How to stop planes bombing your ships?

[Baggio]

Dun u all hate it when the AI bombs your battleships, destroyers etc from the safety of their coastal cities and u can't do anything about it?

Is there any way to counter this apart from having an aircarft carrier nearby? I have not tried it but can fighters do air superioirity missions from carriers and protect nearby ships? Or does it only protect the carrier like cities?

I would like to see an anti-aircraft naval unit, perhaps the AEGIS cruiser can take on this role.......in real life I remember the AEGIS radar to be an anti-missle and anti-aircraft capable.......thus it makes sense to be able to launch missles or at least VULCAN cannons to shoot down opposing aircraft doesn't it?

Let me know what you all think!

[aahz_capone]

Jets on a carrier protect the carrier and one square out I think. A bit like bombing around a city.

in civ2 AEGIS cruiser had aint aircraft ability.

[BlackStone]

I have only seen jets protecting the carrier, so I put the whole group on one square.

[Baggio]

Thanks for the recommendations......but it still irks me to have to stack ships with carriers so that they can be protected from air attacks.

Still feel that an anti-aircraft naval unit should be included! More realistic and less of a hassle.......imagine fortifying one of those things near your coastal city to help out in defending against enemy bombers!

On a side note, the interception animation could be improved with like missiles or something more spectacular rather than just 2 planes going 90 degrees with one another.

[ruby_maser]

Originally posted by aahz_capone
Jets on a carrier protect the carrier and one square out I think. A bit like bombing around a city.

I think it is more than one square radius. If this were true, air superiority around cities would not protect the outer ring of the cities at all and would leave them open for the AI to bomb with impunity. I don't think the protection area changes when at sea.

Anway, this is a reason to build more carriers. A well-coordinated attack takes a painful amount of micro-management, but it usually proves worth it to over-prepare from my experience anyway.

[Boris Godunov]

Ships already have a lot of power, and aircraft is relatively weak in Civ3 compared to how it is in real life, so I like it the way it is. Having an AA ship would just render aircraft even more useless. Consider it part of the challenge to keep your ships from getting blown to smithereens by the AI.

[Jaybe]

Air Superiority radius is 1/2 their operational range (2 for fighters, 3 for jets).

The trick is to know whether they are on AS or not, since when you Right-Click on the carrier, the fighters are listed with "Activate". You don't know whether they are on AS unless they do not come up in the move sequence.

[vmxa1]

Since they do not have lethal bombardment, I am not concerned about them.

[Madine]

jaybe is right.

Also, aircraft fail their bombing runs alot.

Is there a significant difference between having a carrier for air defense and having some other specialized ship for air defense? =)

[ruby_maser]

Originally posted by Madine
Is there a significant difference between having a carrier for air defense and having some other specialized ship for air defense? =)

only if you were to consider that the price of a carrier combined with at least two fighters on Air Superiority is would probably be more in comparison to a single ship built for that purpose and that a carrier slows down a whole fleet due to a slower movement rate.

[Ben Williams]

Sea battle leaves a lot to be desired in Civ3 anyway. I think that if a ship attacks another ship, nearby carriers should scrable their planes to engage them, like in real life. It would be great if you could get big navel battles going, involving multiple ships and planes at the same time. A good start at this might be making a naval equivelant to armies. Well I can dream, can't I?

[Jaybe]

Remember that the "Chance to Intercept Air Missions" is only 50% (Editor: General Settings: Various Unit Abilities). I have changed mine to 67%. Of course, stealth units default at 5%.

Interceptions usually DESTROY the bomber unit. To make it so hordes of bombers are just ineffectual against your ships, increase their defense strengths. To reflect the AEGIS Cruiser's air/missile/undersea defense capabilities, I raised its defense to a 12, making it almost as good an escort as a Battleship (defense of 16 in my little universe).

[Dis]

do carriers have less movement?

Surely that cannot be right. I served in the navy. And the carriers are the fastest ships in the navy.

[Carver]

Firaxis, as good as they are, blew this one. The main purpose of the AEGIS cruiser is air defence. The radar system can fire on more than 100 targets simultaneously. The sailors joke that in a real war (with Russia or somthing) they would basically put the ship on auto and sit back and watch. AEGIS should be for air defence, and destroyers should be for sub killing.

[Dis]

Yep the AEGIS cruisers are also designed to take the hits before the carrier. I don't think they really understood how vital the AEGIS cruiser really is to the navy.