Air-Bases...anyone miss these?

Echo · November 29, 2001, 11:39

No option to build airbases with workers puts a real dampner on bombing the nearest city that is just one square too far.

Anyone having their style cramped from this one?

mtgillespie · November 29, 2001, 11:42

It also might have made the paratroopers range slightly more sensible, if they could leave from an airbase at the edge of your borders.

Dominator_Jones · November 29, 2001, 11:46

I agree. I used to have islands with nothing but an airbase on them to extend my range globally.

Frito · November 29, 2001, 11:50

I wouldn't mind being allowed to build airbases again. I usually play on standard maps so If my cities wouldn't reach my carriers would.

PR_Flack · November 29, 2001, 13:21

I really miss airbases, they were a critical part of my Civ II strategy. Airbases -- and the ability to base paratroopers and/or helicopters off of aircraft carriers -- would make the game much more realistic. The power of airborne units has already been downgraded in Civ III, additional basing options would partially alleviate that problem.

Jack

sachmo71 · November 29, 2001, 15:06

Yes, I wish they still had airbases. Especially if they made them hold a limited capacity of air units, and made them BOMBABLE. Kewl stuff.

smellymummy · November 29, 2001, 15:21

airbases where ok, and I was dissapointed that I couldn't build them, but carriers are able to do the job well enough. Also, airbases where easily lost, and judging by the way the AI wages wars, if I built and used airbases, I'd be loosing many bombers - unless I'd build the bases deeper within my borders, which at this points defeats the purposes asides from having a centralized location to store aircrafts.

codemast01 · November 29, 2001, 16:20

Another idea that might extend range is the ablility to base in a allied city. Also being able to takeoff, attack and then land in a different city would also extend the range of aircrafts (besides it is more realistic). I'd also like to see the F117 steath fighter replaced with something that can actually do air superiority missions (F-22 Raptor perhaps)

Shiva · November 29, 2001, 16:24

Yep, I miss the airbase also.

Andy91 · November 29, 2001, 16:30

Airbases are a real key that is missing in this game. Paratroopers and helicopters are much less usefulwithout airbases to give them a forward position to deploy from.

TrailerParkJawa · November 29, 2001, 16:31

I miss the airbases. I did not use them often in Civ2 but when I did they were handy.

I really liked putting one onto an island that was only a single terrain square in size. Especially one that was a few squares of the coast of your enemy. Feels sorta like B-29's at Okinawa, or
B-52's at Diego Garcia.

Jeannette · November 29, 2001, 16:40

I totally miss airbases. So did the U.S. airforce before they took Kabul recently. And remember Malta in WWII? Realism, anyone?

Pyrodrew · November 29, 2001, 16:58

The same reason air units cannot sink ships might be the same reason air bases were left out... they feared it would make the air units too powerful.

But why couldn't they just make the airbases more expensive or take longer to build? Why couldn't they simply increase the attack/defense or life of naval units to make it harder for air units to sink ships? Or perhaps make air units more expensive if they felt they were too powerful? Removing features is not a good advancement for Civ3.

They could have definitely made the non-wind naval units faster to make naval units more attractive as well... is Miss Daisy on all those naval ships?

Kolyana · November 29, 2001, 18:35

Look at the current war in Afghanistan ... we're fighting for and gaining key cities and ... AIRBASES.

Yes, I'd like to see them in the game .. they bring another strategic element.

Can you imagine a game with fortresses with a proper zone of control, outposts that are proper outposts and airfields?

Geez, talk about lots of strategic possibilities.

Raleigh · November 30, 2001, 03:47

yes, i miss them esp. since cities are such a pain to hold on to with all that corruption/unhappiness.

Venger · December 1, 2001, 03:57

I mentioned long ago I missed them...

What made Civ2 so great was it took what was great in Civ1 and added to it, giving us a wonderful, if imperfect, variety.

Civ3 adds some stuff, but reduces some stuff, with kind of a zero sum gain element that you wind up scratching your head going "why'd they take that out??"...

Variety is the spice of life...give us the old airbase...

Venger
P.S. I truly think the reason so much of Civ2 is left out of Civ3 is because there is MUCH more of the SMAC engine in Civ3 than you might expect. Much more...so much for a from scratch game, it's a SMAC Civ strapon...

bahoo · December 1, 2001, 10:24

Quote:

Originally posted by smellymummy
airbases where ok, and I was dissapointed that I couldn't build them, but carriers are able to do the job well enough.

On small maps, carriers work fine, but on huge maps, all naval units in general are so slow it takes forever to get them in position. Additoinally on large continents you simply can penetrate far enough from the sea.

Airbases hastily constructed by the corp of engineers as new ground is secured during an offensive would add a much needed dynamic to war in CIVIII. As it is now it's way better to roll in on railroads with artillery and tanks than to screw around with air units.

Plus as it is now, helicopters and paratroopers are essentially useless because of their range. Any place within that many squares of your city is probably easy to get to anyway.

Venger · December 1, 2001, 12:47

Quote:

Originally posted by bahoo

On small maps, carriers work fine, but on huge maps, all naval units in general are so slow it takes forever to get them in position. Additoinally on large continents you simply can penetrate far enough from the sea.

Agreed - I suspect move points will be updated...

Quote:

Plus as it is now, helicopters and paratroopers are essentially useless because of their range. Any place within that many squares of your city is probably easy to get to anyway.

Exactly - I've not encountered a single scenario where I'd want a paratrooper as it is in Civ3.

Venger

Elowan · December 1, 2001, 13:02

Quote:

Originally posted by Kolyana
Look at the current war in Afghanistan ... we're fighting for and gaining key cities and ... AIRBASES.

Yes, I'd like to see them in the game .. they bring another strategic element.

Can you imagine a game with fortresses with a proper zone of control, outposts that are proper outposts and airfields?

Geez, talk about lots of strategic possibilities.

Yeah ZOC's make sense since in some ways they represent Fields of Fire.

And airbases are useful. So what if you have to station troops there to defend them? What's unrealistic about that?

Don't get me wrong -- Civ3 is, in many ways, a vast improvement over Civ2. However - it has become patently obvious that the game was taken away from the programmers before it was finished.

To give the Devil his due - an early release made economic sense to a company that was feeling the money crunch. If these problems are fixed in subsequent patches - so much the better.

Another thought - consider the size of the player base for Civ3 currently. Neat way to gain scads of play testing to uncover problems that are not discovered during game engineering.

And finally - get someone to rewrite that horrid 'manual'. It is a given that most companies leave the manual until last whereas the smart ones start the manual from the 'get-go'.

If I taught medicine the way the companies write manuals - we'd be in deep doo-doo.

ColdWizard · December 2, 2001, 03:14

i don't miss airbases because i don't build air units. i just build mobile land units (mech inf, armor) for my invasions

Rakki · December 2, 2001, 04:21

I used to build a fortress and airfield combo on my home continent where I would base my paratroopers (kinda like Fort Bragg).

I also do this on the larger islands (2 squares) where I can put in a fort and an airfield... the airfields were great for controlling large areas of the ocean where the enemy ships were likely to pass through - there was nothing other than battleships and aegis cruisers that stealth fighters couldn't kill, and for those toughies, I could always vector in surface ships.

Airfields are also a good way of "island hopping" paratroopers without requiring a ship to be available to ship them home (each city can only airlift once.. but airfields can do paradrops without limit !)

Andy91 · December 2, 2001, 23:06

As for the issue of airplanes being able to sink ships, I think they're inability to do so is a huge mistake. If we look at World War II in the Pacific, naval battles were revolutionized after the Coral Sea, and airplanes showed their effectiveness in naval warfare. Air power is really hurting, and I think that needs to be fixed in some way. Between the lack of airbases and the inability of planes to sink ships, much historical ability is taken from them. I think this was a mistake and hope it can be dealt with somehow

AzureFlame · December 3, 2001, 02:16

Yes why can't Air/Ship combat be treated as Air/Air or Ship/Ship (the ship can shoot down the plane or the plane can sink the ship)?
If an archer can shoot down a cruise missile then a Galley should definitely be able to shoot down an F15!

Frank Johnson · December 3, 2001, 02:39

They don't want to add hard to make variety in the game.

bombers are strategic, and shouldn't be able to do anything but bombard city improvements, and shoot down fighters attacking them.

Fighters are largely tactical, and should be able to sink ships, bomb tanks and infantry, and straf other stuff.

Making 2 different models for 2 different units was either not thought of or just ignored.

Adm.Naismith · December 3, 2001, 09:41

Quote:

Originally posted by Andy91
As for the issue of airplanes being able to sink ships, I think they're inability to do so is a huge mistake. If we look at World War II in the Pacific, naval battles were revolutionized after the Coral Sea, and airplanes showed their effectiveness in naval warfare.

The removing of airbases seems a way to balance things for an AI unable to manage them, and to enhance usefulness of Carriers (on mid map with enough sea).
It seemed a way to "kill two birds with a stone", OTOH Firaxis rotted the concept shifting back the "naval strike air mission" before WWII in Pacific. Midway and many others battle never saw the opposite ships at fire range, if not for the long arm of attack airplanes (carring bombs and torpedos).

I'm confused about this "one step forward, one step backword" approach in Civ III design

Maybe they are collecting small features to publish a "great Civ III Xpansion" where you can:
- build airbases! Diego Garcia and Gulf/Afghan scenario available!
- sink enemy ships as during Pacific WWII! Cool Midway scenario included!

Maybe it's all marketing, babies