DESIGN: Air Combat

[MrBaggins]

I was reading a post in the Civ3 forum, and remembering my experiences of playing Civ3, then thought about my latest CTP2 playtest game... and came to this conclusion.

Civ3 air combat is better.

that is...

Aircraft are "based", and missions get launched from those locations... and happen "in-turn". Aircraft don't finish hanging in mid-air.

The problem with aircraft hanging in mid air has been around since Civ2 (although that was fudged by ignoring AI fuel, IIRC.)

Basically... only units of one nationality can occupy a single tile. If you wish to do otherwise... then its best to design it that way right from the start, because its a massive undertaking to change after the fact.

The issue with this is partly believability, is partly an exploit, and also partly an AI issue. Believability-wise... the worst example possible is that aircraft (say fighters) can block passage of submarines, if they end their turn in the path of the sub.

This leaves an admittedly minor, although still obviously cheesy exploit. I used it myself... but then thought how cheap it was. I blocked a group of enemy subs from my sub, by a ring of aircraft, then bombed them, before finishing the last one off with my sub. My sub should have been killed by those subs, however.

The AI doesn't deal well with aircraft. Aircraft, as its been mentioned before, don't move like regular units. Aircraft basing and missions are far easier to deal with for the AI, than dealing with map movement and fuel and so on, and so forth.

CTP2... especially given the source... allows for a more sophisticated and rewarding enhancement to the Civ3 style system...

You could stack airpower... so fighters go along with bombers on their runs... also... we could include strike aircraft... like Stukas or S3's that could be included in strike packages specifically to suppress anti-air units.

I haven't thought too much about the orders attack and defense should take place... or how active air defense and so on should work given this... but I think its just a matter of making choices.

So... any thoughts?

[Kuciwalker]

YES

As a corollary to this, make air units not count towards the unit cap on the tile.

[Ekmek]

Mr Baggins,

I do agree Civ3 style is better. THe basing thing works. BUt if you guys hope to make it for CTP2 please also include some of the modifications that they've also added:

Not all bombing runs are lethal, they'll weaken but not kill. In Civ3 I've used this to prevent enemy attacks but cant totally destroy them which is a better simulation of air support, because Airpower doesnt destroy units but can make them combat effective.

People including me mod civ3 so bomber cant go on carriers only fighter (using air+tac mxl) this makes airbases have to be used and gives more purpose to fighters than just air supperiority.

Thats the other thing that'll need to be done (and improved on) the air supperiority and air defense. I've seen it work better in C3C and had plans shot down by fighters but Air defenses havent been that good.

Plus "precision bombing" where a bomber can target improvements would be cool too.

Finally as an improvement and like you said have specialty role aircraft. Like close air support, long range bombers, stealth. The way I mod it in Civ3 is to have heavy bombers with blitz ability (can bomb more than once in a turn) naval aircraft (fighters with weak bombard but do provide air support). Stealth fighters (have the hidden nationality flag so they can bomb, but not kill, when not at war like a flying privateer) and the Stealth bombers I actually use as long range, hit from anywhere bombers since they do a lot of missions flying around the planet these days (attack once, very expensive).

Jut some hints into how some people use airpower which I think can add fun to the game because I do think Civ2 and CtP2 moving planes isnt that great (but is cool for helicopters!)

[MrBaggins]

Agreed about non-leathal bombing. As a unit flag... of course... as it is in Civ3.

We should also retain the capability to perform full standard attacks by planes on other armies (in city or not.) That is that they are still able to fight "to the death", fully engaging with other troops, but also being vulnerable.

One of my favorite uses of airpower in CtP2 is a largish... like a 7 stack bunch of Stealth Fighters... direct attack on land units, and cities. They can usually decimate even a larger (pre SAM) force... they normally only have a problem against massive armies fortified in cities... especially since they turn veteran, through the process.

Bombarders should have a chance of becoming veteran, by bombarding, too...

Regarding modding what can land on a carrier... CtP2 already has a good in built system, that easily allows this change: it has a unit carrier flag, and allows specific movement type & size classes to be carried... thus you can specify being able to carry bombers, but not fighters, already. It even allows you to specify that the active defense of a unit (say the aircraft carrier) is enabled by carried units.

The only way the system could be improved, really, would be to allow for a couple more size classes... Tiny and Huge (alongside the existing small, medium and large.)

CTP2 has a great system of air superiority and air defense already... active air (plus land and sea) defense at a particular range, in particular... thus layered defense is possible. The only addition I'd like to see is the possibility of a unit flag, where the unit negates one active defense attack on the army its in.

The problem with the AI, is that its planes have a habit of falling out of the sky... usually only harasses with its airpower... and that the human probably has air supremacy, by the time the first AI plane is developed.

Agreed that four flags for ground bombarders, specifying if it targets population, city improvements, defensive improvements and/or units, would be an ideal and flexible way to deal with this... basically allowing for precision attacks, carpet bombing or whatever.

[Ekmek]

good stuff. Would the ctp2 AI be able to handle an immobile flag like Civ3 and just give the aircraft a longer bombard range (and anim)?

that could solve the fallout of the sky thing. And hopefully t handles artillery well since thats what aircraft kind of becomes.

[MrBaggins]

We can say with a large degree of certainty that the AI *can* handle immobile units... as per the immobile (0 move) militia in Cradle, for example... the thing you don't want to happen, however, is for immobile units to be grouped with mobile units and tasked with a particular siege or harrassment mission, for example.

As for ranged bombard... a flag is in place... but since its one in the case of every bombarding unit... I'm not sure how the AI would react. I could do a test with the cheat editor, I guess.

However... we don't want to use *that* method...

CTP2, as I mentioned, has active defense... for land, sea, and air. This means that when an enemy unit (of that particularly movement type) approaches within that range, then it automatically defends vs the approaching unit.

This makes for particularly useful and interesting defensive possibilities, like different ship types having different active air defense ranges, that take effect at range 3,2 & 1, for instance.

This does mean, however, that we can't just use a system of aircraft being immobile, and bombarding at range... the attack has to have a path, and hence movement, to determine if and where active defense is used, versus your attack.

[Ekmek]

I see I guess your looking at doing something like have the air unit be "immobile" but when it attacks it does and automatic move to x spaces, attacks, then returns to the base or something to that effect.


Yeah i like the active defense and wouldnt want to use it.

[tyrantpimp]

This might be slightly off topic but one of the things that allways bugged me was that theres only one carrier type in CTP2. Its kind of smallish too what do you guys think about super carriers and that sort of thing? Could make for some interesting situations.

[MrBaggins]

Only matters if we can get the AI to use airpower effectively, and more importantly, regularly get the game to the modern age, where the AI is on decent enough footing to build and use airpower.

[Tamerlin]

I agree with you MrBaggins, Civ3 air missions are far more realistic (ouch ! It hurts to say that!).

But I don't agree with you when you consider creating more units... the existing units are IMO largely enough. We should not forget that CtP2 is a Grand Strategy game and that the units must be rather generic.

[EDIT]The AI should also be taught how to use the Cargo Helicopters to transport troops.[/EDIT]

[The Big Mc]

What if when we make the reintegrate space we add a air zone above the map and below space adding more realism we could then interact directly between all there zones of planes simultaneously so you could air bomb a town then space bomb it too

I like the civ 3 idea but I am afraid I have to go with the bananas with wings.

[Kuciwalker]

I disagree that air units should engage in normal combat - how would they combat in any other mode than the one being proposed?

[MrBaggins]

Here's what I'm suggesting.

A few different mission types... including strike mission, and attack mission. (along with ferry and recon)

Strike mission would work as follows

• You select a strike package. A stack of air units.
• You choose the strike action, and a target, optionally including waypoints. The strike action is only available if all selected air units have the CanBombardLand/Sea flag.
• The units move (without blocking) along the designated path, to the target, until they reach their closest bombard range. ActiveAirDefense (which hasn't triggered yet, this turn) applies to them as they move, so they can be damaged, or destroyed, on route.
• The Bombard (and Counter bombard, if a free CanBombardAir unit is amongst the defenders) occurs.
• The strike returns along the same path. Active Air Defense does not apply.

Attack mission would work as follows

• You select an attack package. A stack of air units.
• You choose the attack action, and a target, optionally including waypoints. The attack action is only available if all selected air units have the CanAttackLand/Sea flag.
• The units move (without blocking) along the designated path, to the target, until they reach their target. ActiveAirDefense (which hasn't triggered yet, this turn) applies to them as they move, so they can be damaged, or destroyed, on route.
• An attack occurs, with the air units as aggressors and the targets units as defenders, using standard fight to the death rules.
• The attack returns along the same path. Active Air Defense does not apply.

[Protra3211]

AI is weak in air attack.

Like many units in the modern age with long range -the AI is weak in tactics and cant keep up with the human player.
Could you lower the stack count just for air units?
In my own games only use 3 air units at a time. AI attacks between 1 to 4 at a time.
I use a attack and retreat move -I play within the AI capabilities. This type of code change would make it a even game in air warfare.
Human player has tactics -AI has time to ajust for defence.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Protra3211
AI is weak in air attack.

Like many units in the modern age with long range -the AI is weak in tactics and cant keep up with the human player.
Could you lower the stack count just for air units?
In my own games only use 3 air units at a time. AI attacks between 1 to 4 at a time.
I use a attack and retreat move -I play within the AI capabilities. This type of code change would make it a even game in air warfare.
Human player has tactics -AI has time to ajust for defence.

Just because the AI has no idea how to cope with a specific feature is no reason to remove this feature, the way to go is to make sure the AI can use it. In particular from my obversation the AI has no idea how to stack units in general, or how to stack air stacks in particular. Peter wrote a whole slic script about the stuff to teach the AI to use its air forces properly and I think he was successful, even if there was some stuff that wasn't addressable by slic.

That was one reason why AI air units follow the air mission concept per turn, because there is no way via slic to get to know the current amount of fuel of a unit. Well there are some functions about it in the engine but obviously they aren't used. There is a out of fuel goal in the Goals.txt but that goal can't be used.

So no speacial unit limit for air stacks or no limit for air stacks, you cannot add to a certain amount of air infinitive units.

-Martin