What's the airforce like in Civ4?

[Zevico]

(Note: I haven't played the game yet)
In Civ2, one's airforce was not -crucial-, but it was a decision to make nevertheless: mass howies, or mostly howies w/ some stealth bombers? You could have a viable army with a large airforce, nevertheless, and win the game with it. But if one were to compare an army of massed howies, some mech. infantry, and some fighters, to mixed army of howies/mech inf/stealth bombers, the former would, I think, win. Still, the point is that you really could build an effective airforce.

In Civ3, however, the airforce was a monumental joke to be ridiculed and ignored.

So--what are your impressions of Civ4's airforce so far? How has it been implemented? Have they fixed the Civ3 version, or gone back to Civ2's "we're units except not" thing?

[JoeGator]

Okay okay, haven't played 4 yet, but in 3, if used properly, the airforce was the most devsating branch of the military you could have.

I hope you said it was a monumental joke because of it's power.

Only AF units in Civ3 I stayed away from were helicopters (look to be greatly improved as the gunship in 4) and Stealth Fighters (useless, may as well stick with Jet Fighters).

[Dis]

Airforce is very necessary in Civ4.

I finally had my first game with a nearly equal enemy in tech. (except in production- I had many more cities than them). While I found the airforce isn't as great when your stealth bombers get shot down by fighters, It's still very useful. In fact, stealth bombers don't get shot down all that often. Usually they just get damaged. With around 6 to 8 bombers you can bring all the defenders to 50% and reduce city defenses to 0 (though I often use ship bombardment to reduce city defenses to 0- it it's a coastal city).

Though an airforce isn't absolutely necessary. You can still take cities with mech infantry and modern armour. I did that in one case when my air force couldn't reach (and you can't put bombers on carriers). Though I did use a couple of jet fighters to reduce city defenses to around 62%. It's just you are going to sacrifice some of your units, so you have to bring more ground units than they have defenders.

So the question you ask is. Is it okay to sacrifice ground units? I don't think so. Modern armour aren't that much cheaper than stealth bombers (I can't think of the price right now). I'd rather soften up a city with stealth bombers and naval bombardment before sending in my tanks. It also reduced down time, as they barely take a hit when they attack damaged mech infantry.

As for gunships, I recall seeing one thread they were useless. But They can still attack units in cities no problem if you reduce their HP's with bombers and reduce city defenses. And they have good movement. I have found uses for gunships.

[Melboz99]

I'm a bit confused on a certain point here.

While fighting my first major wars during the Industrial Era I learned that cannons and artillery cannot damage units within a city.

Is there really no way to damage units within a city with artillery?


Then I got Stealth Bombers and fought a Modern Era war. What I found was that there were two types of strikes, one for City defenses and one for Units and Tile Improvements.

Can you use the Unit attack against a unit inside a City?


I didn't think that was possible, but to tell the truth I never tried.

Dan O.

[Dis]

you can damage units in a city with artillery (and other siege units). What you do is order the artillery to attack the city like you would with a normal attack. It stands a chance of getting destroyed, but it will cause collateral damage. But artillery just doesn't have the chance to damage units in a city risk-free like bombers do (though bombers aren't exactly risk free- they can face SAM units and fighters).

And I use both attacks for bombers. Both are very useful. Though if I have ships, I'll use them to reduce city defenses on coastal cities, and then use bombers to damage units inside the city. They cause massive collateral damage. In short, they're awesome. Sometimes with just 4 bombers I can reduce all the city defenders to 50% hitpoints.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by JoeGator
Okay okay, haven't played 4 yet, but in 3, if used properly, the airforce was the most devsating branch of the military you could have.

I hope you said it was a monumental joke because of it's power.

Only AF units in Civ3 I stayed away from were helicopters (look to be greatly improved as the gunship in 4) and Stealth Fighters (useless, may as well stick with Jet Fighters).

QFT. In Civ3, I'd race to air power and build up a large cadre of bombers. I'd then do an old fashioned blitzkrieg, taking out defenses with air attacks, and then rolling in with armor.

In this regard, air power is less devastating than in Civ3, since they a) can't destroy buildings, b) can't kill units (they can reduce them to 1/2 strength, and c) can be damaged/shot down by both defending fighters, SAM units and (I believe) Mech infantry. However, they can quickly reduce a city's defensive bonus to 0 in anticipation of an attack, and the collateral damage they do is significant. So in essence, while overall they do less damage, you end up needing fewer air units to get the job done.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

CivIV reduces the power of air units. I also generally just got to the point of air superiority in CivIII and then conquered the world without losing a single ground unit. You definitely can't do that in IV. But they're very effective at specialized tasks, like taking cities and stack busting. So air power is like the rest of the combat changes in CivIV...the strategy you use can make it either very powerful or very weak. Which is as it should be in a game.

[Error404]

Originally posted by Melboz99
Can you use the Unit attack against a unit inside a City?

Yes you can!! If you find a city without air defence (that comes with fighters on interception mission or SAM inafntry or others units) and you have some air unit nearby you can conquer that city really easy. Just begin bombarding (B) the defence of that city untill reaches 0% then start using the fighters Strike attack (S) to damage the units inside the city (max damage you can do is 50% of the unit strenght) and THEN attack via ground unit

[Saldrin]

One of the first things I modded in this game was the ability of the jets/stealth bombers to do 100% damage. Jets do not have collateral damage, but are great at taking out naval ships. SBs do collateral damage, but suffer a penality when attacking naval ships.

And the AI adapted quite well to the change. They use fighters and bombers quite regularly. I'm seriously considering increasing the number of jets for my carriers, because you will need to keep at least one on intercept or you will lose the carrier.

Also, there are more AA units: SAMs are devistating, intercept works the same, Mech Inf has a small chance of intercept but I've never seen it (mouse over for info), and destroyers are the old aegis cruisers now. So, yeah, air campaigns are pretty exciting and I consider them a must since artillery has been neutered.

[dconner]

Am I correct that aircraft can (potentially, at least) completely destroy ships, but not land units?

Another question:
Suppose you want to bomb an enemy city, and have plenty of both bombers and fighters available... but there are several enemy fighters in the city. What's the best way to get rid of the enemy fighters? I'd like to have something like a "fighter sweep" option, but not sure how to do that.

Also, what's the radius of fighters on "intercept" missions? Just the one square of their city/carrier, or do they move around?

[khumak]

Air units can't do more than 50% damage to any units including ships but they're still hugely useful. Building a decent sized fleet of bombers allows you to reduce every single city you plan on conquering to 0% city defense and every single unit inside that city to 50% strength before your ground units even arrive there. Plus since you don't have to devote ANY of your upgrades on your ground units to collateral damage or bombardment you can focus entirely on city attack, first strikes, and strength boosts. This makes taking enemy cities with few if any losses very easy.

Bombers are essentially artillery with a movement rate of about 12 that almost never take any damage. Their only disadvantage is that when doing their collateral damage they can't actually completely destroy any units but that's what your tanks are for.

[swat-spas2]

Arty is only neutered in modern warfare (where it doesn't come into play as much with airplanes anyway). Cats are very useful in early play, as are cannons or arty if you have a tech lead on them. Arty is still very good at pummeling a large stack of units very quickly albeit in a suicide squad mode. Its more like the cruise missiles now.

[Datajack Franit]

air units completely replace artillery (which is probably the most useless unit of the game)

[SirSebastian]

Datajack, that's some very strong language. Air units completely replace artillery? The most useless unit?

Maybe if you are so far ahead in tech that your enemies don't have fighters, or you go through the tech tree in such a way that you get tanks before artillery. I find myself having a reasonable period of time where artillery are a very devastating unit, and they seem to have a limited role after that.

[khumak]

Don't get me wrong, I find artillery very useful but only for a relatively short period of the game and only if I know that I'll be going to war before I get planes. Once I get planes I either send all of my artillery on suicide missions or just disband them because planes do completely obsolete artillery.