Is the Carrier too weak on defense?

[Master Zen]

Unlike land or air units, I've always thought of ships in Civ2 and Civ3 as individuals.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Unconquered
OFF TOPIC: Sometimes my post doesn't take, it shows up in here but doesn't move to the top of the list in General Forum... Any Ideas?

That happens when the server is under heavy load. Certain features of the board get turned off til the load lightens.

[MrBaggins]

Originally posted by Master Zen
Unlike land or air units, I've always thought of ships in Civ2 and Civ3 as individuals.

thats as arbitrary a position, as any other, of course...

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by MrBaggins
thats as arbitrary a position, as any other, of course...

No, it isn't. It's logical to assume that a "battleship" is composed of one battleship. Anything else is an arbitrary position.

If carrier units represented support ships too, why would you even need battleships, destroyers, and cruisers?

[pedrojedi]

Personally, I think it's fun to imagine that when you make a unit, you make *one* man only. It leads to funny incoherent things like in the first turns of the game, that you take 250 to 500 years to form and train a warrior, or later you taking 40 or 60 years to train a man with a sword.

Large combats are made between 2 to 3 dozen people, and maybe you can see how lucky you are when your *only* and *lone* infantry soldier takes out *one* and *lone* attacking tank. Or, in opposite situation, the *one* and *only* tank gets over the soldier and rules all the city *alone*.

Hey! Over there! Our hero infantry soldier wins over the tank!

[MrBaggins]

DP.

[MrBaggins]

The units can represent an abstract grouping, in which the 'lead ship'/predominant technolgy is... a carrier, or an Aegis Cruiser or... so on and so forth.

The Battleship is a case in point... it has a high defence... but that doesn't match common Battleship experience: the predominant form of intership combat is Guided missile, and not gunnery. Any ship with multiple SM-1-ER or SM-2-ER batteries would outperform this ship from a defensive viewpoint. Even a destroyer.

Since formations use interrelated defense... (ASW and AAW) no ship can be... defensively... 'an island'.

Multiple 'forms' of attack mean that no defensive value makes sense, unless its considered to be part of a mini-BG.

[wilbill]

Originally posted by Unconquered
When I think of a Carrier unit in Civ III, I think of it with all its support ships being there but invisible on the screen. I seems like the majority of players don't see it this way, they see it as a lone Carrier floating in the ocean. This is where the discrepancy is. If it represents the Carrier with all its support ships, because most units in the game do not represent just one unit but several units, then the defense definately needs to be higher...

There have been threads on the subject of "how many troops are in a Civ 3 unit?" and it appears that there are as many answers as there are players. If Firaxis ever offered an answer I'm not aware of it. I think basically, all the units are just abstractions, with values assigned for gameplay balance and other such considerations. I think of them in terms of Cohorts, Legions, Regiments, etc. If pedrojedi wants to think of them as one man, he's equally correct.
As far as Carriers are concerned, I think that if they were intended to represent a Carrier and all it's escorts, the unit would have been called Carrier "Group" or "Task Force" or something of that nature. Bottom line is that without modding it, a Carrier needs a strong escort to avoid a short lifespan.

[The Mad Monk]

I look at it this way:

A worker represents about 10,000 people; a settler, maybe twice that.

A galley can move two of those.

[notyoueither]

A settler is 10,000 people. That is the pop of a size one city, isn't it?

[Panag]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Panag, when do you intent to make a serious post?

D of 32? On what planet?

hi ,

one cruise missile should not be able to sink a carrier , .....

carriers are not sitting in every small port neither , there are not even fifthy in the whole world today , the AI tends to build more then that in a game , .....

with the increased cost and the higher defense and load the AI builds less

and by the way , ever walked on a carrier , you have to be mad to shoot at it during war , ....modern day carriers have an airwing and so many stand off weapons that a modern day carriers can take on almost surface or non surface ship in the world , ........

there are some people who play with mods inwhere carriers have a defense value of 48 , ......

have a nice day

[The Mad Monk]

Yep -- I said 'maybe twice that' because it takes two pop points (which should be...30,000 people) to make one in Civ III.

I guess it leaks people in transit...

[Daz]

I find the defense of 8 to be just fine. Someone said it already: if you're silly enough to move your carrier without escort you should see that as your problem, not the lacking defense.

Off topic: an airplane that is able to detect subs would be nice...

[TheStinger]

Mod it if you don't like it

[Panag]

Originally posted by Daz
I find the defense of 8 to be just fine. Someone said it already: if you're silly enough to move your carrier without escort you should see that as your problem, not the lacking defense.

Off topic: an airplane that is able to detect subs would be nice...

hi ,

indeed an air unit that spots subs and can fight them would be nice , an anti sub helicopter would be better , there should also be a frigate that can hold one of these , .....

have a nice day