictable.
2. Change the impact of the first use of atomic weapons to generate a significant but temporary bonus to surrender progress on the target. Dropping the bomb has pretty much the same impact of civilian morale as conventional bombing on the same scale but country leadership is going to suffer the worry that they really don't know the scale of what happens next. In effect, if the get past the first flurry of bombs and realise the scale of what they are facing it becomes much less scary.
3. I would definitely change the aspects of air warfare that allows me to destroy enemy aircraft on a massive scale by dropping bombs. The idea that I can eliminate all 2,000 enemy fighters scattered across airfields in South East England with a single bomb is not right. This could be addressed by splitting up the airfields which is a significant change in the air warfare rules or simply stopping it being so total. Currently this is my main measure for dealing with the USA's 8,000 B29s in the follow on war.

I respect your opinion and definitely think this would be an improvement from the current mechanics. I would still push for a full simulation for an atomic program that doesn't take up research slots or a total rework of the tech system in general. Also, even though your way would maybe be more historically accurate, I would still like to see atomic bombs have a greater effect on an AI's potential to surrender, just for gameplay purposes.

Hopefully, the devs see this thread and take some of our ideas into consideration.

 

[$ilent_$trider]

Was there any changes in the last patch so nukes cause stability drops? I remember the last time I played as USA, I dropped 10 nukes in Germany, their war support fell to 20% or something (which is still not that helpful) but their stability remained the same.

While it is a chore, the best thing to help an enemy country to surrender faster is to perform 3 collaboration government missions on them. Granted, you will still need troops on the ground, but the fight will be WAY less.

 

[LordWahu]

Was there any changes in the last patch so nukes cause stability drops? I remember the last time I played as USA, I dropped 10 nukes in Germany, their war support fell to 20% or something (which is still not that helpful) but their stability remained the same.

I think a lot of people here are mixing up stability and war support

Probably because one of the early posters mentioned stability in the IRL sense, and war support is useless anyways

 

[$ilent_$trider]

Okay, yeah, I mean, sure, as much as people like to downplay the fact that the atomic bombs were in fact a huge deal (and sure, Japan was already on their last leg). It was an unprecedent level of destruction caused by a single B-29. Dropping nukes on other country while not necessarily an insta-capitulation button, should significantly drop their stability and war support.