Do you think airplanes should be able to sink ships?

[Venger]

Originally posted by Disk Killer
I voted for No, with editor option, because I'm being reasonable to the concerns of those who want that option.

It's all about options - of course I voted yes to destroy both, but I also voted assuming that it would be added and adjustable. Variety is the spice of life - allow it to happen, and we can suit to taste. But leave it as is, it's a real nutbuster...

Venger

[greggbert]

Have any of you actually PLAYED alpha centauri?

One of the biggest balance problems of that game was that once you get air power, ships become completely useless, and you can win the game only building defense units and planes. It's STUPID AND NOT FUN. And it is PROVEN by hundreds of gamers experiences in SMAC.

So enough of this pearl harbor crap and if you are aching for realism, argue about how much it stinks that an entire forest can grow in one year!

Please do not be civ amateurs.
-Greggbert

[GePap]

Have you used air power?

greggbert:
Air power in SMAC functioned much like air power in Civ2. Air power in Civ3 works UTTERLY DIFFERENTLY from those two times. 1 sigle aircraft could NEVER sink a sinlge, healthy veteran ship, simply because it does only a limited amount of damage and does not do the whole, battle to the death thing of previous Civ ir SMAC aircraft.

Please don't call others civ amateurs if you also seem to be unclear on some basic concepts. Those that live in glass houses should not throw stones

[greggbert]

I am not unclear on anything. In Civ II and SMAC one of the major sucky things was that you could build planes and garrison units ONLY and win the game easily. Ships, tanks, etc became useless with air power. People seem to be forgetting this. SMAC was even worse than CIV II.

[korn469]

GePap

1 sigle aircraft could NEVER sink a sinlge, healthy veteran ship, simply because it does only a limited amount of damage and does not do the whole, battle to the death thing of previous Civ ir SMAC aircraft.

that is not true a bombers would have a chance of sinking regular strength ships since they have a rate of fire of 3, but then ships wouldn't have a chance of fighting back

so WW2 style bombers would have a fairly good chance of sinking Aegis Cruisers, while F-15s (or more likely F/A-18s) would find it almost impossible to sink battleships

that is a problem to me

plus civ3 is just abstract, it could never really portray something like the rise of Genghis Khan (3 turns one very backward civ forms the largest land empire ever)

[Venger]

Originally posted by greggbert
I am not unclear on anything. In Civ II and SMAC one of the major sucky things was that you could build planes and garrison units ONLY and win the game easily. Ships, tanks, etc became useless with air power. People seem to be forgetting this. SMAC was even worse than CIV II.

This is not really the case in Civ2. Use a bomber as cover, put two solid defenders under it, and some tanks and howitzers. Advance and destroy.

Or, simply let the bombers come, and shoot them down with your fighters. It REALLY wasn't that hard.

In SMAC I hear that air units were ridiculously powerful...

Venger

[GePap]

response

Korn469
In the quote you quote, it says veteran, which means the ship will have 4 HP, which means that 1 bomber can't sink it. That's exactly why I said veteran. Personally, I don't think HP should be based on experience, so i won't allow one bad gaming decision to make up for another.

As for your other comments: An Aegis cruiser is a smaller vessel than a Battleship and has lesser armor, so any plane that, if it hits, could sink a BB, it would be able to sink an Aegis cruiser. The issue is wether it will hit. The solution to this problem is not to make sinking impossible, but to give aegis anti-aircraft bonus, lets say, make it a floating SAM battery, now that those work. That way, it will be very hard for a WW2 bomber to ever get to the point to drop its bombs on a aegis cruiser, thus keeping some sanit.

As for Jet fighetrs, the solution to that is giving them a higher ROF. On a technical issue, i doubt any single aircraft could sink a BB without either getting a lucky hit or carryng a blockbuster or daisycutter.

[barefootbadass]

The fact that air units can't sink ships is in no way inconsistent with the power of air in the real world. Use of air and artillery allows your ground and naval units to utterly decimate their corresponding adversaries. This is how it really works, the side with superior bombardment capabilities wins, but it has to have the other elements of the armed forces trio.

If air power could sink ships you would only need carriers for a navy, but carriers cannot stand alone. And since bombers can't be blocked within their operating range, it is ridiculous to allow them to sink ships. Surrounding your 'prize ship' with destroyers will do nothing to protect it from bombers of a carrier that comes up on another civ's turn. But the ships presumably can protect it with anti arcraft guns. Therefore, since bombers work as a bombardment units, the only way to mimic this protection is to make the opposing navy 'finish' the job. If the bomber were a unit you moved to a neigboring square to do a bombing run, allowing ships to be sunk might make sense, but as it is it is completely nonsense to do such. Balance and playability are more important than nitpick realism.

Also, the pearl harbor comparison is irrelevant because the ships in pearl harbor were at port on a Sunday morning. Of course they were destroyed by that attack.

[Dan Baker]

Although I hate to add units to the game I think subs and planes should be modified in the following way:

Have a special 'torpedo bomber' that can sink ships, but is pretty useless against other targets. Normal bombers are ineffective in sinking ships and should get a major disadvantage when trying to bomb them. So, to sink a battle ship it might take 5-8 lucky torpedo bombers - which makes the game balance about right. This would make Aircraft carries worthy vessels for naval combat. Coastal bombardment without air supority would be, quite frankly, suicide (which it is).

Second, subs should have low attack - but they would just torpedo - i.e., shoot once and then have the option of retreating (kind of like Axis and allies).

Cruise missles do sink ships though, but it'd be nice if Nuke subs could carry them. Pretty silly that they can carry a nuke, but not a cruise missle.

Some of the debat about is a battleship really a battle ship or a group is kind of mute - I mean, it is a game. But, thinking of it as a battle group is probally right. I.E. Some destroyer escorts... etc.

I do think that it should be impossible for artillary to totally destroy ground units. At least a small army is always neccisary.

[korn469]

GePap

i am not exactly sure how how a SAM missile battery works, but it either shoots by passing aircraft in its range and does 1 hp of damage it it enages them with an air attack strength of 8, so either it won't shoot down anything including bombers, or it will pretty much shoot down any non-stealth units out there

On a technical issue, i doubt any single aircraft could sink a BB without either getting a lucky hit or carryng a blockbuster or daisycutter.

how about if they are carrying a harpoon missile from a B-52 or a laser guided 2,000lb bomb or a couple of maverick missiles?

[korn469]

plus as long as we are being nitpicky here

1, 10, 10,000 six-hundred shield ICBMs can't destroy a size 1 city where is the hue and cry over that? everytime i brought up how overpriced nuclear weapons were people told me that they were too strong to begin with

plus many of the things that you are asking for can be accomplished with the editor, just try it out

i'll be right back, i'm off to see if i can make planes that kill ground units

[mfauzi]

I think planes should be able to destroy ships, but the chances should be low (but not too low). Maybe in every 5 or 10 bombardments, 1 ship is destroyed, or something like that.

I guess we have to balance between all ships surviving plane attacks and ships easily destroyed by planes..

I mean, how many times have the enemy's carriers send in bombers trying to destroy you, and at the same time, all you have is land and air units but no ships (like you're on an island and you can't get reinforcements that easily, so you can only rebase your planes and your ships will take forever to get there)? It would be really hard to defend yourself, especially with the enemy bombing your tile improvements and starving your population while reducing your production.

[barefootbadass]

Originally posted by korn469
plus as long as we are being nitpicky here

1, 10, 10,000 six-hundred shield ICBMs can't destroy a size 1 city where is the hue and cry over that? everytime i brought up how overpriced nuclear weapons were people told me that they were too strong to begin with

plus many of the things that you are asking for can be accomplished with the editor, just try it out

i'll be right back, i'm off to see if i can make planes that kill ground units

Heh, also, try out those 10000 some odd ICBMs on cities maybe the game has a rule that the 8578th ICBM will finally obliterate the city.

They are just fine. If you want the ICBM to destroy the city think of it as an artillery shell on steroids and invade and raze after using it.

[barefootbadass]

Originally posted by mfauzi
I mean, how many times have the enemy's carriers send in bombers trying to destroy you, and at the same time, all you have is land and air units but no ships (like you're on an island and you can't get reinforcements that easily, so you can only rebase your planes and your ships will take forever to get there)? It would be really hard to defend yourself, especially with the enemy bombing your tile improvements and starving your population while reducing your production.

Build some cruise missiles while you wait, they're cheap . . .

It's not a fault of the game if you weren't prepared to defend yourself within the rubric of the game.

[GePap]

further response

A blockbuster (also tallboy) is a 10,000lb-12,000lb
bomb, and a daisycutter is the largest dumb bomb we have. Both would do vastly more damage than a harpoon, a couple of mavericks, or a bomb 1/5 their explosive power.

As for you first point, this would be fine be me. The point of aegis is to provide air cover for a taskforce, so making it capable of taking out airthreats is extremely realisitc- in fact, we use aegis to make sure that other's air power does not sink our carriers.
I agree that nukes are vastly underpowered and I have complained about it in other threads that did complain about that issue (but they are old, so one one ever looks at them anymore)

barefootbadass:
Airplanes can sink ships, period. We can always give ships the ability to hit back, which would allay your fears. The fact is that carriers are the most important ships of all in terms of naval combat, not BB's (as much as I love BB's). What no one but me mentions, is that large bombers should not be able to be carried by carriers: this is simly insanity. A carrier carries six aircraft, and as I said, they should all be fighters. With a ROF=1, it would take 4 fighetrs minimum to sink 1 veteran BB, assuming they all hit, which is an assumption we don't have to make. So, realistically, it would take the entire airwing of a CV to sink a BB. DSo you realize how many more shields it took you to make that CV and its airwing than the BB? All those that attack the plane sinking ship idea seem to forget this. If I just wanted ship killing ability I would make BB's. The reason to make CV's (in civ and real world) is to be able to engage the others fleet without danger to your own (since a BB could be sunk by an ironclad ), and with the miserly range of fighters right now, a BB that sruvives could always seek to hunt down the CV.

Basically: Lets allow bombardment kills (which means a BB could sink with its long range guns). Take 2 BB's and a CV with 6 fighters. Bothh take almost the same number of shield to make. Start with the BB's being at the limit of the fighetr range. It would be unlikely that the CV would be able to sink both BB's in one turn, all the while the BB's closing in. If the BB's were able to catch the Cv and bring their guns to bear, they would have a chance to sink the Cv. That would be a very exciting battle to play out, from either side, and I would love to be able to play it out, but as is, i can't