Air-Bases...anyone miss these?

[Venger]

I mentioned long ago I missed them...

What made Civ2 so great was it took what was great in Civ1 and added to it, giving us a wonderful, if imperfect, variety.

Civ3 adds some stuff, but reduces some stuff, with kind of a zero sum gain element that you wind up scratching your head going "why'd they take that out??"...

Variety is the spice of life...give us the old airbase...

Venger
P.S. I truly think the reason so much of Civ2 is left out of Civ3 is because there is MUCH more of the SMAC engine in Civ3 than you might expect. Much more...so much for a from scratch game, it's a SMAC Civ strapon...

[bahoo]

Originally posted by smellymummy
airbases where ok, and I was dissapointed that I couldn't build them, but carriers are able to do the job well enough.

On small maps, carriers work fine, but on huge maps, all naval units in general are so slow it takes forever to get them in position. Additoinally on large continents you simply can penetrate far enough from the sea.

Airbases hastily constructed by the corp of engineers as new ground is secured during an offensive would add a much needed dynamic to war in CIVIII. As it is now it's way better to roll in on railroads with artillery and tanks than to screw around with air units.

Plus as it is now, helicopters and paratroopers are essentially useless because of their range. Any place within that many squares of your city is probably easy to get to anyway.

[Venger]

Originally posted by bahoo

On small maps, carriers work fine, but on huge maps, all naval units in general are so slow it takes forever to get them in position. Additoinally on large continents you simply can penetrate far enough from the sea.

Agreed - I suspect move points will be updated...

Plus as it is now, helicopters and paratroopers are essentially useless because of their range. Any place within that many squares of your city is probably easy to get to anyway.

Exactly - I've not encountered a single scenario where I'd want a paratrooper as it is in Civ3.

Venger

[Elowan]

Originally posted by Kolyana
Look at the current war in Afghanistan ... we're fighting for and gaining key cities and ... AIRBASES.

Yes, I'd like to see them in the game .. they bring another strategic element.

Can you imagine a game with fortresses with a proper zone of control, outposts that are proper outposts and airfields?

Geez, talk about lots of strategic possibilities.

Yeah ZOC's make sense since in some ways they represent Fields of Fire.

And airbases are useful. So what if you have to station troops there to defend them? What's unrealistic about that?

Don't get me wrong -- Civ3 is, in many ways, a vast improvement over Civ2. However - it has become patently obvious that the game was taken away from the programmers before it was finished.

To give the Devil his due - an early release made economic sense to a company that was feeling the money crunch. If these problems are fixed in subsequent patches - so much the better.

Another thought - consider the size of the player base for Civ3 currently. Neat way to gain scads of play testing to uncover problems that are not discovered during game engineering.

And finally - get someone to rewrite that horrid 'manual'. It is a given that most companies leave the manual until last whereas the smart ones start the manual from the 'get-go'.

If I taught medicine the way the companies write manuals - we'd be in deep doo-doo.

[ColdWizard]

i don't miss airbases because i don't build air units. i just build mobile land units (mech inf, armor) for my invasions

[Rakki]

I used to build a fortress and airfield combo on my home continent where I would base my paratroopers (kinda like Fort Bragg).

I also do this on the larger islands (2 squares) where I can put in a fort and an airfield... the airfields were great for controlling large areas of the ocean where the enemy ships were likely to pass through - there was nothing other than battleships and aegis cruisers that stealth fighters couldn't kill, and for those toughies, I could always vector in surface ships.

Airfields are also a good way of "island hopping" paratroopers without requiring a ship to be available to ship them home (each city can only airlift once.. but airfields can do paradrops without limit !)

[Andy91]

As for the issue of airplanes being able to sink ships, I think they're inability to do so is a huge mistake. If we look at World War II in the Pacific, naval battles were revolutionized after the Coral Sea, and airplanes showed their effectiveness in naval warfare. Air power is really hurting, and I think that needs to be fixed in some way. Between the lack of airbases and the inability of planes to sink ships, much historical ability is taken from them. I think this was a mistake and hope it can be dealt with somehow

[AzureFlame]

Yes why can't Air/Ship combat be treated as Air/Air or Ship/Ship (the ship can shoot down the plane or the plane can sink the ship)?
If an archer can shoot down a cruise missile then a Galley should definitely be able to shoot down an F15!

[Frank Johnson]

They don't want to add hard to make variety in the game.

bombers are strategic, and shouldn't be able to do anything but bombard city improvements, and shoot down fighters attacking them.

Fighters are largely tactical, and should be able to sink ships, bomb tanks and infantry, and straf other stuff.

Making 2 different models for 2 different units was either not thought of or just ignored.

[Adm.Naismith]

Originally posted by Andy91
As for the issue of airplanes being able to sink ships, I think they're inability to do so is a huge mistake. If we look at World War II in the Pacific, naval battles were revolutionized after the Coral Sea, and airplanes showed their effectiveness in naval warfare.

The removing of airbases seems a way to balance things for an AI unable to manage them, and to enhance usefulness of Carriers (on mid map with enough sea).
It seemed a way to "kill two birds with a stone", OTOH Firaxis rotted the concept shifting back the "naval strike air mission" before WWII in Pacific. Midway and many others battle never saw the opposite ships at fire range, if not for the long arm of attack airplanes (carring bombs and torpedos).

I'm confused about this "one step forward, one step backword" approach in Civ III design

Maybe they are collecting small features to publish a "great Civ III Xpansion" where you can:
- build airbases! Diego Garcia and Gulf/Afghan scenario available!
- sink enemy ships as during Pacific WWII! Cool Midway scenario included!

Maybe it's all marketing, babies