Air power

[PrinceBimz]

Has anyone ever just got crazy with planes and built a massive airforce? I am talking a huge airforce, say 40 or more aircraft. I remember a game I played a while back, I only had about 20 planes, 10 fighters and 10 bombers and I kicked the living hell out of everything with this! I was able to beat tanks and anything else as well as take cities with only infantry. Once you bomb a unit down to min health, you can beat it easy with much weaker units. I tell you, where that airforce was, that made the difference in the entire war I fought. This is why I was wondering if anyone has ever built a huge airforce? I can imagine what 40 planes could do if 20 wreaked havoc like this. Then if you put some fighters on carriers you have a mobile killing machine.

[Nugog]

Never have tried - to be honest most of my games are over by then - and not because I've always won

[Will9]

I've noticed that planes make huge if you have the small army (half the enemy's size) but more advanced.

[Hauptman]

If i have the resources (that is many high production cities) my bomber stacks easily grow to 15+ each stack... I love the things... send em in in groups of 3 (or 5 - 6 vs cities) and tear up anything in my path. Then the tanks can move in with ZERO chance of counter attack. It's a beutiful thing.

Now fighters. Rarely do i have more than 2 per border city and 2 carrier groups.

[MoonWolf]

I often reach between 20 and 40 bombers, especially if I have been in a war (my factories pumping'em out during the entire war). Then I just place them in some border city able to blast away defences for anyone who picks on me

[Proteus_MST]

Thee are normally 2 points where I plan offensives,
when I´m the first to possess cavalries whereas the enemy still hasn´t riflemen and when I´m the first to get bombers, whereas the enemy still isn´t able to field countermeasures against them (fighters/SAM infantry).
In my current war for example I have around 25 bombers and ~6 fighters, which are really good at werakening enemy stacks before my tanks, gunships, marines and cavalry units attack.

I loose more land units due to counterattacks than due to my own attacks against the weakened stacks (I wage war against the third largest nation on the world, which aside from this has 3 vassals and therefore has a really large army it can bring into the field against my troops; too many stacks to be able to weaken them all before they can counterattack [but I have the largest civ on the worldf and 5 times more industry than even the second largest civ, this will probably be the advantage that finally grants me the victory])

So, yes, I normally field a large airforce and it plays a critical role in weakening stacks and bringing city defenses down.

[Ming]

Bombers, in combinations with small mobile attack stacks is the way to go. The Bombers can take down the city defenses, and soften up the stack, and then the mobile small stacks can finish the job. No need to ever bring one movement units on to the board later in the game.

Fighters are best used in defense... but carrier based planes give you a good way to establish your beach head, and help support continuing attacks.
Fighters are useful when you first get them, but once you get bombers....

[Blake]

In one game I had a stack of like 70 stealth bombers...

Mass bombers is a strategy the AI can't deal with, you bomb their defenders into submission and bomb their counter-attackers (every unit within 10 tiles of the frontline) into submission. Half health units just don't fight too good.

Mass bombers + gunships & tanks = very dead AI.

[Smellycowsquid]

I must say, most of my games are over before this, but in my current game(at normal speed, unlike the rest) I am just starting to reach the bomber techs. It will be fun.

[rah]

Originally posted by Blake
Mass bombers + gunships & tanks = very dead AI.

Very very true.

And even if the AI has air defense units, the intercept percentages aren't that high unless they have a lot of them. And if you have A LOT of bombers, it doesn't matter if you chew through some.

Being able to rebase them in one turn almost makes it too easy for advancing armies. The AI isn't quite as effective using the strategy, but you have to watch out sometimes when they sneak in that artic garbage outpost city on your continent. I ignored one once for a few turns because i didn't want to declare war on them yet, but glanced up and noticed 20 bombers in it. Say bye to 20 bombers. I was actually impressed that the AI seemed to be building up to show some spine.

[Dis]

It's amazing at lower levels. But fighters do hurt my bombers pretty bad on the middle difficulty levels. It only slows me down though, I can still kick ass.

[KillerBean]

Bombers are for the win seriously. I am in the middle of finishing up a game 2049 ad... and I decided to invade the second most powerful leader and his three vassals! My bombers wiped out their cities and any sort of counter attack.

They are amazing because if you get like three stacks of 15 in key cities, you can fling them where ever you want, and then transfer them to newly captured cities. For attacking cities, they render artillery useless, because you can beat down defenses in one turn with a good stack, and then rape the garrison with bomber strikes. Even a few SAM Inf's can't do anything to a stack of 15 bombers....When it comes to combat in the feild, bombers are even better. Their long range can give you recon over a huge amount of land, therefore giving you all the enemies positions. Their power in the open feild is amazing, because they easily knock down an enemy stack, and then you can come in with [tanks, inf, gunships] and wipe out badly damaged units.

I am just enjoying raping the other civs with my mech'zed inf and my bombers, along with the possibility of using my nukes for a retalitory strike . Oh yeah having SDI is a nice insurance policy too.

[asleepathewheel]

the ai should really prioritize bunkers.

[Jaybe]

Having more than 3 or 4 bombers in a stack is an exploit (particularly at Noble ).

The AI sometimes DO prioritize bunkers. Which really plays hob with my "max-3-or-4-bombers-in-a-stack" house rule.

[PrinceBimz]

Originally posted by Blake
In one game I had a stack of like 70 stealth bombers...

Mass bombers is a strategy the AI can't deal with, you bomb their defenders into submission and bomb their counter-attackers (every unit within 10 tiles of the frontline) into submission. Half health units just don't fight too good.

Mass bombers + gunships & tanks = very dead AI.

You said 70 stealth bombers?? Man I never once built 70 of anything. In fact my entire military (army, navy and airforce combined) in most games are normally only half of that amount. I can imagine what damaged 70 stealth bombers can do. You can flatten an entire continent in a single turn with that, bringing a super power to its knees.