What's the airforce like in Civ4?

[Boris Godunov]

I find arty useful even in the late game, particularly if the AI has a city protected by fighters and a lot of SAM infantry. Just bombarding with air power will give me high casualties, whereas bombarding with arty is risk-free.

[Zevico]

It looks as if I underestimated airpower in Civ3. Strange. Though I never did play too much of that game so as to find out what was best.

[dconner]

*Is* there any good way of dealing with enemy fighters? I found even the WWII-type Fighters were intercepting my Stealth Bombers fairly often, and it was irritating, because I had tons of Jet Fighters around, too, so I should've been able, theoretically, to easily establish air superiority.

(Just thought of this) Can you "group" fighters and bombers together? Is that the trick?

[Dis]

that would be nice to group them.

I would like to see this in a patch or expansion. Give jet fighters an action button to "achieve air superiority" they go to a city square and attack the air units there, not the ground units.

Am I correct in saying that bombers cannot attack ships in port now? It appears like ships in port are immune to any damage. This will be sad for WW2 pacific scenarios.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Datajack Franit
air units completely replace artillery (which is probably the most useless unit of the game)

Hah.

The collateral damage of arty is amazing since it occurs even if the arty loses the combat. Now add in the fact that the city you're attacking probably has a bunker and you'll see why arty is essential.

[KrazyHorse]

IOW, you throw artys away as a sacrifice to the gods when taking cities

To take a strongly-defended city with a bunker, SAM and fighters protecting it would cost way too much in the way of air units.

Also, they're risk-free bombarders for city defenses.

[FelisSilvestris]

When you attack a city that is defended by fighters with your own fighters using the attack unit command there is a chance that your fighter will engage the enemy fighter and damage it..

[Saldrin]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


Hah.

The collateral damage of arty is amazing since it occurs even if the arty loses the combat. Now add in the fact that the city you're attacking probably has a bunker and you'll see why arty is essential.

Good point. TBH, I forgot about bunkers...

Small gripe, but this adds to my combat fustrations. In civ 3 there were complanits about artillery abuse and the AI incapable to counter effectivly, so that was taken out... Also complaints were in civ3 about having a strong AF, and having little to counter if you didn't have the flight tech... so now air units are capped at 50% and bunkers offer 75% damage reduction. Explains why my bombers were doing 5-7 damage to units in a city with 0% defense. What a waste....

Wow. Will civ 5 (if it ever does come into production) have combat at all?

So instead of desiging AI to use different functionality of game aspects, they just remove the aspect(s). Doesn't that seem a bit "wrong" or at least lazy to anyone else?

I really like this game, but it seems the whole combat side of it was given very little attention. The game is extremely fun if you're not a "warmonger".

Small rant, sorry.

[Dis]

or they could design a better ai that wages better war.

[KrazyHorse]

I like the system as is. Cities are hard to capture, historically.

Also, in a gameplay sense it's an additional hurdle to climb for most players, since you need to maintain a well-varied attacking force, and even if you do the city is still a tough nut to crack.

None of this "take city after city without losing a ground unit" any more.