AU mod: Balancing Airpower

[Risa]

BIG NO to 1. It'll make AI's air force even poorer.
2 and 3 are interesting ideas, they're worth trying.

[alexman]

By removing lethal land from bombers, it will make the AI air force poorer?

I thought that the main problem for the AI is that it doesn't build enough bombers. Without enough bombers, getting enough hits to cause a kill is rare, so the AI will not be affected much by not having lethal bombard.

On the other hand, human players who concentrate all their bombers on a single target until it's killed will have to change their strategy to include some helicopters.

[sabrewolf]

how much would it help to give all AI "build often" flags for air units?

or would they just end up building more fighters and choppers?

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by alexman
I thought that the main problem for the AI is that it doesn't build enough bombers. Without enough bombers, getting enough hits to cause a kill is rare, so the AI will not be affected much by not having lethal bombard.

It depends on the size of the stack being attacked. AIs certainly can have enough bombers to kill the defenders in a city defended by just a couple units. Similarly, kills would be quite possible against a larger stack where only the first couple defenders are healthy and the rest were just injured in a battle. Take away lethal bombardment and the AI loses the advantage lethal bombardment provides in such situations.

As for how relevant that is, I haven't fought enough wars against enemies with bombers in C3C to know. (Indeed, I'm not sure I've fought more than one.) It might be a good idea to leave bombers alone for our first couple AU games until we get a better feel for how the AI behaves and performs under the default rules, at which time we can probably get a better feel for what changes are most appropriate.

[Risa]

Originally posted by alexman
By removing lethal land from bombers, it will make the AI air force poorer?

No, not because of this. It is giving AI two types of bombing planes that weaken their air forces, as they don't know when to use which.

[alexman]

Do you know that if the AI has a choice of building both air units, it builds a helicopter and a bomber with the same probability? I just tested it.

So what hurts the AI more? Building helicopters and using them for bombing, or building helicopters and just moving his troops around? I think the latter.

My vote:

1. Yes.
2. Yes.
3. Yes.

[lockstep]

1: YES
2: NO
3: NO

[ZargonX]

1. Yes
2. No
3. No

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by alexman
Do you know that if the AI has a choice of building both air units, it builds a helicopter and a bomber with the same probability? I just tested it.

So what hurts the AI more? Building helicopters and using them for bombing, or building helicopters and just moving his troops around? I think the latter.

The stock AI builds helicopters as often as Bombers?

[alexman]

When they are both available, yes.

Of course, Advanced Flight is usually available much after Flight, so the AI has often already has reached its quota of air units by the time it can build Helicopters.

[Kuciwalker]

Does the AI ever use Helicopters? If not, wouldn't removing all of the AI flags from it keep them from building it?

[Theseus]

NNN.

I agree with Nathan, let's leave it alone for now.

[Kuciwalker]

I like getting rid of the AI stragglers, though I do agree that bombardment with arty and then bombers is extremely powerful. I consistantly was able to destroy all of the defenders in a city. It doesn't help that arty only hits units.

[Stuie]

1. Yes
2. No
3. No