Is this possible? SAM suggestion...

[=DrJambo=]

I was just thinking over a better way to employ SAM defence other than the useless SAM site.... After much mulling and pondering i eventually came up with this idea..

-Copy cruise missile unit
-Select Land unit since if Air is selected the cruise missile strategy can't be selected.
-Select cruise missile so it will be destroyed when it attacks.
-Select air superiority and re-base missions.
-Give it an operational range of 2-3 (city radius)
-Select immobile (apparently this has to be done to force AI to use air missions). Although i am toying with the idea that i wouldn't need to...depends on AI and whether it would indeed work?! If it did then the carrier could have these loaded on it too.
-Don't select bombard or give it bombard stats.
-Give it an attack value of say 8-10.
-Give it -1 hp since it is only a missile?!
-Make it cost 50 shields say?!

Reckon it'll work?

I haven't tested this, but i see no reason why this shouldn't work. I already have a longer range Tomahawk missile included in my Mod, which has many of the same abilities as above but is an offensive weapon and so also has:

-No attack value but bombard stats (8,8,4; half strength cruise but double my cruise range).
-Bombard selected.
-Has Precision Bombing and Re-base selected.
-No operation range.

This makes a great alternative missile to the cruise and the AI uses it to great effect!!

It doesn't load onto ships or the carrier, which it what i wanted, but the re-base gives it great variance over the cruise which does load onto ships. MAin difference being the cruise isn't immobile.

[zulu9812]

You can have Cruise Missiles as air units. It was discussed at another thread.

What I do is this:

Cruise Missile
Type: Air
Cost: 12
Bombard Strength: 16
Bombard Range: 0
Bombard ROF: 4
Air Missions: Bombing, Rebase
Unit Abilities: Cruise Missile, Immobile, Stealth, Tactical Missile,
Lethal Land & Sea Bombardment

Nuclear Submarine
Type: Sea
Cost: 14
Moves: 8
Trans. Capacity: 4
Attack: 10
Defense: 4
Special Actions: Unload
Flags: Naval Carrier & Naval Missile Transport
Unit Abilities: Invisible, Transport Only Aircraft, Detect Invisible,
Transport Only Tactical Missiles, Ranged Attack
Animation.

That way, nuclear subs can transport cruise missiles, but not aircraft. They can be reloaded simply by rebasing the cruise missile from the city to the nuc. sub. Also, carriers are unable to transport this cruise missile.

If you want, you could have a 2nd type of cruise missile:

Interceptor Rocket
Type: Air
Cost: 10
Attack: 12
Defense: 4
Air Missions: Rebase, Air Superiority
Unit Abilities: Cruise Missile, Immobile, Stealth

Not flagging it as a tactical missile means that subs cannot carry it, but cariers and airbases can.

[=DrJambo=]

Ahhhh some excellent stuff here Mr Zulu!!!

In hindsight, what i was actually meaning was the cruise missile strategy for the AI, rather than the actual cruise missile ability.

You see, when you highlight it as an Air unit, the cruise missile tag gets greyed out. Therefore, my question to you would be how does the AI use these? Does it use them effectively and as intented since my main concern when modding is not to give the human any advantage over the AI?

IF so, then i really like your suggestions!

Also, does listing the Nuclear Submarine with 'transport only aircraft' not then mean that it can carry aircraft!? IF so, then that would be daft... however, you later say that this isn't the case... why is that and does this then confuse the AI?

Oh and lastly, why would the Interceptor rocket need stealth?

Thanks for the feedback and great information!

[zulu9812]

1. As far as I know, the AI will just use this cruise missile as an aircraft that just happes to die - i've seen them use the first cruise missile. Dunno about the Interceptor Rocket - i just made it up for the reply - but the new Cruise Missile is in my mod and the AI does use it, to somewhat nasty effect!

2. The Cruise Missile is tagged as a tactical missile and is an air unit. The Transport Only Aircraft tag, combined with the Transport Only Tactical Missiles, allows the sub to only transport this Cruise missile and nothing else. Trust me, it works.

3. Stealth reduces the chance of it being shot down, but fair enough - an air superiority unit wouldn't need it.

[=DrJambo=]

Thanks again chief, you are helping me out here big time.

Because the cruise missiles you use don't have the cruise missile strategy tagged, and the AI uses them like aircraft, does this then mean that they use them to bomb improvements? Normally they only use missiles to bomb navy or land units, and if they started using them to bomb improvements it would be a bit of a waste... OR maybe not, to tell you the truth i don't know whether that would be a waste of them or not?!

However, maybe because they have the tactical missile ability tag and/or the cruise missile ability tag they won't use them to bomb improvements. Sorry if i'm confusing things here, just trying to work out what difference taking away the cruise missile strategy tag makes, if any?!

Cheers once again.

[zulu9812]

Actually - you might be right. I've only seen the AI use this Cruise missile to pillage improvements, but they might use it to kill units as well. My games usually finish in the Industrial Age, so I don't get to Cruise Missile stage that often (unless i play on). I'm in the middle of a game right now so I can't really test it out, but you could - make it buildable from the start of the game (i.e. no tech or resource prereqs.) and see what the AI does with it.

[Catt]

Slightly Different Approach

I've done something somewhat similar.

Modded Cruise Missle: Range 4

Modded Nuc Sub: Carries up to 4 missles (nukes or cruise)

Modded Aegis: Caries up to 2 cruise missle (not nuke)

Modded Battleship: Carries up to 1 cruise missle (not nuke)

I went with the cruise missle as a foot unit rather than the air unit to avoid the air superiorty / stealth issues, and I have found the AI to use them on cities, units, and improvements.

I also experimented with longer ranges for the cruise missle, but found it unbalanced play considerably since naval units (with unmodded ranges) were constantly being wiped out before they were able to approach enemy territory (at least AI navies approaching mine! -- the AI didn't seem to make enough cruise missles, or move them into position using his rails to attack a large approaching fleet).

Does the AI use the Tomahawk or longer range missles effectively (the way I assume a human does) -- i.e., w/r/t naval forces, keeping a large supply on hand to destroy approaching naval units before they can attack?

[=DrJambo=]

Yes, so far the Tomahawk missile is the one i have seen the AI use very effectively. The reduced strength means that it doesn't imbalance the game like an increased range cruise missile would

The AI builds both of them in equal amounts.

Still considering an anti aircraft 'air superiority' SAM to replace the current defunct SAM site.

[zulu9812]

The Tomahawk's the anto-air unit?

It's cool that the AI uses both

[zulu9812]

Re: Slightly Different Approach

Originally posted by Catt
I went with the cruise missle as a foot unit rather than the air unit to avoid the air superiorty / stealth issues

Didn't a lot of missiles get shot down in the Gulf?

[Catt]

No, I think far more failed to launch successfully and achieve cruise than were shot down. IIRC, those few that were shot down were shot down by AA as oppoesed to aircraft (although this may have more to do with the fact that Iraqi air presence was so limited very early in the war).

In any event, I should have been clearer in my reasons for using the foot unit flag rather than just saying "air superiority / stealth" -- just didn't have time to make a long post.

I like keeping the CM as a foot unit that can be moved from cities onto terrain (for instance coastlines) or forward into battle situations, as if mounted on mobile launchers. I also like CMs to be loadable onto surface ships and submarines. But, I don't like the idea of replenshing subs with CMs when the subs are across the world and at sea (if I'm not mistaken, going the 'air unit' route allows you to rebase directly to subs?). In order to both move on land outside of cities and onto sea vessels, I couldn't tag CMs as an air unit as easily as tagging them as a foot unit (i.e., would have required a lot more work for me in the editor).

Catt

[zulu9812]

You're right - the CM can rebased to the other side of the world, but then again so can aircraft and neither is particularly realistic. The reason for tagging the CM as an air unit was that I got fed up with them being destroyed by the ever-omnipotent spearman.

[Carver]

There's a ton of good info in this thread but...

Is this possible?

Can Firaxis fix the SAM improvement so that it actually does something?

[=DrJambo=]

The SAM site does nowt!!! I had a city bombed repeatedly, so i built a SAM site to counter this and...... nothing changed, the city still got bombed repeatedly.

Same with the coastal fortress, that seems to do bugger all too.

Will hopefully get a chance to try out the defensive missiles soon...

[zulu9812]

If coastal fortress had lethal bombardment, it'd certainly be worth building. It has to be the most useless improvement in the game.