Fixing the Air War in Civ 3

[Jon Shafer]

Colonel D., I agree that we should be able to target specific parts of a city. That would add a lot of depth to the air war. However, I think the way that air units are 'based' out of cities and have to be sent on 'missions' more realistically represents how they were used. You don't just have air units flying about all over the place non-stop, you have to arm them with ammunition (they don't carry all that much heavy ordinance), and need to be refueled constantly. That's not like a Rifleman or Infantry unit, which holds thousands upon thousands of rounds of ammunition and can just march about the land. You do bring up good points though, and I do think that various aspects of the air war (i.e. more missions, picking of a specific target [tile improvements, unit in a stack or building in a city], more air units and a longer modern 'air era') need to be added or tweaked to allow air units to be more useful and powerful.

[seano1]

The only really criminal omission is that there’s no non-sheath jet bomb, the counterpart to the jet fighter. That way you have 3 generation of strategic and tactical aircraft.

That being said, they could add WW1 era fights and bombers. One problem is that, to be historically accurate, they’d have to suck, or at lest be much more useful for recon then bombing. Another option is Zeppelins. They’d probably need to have a %100 change of being intercepted to represent there vulnerability, but they could be effective against a country without flight.

Also carriers should only be able to carry fighters, not bombers. The US is the only country that ever uses full size fighters from carriers. Maybe they could make a super carrier unit that could carry bombers and make it the national unit of the Americans.

Another thing they could add is an air transport unit, that could drop units anywhere with in its, very long, range.

[publius]

the only change i would make is to increase the bombard values of the current units... i think they should be much more destructive. but i'm glad air units don't have lethal bombard against land targets... this would unbalance the game.

what i would like to see is an attack chopper unit... it could still operate within the air combat system as it is now, but instead of bombarding enemy targets it would attack... this way it could be destroyed during its attack but it could also kill land units. it would also have to be very vulnerable to other kinds of air units. the idea is to set up a kind of late industrial cavalry.

maybe a pure recon plane/spyplane would be nice too.

[SultanofATL]

If they added a new unit like a radio man who could call in air support or bombing runs, I think it would solve our problems. Where ever he is he can call in an air strike to the adjacent squares. If not in his countries radius there must be a carrier with the specific air craft on board. It could be like an army. You take a great leader and make a squadron. You add air craft up to three into it. Once you do so you can then send the leader out to where you want the strike to take place. He has no defense so you would need foot units to protect him. Now the air war in CIV III finally exists. What do you guys think?

[Theodrik]

Originally posted by seano1
The only really criminal omission is that there’s no non-sheath jet bomb, the counterpart to the jet fighter. That way you have 3 generation of strategic and tactical aircraft.

Agreed. They missed the boat (airliner?) with that one.

That being said, they could add WW1 era fights and bombers. One problem is that, to be historically accurate, they’d have to suck, or at lest be much more useful for recon then bombing. Another option is Zeppelins. They’d probably need to have a %100 change of being intercepted to represent there vulnerability, but they could be effective against a country without flight.

Actually, it wasn't until late in the war that either side had interceptors that could fly highand fast enough to catch a zepplin. The (german zeplins at least) carried up to 4 machineguns for defense, making them tough targets. Thing is, by the time that high flying fighter were available, storms had destroyed most of the airship fleets. Being iron framed and filled with flamable hydrogen, well.....

Also carriers should only be able to carry fighters, not bombers. The US is the only country that ever uses full size fighters from carriers. Maybe they could make a super carrier unit that could carry bombers and make it the national unit of the Americans.

nice idea for a UU. IF the Americans last that long, dangerous they will be.

[candidgamera]

Re: Moving Air Units

Originally posted by Colonel D.
The first thing I'd like to see in improving the air war in Civ 3 is to return to us players the ability to actually move our aircraft again! It is so frustrating to fly a recon mission only to find out later your fighter overflew that carrier task force, but apparently did no see it!

Moreover, what is more frustrating than to hit a ship at sea with a heavy bomber and then realize you need yet another fighter to perform recce so you can bomb the ship again in the same square? If we could physically move our air units we could perform armed reconaissance missions as occurs in real life.

Thought from the read me of 1.21 they fixed this - if not - dissappointing.

Like the basic mechanics laid out Colonel. Reminds me of how air combat worked in GDW Scortched Earth/Fire In The East. Bomber boxes as "air armies" basically. Like the idea of a dialog box for assigning constituent unit missions. The other thread, but that would be great for "fleets" especially or ground armies for that matter. Like how the game would be more interactive when taking on an incoming bombing raid - seems this would require a significant change to the way the turn structure is handled in the game - not that I'm against the idea though.

Some other points, am playing with now:

*Currently playing with bombers, airports, carriers, and paras only available with advanced flight. Air units are then inherently weaker until getting advanced flight, and prevents airlifted troops in "1914". Think I make helos come with rocketry now also.
Aluminum comes with flight now.

*Make it now so bombers and stealth can't fly off carriers.

*Anti-Aircraft: the building air strength that gives the SAM site its attack against air seems very under utilized - I give a smaller value to other buildings. Factory 4, Nuke Power Plant 6, for example. Why this "air strength" wasn't added to units - especially ships I'll never know (let's put the AEGIS cruiser in the game, but not give it any ability to take on aircraft - no excuses for this, its just stupid). Haven't tested this with 1.29 yet, so don't know if it will crash game, or get ignored - hidden hard coding related to SAM.

*Give air units more than 1 move, this gives them the ability to stage and then do a combat mission.

*bombers get the recon mission - this was silly to leave out in the basic game.

*Give bombers lethal land bombardment. Ask the survivors of Panzer Lehr Division after the opening of Cobra whether bombing is lethal. Just because bombing is lethal doesn't mean it kills all the time if hit points/rof/missions are managed right - bump up industrial/modern(except arty) hit points by 4-6 with a base scale of 2-4-6-8 - my mechs have veteran 12 hit points for example.

*Have made my fighters much more deadly also.

[Barchan]

These are all excellent ideas, but I think some may be a wee bit complex for the scope of the game. I don't think the game needs a plethora of new units or abilities to spruce up the air war, but it does need a few changes to the way it currently implements air missions. Some are more simple than others, but I doubt we'll see any fixed.

1) Not enough time between props and jets. Advanced jet fighters should become available later in the game than they currently do.

2) There should be an advanced jet bomber, which would become available in an advance just following jet fighters.

3) Include escort missions. Currently, CAP missions only protect the city or carrier where the fighter is based. Escort missions would allow the fighter a chance to intercept an enemy interceptor anywhere within its maximum range (if the range were halved, it would pretty much make this option useless).

4) Allow for combat recon. When a bomber or fighter attacks a square, that square should be “explored” for the rest of the turn. However, only recon missions will reveal the larger 2x2 (or 3x3?) area as currently implemented.

5) Allow for target selection when bombing cities. This should be extremely limited before jets (i.e. target population, improvements or troops) and should have a roughly 50-50 chance of hitting the intended target type (meaning when the bombs do hit something, 50% of the time it’ll be what you were aiming for). With jet fighters and bombers, this success rate should increase to 75%. With the advent of stealth, you should be able to pick your target specifically (i.e. barracks) and hit it 90% of the time.

6) Include group missions. Ideally, a pop-up screen would show where you could click a radio button for each unit you wanted to include in the mission. You’d then get a target cursor and pick your target. If it were a city, you’d get the pop-up mentioned in paragraph five for your specific target selection.

7) Allow workers to build airbases. This should have been in there from day one.

I’m sure there are tons of other things that could be included or done, but I think these would be the quickest and (presumably) easiest fixes to implement.