Air Power in CivIII ?!?!

[ivujosev]

I know this has been discussed a few times, but!

1) Have you ever defended against an enemy interceptor while bombing with a Bomber, i.e. destroyed the interceptor?

2) Have you ever defended against an enemy interceptor while bombing with a Jet Fighter?

3) Have you ever sent Figters/Bombers to flush out interceptors by bombing a particular square. Find that there is no interceptor nearby (within 3 squares of the bombed square). Then send your helicopters, to the same square, only to see them intercepted!?

My answers for the questions in SP are ALWAYS
1) NO
2) NO
3) YES

Anyone had different outcomes? Is is just me or is air power in the game really badly unbalanced?

[WarpStorm]

For me it is usually:

Yes
Yes
No

It's just you.

[RGBVideo]

Anyone had different outcomes? Is is just me or is air power in the game really badly unbalanced?

It is.
Then again, most games are over by the time I get necessary techs.

[CerberusIV]

1 Yes

2 No, I switch to stealth bombers and ignore interceptors

3 I never bother with helicopters. Send in MI, not paratroops.

[Jaybe]

1. Bomber defeats interceptor: Yes, once many moons ago. The interceptor may have been a fighter (not jet), I don't recall.

2. Have you ever defended against an enemy interceptor while bombing with a Jet Fighter?
Yes, quite OFTEN. OTH, I have increased fighter defense strengths to 'offense strength minus 1' to enable this offensive air superiority role (F-15 excepted where offense/defense are both 8).

3. Fighter sweeps performed and then have bomber (not helicopter) intercepted:
On occasion. If it didn't once in a while I would be disappointed.

NOTES: My mod includes increasing chance to intercept to 67% (from default 50%). I may reduce jet fighter defense strength to 6 as my latest game involved TOO MANY successful fighter sweeps (7 defense + 10% = 7.7, though I am not sure that the 10% is applied in air-air combat).

[ivujosev]

phew, going by those first replies i thought i was the only one but i'm glad you posted Jaybe even if your experience isn't as extreme as mine.

i suspect the glorious stories of that bomber defending against the fighter spread like bush fire throughout your lands.

anyway after posting i changed the jet fighter defence to 6 but left the intercept rate the same for now. too early to decide if its working yet.

[ivujosev]

oh another thing. has anyone found a use for the stealth fighter?

if so would you be so kind as to let me in on the secret of its purpose, apart from being an impotent half price stealth bomber?

[CerberusIV]

I will use a couple of stealth fighters for recon missions but that is about all.

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by ivujosev
oh another thing. has anyone found a use for the stealth fighter?
...

The stealth fighter is fine, it just came with the wrong values.
Give it a bombardment strength of 8, keeping the RoF of 2 & range of 8, and it's just fine.

This way it is weaker than a bomber, but its other attributes make it a valuable adjunct to your air force.

To make a long story short, following is a list of all my changed air units (stealth bomber not changed):

Unit: A/D; B/RoF; Range (changes in bold)
Fighter: 4/3; 2/1; 4
Stealth Fighter: 0/0; 8/2; 8
F-15: 8/8; 6/2; 8
Jet Fighter: 8/7; 4/1; 6

[Jarvin]

1) I did defend from a jet interceptor with a bomber... just once, and i was so suprised i soiled myself.

2) I dont use fighters to bomb, they fail too much.

3) I dont use helicopters.

[ivujosev]

I only bomb with fighters to flush out the interceptors. And don't remember the last time they actually managed to damage anything. Like I said if there are interceptors, my fighters just burn.

Regarding helicopters I thought I'd give them a try in my latest game. So far I'm not impressed.

Thanks for the stats Jaybe.

On a side note, is there a way to change the game rules for saved games. I.e. change the bix file and load an old game while having the new rules?

[Sava]

I haven't played a game yet where the computer has air units

[Unconquered]

Has anyone ever seen a SAM intecept anything... I haven't

[CerberusIV]

Originally posted by Unconquered
Has anyone ever seen a SAM intecept anything... I haven't

If you mean intercept an AI bombing one of my cities then no. I've never seen the AI bomb a city.

If you mean an AI SAM shoot down a human player bomber then yes. I actually lost a stealth bomber to a SAM once and have lost a bomber a couple of times.

I do use air bombardment heavily and that is three losses in hundreds of bombing missions so I would not say it is a significant factor in the game.

[TheStinger]

I use bombers but my fighters pretty much restricted to recon