Enemy Bombers: Invulnerable?

[Frugal_Gourmet]

Just curious, has anyone on this forum ever been able to shoot down an enemy bomber? I've tried and tried with fleets of fighters for 3 games now and have not succeeded once.

According to the strategy forum, there are quite a few people with the same problem.

It's really, really, really irritating.

I don't know how anyone who reviewed this game could not have noticed...

[Sarxis]

No- actually it is looking like a major bug.

[Ecthy]

I found the imbalance between fighters and bombers in Civ2 pretty irritating... there was just no way a fighter could shoot down a bomber with the same chance for the AI and the human player... it was always outbalanced... when I attacked a bomber, I had to spend several fighters on it... wheeras my bombers were doomed as soon as the enemy had discovered flight...

[Wexu]

Yeah, it must be a bug.

[Rasputin]

Originally posted by Ecthelion
I found the imbalance between fighters and bombers in Civ2 pretty irritating... there was just no way a fighter could shoot down a bomber with the same chance for the AI and the human player... it was always outbalanced... when I attacked a bomber, I had to spend several fighters on it... wheeras my bombers were doomed as soon as the enemy had discovered flight...

I never encountered an AI using bombers in Civ 2 so it will be breath of fresh air to see Bombers flying in from enemy citys in civ 3, but i hope they fix the apparent lack of intercept ability before i get my copy

[Ecthy]

oh well, the AI in Civ2 doesn't use standard bombwers very often, stealth bombers are a popular toy though...

heck, I was excited when I saw the first WWII-like warfare between two AI civs... the japanese bombed chinese cities and attacked them with riflemen/armors... I was stunned, had never seen it before, ans haven't seen it often since

[Green Giant]

I don't understand. Shouldn't this have been caught during testing? It seems like such a simple bug. I think a lot of the problems can be attributed to the closed beta. I have never been a fan of closed betas.

[Ecthy]

I know what you mean, it seems the playtesting has been skipped...

[TheDarkside]

i think the closed beta consisted of 2 parrots pecking at a keyboard while civ3 was running.

[Leonidas]

Some of the bugs are so obvious - you have to wonder. . .

[Soren Johnson]

I am following this thread with interest for the patch.

Let me spell a few things out. Bombers have a 50% chance of being interecepted if you set your fighter on Air Superiority. The "interception range" of a Fighter is half of its Operational Range. Stealth Bombers, however, have only a 5% chance of being intercepted.

Thus, if the AI attacks you with a lot of Stealth Bombers, you will probably rarely see them be intercepted.

So, what have people experienced?

[Wexu]

Here's my experience:

I had two fighters in a city with air superiority. AI bombed me (with normal bombers, not stealth) for about 5 turns with at least 5 bombers and I had none interceptions. So 25 times and no interceptions with two fighters. So I think there must be something wrong or just a horrible bad luck?

[CapTVK]

We can do this by numbers to prove it. Let's suppose you're attacked by 10 bombers in a row and all your cities have a fighter on intercept. If the chance of intercepting is indeed 50% for a bomber the chance of NOT scoring a single intercept would be 0,5^10=0,098% which means the chance for at least one SUCCESFUL intercept would be 99,902%. So you would have definitely have to score at least one hit if you're attacked by a series of 10 bombers.


For stealth bombers (5% intercept chance) the odds for NOT scoring an intercept would be 0,95^10=59,874%. So the chance that you wouldn't score a single intercept would be 40,126%


So if you're being attacked by stealth bombers it's possible to score not a single hit. But if this non intercept happens with ordinary bombers someone must have forgotten to place a comma in the intercept formula.

[Soren Johnson]

Originally posted by Wexu
Here's my experience:

I had two fighters in a city with air superiority. AI bombed me (with normal bombers, not stealth) for about 5 turns with at least 5 bombers and I had none interceptions. So 25 times and no interceptions with two fighters. So I think there must be something wrong or just a horrible bad luck?

ok, this is sounding like a bug...

Would it be possible that your fighter were set on "Fortify" instead of "Air Superiority." It's an easy mistake to make if you just hit the "F" key.

Also, the "defensive range" of a Fighter is only two squares. So the bombers were all attacking squares which were no farther than two squares from your Fighter?

[shammy]

Im experiencing 'slight' frustration too :P
I have four cities, almost side by side, only two squares between them and they form a row, each city has 5-7 jet fighters, airport plus SAM missile battery and mechanized infantry. Enemy is attacking my cities with _normal_, old bombers.. not stealth bombers. each turn.. I set my fighters to Air Superiority (yes im sure) but not once have I shot a bomber down,. and not once have my SAM batteries shot a plane down. The enemy planes have been attacking the city itself, and the mines, roads etc in the squares between them, never more than 2 squares away.
If I have jet fighter with operational range of 6.. is it really considered that the intercept radius is.. half of the operational radius and thats... 3 squares? If so.. many of my fighters even 'double' cover the aerospace around the cities.