Will Freeciv AI ever use nuclear weapons?

Question

I've been playing Freeciv against the built-in AI (easy, normal, and hard levels), and it seems that the AI never builds or detonates nuclear weapons (even long after the Manhattan Project world wonder has been built). Is it true that the AI will never build and/or use nuclear units?

I tried to give the AI players nuclear units using edit mode (Ctrle), but the AI players never seem to use them (I checked by periodically sending in spies). I am interested in knowing so that I can adequately prepare against nuclear attacks, and to make calculations to survive nuclear winters.

Answer 1

Yes, AI players in Freeciv can and will use nuclear weapons, however this in turn can cause a nuclear winter so is discouraged. I've only ever seen the AI use nukes on the highest difficulties, and even then rarely.

To disable AI using nukes by editing the ruleset files and removing the Manhattan Project. This should be a section labelled [effect_manhattan_project]. You can also achieve this by editing your save file (it's in plain text) and finding the [player] section and setting the Manhatten Project to destroyed.

If you want to keep nukes and use them more liberally, you should be able to enable/disable nuclear winter by entering /set nuclearwinter disabled (or enabled) into the chat window.