The Problem:
In the real world, aircraft carriers are by far the most potent surface ships for projecting naval power. Even in World War II, a navy without carriers had little realistic chance of surviving to get in range to attack a carrier task group, and the advantage has shifted even more in favor of carriers since then.
In contrast, C3C carriers are far less effective in handling enemy naval forces. Their aircraft can't conduct reconnaissance and attack in the same turn, and can't generally know about enemy ships hidden in cities, so an enemy surface fleet has a much better chance of surviving to attack a carrier. Worse, carriers are horribly expensive: a carrier with four bombers costs almost as much as three battleships.
Another consideration to keep in mind is that C3C carriers are actually more effective than their real-world counterparts in attacking targets on land because C3C carriers can carry full-sized bombers whereas real-world carriers are limited in the size of aircraft they can carry. That is something we will need to be careful with if we try to improve carriers, but the fact that we've removed lethal land bombardment from bombers makes the risk of making carriers too good in a land bombardment role at least somewhat smaller.
Proposed Solution:
Reduce the cost of the carrier unit from 180 to 80. By the time they are loaded to even half their capacity, carriers would still be the most expensive naval units in the game by a considerable margin.
The Big Question:
The big question is, are other people finding it as hard to justify building 180-shield carriers as I am, or do most people consider them more worth building than I do? If most people already find carriers worthwhile on a regular basis, making carriers cheaper would be unnecessary and perhaps make them too powerful. But if most players rarely build carriers, reducing their cost could make them an interesting strategic option more of the time.
In the real world, aircraft carriers are by far the most potent surface ships for projecting naval power. Even in World War II, a navy without carriers had little realistic chance of surviving to get in range to attack a carrier task group, and the advantage has shifted even more in favor of carriers since then.
In contrast, C3C carriers are far less effective in handling enemy naval forces. Their aircraft can't conduct reconnaissance and attack in the same turn, and can't generally know about enemy ships hidden in cities, so an enemy surface fleet has a much better chance of surviving to attack a carrier. Worse, carriers are horribly expensive: a carrier with four bombers costs almost as much as three battleships.
Another consideration to keep in mind is that C3C carriers are actually more effective than their real-world counterparts in attacking targets on land because C3C carriers can carry full-sized bombers whereas real-world carriers are limited in the size of aircraft they can carry. That is something we will need to be careful with if we try to improve carriers, but the fact that we've removed lethal land bombardment from bombers makes the risk of making carriers too good in a land bombardment role at least somewhat smaller.
Proposed Solution:
Reduce the cost of the carrier unit from 180 to 80. By the time they are loaded to even half their capacity, carriers would still be the most expensive naval units in the game by a considerable margin.
The Big Question:
The big question is, are other people finding it as hard to justify building 180-shield carriers as I am, or do most people consider them more worth building than I do? If most people already find carriers worthwhile on a regular basis, making carriers cheaper would be unnecessary and perhaps make them too powerful. But if most players rarely build carriers, reducing their cost could make them an interesting strategic option more of the time.
Comment