How do I defend against bombers?

[Yohan]

I have a fighter set to air superiority, hoping that it'll catch the bomber that keeps bombing the surrounding squares. Fighters have a operational radius of 4, which is halved to 2 for defensive purposes according to the manual. Well? Shouldn't this fighter automatically scramble to intercept bombers ala SMAC? These bombers have been flying sorties over my cities with fighters in them for over 20 turns now, and I've yet to see a bomber get intercepted/shot down. What good are fighters if they don't intercept bombers?

[Grunthex]

I seem to recall there is a CHANCE for interception, it's not automatic. If you're being bombed as much as you say, I would imagine you'd have seen some though. Unless they're stealth bombers, where I think the interception chance is only 5%.

[David Floyd]

Which, BTW, is entirely realistic, certainly before radar at least...

The good ole Mark 1 Eyeball didn't give much early warning

[Yohan]

Harumph, I say! 1 to 3 bombing runs each turn for more than 20 turns and not a single fighter scrambles to intercept? Until proven otherwise I'm declaring this a bug, especially after reading a thread in the "help" forum stating the same problem.

[David Floyd]

(assuming no radar)

"In a rousing speech before Parliament today, Winston Churchill declared the failure of the RAF to successfully intercept German bombing raids over England to be a 'bug' in the war, and has chided Germany for 'exploiting this bug to its advantage, hence cheating'. No response as of yet from Berlin, although it is reported that Adolf Hitler and Herman Goering laughed their asses off before 'exploiting the bug' one more time to destroy Manchester."

[Yohan]

(since the assumption of no radar during the Luftwaffe's air raids over Great Britain is entirely false)

"Historians were astounded to discover today that previous records of Germany's Luftwaffe experiencing heavy losses during the Battle of Britain were entirely fabricated. Apparently during all of their numerous bombing runs over England, the Luftwaffe didn't lose a single bomber, eventhough the Royal Air Force had plenty of radars, human spotters, and fighter planes with which to intercept. Even more astounding, a computer game entitled 'Civilization III' helped unearth this amazing historical snafu."

nyuk, nyuk, nyuk...

[David Floyd]

Well I'm assuming there's no radar at the time period you are talking about...I would assume since there is no radar advance, radar isn't simulated until the time of SAMs and Stealth...but who knows I'm just being a smartass anyway don'ttake me seriously...I'm one of those people who almost never forays out from the OT

[civplayer]

It's nice to see I'm not the only one noticing this problem. I wonder if perhaps planes are actually being intercepted but the game just isn't reporting it to us. That doesn't seem likely though as I had 3-4 fighters based in a city and was attacked *numerous* times over many turns from the air.

I do know I get a notice when my own bombers are intercepted.

[civplayer]

I'm really surprised I'm not seeing more posts on this because for me it is the single greatest problem with CIV III....maybe for some people out there this is NOT an issue and is working correctly? Could someone verify this please?

[Sarxis]

This issue is really starting to pop up around these forums. I think as more people are turning the difficulty levels down a few notches ( ), they are able to achieve the flight techs and notice the Air Superiority bug.

I am almost certain it is a bug, because even when I set the % to intercept air missions to 100, my fighters STILL won't intercept.
At least, it doesn't look like they are intercepting.

And I agree- this one thing is really breaking the game for me. All the other little stuff isn't as bad, but this is just torture.

[civplayer]

Thanks for the verification....it kind of makes playing the Americans with the F-15 pointless....

[Frugal_Gourmet]

Bombers: Impossible to defend against...

I'm the same way... I have not yet been able to shoot down ANY bombers. It's so freaking annoying!

They just pick apart my civ without my being able to do anything.

[shammy]

amen to that..
I have 7 jet fighters in first city, and 7 more in second city, both cities have SAM defences..
still the enemy bombs both of these cities and mines etc in the city radius with REGULAR (ww2? or so) bombers.. huoh and my fighters wont do jack when ive put em on air superiority.
even in ww2.. england could see incoming bombers in radar and fairly early enough to scramble fighters.. and we are talking about JET fighters now.. and even if in some strange way they would be fast enough to bomb and turn away, JET fighters could easily catch them and shoot them down.
and one other thing,. why wont SAM missile battery do anything on those bombers either? regular bombers entering the citys radius would be a SNACK for modern SAM missiles