carriers

[HazieDaVampire]

i changed things almost strait away, i just got id of the annoying bits that were making the game less fun!

[planetfall]

Firaxis has a problem with navies except for
settler transports. Offense is by ironclads and battleships. I have not seen the AI use destroyers or carriers.

Firaxis navy and air units can be very confusing. "ironclad" shows a graphic from the civil war, but movement is about 4x civil war period. They simply made a poor graphic choice and name for a non wooden ship before destroyers. Ignore their lack of knowledge.

Now, if they don't use carriers should I not use carriers? Yeah, like the Japanese did not use carriers at Pearl. Here is where I had trouble relating history to games carrier units. Japan had almost a hundred planes on each carrier and I am supposed to be happy with a few. Right!? The real problem with the default number of units is the micromanagement tedium in moving so many carriers. The other problem is a "bomber" is not a "bomber". A "bomber" is really a squadron of bombers. Each sortie is the squadron's sortie. Before I understood this, I upped carrier load to 25. But if do that then A) carrier is too powerful, and B) waste too many bombers on carrier.

I like using carriers. Presently I play with carrier load of 6. 5 for bomber squads and 1 for fighter. The fighters are one of the most ineffective units, even jet fighters. Air Supremacy, how do you know it is working. The one adjustment you need to make in preferences is to add recon ability to bombers. This is historical, US used bombers for sub recon during WWII off both coasts because it was cheaper and allowed more range than fighters.

The game is so shewed to land only warfare, what are you really going to do with your super carriers? Once you have landed, airports can be used for unit transport. (most anyway). It is too tedious to run 50 bomber squadron sorties each turn. Just use them as the Japanese, knock out enemy BS. Once you have landed, it is ok to let them die on the vine. What will the AI do with all the fighters against land- nada. Wasted production. Cool huh. Let them think they need fighters, just move your carriers around a bit and hit a few tiles, and their fighter production increases. Never seen an AI fighter attempt any ground sorties. Odds in this game are too poor.

[Jaybe]

planetfall, if you want to see if Air Superiority is working, then adjust the chance to intercept in Editor:General Settings to 100%. Then, if an interceptor is available, someone will likely lose a bomber. (Remember, intercept range is 1/2 of bombardment range).

[HazieDaVampire]

we did in the Battle of Britain too, we had Manchesters or some kind of bomber, i cant remember, with air-to-air radar.

[Jaybe]

In the game, an intercept does more than it did in real life WWII. It not only makes the bombing run a failure, but most likely destroys the bomber unit also.

In WWII, an intercept might have meant very little to the mission's success or failure.

[Jon Shafer]

There should be a way to 'escort' bombers to their missions. That would add a lot more to the air war, and give much more importance to fighter units.

[HazieDaVampire]

and an AI that knows how to do it, and all the other things that it doesn't know how to use!

[Jaybe]

Is it true that Recon missions are never intercepted?? Do I have to use fighter types to bombard to provoke a fighter-to-fighter combat?

My personal mods include increasing chance to intercept to 67%, fighter defense strengths are almost as high as attack (except for the F-15, where it's an 8/8).

[N. Machiavelli]

I've pretty much left stats as they are (except rate of fire, which I doubled to match HP doubling). But with 'lethal bombardment' turned on for bombers, Carriers become infinately more potent without any additional modding.

[HazieDaVampire]

Can aircraft spot subs?
Cuz you should be able to recon around an area when your trying to hunt out an enemy sub thats been hounding your shipping (it does happen!), just stick a carrier with some escort and you can recon away till you find it!

[NeoStar]

I wouldn't think so because they just sweep over - they're not physically in the area but you never know...hard to test

If they're really bothering your carrier just give it radar and detect.

[HazieDaVampire]

if you gave bombers radar and recon would they be able to fly over a target and detect it?

[Jaybe]

I think it's called "Spot Invisible" in the editor. Check out the charactaristics of the AEGIS Cruise to confirm (since it can spot subs).

I also think it is inappropriate. Build your own subs to spot subs. The AI does not do recon because it knows where you are, but has been programmed to ignore your submarine presence, except for collision occurences.