Why I love lethal bombarment

[Solomwi]

Persia has declared war on me out of the blue. After a couple of turns of moving my navy over toward their continent and getting my transports into position, I launch the intercontinental invasion meant to put an end to the war. Stupidly, forgetting all about lethal bombard and their air force of 18 bombers, I send the transports over unprotected (Xerxes only has one destroyer and a transport? Pfft, that's no navy... I own the seas already!).

As soon as they were 2 turns from landing, I sat through an agonizing strafing of my transport stacks, all of a sudden remembering LB. What wouldn't have been a threat before (sure, he could knock them all down to 1 hp, but the destroyer could only take out one, IF it was anywhere close) turned my 9 transport invasion force into four transports and sank a nuke sub lurking offshore. I had to slap my forehead and pull them back until my covering fleet could get closer.

GREAT change, Atari and Breakaway!

[Rhothaerill]

That's a tough way to learn. But the 'once bitten' will never forget....

[vmxa1]

Yes one must always keep LB in their plans.

[Solomwi]

The game "ended" before the war started (cultural win), so I saved it for the "dumb admiral" branch of counterfactual history and reloaded the turn for the "What would I have done if I hadn't just sat down to play a turn or two after a night of crawfish and beer" aspect.

And, vmxa, per our conversation in a previous thread, I did find it very satisfying to smile and think "All right, the AI can effectively use air power now!"

[vmxa1]

Satisfying? I found it painful. I did learn to take better vcare though.

[Solomwi]

Originally posted by vmxa1
Satisfying? I found it painful. I did learn to take better vcare though.

There's no reason it can't be both.

Satisfying in terms of having a stiffer AI challenge without the simplified bonus structure of the various levels, and specifically having to fight for and win control of the skies, which has just never been a major issue in my previous modern era wars. IOW, seeing the AI use off the beaten path (not main offensive or main defensive) units effectively, rather than simply giving them more units with which to try to overwhelm my forces.

It also adds another layer of thought to one of my favorite war-opening gambits: load up several transports with marines and panzers, buy time and play nice while they sail into place, with whatever escort suits the situation, then declare war and capture several coastal cities at once, using them as insertion points for hordes of panzers that then push inland rapidly. Under ideal circumstances, I can take better than half of a good sized huge-map empire before the AI even has a chance to respond. On smaller maps, this could be outright deadly. Now, however, though it's even more desirable to keep enemy planes off my ships, I have to be doubly sure my target doesn't jump the gun and declare war on me.

[Elias]

Yeah I know how you feel the other day I was ploting an invasion thinking they wouldnt bomb me i dintnt bother to protect my transports my fleet was way ahead of them. a momet later I had lost 3 armies and countless MA. P.S this happens all the time too if you extend the range of cruise missles.

[vmxa1]

Solomwi I was thinking about this recently and do agree. That it has make C3C so much better than PTW.

In CivIII and PTW you could often just ignore the Naval aspects and do little more with air. This is not so easily done in C3C.

[Rasputin]

lethal boming is brillaint. i now extensivley build bombers which i rarely did before and use them to weaken up any defenders around the area. also for defencive purposes i now building fighters and airbases.

[Fistleaf]

But wouldn't lethal bombardment defeat the purpose of using navies in the first place?
Why should I build a navy and coastal fortresses to defend my coast when I can simply build hordes of bombers to destroy any enemy ships? I can play the whole game without using any ships. This also discourages use of marines and carriers as they become so hard to protect.

[vmxa1]

I am not sure they would defeat it, but it would hinder it. You would need a lot of bombers with overlaps to cover all the areas of attack.

You would need some navy to invade with.

[Solomwi]

Not really, Fistleaf. It just introduces one more threat to your navy (one present in the real world).

For me, actually, it heightens the need for carriers and marines. First off, any invasion in the modern era (or late, late industrial) will absolutely have to be spearheaded by marines, since a large enough air force will eliminate your invasion stack as soon as they land. I'll post a screenshot when I get home illustrating the difference marines can make in an invasion, but the key point is that they're your best hope for eliminating as much as the air force as possible before it can do its damage. Just like in the real world, the best defense against air power is to catch them on the ground. Secondly, carriers are more important now because you can load two or three up with jet fighters, stick them in your naval stack and have pretty good protection with all set to air superiority.

The new air threat really just makes you rethink and refine invasion tactics. Having enough jet fighters/battleships/cruisers/destroyers to protect your transports is now key. The battle still goes to he who gets there first with the most.

If you only want to look at protecting your own borders, well, a navy is still critical. You can typically see 3-4 tiles out to sea from a city (1-2 coast, 1 sea, 1 past border). Modern era ships can end a turn out of sight, then hit you next turn with no problem. Having some ships to patrol is the only warning you can get, unless you commit massive amounts of jet fighters to simply scouting missions.

The bottom line is that air power, which was an afterthought in every situation, is a key component of warfare now. Naval power, which was anywhere from useless to critical before depending on map settings and playstyle/ambition, is still anywhere from useless to critical, based on the same factors.

[Solomwi]

As promised, the first turn results of the invasion that spawned this thread in the first place. Notice not only the amount of Persian territory gained, but (if you can see it), the fact that the very turn my forces hit their shores, I had two of the three luxuries I had been trading with them for. Most of Xerxes' bombers were in the cities in blue, concentrated where they could get to my ships. Without marines, this same screenshot would have been one or two stacks of ground units waiting to be decimated by those same bombers before they could do anything. My navy, under the properly planned and executed invasion, was only exposed to the bombers for one turn, and had plenty of jet support and A-A to cover them.

[Fistleaf]

Wow, I have never seen such a high density of cities on the minimap before. Are you playing on a Huge map? With so many cities to manage, I would die of boredom.

[Solomwi]

Yes, it's a huge map (my almost exclusive setting). But the part you were supposed to notice was the usefulness of marines.