Air Naval Combat for Firaxis and Modders and You

[Willem]

Originally posted by panag
Okay , thanks but what about the increase in range for example

okay , in editor there are just to many fields like the one for range who have a maximum , could this be overcome somehow ?

I haven't had a chance yet to get to the aircraft yet, to busy modding other things, so I'm afraid I can't answer your question. By the sounds of it, 8 is the max movement, though I'm not sure if there's away around it using the bombard.

[Panag]

"nope"



anyway thanks in advance
maybe you shall get it or i or some-else , in the mean time i can just hope , snif , snif


have a nice day

[GePap]

On Carriers

Fighters in Carriers should be assumed as being in 'intercept' mode, and behave the same as fighetrs in cities, attacking any enemy aircraft that come into their range.
I don't agree that bombers hsould be penelized when attacking ships- land-based heavy aircraft where extremely powerful vs. warships in WW2, which is why unescorted fleets near enemy land was a big no-no. The change must be that no bombers on carriers, ever. This would make combat in the middle of the ocean different from combat near coasts, where the threat of land based aircraft comes in. It would also make Amphibious landings more difficult vs. an enemy still in control of their airspace.

I agree that planes should sink ships, and modern ships have AA value. Again, if a sam battery( a building improvement) can battle aircraft, why not an aegis cruiser?

I agree that ranges of ships should be increased, thought this can be done with the editor as is. Air ranges do need to go up significantly, with it varying by map size.

I think a few more units would make sense, but not hat many:

Have a warship equivalent of the caravel- thus bringing in naval warfare earlier. Give it no bombarment ability though.
Change ironclads into pre-dreadnaughts (mainly cosmetic), since thats the class of warships (armor ships from 1862-1904) that it really simulates. Divide transports into two types. Weak defense, civil cargo ships in the early modern age- since troops were carrie in cargo ships- an then make them into amphibious assault ships in the modern age.

As for modern warships, two new types, cruisers and divide the destroyers. An early destroyer, to simualte early small ships from 1900-1945, with the current destroyer simulating missile armed DD's after WW2, and cruisers, to simualte Dreadnaught era middle-class warships up to MOdern times, until the Missile era.

At last, more picky change would be to divide nuclear from pre-nuclear carriers, though it is not crucial in any way. The diff would be range, defense, and the size of the airgroup.

[Panag]

hmmmm , it all comes to just putting in blank spaces in the editor , for not only an illustration but also for the unit itself at least 32 should be given so that we can atleast give every civ an extra unit and make some new ones for everyone
they should really think about it at Firaxis

have a nice day

[Willem]

Originally posted by panag
hmmmm , it all comes to just putting in blank spaces in the editor , for not only an illustration but also for the unit itself at least 32 should be given so that we can atleast give every civ an extra unit and make some new ones for everyone
they should really think about it at Firaxis

have a nice day

Just get the Civ3MultiTool and add them yourself. Why should Firaxis have to worry about that, Gramphos has already done it for them. Now if they could incorporate his tool in thier editor, now that would be nice.

[notyoueither]

AirRange: Maximum Operational Range in editor needs to be greatly increased from the current 8. To what, 16? 32? 64? Why is it so limited now? You can adjust Movement up to 100. This is a bit different from increases in actual *standard* bic file settings as distributed by Firaxis/Infogrames (they should increase some too). Large increases in the range of the value for this variable will help modders.

Helicopter Unit on Ships: Hmmm. I don't have any thoughts on this at the moment. Anyone care to propose abilities and stats?

New Units: It seems that we would have many votes for Cruisers.
Assault Ship. Copters inherent in it. Good graphic potential.

More importantly, the spaces for modder created units need to be increased. I'm under the impression that this is something that would be done before Firaxis is *done* with the editor.

Salve

[notyoueither]

GePap.

Cool. You're right about the concern in navies for enemy land based air. But was it as effective as torp and dive bombers, plane for plane? The thing about Air Force as opposed to Naval air would be the sheer numbers that an Air Force could bring to bear. It is a delicate balance, and hard to get right.

Salve

[Willem]

Originally posted by notyoueither
AirRange: Maximum Operational Range in editor needs to be greatly increased from the current 8. To what, 16? 32? 64? Why is it so limited now?

I was thinking about that this afternoon. Now I'm playing a 256 X 256 map. The world is about 25,000 miles in circumference, making 1 square equivalent to about 100 miles. I just had a look, and the range of a B2 Stealth bomber is 6000 miles unrefueled, meaning 60 squares. So yeah, I'd say that the range needs to be increased just a tad .

Helicopter Unit on Ships: Hmmm. I don't have any thoughts on this at the moment. Anyone care to propose abilities and stats?

If you're interested, here's some graphics someone over at Civ Fanatic did for a Helicopter and sea transport. I haven't tried it yet so I don't know what they're like at the moment.

[MikeV]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Helicopter Unit on Ships: Hmmm. I don't have any thoughts on this at the moment. Anyone care to propose abilities and stats?

You can use the standard civ3edit tool to do this.

Under "Unit Statistics," if you give an air unit a non-0 "Attack Str." value , then under "Air Missions" enable the "Interception" Air Mission, the "Air Defense" option becomes available under "AI Strategies, Air", and you can enable it.

Similarly for "Bombard Str.," "Bombing," and "Air Bombard."

Then, they can be Carrier-based.

So, you could just put in a token value of 1, never use the enabled command(s), and get carrier-based assault choppers! Unfortunately, so can the AI!

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by MikeV


You can use the standard civ3edit tool to do this.

Under "Unit Statistics," if you give an air unit a non-0 "Attack Str." value , then under "Air Missions" enable the "Interception" Air Mission, the "Air Defense" option becomes available under "AI Strategies, Air", and you can enable it.

Similarly for "Bombard Str.," "Bombing," and "Air Bombard."

Then, they can be Carrier-based.

So, you could just put in a token value of 1, never use the enabled command(s), and get carrier-based assault choppers! Unfortunately, so can the AI!

What behavior does this result in? I am not conversant enough with the editor to be able to tell. The Choppers would be intercepting Bombers?

Anybody?

I looked at the graphics Willem. Good for the Chopper. But it is more like a very fast ground unit. I'm not sure how it fits into the Air Sea combat system.

Salve

[Willem]

Originally posted by notyoueither


What behavior does this result in? I am not conversant enough with the editor to be able to tell. The Choppers would be intercepting Bombers?

Anybody?

I looked at the graphics Willem. Good for the Chopper. But it is more like a very fast ground unit. I'm not sure how it fits into the Air Sea combat system.

Salve

Damned if I know.

I'm glad to here about the Chopper, I want to add an attack unit to my game, though I'm thinking more of a land based thing. I can't understand why they didn't include one.

You should check out Civ Fanatics, there's a few people there using Flicster to make new units. Some are pretty good, you might find something you like. There's a guy who calls himself Dark Sheer who takes requests if you have any photos. He does really good work. I've asked him to make me a Polynesian Outrigger as an early sea vessel for Expansionist civs. No transport capacity, just exploration.

[MikeV]

Originally posted by notyoueither
What behavior does this result in? I am not conversant enough with the editor to be able to tell. The Choppers would be intercepting Bombers?

Basically, it just enables the command(s) and their icon(s) [at the bottom of the screen] for such units. You don't have to select those commands, just because they're active. Choose the normal (a)irdrop mission, just as you did before.

[korn469]

i just updated my mod and i recommend it to all of you who want to make fairly drastic changes to the naval and air parts of the game...try it out and tell me what you think ok?

you can find the thread for it here

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=34508&perpage=30&pagenumber=1

[Solver]

notyoueither and others:

Something about those Jets... ever tried making a mobile defensive airbase? Make 4 Jets, put them on a Carrier, and send near your costs, with Jets on the Air Superiority mission. Works pretty well, should the enemy bombard from Carriers, or bombard coastal cities.

And by the way, I'm thinking now. What if only some planes could sink ships by bombarding? Say, Bombers and Fighters can't, only Jet Fighters and later aircraft can. This thought is independent, despite the other like posts here.

And, I have to mention, in my mod I've slighly improved Helicopters, with better operational range and larger carry capacity, to make them of some real use, as a unit.

Also, with the current Editor, you *can* restrict planes from landing on carriers. Looks weird, but you can. To do that, give a plane reasonable movement (like 4), uncheck the Immobile attribute, and uncheck the Re-base mission. Thus, the plane will move like any ground unit, able to get to cities, but will not be able to re-base, thus, will be unable to land on Carries and/or cities on other continents. However, this might be too weird, and I certainly wouldn't like to see such a unit in my games .

Willem, nice to see you remember the SMAC Choppers. Really, make a Chopper with a huge gun, give it the Nerve Gas ability, and another one, if you can (Clean, Wave, or Sophorific (sp?) Gas), and you have a unit that will reduce enemy cities to size 3 within a couple of turns. And, if the enemy has got enough units in there, you'll just destroy the city.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Solver
notyoueither and others:

Willem, nice to see you remember the SMAC Choppers. Really, make a Chopper with a huge gun, give it the Nerve Gas ability, and another one, if you can (Clean, Wave, or Sophorific (sp?) Gas), and you have a unit that will reduce enemy cities to size 3 within a couple of turns. And, if the enemy has got enough units in there, you'll just destroy the city.

Yes I know, they were way to powerful. And I never even used Nerve Gas. Once I was able to build a few of them, it was pretty much the end of the game, since I was able to defeat everyone fairly easily after that. It wouldn't have been so bad if the AI would have used them as well, but it didn't really, at least not effectively. So there wasn't much of a challenge after that. I'm glad they put these limitations in frankly, though I can understand why other people wouldn't.