How do Intercept and Air Supremacy really work?

[Wormwood]

Ok, so I'm a newbie when it comes to Civ3 air combat, but if my understanding is correct, this is how it is:

A fighter on AirSup. attacks only ground units attacking the city (or area of operation?)
A fighter on AS does not attack incoming bombers

To have a fighter set up to intercept any incoming bombers, does one need to have a fortified fighter in a city? Should one have at least two fighters in a city, one for AS and one fortified for interception? Given the poor bombard ability of a fighter, is it worth it to have it perform AS?

I know these might seem like sophmoric questions but this is all vey confusing. any help would be appreciated.

[planetfall]

Isn't funny how everyone "understands air combat" until you start asking questions?

Originally posted by Wormwood
Ok, so I'm a newbie when it comes to Civ3 air combat, but if my understanding is correct, this is how it is:

A fighter on AirSup. attacks only ground units attacking the city (or area of operation?)

This can't be as AirSup mission is different from bombardment mission.

A fighter on AS does not attack incoming bombers

But this seems to be the primary mission of AS both in my understanding and in game play.

To have a fighter set up to intercept any incoming bombers, does one need to have a fortified fighter in a city?

Now that is interesting, what are the options for fighters?
-- bombard
-- skip {this turn}
-- AS
-- {relocate}
-- fortify.
-- can you sentry,"y", a fighter, fortify til enemy within range?

Is there any game play difference between Fortify and AS? Doesn't Fortify put unit to sleep and require manual wake to reactivate?

Should one have at least two fighters in a city, one for AS and one fortified for interception? Given the poor bombard ability of a fighter, is it worth it to have it perform AS?

I know these might seem like sophmoric questions but this is all vey confusing. any help would be appreciated.

Poor bombard ability, yeah, I'd saw about 1/50 for a road. Guess the designers never saw any WWII footage.

AS does work vs bombers. But how do we get fighter vs fighter action? Fake a fighter bombing run? But won't AI just wait for bombers and let the ineffective fighter bomb missions go unchallenged?

We have questions, anyone have better answers?

-- PF

[Thrawn05]

Re: FIRAXIS: label change request

Originally posted by planetfall
Since "Air Supremacy" implies supremacy for all air combat, both defensive and offensive, it would be less confusing to have "Air Supremacy" relabeled "Ground Defense".

Why not call it Air Interception mission?

[planetfall]

Re: Re: FIRAXIS: label change request

Originally posted by Thrawn05


Why not call it Air Interception mission?

Because it does not intercept defending fighters. It only intercepts attacking bombers.

Bomber Interception would work, though.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Wormwood


A fighter on AirSup. attacks only ground units attacking the city (or area of operation?)

No. Only a bombing mission attacks anything on the ground.

A fighter on AS does not attack incoming bombers

No. Attacking incoming bombers OR fighters on a bombing mission is exactly what Air Supremecy does.

To have a fighter set up to intercept any incoming bombers, does one need to have a fortified fighter in a city?

It must be given the Air Supremecy mission. A fortified fighter does nothing except sit on the ground exactly like skipping its turn only automaticly. They do not contribute to defense in anyway.

Should one have at least two fighters in a city, one for AS and one fortified for interception? Given the poor bombard ability of a fighter, is it worth it to have it perform AS?

Whatever you find works for you. The AI tends to have a lot of fighters. I rarely bother with fighters as they get shot down fairly often by bombers. I do build Jets. They make the kill most of the time when they intercept a bomber they have more range and a better chance on a bombing mission as well. I tend to be on the offense by the time the AI is using bombers so I am rarely defending my cities against bomber runs.

[Ethelred]

Re: Re: Re: FIRAXIS: label change request

Originally posted by planetfall


Because it does not intercept defending fighters. It only intercepts attacking bombers.

Bomber Interception would work, though.

It intercepts ANYTHING on a bombing mission including fighters. Thats one of the uses for a fighter. Send them on a bomb run to use up the Air Supremecy defense units. THEN send in the bombers. If all the Air Supremecy fighters were used up on the bombing fighters then they won't be available to attack the bombers.

Thats as close as you can get to a fighter escort. Fighters first then the real bomb run. Fighters are really lousy at bombing missions but they are good at handling the air defense.

I just send in the tanks now and forget about bombing most of the time. That lets me take the cities intact. That method works best when you are going to eliminate the victim fairly quickly so you don't have to worry about culture flipping except in the short term.

[planetfall]

Re: Re: Re: Re: FIRAXIS: label change request

Originally posted by Ethelred


It intercepts ANYTHING on a bombing mission including fighters. Thats one of the uses for a fighter. Send them on a bomb run to use up the Air Supremecy defense units. THEN send in the bombers. If all the Air Supremecy fighters were used up on the bombing fighters then they won't be available to attack the bombers.

Thats as close as you can get to a fighter escort. Fighters first then the real bomb run. Fighters are really lousy at bombing missions but they are good at handling the air defense.

This is why we need a relabel. Air Supremacy implies this mission is to fight for total control of air space. This would include challenging non-bombing missions: recon and other civ's Air Supremacy missions.

I have only been setting fighters on recon missions and AI does not seem to challenge those. I will have to try "bombing" with fighters and see if there is any response.

I just send in the tanks now and forget about bombing most of the time. That lets me take the cities intact. That method works best when you are going to eliminate the victim fairly quickly so you don't have to worry about culture flipping except in the short term.

Agreed, I used to waste too much time for bombing missions. Doesn't make sense anymore. BUT they are extremely helpful for getting that first foothold on a distant continent. Once there it's airlift time.

In current game I was trying to remove the 2 tiles each of oil and alum from Greece. I was trying to use bombardment until I had time to get units over there.

Discovered an interesting technique that was most effective in this game:

Situation: Greece had a few MA and my panzers were no match. Greece was ahead in score and in productivity. We were down to 4 civs, each on it's own continent: Greece, Rome, Japan, and Germany.

Strategy: MPP with Japan. For about 40 turns everyone ganged up on Greece as they were about 300 score points ahead and about 3..5 tech ahead.

Result: Greece went communist, and other 2 civs sued for peace. I could not as no money and too far behind. So landed at coastal alum spot and put up a city with 1/2 alum inside borders.

Tactics: used bombers to remove roads around oil and other alum. Only about 1/2 of time successful. Greece really jumped from 8 fighters to over 30. I was loosing too many bombers and could not continue that way.

So I brought over 2 MI armies. Planted 2 over one oil. That left 1 oil and 1 alum on other side of continent. Previously I try to take out cities on the way to the strategic resource, but did not think I had the power this time. Instead I tried a stack of 5 MI and 5 panzers. Ignored the cities, ignored the MA attacks, ignored the cruise missile hits and marched for 6 turns of 2 tiles per turn over to the 2nd oil. I did get there, but lost a couple units and most were down to 1-3 HP. But without regular lost of bombers, I am now able to remove oil from Greece.

In about 4 turns I will have enough money to try to buy a spy and see the effect of this hard work. Surprised it worked. Late in this tactic, I realized I might as well use the extra move of the panzers to remove improvements on the march to the oil.

Still not up to Greece, but now am making progress. For Greece I will retire bombers and only use a few fighters. I won't disband because may need for Rome or Japan.

I haven't had a game like this where Greece took off at the end of the Industrial Age. Looks like best strategy is to get rid of Greece, or at least knock down during Middle Ages.

--PF

[Jaybe]

Re: Recon missions not being intercepted

... as the AI never NEED recon, Firaxis probably thought ...

[planetfall]

Double checked definition of AS by Firaxis and AirSup does NOT include fighter escort of bomber missions. Boo Hoo.

No wonder my stack of fighters had no effect. Ethelred is correct, the only way to use fighters as escort is to proceed bomber strikes with fighter bombing runs.

I sure would like to see PTW or civ4 with a better balance between ground/air/sea. Civ3 is obviously all about ground.

--PF