Just how effective is air superiority?

[Ravenloff]

I was in a recent struggle across a channel with the Germans. I had a slight tech lead, but when the proverbial poop hit the proverbial fan, the Hun sent bomber after bomber at me. Luckily, I had already built a number of fighters (around seven or so) as well as a couple of flak units.

After his first bombing run, I rebased the fighters to the city under attack and put them on Air Superiority the next turn. I also moved all of my flak units to that city and fortified them.

In four or five turns of heavy bombing, I maybe shot down two of his bombers. And this was accompanied with an animation depicting a missile coming up from the city, so I assumed it was the flak knocking them down.

Thinking maybe Air Superiority didn't work if the fighters were actually based in the tile under attack (a reasonable assuption if you stop and think about it), I created an airbase and rebased them there, setting Air Sup the next turn...still...no bombers falling to fights.


The Civilopedia states that fighters on Air Sup will attack any aircraft attacking anything within the Air Sup unit's range...I'm assuming this means they protect not only friendly units but also tile improvements, etc.

Am I missing something?

[Theseus]

Each Fighter has an x% chance of engaging and damaging / shooting down Bombers (I forget the actual %). Multiple Fighters on AS in a given city or airbase does not change the % for each invidual one.

Bad RNG, sounds like.

[trev]

The fighters will sometimes be damaged by a early raid by the bombers and abandon their air superiority mission I think, so a move to an external airbase may be a good idea to minimise that problem

[Cookie Monster]

trev is right. The turn that you rebase your fighters to a city under aerial bombardment is very dangerous. The ai seems to be quite good at killing the fighters that have rebased before you have a chance to put them on air superiority.

Try moving in 3-4 flak into the city first. then a turn or two later move in a couple of fighter planes in.

good luck.

[Jaybe]

The default "chance to intercept" is 50%.

[Aramis]

Tile improvements don't make any difference.
Try not moving the fighters. Turn off air superiority if damaged and let them sit. It sounds like you moved them around too much and didn't wait a full turn to reagain thir use.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Cookie Monster
trev is right. The turn that you rebase your fighters to a city under aerial bombardment is very dangerous. The ai seems to be quite good at killing the fighters that have rebased before you have a chance to put them on air superiority.

Try moving in 3-4 flak into the city first. then a turn or two later move in a couple of fighter planes in.

No single bombing run can kill a healthy veteran or elite unit. So the key to having fighters/interceptors survive and to having some remain healthy for air superiority duty would be to move enough veteran/elite ones to the same location that the enemy bombers won't be able to hit the same one multiple times. (Note that that's complicated a bit by the fact that injured units have to survive the turn after they're injured in order to heal, so numbers would have to be high enough to survive ongoing attacks.)

[Tattila the Hun]

I've given my jet-era airplanes 2 movement points, thus an interceptor can re-base and set for intercept in one turn.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by nbarclay
No single bombing run can kill a healthy veteran or elite unit. So the key to having fighters/interceptors survive and to having some remain healthy for air superiority duty would be to move enough veteran/elite ones to the same location that the enemy bombers won't be able to hit the same one multiple times. (Note that that's complicated a bit by the fact that injured units have to survive the turn after they're injured in order to heal, so numbers would have to be high enough to survive ongoing attacks.)

HP doesn't play a factor in interception AFAICT.

[Tattila the Hun]

But I should think it plays into the fighters chances of survival. Bombers occasionally shoot them down while on mission. If interception is triggered, I'm quessing it matters.

[Solomwi]

Nathan's not talking about interception, Kucinich. What he's talking about is bombing runs on your city while the fighters are helpless (i.e. not set to intercept), or any other time that the bombers catch them on the ground, so to speak.

[Kuciwalker]

Ah.

[Solomwi]

But you and Tattila are right. HP don't matter in triggering intercept, but matter as much as they do in a land attack once it's triggered.

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by Solomwi
But you and Tattila are right. HP don't matter in triggering intercept, but matter as much as they do in a land attack once it's triggered.

I can attest to this also. If you mod the fighters to give them additional HP, they will improve in shooting down enemy aircraft.

Tattila:

I give all of my aircraft 2 MP, it helps when you need a fighter or a bomber in a hurry and makes the air war more strategic in nature.

[gunkulator]

Originally posted by Mad Bomber
I give all of my aircraft 2 MP, it helps when you need a fighter or a bomber in a hurry and makes the air war more strategic in nature.

How does that work? Can they move on land and sea?