Fighter vs. SAM

[War4ever]

my thoughts would be that fortfied fighters don't scramble to defens, they should she sentry duty, i am not sure if this works or makes a difference though

[Chainsaw]

I've go two questions:
How do you get the formula for the effective defense strength? Its the base defense of three, but why do you multiply? I always thought attack/defense bonuses are caluclated basing on the standart value and then added? (i.e. riflemen get two additional defense points if veteran)

I'm not sure at all, but could it be that SDI has an effect on the defense strength of ground units in a city against air units? I've noticed that in a game where my vet MechInf supported by SAMs lost against stealth bombers VERY often. I built a SDI defence in that city and they won much more often.

[debeest]

Sieve: Eeeeps! You're right, fighters' defense number is 3, giving them only the same defensive strength as the bomber's offensive strength. No wonder I do so poorly at this game.... Okay, I have to revise my position somewhat, but fighters still put up a better fight against bombers than almost any other unit, even with SAM.

EST: That explains why your fighters can easily lose to bombers. Fair fight! And yes, as far as I can tell, any unit gets the defensive bonus of whatever terrain it's on, even if it makes no sense whatsoever.

Bohlen: Yes, the fighter has to be the strongest defensive unit in order to be the unit that defends. Normally, if it's scrambling, it WILL be. However, there are flaws in the system. Strong ships will often preferentially defend, even though they're going to get Pearl Harbored. Really irritating when some bomber takes out my helpless fortified cruiser while the fighter sits out the action.

Bohlen, I never fortify my fighters, because I always want them to come up in the move cycle and go looking for meat. So I've never noticed them failing to scramble. But it does make sense. Too bad you can't get the added defensive strength, though.

Chainsaw: SDI is not SUPPOSED to affect defense against anything but nukes. Heaven forbid there should be an error in the documentation....

The calculation of battle strength is a simpler thing than most people imagine. Basically, it's just A (or D) x HP x FP. Then multiply by 1.5 for veteran. Multiply by 2 for fortress. Multiply by 1.5 for fortification, except behind city walls where you multiply by 3 INSTEAD. Multiply by 2 for coastal fortress (although I suspect it may really be 3, based on my experience) or for SAM. On defense, multiply by any terrain bonuses. This cumulative multiplication gives a veteran unit fortified in a fortress on a rivered forest a relative strength of 1.5 x 2 x 1.5 x 1.5 = 6.75. Fractions do count, as far as I can tell. This formula is not strictly accurate, but it's so EFFECTIVELY accurate that you will never be able to tell the difference no matter how much you play.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

quote: Originally posted by debeest on 01-10-2001 03:07 AM Chainsaw: SDI is not SUPPOSED to affect defense against anything but nukes. Heaven forbid there should be an error in the documentation....

Maybe I'm imagining this, but I could swear that SDI combined with SAM will give a x5 defense multiplier against cruise missiles and cruise missiles only (I found this out because I tend to use the cruise missiles I capture from bribing AI cities, on _other_ AI cities).

Anyway, I'm certain the SDI has no effect on bombers or fighters. I suppose the designers felt that a missile is a missile, be it cruise or nuke, and the SDI should work against both?

STYOM

[Lars-E]

I got the following message in my last game:



Apparently fighters are good for more than scrambling and scouting...

Anyone know what this means? Did the ai (Carthaginians) try to airlift units into Leptis Parva? I can't remember doing anything actively to prevent this.
(BTW, ALL the Carthaginian cities were on the same continent...)
[This message has been edited by Lars-E (edited January 15, 2001).]

[SandMonkey]

Lars-E -

No, the AI was attempting to airlift a unit (when you have an airport in two cities, you can airlift units between them). I have seen this message as well, pretty sweet if you ask me Also, if you try and airlift a unit and the AI has fighters around, it will ask you if you want to continue with the airlift to do the chance the the unit could get shot down.

[Lars-E]

Interesting Sandmonkey. I knew about airlifts, but not that fighters could prevent this..

(BTW, I edited my post before I read yours..)

[geofelt]

Instead of building an expensive airport in a city to repair aircraft, use an engineer to build an airport; it works the same.