Nuke

This article is about Nuke. You may be looking for Nukes (April Fools).

Nuke
Unit Stats
Type of unit	Nuclear
Unit per Division	1
Cost	$1,250,000,000 500 Manpower 40 Enriched Uranium Technology: Nuclear Weapon Design Silo on city it's being constructed in
Upkeep	$4,000,000
Recruitment Time	200 days/seconds
Description	The Ultimate Doomsday weapon. Destroys all units and annihilates cities population within its radius

The nuke is a special type of military unit, capable of traveling intercontinentally within seconds, and destroy anything upon impact.

Production

Creating a nuke is a complex process. The player must unlock all three phases within the nuclear technology tree, which despite being very short, it needs a total of 7,000 research points to fully complete the entire research branch, and the median technology requiring 2,000 research points.

After attaining both Theoretical Nuclear Research and Uranium Enrichment technology, the player can build Uranium Enrichers, which cost $500,000,000 and have an upkeep of 20 units of Uranium, making it difficult to manage a Uranium Enricher without a deficit of uranium. The last technology, Nuclear Weapon Design, allows the player to build a silo for $600,000,000 and 500 units of Steel.

In order to construct the nuke, each unit must be built on a silo, with an additional cost of 500 manpower, $1,250,000,000, and 40 enriched uranium, with a costly upkeep of $4,000,000 every 5 days. However, even if nukes are very expensive, they are extremely hard to attain, since it allows the player to bring utter destruction to enemy cities, within its 50 - 100 kilometer detonation radius.

Technology

Nuclear Technology

Technology	Research Categories	Level 1	Level 2	Level 3
Nuclear	Upgrade	Theoretical Nuclear Research	Uranium Enrichment	Nuclear Weapon Design
	Cost	2,000	2,000	3,000
	Modifier	Theoretical Prerequisite	+1 Building: Uranium Enricher	+1 Building: Silo +1 Unit Unlocked: Nuke

Usage

Limitations

When a nuclear weapon is available, the player has the ability to launch the warhead at any location on the planet, including remote areas. However, if the bomb is detonated in a country that is not considered an enemy during a war or an ally, it will not cause any damage. Interestingly, if a nuclear weapon is launched within your own territory, whether during a war or not, it can still destroy your country's cities.

During and Post-Launch

When a nuclear weapon is launched, a special announcement is broadcasted through the News ticker, accompanied by the sound of a missile being fired. As the missile travels towards its target, it emits a bright yellow glow and leaves a white trail behind it. Upon detonation, a mushroom cloud is formed, accompanied by a profound soundtrack titled "Solomon's Theme" (from Battlefield 3) that automatically plays for all players in the server. Additionally, the News ticker updates with information on the total casualties and the country that has been struck by the nuclear attack.

The soundtrack that automatically plays to the entire server during an nuclear explosion. (If multiple nukes launched, the soundtrack does not overlap, and once it's done playing, the track returns to its original audio.)

Aftermath

The News ticker recording over 4,000,000 (four million) deaths from a single nuclear bomb striking China

Nuclear weapons have a devastating impact on the surrounding area, vaporizing all nearby units within a range of 50 to 100 kilometers. The explosion also scorches enemy cities, causing them to revert to Tier I status if they were previously developed. Additionally, the use of nuclear weapons leads to a significant rise in unrest within the affected cities, while both taxation and manpower income plummet to zero. If city has a fort, it will get destroyed.

The population of the targeted cities is roughly halved (x0.25, if city is a fort), although it will gradually begin to regenerate over the course of several years. The deployment of nuclear weapons can greatly increase war exhaustion and destabilize the targeted country, especially when major cities are struck.

Most importantly, nuking a city also removes all natural resources it produces. This can be used to cause a resource shortage in your enemy's country, or if you have enough nukes, wipe a resource from all cities in the planet.

Strategies

Target Places

The player can choose to destroy financial centers and populous areas, as significant consequences can be inflicted upon the adversary. These consequences include a rapid increase in war exhaustion, widespread unrest, a crippled economy, and a major loss of stability. Prioritizing targeting highly populated and developed cities is crucial, as they have a greater impact on weakening the enemy. Aiming for the capital city, especially if it is less populated or less developed than other major cities, may not cause substantial damage to the enemy's overall strength.

Once a nuclear bomb strikes a city, the population is halved, or quartered if fortifications were present prior to the hit.

Nuclear Barrage

The player can produce multiple nukes before the start of a war, before using the autocapture feature to make all the nukes target your opponents largest cities. These will all launch from your country and hit your opponent's country at roughly the same time, and could have the potential to wreck your opponents population immediately and cripple their war capabilities or make them collapse entirely from the large stability loss and large war exhaustion increase.

This strategy requires you to have a lot of money saved up or a good economy in order to execute properly since you need a lot of nukes for a nuclear barrage to work effectively. This also works best on socialist or communist nations as their additional factory output buffs can yield a higher production of Enriched Uranium, making you able to produce more nukes.

Required Resources

If you want to get the required uranium, the minimum is about 2.4 uranium (for non-communists) and a max mining research tree along with mines on your uranium mining cities. This can be easily done as India with the conquest of Pakistan or similar scenarios, such as Russia in general or controlling Kazakhstan.

Counters

While there are limited counters for a nuclear weapon, particularly once it has been launched, certain measures can be taken to prevent its release and mitigate the aftermath. In terms of interception, missile defense systems have not been implemented in the game. However, during war-time, bombers have the capability to destroy a nuclear weapon before it is launched. Once the warhead is airborne, there is no method to disarm or neutralize it.

To mitigate the impact of a nuclear strike, fortifications play a crucial role. If the targeted city is fortified, it can limit the extent of damage caused by the missile. The city may not be completely annihilated but will sustain minimal destruction. However, the destruction of the fortifications leaves the city vulnerable to further attacks.

How to Get Nukes Fast

Typically, superpowers, mostly the United States, earn the nukes first, but there are other ways to achieve this compelling weapon.

1. Secure the nearest countries that have uranium, regardless if producing Uranium alone.
2. Immediately set Research Spending to Level 8, research the research branch until reaching Quantum Computing, hire Head of Research political leader, enact 'Advance the Research Bureau' policy (and all other resource-required research policies if maintainable), and accept all affordable technology advancement deals.
3. Once you have unlocked Quantum Computing, which is the last level of the research branch, build mines on cities producing uranium, and research the entire resource extraction tree, as it will boost the uranium output. Also ensure to research Factory Output 2 (4th level if not Communism preferably), as it will be needed for Uranium Enricher.
4. Grab the essential policies: Public Service Act, Forced Labor for Dissidents (if Communism), and Tax Reform (if Democracy). If you are unable to activate the policies despite maximum Government Spending, then research the political power branch (Level 1 - 2), get Head of Government and Political Reformer leader, as it will boost your political power income. Other two polices that can boost the economy include, but with a drawback of a heavy resource burden include the 'Power Generation Act' and 'Transport Act'.
5. Start researching the nuclear technology tree until you obtain Nuclear Weapon Design.
6. Once you researched Enriched Uranium, start building the enrichers on the most isolated cities possible, rugged with harsh terrain or biomes far from the nearest coastlines, as an enemy may rush the city and delete the factory. Also build an anti aircraft plus fortifications to prevent bombing or transport aircraft assaults.
7. Once Nuclear Weapon Design has been acquired, start constructing silos with the same method described on the previous step.
8. By now it should be 2027 - 2034, with a complete resource and factory output boost. You should now be able to construct as much nukes as possible, just ensure to have the set economy and uranium stockpile for nuclear establishment. Aside from that, all nations will feel the wave of heavy dread, as you have officially unlocked the weapon of mass destruction.

Meta for Nuclear Speedrun

Click '[Expand]' on the right to view.

In correlation with the previous strategy.

• Technology Branches:
  • Quantum Computing
  • Factory Output
  • Resource Output
  • Political Power Gain
  • Nuclear Research tree
  • Ideology Improvement
• Policies (Resource-Required Policies are optional due to the heavy quantities for maintenance, but they can help significantly):
  • Advance the Research Bureau (Versatile - Research Boost)
  • Public Service Act (Versatile - Factory/Resource Boost)
  • Forced Labor for Dissidents (Communism - Factory/Resource Boost)
  • Underground Labs (Corruption - Research Boost)
  • Favor the Political Elite (Corruption - Political Leader XP Boost)
  • Ignore Safety Regulations (Corruption - Factory Boost)
  • Tax Reform (Democracy - Tax Boost)
  • Computer Advancement Act (Versatile - Resource Required - Research Boost)
  • Isotope Research Act (Versatile - Resource Required - Research Boost. Not recommended to use this policy as it depletes uranium and uranium is extremely crucial for the maintenance of uranium enrichers.)
  • Party Loyalty Laws (Versatile - Ideology Boost)
  • Power Generation Act (Versatile - Resource Required - Factory Boost. Turn on only when producing enriched uranium in masses due to very high costs to maintain)
• Economic Laws:
  • Research Spending
  • Government Spending
  • Education Spending
  • Anti Corruption Spending
• Political Leaders:
  • Head of Research
  • Political Reformer
  • Head of Government
  • Finance Minister or Corporate Representative
  • Industry Minister
  • Chief Geologist
  • Chief Judge
• Events:
  • Brilliant Researcher
  • Research Investment Required
  • Military Research
  • Research Intervention
• Other:
  • Mines on Uranium and Diamond-producing cities
  • Healthy and flourishing economy
  • High development and infrastructure levels.
  • High stability for additional benefits, especially the political leader XP boost modifier.
  • While not a direct requirement, superpower nations, such as United States and India, usually obtain nuclear weapons the fastest compared to smaller nations as they inherently start with a massive economy.

Controversy

Nukes are considered extremely overpowered in the end-game, because nations which are plentiful in Uranium (ex. Russia and Iran), can make more Enriched Uranium, allowing them to produce nukes quicker.

(Note that the following has been fixed as of the population increase update)
Alongside this, the fact that population is unable to recover from a nuke is also controversial, this includes Japan, who gets most of their manpower from the nation's capital (in this case, Tokyo), which if nuked, it could cause the nation to be forever crippled. Within around 24 hours after the update, there were up to 30 suggestions in the RoN Discord for population regrowth and nuclear interceptors to be added, however, the plans for nuclear defense implementation were ultimately rejected.

In response to dozens of messages that suggested to add population recovery, Hyperant worked on dynamic population which would soon launch as an update on November 10th, 2021.

Trivia

• The unit came with the Nuclear Update, which was added on August 27, 2021.
• It is possible to repeatedly rebuild fortifications on a city if it is only nuked once, as you can now build forts on cities with any unrest. This makes fortifications extremely effective against nukes.
• Nukes cannot be stacked (e.g. 2 nukes within 1 division), as each nuke must be separated with their respective silo, and a one-by-one hit must be deemed in order for multiple damages.
• Nukes were originally first implemented in the 2019 April fools update, however, they did nothing upon impact making them effectively useless.
• Nukes were one of the most requested features in the game, it was thought they would never be added.
• It is impossible to load a nuke into a Transport Aircraft. Attempting to do so yields the message "You can NOT be serious -_-"
• With enough nukes you can kill all city's population up to 0, however city won't remove from the map.
• Using autocapture on nukes used to do nothing, only making the nuke move super slowly towards the city. This was changed with the March 6, 2025 Update where they are now able to launch and target the largest cities instead.