Submarines and Carriers?

[CerberusIV]

I'm reasonably happy about the way aircraft carriers are implemented in terms of capacity, particularly that the fighters can be set on intercept and will stay that way when the ship moves (unlike Civ III). Mainly I use them to provide local air cover for invasions until I can capture a city and move more air units in.

That's fine but has anyone ever seen the AI use a carrier? They build them and I have seen them sat in AI cities but never seen one at sea actually operating aircraft.

Unlike carriers I find submarines a great disappointment. Fine for landing spies in the territory of an AI you don't have open borders with but that's about all. The mouseover suggests they have a 50% chance of retreating but mine never seem to manage it. Enemy destroyers always spot them and rush in and destroy them - how about only a 50% chance per destroyer per turn of actually spotting a sub. Where is the stealth attack that allows a chance of getting past the escorts and attacking a transport (or carrier ). Maybe I'm not using them right so what are the tactics for subs?

[Son of David]

Re: Submarines and Carriers?

Originally posted by CerberusIV
That's fine but has anyone ever seen the AI use a carrier?

Yes. Julius Caesar used them to great effect in my last game, which I ultimately lost because I neglected my air defences and he was able to destroy most of my improvements. His stealth fighters, unleashed from carriers, were highly effective at penetrating into my territory: and I didn't even have a single old fighter protecting any of my cities. I was caught completely off-guard by his attack.

[OssomTossom]

Well, I think the retreat bonus for subs (or anything else, for that matter) only applies when they are on the attack, not defence. But the idea for destroyers (and maybe airplanes as well?) to have some % chance of spotting them (less than 100% chance, too) seems at first glance to be a good idea.

[drsparnum]

I'm not sure if it's been fixed in a patch but one game I played (the desert war scenario) I was able to see enemy subs in the military advisor screen (as blips) that I couldn't actually see on the map because I didn't have a unit with sub detecting powers nearby. If that hasn't been fixed, it probably should be.

I'd also like to see planes able to attack subs (since real subs in ww2 feared planes most of all) but that's been mentioned by others a million times. It seems like the simplest thing to implement too.

[CarnalCanaan]

I've found little use for the subs as offensive weapons. The AI does a good job of escorting its transports and subs don't have enough movement points to "hunt" effectively.

Usually, I only use them to scout enemy coastlines and drop off spys.

[marvinkosh]

Subs are much better once they have had a couple of promotions to up the chance of their retreat and get immunity to first strikes. This gives them a reasonable chance of inflicting crippling damage on an enemy navy, meaning that when your big boats move in they have an advantage in hit points.

[LordShiva]

Modern naval warfare is one of my big complaints in Civ. Carriers are too cheap to build, don't carry enough planes, and can't carry bombers.

Ideally, there'd be two kinds of carriers: a cheap WW2-type one, and an uber-expensive awesome badass modern nuclear-powered one. I hate that you can get to the modern age and then build like 10-20 carriers - except for the U.S., which has 11 or 13 (but only 2 in active service), no modern country has more than 1 or 2 carriers. China, by all accounts a major power, has zero.

Ideally, there'd be more planes, too - not just "WW2 fighter, WW2 bomber, modern fighter, modern bomber." There should be something in between a modern interceptor fighter and a bomber that you can base on carriers and that can actually bomb. So you'd be able to set half the planes on the carrier on air superiority, and the other half on bombing stuff.

[Smellycowsquid]