The Time I Nuked a Continent

My warships sailed across the pacific, ready to unleash nuclear destruction on an entire continent, and for a second I though, should I do this? I was playing Civilization 5, I wanted to win and I knew that destroying India was the only way I could do that. I had attacked plenty of other civilizations before, but for some reason this time it felt wrong.

Civ 5 is one of the most addictive games I’ve played, and also one of the most difficult. Even on an average difficult setting it’s no easy task managing to field an army that can protect your civilization while maintaining a profit, and a happy populace. More often than not I’m too poor or too weak and get conquered before I even reach the modern era. Conquest isn’t the only way to win, there’s a culture victory, science victory, or a diplomatic victory, but every Civ player knows the only way to one of those is if your neighbors let you. If they decide to attack, which they will, you better have a strong enough army to fend them off. If they decide they really don’t like you and team up against you, you’re done.

By the grace of computer generated randomness I had been placed in the North American continent, all by myself.  No neighbors to attack me or compete against me for resources; all the other civs were a world away. I was playing as Japan and by the time the modern era came around I had colonized the entire continent, rid the land of barbarians and was raking in the money. Then I realized I had made a crucial mistake, I hadn’t chosen a strategy for my empire. I didn’t have much culture or science, no diplomatic ties with city states, and an invasion of Europe or Africa seemed like a daunting task.

The game ended abruptly, I had lost. The Indian civilization had won a culture victory.  I had been by myself, an entire continent at my disposal, with no enemies, and I still lost. I couldn’t let it stay that way. I rebooted my save and tried all I could to win, but my culture and science were too far behind. My last save had been about 30 turns before India won its victory, I realized then that I had 30 turns to destroy India, there was nothing else to be done.

This had been one of the most peaceful games of Civ that I had ever played. India had somehow managed to conquer the entire Asian continent without attacking anyone, same as I had for North America. The first thing I did was send my navy to their oceanic borders. When I attacked the avatar who responded on their behalf was Gandhi, that didn’t make me feel any better. I used what political influence I had to convince some other civs to attack them also, and bombarded their coastal cities. India had won a culture victory and to avoid that I had to completely wipe out Indian culture from the Earth.

Gandhi came begging for mercy, Indian cities burning in the background. Here was a virtual representation of a man who had lived the ideal of non violence in real life. A leader who in the game had never attacked me in any way, and he was begging for his people. I didn’t feel like a good person when I sent the nukes raining down. The entire Asian continent became a giant radioactive wasteland. I ended up winning a science victory. As I saw that Japanese space shuttle fly up into space I wondered how many Indians had to die to make it possible.