Modern naval combat is borked.

[PrinceBimz]

I think a few new techs for fighters could be interesting. For example, have a dive bomb tech which will increase the damage a fighter can do to units, city defenses and also increase its chance to destroy improvements. Then maybe a torpedo bombing tech which will increase the damage done to naval units. Jet fighters should automatically do more damage to land units and ships. New promotions may be a good idea instead of techs or in addition to them, such as anti-ship or strike.

Another thing, maybe a new unit would benefit that can operate off a carrier only. It could be a carrier fighter then later upgraded to strike fighter which would be the jet version. Increase land and sea attack, slightly decreased air to air. So not as good in air to air combat as a regular fighter but better at air to surface roles. I think all of what I mention here could be done in a mod pretty easy. It may have already been done but I have not used any mods really. I know what I have mention here has been discussed before. Maybe I will try my hand out to mod it in.

In the end though, I still like my carriers regardless. Although they are expensive to build, it seems they are around a very long time. Rarely will lose a fighter but I never have to replace a carrier as long as I have enough escorts. Still, nothing wrong at all with making them more critical and useful.

@Stromko, let us know how you come out with modding it. I would not mind trying it out especially if you can implement some of the things I mention above

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by LDiCesare

You can still chain transports in Civ IV: Line one of them at one turn's move distance from each other and use them to ferry your troops over any distance in 2 turns (1:get in the ships safely at home and move all the way to "near landing point" where your escorts are, 2:land). That's a bit ludicrous, but you can effectively move over any distance over the seas in 2 turns if you have enough transports.

This is a function of map size. In Civ 3, transport chaining was unlimited: you could have a unit change ships as many times as you wanted to in a single turn. But in Civ IV, a unit can only change ships once in a turn and then it's used up its movement. So the claim that troops can travel "any distance" in two turns depends on whether or not you're playing on a map size where the place you want to reach is always three turns of transport movement or less away from a suitable embarkation point. On the huge maps I normally play on, that is not always the case.

To clarify the procedure for anyone who might be having trouble following, it would be as follows:

Turn 0: The unit loads, but the transport remains safe in port.
Turn 1: The unit travels on the first transport to the second, changes ships, and then moves another transport-turn of travel on the second.
Turn 2: The second transport moves again and then lands the unit.

There are two drawbacks to this technique. First, it wastes a turn of transport movement keeping the transport in port the turn the units load instead of having it start traveling. That's not good if you have an invasion force that has already landed and is waiting to get as many reinforcements as possible as quickly as possible. And second, you have to either have two separate sets of defenders, one for the original transport and the other for the second in the chain, or leave the first transport vulnerable to a potential counterattack. So I can't really imagine myself using this strategy unless I was trying to invade a civ with a clear advantage over the naval power I could bring to bear - in which case the civ would probably be powerful enough overall to make me reluctant to invade at all. I do, however, make fairly frequent use of chaining to speed up overseas missionary efforts.

[MoonWolf]

Originally posted by PrinceBimz
I think a few new techs for fighters could be interesting. For example, have a dive bomb tech which will increase the damage a fighter can do to units, city defenses and also increase its chance to destroy improvements. Then maybe a torpedo bombing tech which will increase the damage done to naval units. Jet fighters should automatically do more damage to land units and ships. New promotions may be a good idea instead of techs or in addition to them, such as anti-ship or strike.

Then I think you will have too many techs unless they are quite cheap. It's better to improve existing techs or the existing fighters. Or maybe add a new unit for naval warfare as you also mention in your post.

[LDiCesare]

But in Civ IV, a unit can only change ships once in a turn and then it's used up its movement.

No, I don't think so.
I abused that in Warlords' Vikings scenario enough to know you can indeed move over any distance in 2 turns.

[Wiglaf]

A big AI problem is that it doesn't defend its own coastal cities well. For all the work that went into making the AI try to pick off your weak cities, it's too easy to park a fleet outside all of their major coastal cities (even their capital), bombard, bomb, invade and raze in one turn.

Also, AI should raze your cities on your mainland when its forces have no chance of holding the city..

[famousguy]

What i think is messed up is the fact that we cant put bombers on a carrier. maybe we could have a carrier based bomber at least

[Stromko]

B-17's and B-52's can't take off carriers though, or to state it more accurately, they can't =land= on carriers. The Doolittle (sp?) raid had modified bombers taking off from a carrier and then hopefully landing at a friendly airbase. It'd be a lot more to code and the way Civ IV works if the city was in range and had room for the bomber you'd just rebase it at the city and launch it from there, the transfer being instantaneous no matter the distance, so that tactic wouldn't be relevant here.

If I had the chops for serious modding, and I don't, I'd put dive bomber tech in among Fascism. That's where you get Paratroopers and it signifies to me the definite 'WWII' tech where a new era of warfare begins. Either that, or make it come with the same tech that gives you Marines. But I digress.

Anyway, I think fighters signify fighter-bombers, as it is right now you could say they do indeed carry torpedoes when you send them against ships. At least, once you fix the unitinfo.xml so they can sink ships.

The AI is just brutal since I installed BtS, they'll go to war with you now matter how much they like you if it serves their needs, and good lord.. the stacking in cities! I surrounded this Zulu border city with about 25 knights, slammed into it with trebuchets once the defenses were down, and we still weren't able to take it! Must've had 30 defenders! Thankfully, the Papal council voted the war to end right after my turn, so Shaka never had a chance to kill my legions of wounded knights.

That's the same game that I'm testing my mod out on, I decided to take my time to make sure it didn't get crashy or something.. I have it so on Epic speed production and population and all that work normally, only Research, Inflation, the advancement of years, and the victory date take longer. Marathon is the same but research takes 4x longer. If I manage to host the mod here or whatever,it'd be easy to just delete the gamespeedinfo.xml if somebody doesn't like those extra changes.

[jkp1187]

Has anyone found any utility in the naval "patrol" order, that is supposed to intercept enemy ships attempting to pillage resources? I've assigned ships to patrol, but so far, no interceptions have taken place (played 3 games to finish so far). Does this even work?

I wish the patrol order would also intercept enemy transports attempting amphibious landings....would definitely make naval warfare a bit trickier.

More on-topic: I like the idea of fighters being able to sink ships.... I definitely think that it would make requiring air cover for overseas invasions all the more essential. however, I like the idea of this being a promotion, not an automatic ability. (Requiring, say, Combat I first, or perhaps Combat II?)

By the way -- can cruise missiles sink ships?

[Spoe]

Originally posted by Stromko
B-17's and B-52's can't take off carriers though, or to state it more accurately, they can't =land= on carriers.

B-17s and B-52s are entirely different classes of bomber.

The B-17's payload was about 8,000 lbs of bombs.

A B-52's payload is about 60,000 lbs, roughly equal to the maximum takeoff weight of a B-17.

An A-6 Intruder has a payload of around 18,000 lbs and an operational range superior to the B-17.

There's certainly room for a carrier based analogue to at least the bomber in Civ.


And, I'd not be surprised if a B-17 could land on a carrier; the C-130 Hercules can and has.

[Shrapnel12]

Maybe we'll see a naval mod soon? I'm not in favor of allowing bombers to land on carriers unless your doing a specific WWII scenario. In modern times there should definitely be only fighters on carriers, but I would like to see some sort of fighter-bomber. Most fighters double as bombers in modern warfare, so maybe take a bomber unit, lower its strength and amount of damage it does, then give it intercept ability, but the intercept should be less effective then a true fighter. As for sea combat, maybe make a special fighter unit that is not as effective as a fighter in air combat but does major damage to ships. Not saying this is realistic, but just trying to keep it balanced.

[Solver]

Jet Fighters are fairly similar to that. They can intercept and have airbomb and airstrike abilities, although theirs are inferior to regular bombers. Makes sense, too - while modern jets such as F-18s do double as bombers, they're still not effective as dedicated bombers like the B-2.

[Shrapnel12]

If you're a fan of Midway, it would be cool to see some dedicated torpedo bombers. For modern warfare, how about a chopper unit that takes off from a carrier and drops torpedoes in the water to attack ships (can see submarines)?

[Jaybe]

To me it has always seemed that the problem is that there are not separate damage limits for land & sea units. If there was, then air units could sink (or 95% damage) naval units without being overpowered vs. land units.

[Shrapnel12]

Well some units do less damage to naval units based on a percentage I believe, so you should be able to change that. Instead of 50%, make it 150% for a torpedo bomber for example.

[Stromko]

Originally posted by Jaybe
To me it has always seemed that the problem is that there are not separate damage limits for land & sea units. If there was, then air units could sink (or 95% damage) naval units without being overpowered vs. land units.

Yes, this is definitely a problem with 'fixing' naval air combat. If I make it so they can sink ships, as they darn well should, then you'll hardly need any land units at all. One unit to walk into an undefended city, and a few carriers to hold the fighters that do the dirty deed.

Giving each and every unit in the game some level of intercept capacity might help balance that, as well as enhancing units that already have anti-air capacity. I believe interceptions stop the attacked unit from getting hurt, and may harm the plane besides.

Just giving Machinegun units a decent capacity to intercept might work just as well, they're available pretty early on with the railroad and it all but ensures that an industrial city will have some air-defense then. It's already a good idea to move them with stacks of units in order to protect from attacks of opportunity.. problem with just picking one unit to balance out the improved aircraft, is the question of whether the AI would adapt or not.

I wish they'd expanded a bit more on the missions. The 'Intercept' mission should give a bonus to intercept bombing and strike missions, while a new 'Combat Air Patrol' or 'Air Superiority' mission would even the odds and carry a very high probability of one side or the other getting shot down.