Intercepting interceptors?

[handyman24602]

Is their anyway of attacking fighters in a city with your airforce? If i sent my bombers to attack a city and they were intercepted by enermy fighters, would any of my fighters on air superiority missions (within range of that city) have a chance to attack them? i guess what im trying to say is their any active way of defending your bombers on there run? also when an enermy fighter intercepts a friendly fighter is there a change either could win?

[BlueO]

I have seen my interceptor intecept an enemy interceptor when I told my jetfighter to make a bombing run. It seems to happen very rarely, as I only seen it once. And I only did -3% damage on their interceptor. I would imagine, you need a horde (20+?) of interceptors to knock down one enemy interceptor.

[clarkcd]

If you have the range it can be handy to send in your fighters first to get intercepted by the enemy so your bombers can come in second to a fighter free zone.

[handyman24602]

I take it the fighters you send in are 'sitting ducks' though? they dont have a change of defending themselfs?

[Jaybe]

The fighters you send in do fine, handyman. In civ4 air combat is rarely to the death, and if you let them heal afterwards most may survive until the game ends.

[MattPilot]

From observation:

Attacking Fighters do on occasions win against defending fighters, but odds do seem to favor the defender - as it should be, afterall, he has home turf advantage. Perhaps one could say the defender has radar advantage on the ground.


Anyway.... Sending in fighters on 'bombing' runs ahead of your main bombers should help you clear the area of enemy fighters. Just make sure you don't send them to a place covered by an AAA unit, otherwise you just up your chances of getting shot down.


The higher "strength" of the fighter should help him survive in air combats as opposed to bombers, who easily lose more HP, IMO.

[Kirghiz]

It seems to be an even split between attacking and defending intereceptors getting interecepted, and even shot down, though getting shot down happens rarely.

Once I get flight I build a massive carrier group, usually five or six carriers accompanied by destroyers. You'd be amazed at how effective this works for clearing the road in front of an invasion force, scouting, and keeping bombers off your stacks of ground forces. This also means I don't have to take as much artillery with me, freeing up a transport or two for more tanks.

I always lead my city attacks with an overwhelming number of air strikes. The aircraft themselves are about even in the air, but the defender has a definite advantage if he has SAM Infantry or something on the ground as well.