Air Units: IF only we could make them realistic

[Barnacle Bill]

Originally posted by The Kaiser
All through Naval history countries have tried to keep there ships up-to-date by "Up-gunning" them to the latest standard. Notice the WW2 era Battleships that post war were fitted with anti-air missiles to replace their regular flak guns (i.e USA Iowa class). So I know this is going to sound a bit bizarre, but if a Galley has survived through to the modern era, how do we know it hasn't been fitted with the latest light-weight SAM missile defense?

This is basically rediculous. A WWII battleship with upgraded electronics and air defense systems is a valid modern unit, and is properly represented in a game like this by having a modern version of the battleship unit to which the WWII version will upgrade. Galleys and sailing ships would not be modern units if upgraded with SAM launchers. Allowing their upgrade to modern units would represent scrapping them and building new modern ships, and since Civ ships are so slow compared to real life (a modern ship can sail around the world in less than 1 year), that is OK. If the AI is keeping them around when it has the tech to upgrade or replace them, though, it should get slaughtered. If the AI isn't building modern units because it lack the tech, it should also get slaughtered. Isandwalla was an isolated incident involving a very unusual circumstances and a British unit probably smaller than what is represented by a single Rifleman unit in Civ3. Something so rare as that should, statistically, occur at a rate less than once per game. Even at that, in involves spearmen vs guys with single shot rifles. Had this occurred with a WWI British infantry regiment (i.e. Civ3 Infantry rather than Rifleman) equipped with the usual compliment of Vickers heavy machineguns and the standard load-out of ammo (remember, at Isandwalla the Brits started with a standard load-out but the problem was the standard loadout was small at the time and they had a problem resupplying under combat conditions), then the Zulus would have died to a man without inflicting a single casualty. If a galley had a go at the Bismarck, the battleship's secondary armor would have blown the galley out of the water before the gun crews could "see the whites of their eyes". If the battleship crew was laughing so hard they kept missing, the ram would just bounce off the armor anyway.

[Colonel Kraken]

Originally posted by korn469
Faeelin and grrrr

first thing there isn't even 5k f/a-18's in any one nation's arsenal . . . second thing is THAT NO NATION USES GALLEYS! plus a B-17 COULD NOT! sink an Aegis Cruiser! so just allowing airpower to sink naval units does not balance the game

even an entire roman legion at its height could probably be dispersed by some riot police with waterhoses and tear gas, much less by well positioned special forces calling in napalm or cluster bomb strikes on the legion in the middle of the night

Funny, point well made Korn.

[cutlerd]

The problem is you cannot have your cake and eat it too.

You have some of the same people whining about the fact that tech advances are prorated based on how many people have the advance also whining about phalanxes versus tanks.

The fact is that, to paraphrase Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men and another thread in this forum: "Realism....you can't handle realism"

If you wanted realism, there would NEVER be F-15s versus galleys because the tech system would be tweaked so that inside of X years EVERY SINGLE CIV would have every tech heretofore discovered.

The value of X would likely be large in ancient times and as low as 2-5 years in modern times.

Civ is constrained by the need to allow at least some sort of tech advantage over the other civs in modern times while still trying to make the game playable for those civs that fall behind.

How does one manage both of those necessities?

Civ3 has tried by working both in to a halfway extent.....by making tech costs lower when more civs have the advance and by giving lower tech units some chance against higher tech units.

Is this realistic? Nope. But who the hell would want realism in this case? Is it realistic to make higher tech units always kill lower tech units but at the same time not also model the proliferation of technology that comes about in a modern society?

France invented the tank. Within 5 years thereafter almost every nation in the world had tanks. Same with warplanes. In a modern society, as information transfer becomes easier, it is almost impossible to maintain much of a technological edge. Sure, it can happen, especially for refinements to basic technologies, but not to the actual basic technologies themselves.

In a realistic civ world advanced units would always wipe out primitive units, but you'd almost never EVER see that situation because EVERYONE would have advanced units.

But how fun would that really be?

Devin

[Atahualpa]

at least make it an option that bombarding units can destroy units (all units from workers to military ones)

[The Kaiser]

Barnacle Bill:-

Reading your post I'm unsure which side of the argument you fall on, but my last point about the upgraded Galley was supposed to sound a bit ridiculous. I'm just trying to imagine in my minds eye Roman Legionnaires on the top deck equipped with Stinger Missiles.

Cutlerd:-

You make some interesting points about the sharing of technologies in the modern age, which got me thinking that maybe a "Wonder" that's works a bit like the Manhattan Project might be in order for Flight.

As you mentioned it would be easy for a rival Civ to observe the fundamentals of a technology like flight just by watching it in action on the News Reels etc. This perhaps would help to create a more even playing field between the haves and have-nots in the tech race part of the game.

The problem with flight in Civ3 is, as I touched on in a earlier post, a little too powerful in some areas, particularly against a Civ that doesn't have flight. If you wage war against a Civ that has not developed flight then you can almost cripple their infrastructure in 5 or 6 turns easily. There should be some defense against the bombardment of your improvements, even if that doesn't involve your own Air units. But if you had a new Wonder like suggested earlier you could create an extra EarlyFlight advance equal to perhaps WW1 Biplane Units which could be built by everybody, and then the more advanced WW2 class units would only be built by those who have researched the Flight tech.

Or alternatively I really think they should enable Artillery units to fire as Flak at incoming bombers and then have a chance of shooting a bomber down, maybe then the Civ that shot the plane down could acquire the EarlyFlight advance by looking at the wreckage. After all there was lots of technology crossover in both World Wars by analyising Aircraft that has been shot down whilst bombing the enemy.

It just seems so unfair that you have no chance of shooting a plane down in Civ3 unless you have developed Flight yourself, not even if you've developed Artillery.

[cutlerd]

I don't know....I viewed in some respects the CIV3 bombing of roads and wiping them out as less destruction of the roads and more strafing and interdicting movement upon them.

Had it turned out in history that one nation had military capable flight and another did not, I would have to imagine it'd be a lockup for the civ that had flight. Yes, small arms fire would down some, though not enough to matter on the scale of CIV, and it wouldn't be too hard I suppose for the victimized non-flight nations to re-gear their artillery to fire vertically and develop fuses for their shells.

I agree that perhaps artillery (not cannons) should have a chance for air defense....a sort of pathetic SAM.

But aside from that, I am interested that you think the bombing of roads and improvements aspect too powerful. Why do you think that? My experience has been that the bombing of roads and improvements is generally limited by range to the front lines or just behind them, and usually those areas aren't that built up or productive anyways given that with no ZOCs, enemy troops infiltrate and pillage anyways with or without planes.

I personally find airpower in CIV 3 to be about right play balance wise in that it has its own unique niche in the game such that I feel the need to build aircraft but not so dominant that I forego other units and not so useless that I never build them.

As far as realism goes, I wouldn't kick and scream if aircraft had a chance to sink ships (not kill ground units....only ships) and if ships had some AA fire back at the aircraft. I also would like to see fighters able to escort bombers so that we could see some dogfights.

Devin

[Grrr]

One aspect that is good that has been fixed in Civ3 is the "invinsible stack" function of placing a bomber on a stack of ground units, and rendering them unattackable.

[Grrr]

Originally posted by cutlerd
I don't know....I viewed in some respects the CIV3 bombing of roads and wiping them out as less destruction of the roads and more strafing and interdicting movement upon them.

But aside from that, I am interested that you think the bombing of roads and improvements aspect too powerful. Why do you think that? My experience has been that the bombing of roads and improvements is generally limited by range to the front lines or just behind them, and usually those areas aren't that built up or productive anyways given that with no ZOCs, enemy troops infiltrate and pillage anyways with or without planes.

I don't find the destruction of tile improvements as much a problem as the fact that one warrior can pulverise a city bigger than New York in a matter of minutes. I mean, I don't see how you could use a club to destroy the pyramids. It would take you millenia!

[cutlerd]

Originally posted by Grrr


I don't find the destruction of tile improvements as much a problem as the fact that one warrior can pulverise a city bigger than New York in a matter of minutes. I mean, I don't see how you could use a club to destroy the pyramids. It would take you millenia!

Well a matter of minutes is pushing it. Try a two year turn. Now, is two years enough?

Well, let's postulate a group of, say, 5 thousand to ten thousand teen agers armed with molotov cocktails, lead pipes, and cigarette lighters. Give them 2 years of unopposed access. I am willing to bet they could make of even modern New York a wasteland in that amount of time.

Devin

[The Kaiser]

Ok so you do have to divert production to produce the bombers in the first place, but once you have 5 or 6 unopposed bombers you can do some serious damage. If you deny the enemy any oil resources and knock out any harbors to stop trading, then you have a real strangle hold that is difficult to break even if the enemy develops flight themselves. And if the enemy tries to mount a ground assault they get pulverized as soon as the stick their heads out in the open.

All this without the bombers receiving a scratch!

I've convinced myself even more, Artillery definetely needs a flak capability, nothing too strong but just enough to ask a few questions of the bombers.

Oh, and also if bombing irrigation is to be allowed then it must be classed as an atrocity, as crops could only be destroyed biologically from the Air.

[GeneralTacticus]

Originally posted by The Kaiser
Oh, and also if bombing irrigation is to be allowed then it must be classed as an atrocity, as crops could only be destroyed biologically from the Air.

I don't think so. I would say that blowing up irrigation is more likely to represent wrecking the water supply than than just bombing the fields. Oh and if you tried, I bet you could kill a sh*t load of crops using a few incendiary bombs.

[Grrr]

Originally posted by The Kaiser
Oh, and also if bombing irrigation is to be allowed then it must be classed as an atrocity, as crops could only be destroyed biologically from the Air.

Acctually, in WWII, bombers did great damage to land, with craters rendering it unmachinable, and large parts of the crops buried in debris. Furthermore, irrigation canals were often either totally flooded or dammed up by such action.

Originally posted by cutlerd
Well a matter of minutes is pushing it. Try a two year turn. Now, is two years enough?

Well, let's postulate a group of, say, 5 thousand to ten thousand teen agers armed with molotov cocktails, lead pipes, and cigarette lighters. Give them 2 years of unopposed access. I am willing to bet they could make of even modern New York a wasteland in that amount of time.

Devin

There's one key requirement missing, ALCOHOL ! However, even though they would render the place uninhabitable, I believe, there would be enough squatters left to call the ruins a "city".

[MrWhereItsAt]

QUOTE]There's one key requirement missing, ALCOHOL ! However, even though they would render the place uninhabitable, I believe, there would be enough squatters left to call the ruins a "city".[/QUOTE]

No no NO!

Alcohol is a luxury, no, THE luxury!

And if you want the AI to fight back, give them Flight!

Now watch everyone disagree with me.

[Cookie Monster]

Well since no one answered my question from yesterday I decided to do a little experiment on my own.

It turns out that if you send a fighter on a bombing mission into a region that is known to have enemy fighters on air superiority mission then a "dogfight" will ensue. I shot down 3 enemy fighter planes this way.

Thanks to you all for helping me with this......


Further more, I don't have a problem with the air system in Civ3. So what if you can't kill a unit off through air attacks. Show me a case in history where a single plane or a squadron for that matter eliminated an entire division of troops, sank an entire fleet of ships, without the aid of support attacks from either ground units or ships and I'll change my mind about this. Not even the mighty Soviet Air Force could wipe out the 6th Army that was trapped in Stalingrad. Chuikov and his boys had to roll in with tanks and troops to eliminate the emaciated remains of the German 6th Army.

Now the only exception I can think of is when fighters were able to destroy the Death Star with a single proton torpedo in the exhaust port.

Have a nice day

[cutlerd]

There are many instances in the Pacific campaign of WW2 where aircraft sank large numbers of ships without direct support of ships on their side. In fact, one of the revelations of WW2 in the Pacific was that Battleships were obsolete and useful only as AA platforms and to perform shore bombardment in support of invasions.

There is a reason, in fact, why the US has not a single Battleship in its fleets now.

Try:

Pearl Harbour
Taranto
Coral Sea
Midway
Leyte Gulf

You are, however, correct with regard to the efficacy of aerial bombardment against ground troops. Even the largest carpet bombing episodes of WW2 did not completely wipe out divisions of ground troops. What they did do was render them ineffective for combat, which CIV3 models quite nicely.

Devin