Air Units -- How will they work?

[Jason Beaudoin]

I've been wondering whether Air Units will work much the same way as other units? I mean, you won't be able to combine Air Units into Air squadrons, right?

Has anyone every played HQ Command? It's a really old game that came out in 1990 (I think).

The way Air Units were used is that they were stationed on airbases or in cities, and their movement and attack would all be done in one fluid motion. All the user had to do was choose a target and the action would be done. (There was a chance that the mission would be unsuccessful, or that the plane would be shot down. These chances of unsuccess was dramatically increased with enemy planes stationed in nearby cities or bases.)

Wouldn't that be great for CIV 3?

[SerapisIV]

Interesting idea, being that their are land armies, what about combining fighters and bombers? I wonder how a bomber attacking a six-unit land army will be handled.

Here's another parallel point, can you combine ships into fleets?

Well, I really like the idea, but I do know that Firaxis has made no comment one way or the other. They've barely even mentioned any new game concepts in the industrial-modern ages.

[Inverse Icarus]

thats a nifty idea.

i could make a sqadron of my old fighters when i get stealth and send them off on a kamakazie

but i'm more interested in this ship fleet idea, being as i love navies in any game.

battleships have a "bombard" attack now. if this is anything similar to SMAC it means they cant do a "normal" attack. but i hope they can defend themselves well. stacking a few battleships some AGEIS crusiers, and 2 or 3 carriers full of fighters / bomber and nukes would be to die for.

[SerapisIV]

Hopefully fighter "alert" status will be fixed from SMAC. My interceptors, once I put them on alert always started flying randomly around the map for no reason, only to have the alerted base attacked by 5 needlejets that same turn.

[Inverse Icarus]

i also hope that fighters on a carrier can scramble, like they do in a city, providing 2x defence (or it is 4x... i forget).

anyway, it would make carriers easier to defend, if naval stacks aren't in / readily available to you.

[TechWins]

The airplane combat was very weak in Civ2. Only being able to attack once every two turns with a stealth bomber was almost useless. One time when I took over 2 big civs in about 5 turns I didn't use one of my planes. By the time I actual needed to use an airplane the airplane was so far away from where I wanted to attack because it was on one of my outskirt cities next to the opposing civ when I needed to use the airplane in the middle of the civ's land. I had a fairly large airforce and I didn't even get to use any airplanes. I hope the movement has been increased and the amount of refueling times has been decreased on airplanes. With this being done there could be more use out of airplanes.

[SK138]

I think it would be neat if when you got to modern times in civ3 that planes would almost be required. If you think back of just about all the wars after WW1, planes were a main element of the wars. In WW2, the bombing of England by Germany, than the day and night attacks on Germany by England and the USA, and especially dropping the atomic bombs on Japan to end the war, I think it would be neat if it was almost required to use planes to win. I think this would be a good idea, but the plane combat needs to be greatly improved than what it was in Civ2 or it wouldn't be fun.

[Lord Magnus]

Some suggestions for aircraft:
- Only other airplanes (fighters) or special "anti-aircraft" land units can attack/defend against airplanes. Use the suggested "one fluid motion" (ie: attack and if the plane survived the attack, have it return to base) and have it able to do the attack several times a turn if it can. To balance all this have the bombers only to damage to an unit instead of it having to destory it on one run. And units can defend against air attacks as long as they aren't destoryed.
- Have a smart bomb tech that can allow bombers to target an improvement or unit. Before this tech, bombers only inflict a little damage on everything.
- Have an aircraft that can carry units instead of relying on ships to carry units. They may not be able to carry as many units as ships but they'll be faster.
- Allow aircraft to "fly over" units and cities on the ground without having to attack them. I've noticed that AI sometimes likes to put a unit in the return path of my bombers to attempt to make them crash.

[Admiral]

fighters should be able to scramble over a two square radius like they could in SMAC. They could also be able to do this from carriers.

[Alinestra Covelia]

I hope they'll keep the 50% penalty for Air-to-Ground attacks that SMAC put in for Tacticals (Fighter) units.

In Civ2, in all my scenarios, any unit that can act like a Fighter is a very strong one, since it can attack so many times and at the same attack strength each time. Eventually I solved this problem by creating units specifically to defend against air, but that still didn't solve the "AEGIS cruiser fortified in every port as best available air defence" problem.

[SK138]

There are a lot of good ideas. I think the planes should scramble two spaces like they do in SMAC, and they should do it for carriers too, not just cities. I also think you should be able to buy certain areas of land from other civs and have airbases contructed. I like the idea that only fighters or anti-aircraft units can defend against other aircraft, but would that work or would it just make modern times in Civ3 complete air combat?

[Lord Magnus]

Originally posted by SK138
I like the idea that only fighters or anti-aircraft units can defend against other aircraft, but would that work or would it just make modern times in Civ3 complete air combat?

That's the way it works in real-life. But remember aircraft can't take over cities, so you still need land units to take over cities. Also it can be made that land units that can't attack or defend against air units can still hide in cities (although the city is still going to get trashed) or closed terrain (ie: jungles or forests) and take less damage. But in open terrain (ie: grassland or ocean) the units receive full damage. Aircraft will be best for the first assult that will knock out most of the military, making it easier for land forces to come in and take over.

[Lord Magnus]

BTW - I hope that in Civ3 they'll have a graphic of a bombed out city for cities that have been carpet bombed several times or have been layed seige by artillery. It'd look cool and make war more fun to wage as you see the city you're attacking slowly get crumbled.

[Marcus Agrippa]

lol That reminds me of something... the very BEST defense against nukes in Civ II is..... *drumroll*

Build an airbase in every sqaure around the city, and make sure you never have your own units in them!

This is the very best SDI, and you don't need any special tech for it. It has always worked for me... the enemy nuke gets to your city, but is automatically landed on an airbase one slot away from the target! lol Then, when your turn roles around, take out the nuke with any spare unit you have on hand in the city...

The success of this tactic always ammuses me. Your puny nukes mean nothing to my great nation!
"Our airfields are less expensive than Bush's hundred billion dollar MDS, and are literally infallible!"
Also, I enjoy using the long-ranged ICBMs to explore... they fly around in Russian airspace, only to return to their bases in Alaska.

Of course, Civ III should fix this. *sigh*

I think air units, when attacking ground units, would act in the same way as "bombard". A standard infantry unit wouldn't be able to fire back, but might be able to take cover and suffer only some damage.

[TechWins]

There's one thing that amuses me about airfare, that a land unit can travel endless amounts via railroad yet an airplane can barely travel anywhere. I know the railroad rules are in for gameplay purposes but why shouldn't an airplane be able to receive the same treatment? Many modern day stealth planes can travel almost half way around the world without a one refuel. What I'm proposing is that an airplane should have to refuel at some point but extend that time. Possibly make it around every 10 turns the plane will need a refuel depending on the type of plane. Something has to be done about making airfare more important because with the lack of moves airplanes are almost useless.

[Marcus Agrippa]

True.

There's another interesting aspect of realistic air movement... it should depend on the size of the map. A WW2 era bomber on a full sized map shouldn't be able to fly much farther than, say, London to Rome on a single bombing raid. That might be 12 spaces on a full-sized map of the world... but it might be 36 spaces on a zoomed-in map of Europe.

Thus, there should be an "Air Movement" factor for each type of real-world map. It could be 1/2, 1, 2, 3, etc. All aircraft would have that number multiplied to their movement. Of course, you could also simply edit the numbers for custom scenarios, but the AMF would be good for scenario-creaters who don't want to spend a lot of time changing the units.

[Jason Beaudoin]

To get back to topic...

When I used to play HQ Command (like i said in my previous message), air superiority was crucial in any combat operation, just as it should be in any modern combat game.

I do think something should be done about air warfare. It would be very simple to implement (as I've described it), and it would add so much to the game.

[Inverse Icarus]

the way i see it, fighters should have to refuel each turn, but bombers could be extended to 10.

[ancient]

my two cents; if a airplane is flying over a modern city/unit the enemy (if enemy) should have a chance to shoot it down (maybe 30 percent chance for unit 50 for city) as to make itr harder to penentrate into enemy territory avoiding confrontations

[Admiral]

That would be good, though it reminds me of the times the AI stealth bombers wwould sit outside my cities for turns on end.

There could also be in-air refueling, which would extend the range of fighters to that of a bomber.

[Trifna]

Maybe planes should be able to bombard other than units and cities. Think of the Kosovo war... Bridges, infrastructures, roads, etc, etc. Not only military units at all...

[General Ludd]

I agree that it'd be nice to have a longer flight time for bombers (and longer range for fighters) but I think 10 turns is too high, maybe something like 4-5 turns would be better, limiting the amout of times it can attack before refueling.... though using this system could cause problems with not being able to get back to a city in time, so maybe just an extended range would be better.

[TechWins]

Marucs your idea is good and has potential but it does have some flaws.

the way i see it, fighters should have to refuel each turn, but bombers could be extended to 10.

Maybe for fighters they have to refuel every two turns. That would enable them to go do their fighting then on the next turn they would have to refuel.

if a airplane is flying over a modern city/unit the enemy (if enemy) should have a chance to shoot it down

This could be easily implemented into a real time game but it kind of goes against some of the premises of tbs. Then again so does MAD. But I still don't think this idea would work out effectively.

Trifna, I wouldn't be surprised if bombers were capable of bombardment. They would most likely only be able to bomb the defencive improvements in the city (i.e. city walls, coastal fortress). This idea would add some realism and fun to the game, so hopefully bombers are capable of bombardment.

so maybe just an extended range would be better.

Airplanes should have extended range and less refueling requirements. Having airfare become important would add a lot more desirement having a great airforce. This would, in turn, increase the strategy of warfare by having another means of great warfare force. IMO this would add more fun to the game while increasing the realism.

I'm not sure if you people want that kind of stuff (more fun and extra realism) so I guess we should keep the airfare system the way it is.

[Inverse Icarus]

you know what would be real cool FIRAXIS?

if planes could fly OVER CRAP WITHOUT ATTACKING IT.

if there is a stack of howies surrounded by warriors, why do i have to kill the warriors first?

[Mannamagnus]

I agree UberKrux!

[Grim Legacy]

There is certainly room for improvement regarding air units. The semi-floating status of them in Civ2 had some interesting side-effects.

For example: a killer tactic to attack an enemy city would be to attack it with a bomber first. After that, the bomber floats on a square adjacent to the city. Now you can continue the attack with tanks/howitzers -from under the bomber! The ground army can no longer be attacked by the enemy and enemy fighters have to deal with strong tanks instead of weak bombers.

Of course, air units could also be used to let your ground units pass through enemy zones of control without any trouble (move a step with the plane, move a step with the armor etc).

I do hope these 'quirks' will be improved upon!

Regarding railroad vs air movement: perhaps it's finally time to step off the idea of unlimited RR movement.

[Inverse Icarus]

oh Grim, the topic of unlimited rr moves has been beaten to a bloody pulp here at apolyton.

and the way i would have it?

unlimited moves, but the units turn ends when its done.

example: use a goto command and point to a spot connected by rail, or maybe even make it like airlifts, move from city to city only.

i like that idea now. scratch the last one.

[Sandman]

Nobody's mentioned helicopters. Getting damaged every turn was a very crude method of dictating fuel allowances.

Maybe combining the helicopters with another military unit, like has been done with the catapult, instead?

[Inverse Icarus]

i always thought choppers should carry units (i wanted 2 helis, transport and attack)

and no, i think the taking damage thing worked, because if u didnt move the chopper, just skipped its turn (space) it would regenerate.