aircraft carriers?

[eisey~]

back in the days of civ 2 you could really pile on the units, even missiles. but on civ3 i believe you can only place 4(?) units on an aircraft carrier. it doesnt seem like its as potent as a unit as it once was. if they up'ed its capacity to say 8 units (perferably more), i think it would add a whole nother dynamic to the game. you would have to have an escort and protect it at all costs and all sorts of good stuff. what do you think?

[notyoueither]

You can edit it.

For myself, I find carrier groups to be fairly lethal. Especially when combined with surface units. Note, I said groups.

[Guardian]

Originally posted by notyoueither
You can edit it.

For myself, I find carrier groups to be fairly lethal. Especially when combined with surface units. Note, I said groups.

Yes, you did say carrier groups.
Note, however, that in the real navy, a carrier group will usually have only one or two carriers.

As for me, I had a couple of carriers in the very first Civ 3 game I played, and their performance was such that I haven't bothered to build them since.

[Stuie]

I increased their transport capacity to 6. That way you can carry a couple fighters and four bombers - seems like a nice mix.

[Nick727]

I think making them able to hold 12 planes or other units would be about right but make em more exspensive.

[planetfall]

I agree with Stuie, load of 6 seems most balancing. 1..2 for fighters, and 4..5 for bombers. I tried with 10 for a while but both unbalanced as human had too much advantage and and not really needed. I have really down prioritized my use of aircraft bombers as AI always builds a ton of jets and interception rates of 1/3 make it not as cost effective as other options. It is actually more fun to have smaller targeted missions and multiple invasion points than just one big D Day type of invasion.

-- PF

[congobeast]

Another thought?

If you look at the number of combat groups aboard a carrier, it is actually fairly small. I think the problem lies not with the -number- of aircraft aboard a carrier, but in the -effectiveness- of the aircraft.

I've long thought that the C3 and PTW aircraft are grossly underpowered.

To that end, I've doubled both types Bombard ability- roughly-; and given both of 'em Naval Kill. That way, like in the Pacific Theater of WWII, they can actually sink ships.

[eisey~]

agreed

i agree with you, it does seem that planes don't have that knock out blow that they can have in real life. maybe the fault does lie in the effectiveness of the aircraft. i do however still think that capacity of 6 or 8 would definately be a lot better and as you've said "balanced".

[joncnunn]

The usefulness of Carriers depends upon the map:

In Pangena, they probably aren't useful at all if you start on the main land mass.

In Archepello, they are quite important, and given how long it takes to move them, you should start building them at or shortly after Battleships so that they are in proper position when your bombers start getting built.

Under contientantial, sometimes Carriers are useful, and sometimes they aren't. It's depedant upon the distance between those contientants.

If your playing America, 4 F-15s should be placed on each carrier. Otherwise, 3 Bombers & 1 Jet Fighter. 3 Carriers together with 4 Battleships is a nice group. (Optional: 2 Nuclear Subs or 1 AEGIS in the general area to spot enemy subs.)

[planetfall]

The Bomber vs Jet equation is hard to balance.

Default in the game has bombard too weak. If up bombard values of bombers to reasonable levels, i.e. 1/3 result in hits, then the AI really, really uses bombers. When you adjust by fixing intercept rate to about 40%, then it seems like bombers never get thru. The problem is Civ3 and also PTW don't allow for fighter air support on bombing runs. It is dumb that a WWII B17 will knock out a jet. They couldn't handle the primitive ME262's. A modern jet would take out 99% of incoming B17's. {Firaxis if "bomber" is newer than B-17, give us a new graphic to match}.

Additional problems you have if you add extra capacity on carriers:

1. harder to split up multiple strike forces with carrier base.
2. AI doesn't build very many of them and you get too much of an advantage

Bigger problem with carriers is:
1. can't base paratroopers
2. can't transport heliocopters

Remember both Air and Navy are afterthoughts for Civ3/PTW and not integrated like land forces. Maybe this will be fixed if there is a Civ4, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

At least now we can preference lethal bombardment.

-- PF

[FNBrown]

The inability to transport helicopters is a real shortcoming.

I usually boost my carrier capacity to 8. Four is definately too small for what I typically envision them as.

[Dida]

very true. 4 is way too small, given how inefficient the bombers are.

[Argos65987]

Has anyone tried to edit helicopters so that they are able to load onto aircraft carriers?

[Raion]

I just looked at it in the Editor, and I think that one would have to check the 'load' box, and that is all for the helicopters, about middle right side of screen of Units tab of the Edit Rules of the civ3.bix file, plus anything else like bombard at the bottom of that screen for units or different type of air missions, if wanted.

[Argos65987]

I figured the "load" flag, but I can't recall if there may be other boxes to flag (going from memory since I am at work and don't have the editor in front of me), such as "air unit", also, is there a box that says "re-base"?

It would help make carriers a great strike force if you could edit the carriers to load helicopters, then load up the helicopters and start attacking. Would be a great way to strike at enemy resource squares and radars.