Do you think airplanes should be able to sink ships?

[korn469]

Heh, also, try out those 10000 some odd ICBMs on cities maybe the game has a rule that the 8578th ICBM will finally obliterate the city.

They are just fine. If you want the ICBM to destroy the city think of it as an artillery shell on steroids and invade and raze after using it.

see what i am talking about? the minute you mention nukes, the nukes are fine/too powerful crowd comes out, that was actually faster than i could have imagined...so i am guessing that if there was a nuclear exchange in the 80's that everything would be fine right now in the US and Russia?

they should have left nuclear weapons out of civ3

i did some testing with air units, the only way to get them to kill ground units makes them die also, so if you wanted you could make a 40 shield 1 rof 10 bombard strength cruise missile that air units could carry and then you could call it a warhead, or a torpedo, or bunker buster, or whatever you wanted and it could be the way for airforces to finish off those last weakend units

problem solved
if you guys want i'll add it to my mod

[GePap]

If you allow aircraft to carry this new invention of your, won't they be capable of carrying regular cruise missiles? And thus, sayonara game balance?
Also, can something be carrying something thats carrying something? What I mean is, can a CV carry 6 fighters, all carrying 4 'warheards'? Would that not be a CV carrying 24 air units? If this is possible, fine solution. If its not, it does not address the issue at hand.

[Barnacle Bill]

I think that "Yes, I think that aircraft should be allowed to sink ships BUT NOT destroy ground units." is how it should work, but I voted to make it editable - that way everybody can have it however they like.

And, no, it does not mean you would not need a navy anymore. Real life modern naval combat works like this:

Carrier-based planes are needed to project power ashore (cruise missiles are VERY limited in that capability compared to aircraft). They also can rather easily sink enemy surface ships they catch, unless the ships have air cover or sophisticated defenses (Aegis).

Carriers are very vulnerable to air attack themselves. They have a multi-layered defense - their own fighters are the outer layer. SAM's launched from escorting cruisers & destoyers are the second layer. SAM's and guns on the carriers are the inner (last ditch) layer.

Modern submarines are essentially undetectable until they strike by anything but another submarine. They have the advantage in any combat with surface ships, but ASW escorts with on-board helos are better than nothing. The best way to protect your carriers is to send submarines into the area several days in advance to clean out lurking enemy subs. Subs are sea denial waepons, though, they can't project power ashore and they can't carry troops.

Amphibs have an obvious mission - carry troops. They are vulnerable to everything, and need protection from everything.

They all have a job. You can't get the job done with just transports and land-based air. Civ3 should work like real life. Making aircraft not able to sink ships does not really support that, though.

Ground units are another story. Given that a unit is roughly a division, somebody please name one time in history when an entire division was destoyed by airpower alone. Severly mauled, yes, but that is what being reduced to 1 HP represents.

[korn469]

GePap

first using the "unit carries foot soliders only" and "unit carries tactical missiles" you could set a bomber to carry the warhead units, but not normal cruise missiles, currently in my mod Aegis Cruisers can carry cruise missiles but not tactical nukes, while nuclear submarines can carry both cruise missiles and tactical nukes using the same system, for my mod i would have to choose between either Aegis cruisers carrying cruise missiles or air units carrying war heads

plus if a warhead is a finishing weapon a transport ability of 1 should be more than enough, as far as transport units carrying other transport units i'm not sure how that would work out, probably the main transport would have to have a space for all units

but since aircraft carriers only carry 4 units in civ3 bumping it up to 6 so they could carry warheads probably wouldn't hurt too bad

also i disagree with this

So, realistically, it would take the entire airwing of a CV to sink a BB.

that is SOOO unrealistic its not even funny

take a look at this
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/s...z/yamato-n.htm

The carrier planes began their attacks in the early afternoon, scoring immediate bomb and torpedo hits on Yamato and sinking Yahagi and a destroyer. Three other destroyers were sunk over the next hour, as the Japanese continued to steam southwards. In all, Yamato was struck by some ten torpedoes, mainly on the port side, and several bombs. At about 1420 on the afternoon of 7 April, less than two hours after she was first hit, the great battleship capsized to port, exploded and sank, leaving behind a towering "mushroom" cloud. Fewer than 300 men of Yamato's crew were rescued. Nearly 2500 of her men were lost, plus over a thousand more from Yahagi and the escorting destroyers. U.S. losses totalled ten aircraft and twelve aircrewmen.

so one of the most powerful battleships ever was sank by 10 WW2 torpedos and several bombs less than two hours after the carrier based planes engaged it...so a few modern precision weapons could most likely take it out

plus why would an entire airwing spend two years trying to sink a single ship?

that's way more unrealistic than them not being able to sink a ship at all

Civ3 isn't realistic at all, it should just try to maintain the facade of realism in the most fun way possible

[mfauzi]

Though I voted that they should destroy both, I think I can agree that they should destroy ships and not land units.

With modern technology, planes carry ASMs (Air to Surface Missiles) with IR which could easily track down a warm ship on the cool sea/ocean. I don't see why they can't successfully destroy ships after a few missiles. And even with just plain bombarding, why can't a ship be destroyed? And about pearl habour, of course those ships can be repaired and reused, they only sank to a certain depth. Imagine if it sank into the ocean. Now, who would want to get that ship and repair it?

Maybe the 1HP remaining after bombing on land units is fair, since the terrain could help shield them (though, eventually they have to be destroyed if the planes were persistent enough).

Maybe 4 cruise missiles in a plane is just overkill. I don't even think planes can carry cruise missiles. They're huge!

[korn469]

f/a-18 hornets can carry the following

AIM 9 Sidewinder, AIM 7 Sparrow, AIM-120 AMRAAM, Harpoon, Harm, Shrike, SLAM, SLAM-ER, Walleye, Maverick missiles; Joint Stand-Off Weapon (JSOW); Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM); various general purpose bombs, mines and rockets

B-52's can carry the following

Approximately 70,000 pounds (31,500 kilograms) mixed ordnance -- bombs, mines and missiles. (Modified to carry air-launched cruise missiles, Harpoon anti-ship and Have Nap missiles.)

so yea cruise missiles are ok

but the question i want all of those in favor of planes sinking ships to answer is how will it make the game game fun without causing any unbalance to the already existing system?

personally a submarine taking 8 years to cross the Atlantic Ocean in the 1940s seems way more unrealistic and low naval movement is more of a problem

[Unregistered]

Well, no one ever claimed Civ modeled combat really well, did they? My biggest nitpick w/ the Civ series has always been that the combat was way too abstracted for my tastes. I would like a *much* more realistic combat model & a much larger set of options for units to build. Having said that, I'll also say that my experience with it so far hasn't been horribly negative either, given the type of game this is.

I'll admit that I was really looking forward to playing this newest Civ because I did like some of the directions that smac took with the game franchise. The unit editor & the terrain model I liked in particular. Some history there...


"Would I like to sink ships w/ planes?" Silly question. Yes, of course I would. Coral Sea, Midway, Pearl, etc. But there are only five plane types to model the entire spectrum of military front line aircraft, so some compromise is unavoidable.

& "Or destroy ground units?" Well, that's a little bit tougher. Hurt them pretty badly, yah, but wipe them out? Has happened sometimes, but very rare. Not very often to a healthy division sized ground force that I know of anyway. Which is about what I tend to think of my ground unit sizes as being. At least. Ground units in the red already? Maybe. Fairly small one. Did they start out green that same turn? Maybe not then. In a turn that represents 5 years of game time? Well...

There's a fine line that has to be walked for tbs of this type to succeed. I've not quite finished my first 'real' game, & so far my fighter's haven't had any incoming bombers to ignore. This is about to change tho, so I'll be watching to see what they do with the bombers I expect to see in about 3 turns after I apply the patch. There are things I have problems w/ in the game, but maybe some of them can be fixed by using the editor. At least there is an editor. Or may be, someday. Soonish. They say.

There are other things that we're all forced to accept due to the nature of this type of tbs. I'm still having fun with it, but I had hoped for a little more. esp after playing eu this summer. But then, it only attempted to model 300 yrs of history. & was *much* more abstract. & has a few probs of its own imo. So...

Anyway, d/l complete,

C ya,

[GePap]

Korn469
The thing you quote says it all- it took seven torpedoes (i.e seven torpedo bombers at least) and several bombs (i.e., several dive bombers, since they carry only one main bomb each) to sink 1 BB. Remember, many of the aircraft in a CV are fighetrs, for air protection. A typical essex carrier could carry 80 planes. If 50 of them are attack (dive bombers, torpedoes) then it took at least half the carriers attack wing (remembering sorties that miss) to sink the BB. The Musashi took even more punishment, so saying that it would take the whole carrier airwing (in WW2) to sink a BB is not utterly unrealisitc.

Also, I doubt that a aircraft carries could carry many planes with warheads. I base this on the armies, which are treated as 4 ground units (in a 3 unit army) for purposes of carrying. Why would a fighter carrying 'warheads' not be treated as 2 (if it only carries one) air units?, thus fitting few on a carrier.

[GePap]

Korn469:
I would first state that I don't think giving bombarment the chance to sink something would in any way unbalance things, especially as they are so utterly unbalanced as is: Do you ever build carriers? I mean, whats the point? (currently) If I don't even need the for air protection to counter enemy air attacks (which will fail) on my invasion transports, so long as I have enough BB's around to sink any enemy warships (except those invincible uber-ironclads).
If anything, letting bombarment kill would balance this game. It would force persons to build combined fleets, perhaps force the A.I. to understand the power of arty and aircraft, make people think twice about wars or invasions unless they are trully well prepared, so forth and so on. I think it would make for richer, more complex(and thought provoking) strategies, while letting defensively minded players a chance to live without having to build either coastal cities they don't want because without a navy they have no way to stop overseas attacks. The current system forces things upon the player, while making this change would allow for more varied strategies.

[korn469]

GePap

to sink the Yamamoto it took ten torpedos and several bombs
they sent 400 aircraft to sink it

but the thing is it only took them 2 hours and in Civ3 from 1750-1950 each turn is 2 years long, so big deal it took 400 aircraft 2 hours out of the 17,544 (1944 was a leap year) hours available in that turn that is less than one tenth of 1% of the time available in that turn

Also, I doubt that a aircraft carries could carry many planes with warheads. I base this on the armies, which are treated as 4 ground units (in a 3 unit army) for purposes of carrying. Why would a fighter carrying 'warheads' not be treated as 2 (if it only carries one) air units?, thus fitting few on a carrier

Carriers only carry four planes
to me that classifies as not many, by increasing the carrying capasity to 6 then you could carry four planes and two warheads, and unless you are carrying bombers fighters aren't going to weaken a battleship enough to use a warhead on it anyways

what i was saying is that if you play around with the editor you can fix almost all of the problems with combat balance, certainly not all but most of them, i just provided you with a solution to aircraft sinking ships so why aren't you happy?

Unregistered

I'll admit that I was really looking forward to playing this newest Civ because I did like some of the directions that smac took with the game franchise. The unit editor & the terrain model I liked in particular.

i don't know about you but i am actually looking forward to Brian Reynold's foray into RTS games, it might be just what we are looking for

also i think you're take on the combat model pretty much sums up it civ3 is, an abstract empire building game with a semi tactical and very abstract combat system

[Moraelin]

I don't know why many people assume it has to be an "all or nothing" situation, though. It does not have to be EITHER having Civ 2 all over again, OR having air units that don't do anything, but never anything in between. Again:

1) You would need several airstrikes in a row to sink a battleship, or to destroy any kind of target for that matter. They would not stay there and keep shooting at the ship until you destroy it. Each plane or helicopter would take one shot, return to base, that's it.

2) I've already said that there should be a chance to miss, based on experience and the unit's defense. So even though that BB has 3 lines of health, it wouldn't be guaranteed that 3 air strikes will sink it.

3) There's been already another request that modern ground and water units be able to shoot back at airplanes and helicopters. So each time your airplane attacks that battleship, it should be not just another guaranteed taking 1 hp off it. It would be a gamble that also includes the chance to lose your plane instead.

4) You can always stack several ships together, effectively making a very realistic battle group, in which case they should protect each other with their AA defense.

As for Barnacle Bill, I'm thinking that it is actually very possible to destroy an armoured division for example with airplanes and/or helicopters. Again, I don't mean I could actually kill every single soldier soldier in it, including those who are currently on leave and not even there, but... frankly, if you reduce it to a company of infantry from an armour division, for all practical purposes it counts as destroyed. I doubt that any general would think that's still one unit fit to fight. Plus that's a lot less left of it than 1 hp out of 4. Since we don't have a way in the game to model "a quarter hp left and zero offense power against a full enemy division", I'd say "destroyed" is a close enough equivalent.

Plus, IRL you'd need to at least rebuild all those destroyed tanks. Effectively, you'd need to build as many new tanks as for making a new division. IMHO having to build a new unit in the game to replace it is a pretty darn close equivalent. A better one than "I'll set it on fortify for 3 turns and mysteriously that company will grow back into a full size armour division."

Besides, if we're to think that destroying a unit means totally wiping out every single man in it, and as long as there's one soldier alive the unit still has 1hp out of 4, it should be impossible for ANY unit to destroy any unit. Ever. In any battle, there have been survivors. There are people who are wounded, not killed, and in fact the majority tends to fall in that category. There are people who were scared senseless and just hid or retreated without being ordered to. There are people who weren't even there, e.g., because they had already been evacuated to a hospital or were on leave or whatnot. And so on. Yet it doesn't stop us from assuming that the unit was destroyed.

[GePap]

Korn469:

For me a turn is a turn, what the year interval the game decides to attach to a turn (whether it be 50,25, 20,10,5,2,1) doesn't mean a damn , and I simply ignore it, or 1 turn=1 year based arguments. You said they sent 400 planes to sink the ship. Well, that was the full load of at least 5 Essex class carrier, so in fact, i was being rather generous, it seems, when I said that it would take just 1 full airwing to sink.

As for your solution. It is a fine second place, but in no way does it trully FIX the situation, which is why I will neither cry for joy, nor utilize it. WWe don't create an exxtra unit for tanks to carry called 'shells'. Why not? Becuase we assume that a tank carries shells, and that it is using them when fighting (hence, the fighting animation). I expect planes to come with thier armament built in (hence their combat animation), not be expected to fool around with the editor to bring some sanity to the game.

On the editor, while I am on it, I used the Civ2 editor to make scenerios for my own enjoyment, not to change the fundamental rules of the normal civ2 game. I think that the whole 'but just use the editor' argument is INVALID, yes, INVALID. I will not stop criticising design decisions that I belive are very detrimental to the overall gameplay just because there is an editor that allows me to sort of mimick a solution. If I could, with the editor, implement the concept I want, fine. BUt I do not accept, nor will i condone, half-fixes and other ducktape measures to save the sinking ship.

[korn469]

GePap

For me a turn is a turn, what the year interval the game decides to attach to a turn (whether it be 50,25, 20,10,5,2,1) doesn't mean a damn , and I simply ignore it, or 1 turn=1 year based arguments. You said they sent 400 planes to sink the ship. Well, that was the full load of at least 5 Essex class carrier, so in fact, i was being rather generous, it seems, when I said that it would take just 1 full airwing to sink.

if you are ignoring the turn amount of time that passes by with a turn, because hey it's just a game then ignore the fact that airplanes can't sink a ship

because if we start to focus on realism in the modern era then the only way to ensure even a shallow basing in realism is to completely overhaul the game

no game can hope to have a real depiction of WW2 if WW2 is only a matter of 3.5 turns giving the fastest ship (battleship movement=5) a total movement of 20 tiles at most

first the map is incorrect, it would take more time to cross the earth at the equator than close to the poles

the earth has a total surface area of 5.10x10^8 km^2 as stated by nasa (http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/phys_props_earth.html), so since the map is distorted that means each square tile has an area of (5.10x10^8/(100x100)) 5100km^2...or each side of each tile is about 145 miles

that means ships are traveling at a speed of less than a mile per day
unrealistic

with an area of 145 miles per side, bombard should be removed from the game because it highly overrates the range of artillary pieces
unrealistic

battleships have a bombard range of 2, or that means a battleships guns can fire nearly 300 miles instead of about 30
unrealistic

a B-29 bomber has a range of 5,830 according to boeing (http://www.boeing.com/companyoffices...oeing/b29.html) so its operational range should be at least 40 squares
unrealistic

according to the already presented site (http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/desert_storm.htm) america dropped an average of 47,777.78 tons of bomb a month in world war 2...even assuming that every bomber was a B-29 with a 10 ton bomb load, to equal the tonnage dropped by the americans doing one mission every two years we would need about 1146 air units (@100 real planes to an air unit) on an average sized map just to equal the amount of bombs the americans dropped
unrealistic

i can keep on going but i think i have proved my point

civ3 isn't realistic

plus if you allowed air units to sink ships, with a value of stealth bombers equal in shields to the invading force it would be immpossible to invade your landmass since the chance of intercepting a stealth mission is so low and the ground units would give the stealth units enough numbers to sink your fleet (this is assuming they implement a return fire system for ships)

they did this for balance reasons
without a return fire system and an equal number of shields, bombers alone would be able to most most amphibious invasions because they would always get at least one attack on the invasion fleet if there was more than six water spaces between landmasses

once air units could sink naval units there would be zero reason to waste money on useless navies

[korn469]

plus another thing

if there is a 1 hp regular galley and you attack it with a nuclear weapon, it only has a 50% chance of being destroyed...a low ball estimate of a nuclear missile in Civ3 is 120 100kt warheads (1 nuclear sub unit=an ohio class nuclear ballistic missile submarine; 1 tactical nuke is equal to the same capacity or 24 missiles which i recently read carried 5 instead of their design of 8 warheads, so 24*5=120; W-76 Trident I/II 100kt warhead, W-88 Trident II 475kt warhead)

so yea complete realism is what civ3 strives for

EDIT: the reason i wanted to see a destructive implementation of nuclear weapons along with M.A.D. wasn't realism per se but more just the feeling of looking eyeball to eyeball trying to find out who is going to blink first, nuclear weapons actually restrained massive conventional wars in the 20th century, and nuclear weapons alone held quite a grip on people...without fearing the destruction of major parts of our world i'm sure the cold war would have been a little less exciting...the cuban missile crisis was certainly one conflict that nuclear weapons dramatized, a simple small buildup of soviet troops in cuba without nuclear weapons wouldn't have been anything to write home about, the fact that nuclear missiles were about to go operational that could obliterate washing D.C. five minutes after launch was certainly something to fear

[korn469]

GePap

one last little thing about realism for the night

i doubt any single aircraft could sink a BB without either getting a lucky hit or carryng a blockbuster or daisycutter

A blockbuster (also tallboy) is a 10,000lb-12,000lb
bomb, and a daisycutter is the largest dumb bomb we have. Both would do vastly more damage than a harpoon, a couple of mavericks, or a bomb 1/5 their explosive power.

i just remembered that the daisycutter as you call it is only dropped from the MC-130, and they don't drop it like a bomb, they push it out of the back of the plane through the cargo door

one little thing to note is the MC-130 has a top speed of about 300 mph (maybe a little less) and it certainly can't take off from a carrier so you are saying it's realistic that a plane that flys slower than a WW2 mustang would be in the forefront of attacking a battleship?

the MC-130 with a BLU-82 would probably be about the last thing used to attack a battleship

hows that for realism


you're right realism sucks

[Boney]

To answer your question YES YES

I also loved moving my planes and helicopters around.

helicopters come back all is forgiven.

[Moraelin]

I'll have to somewhat aggree with GePap there. No disrespect, korn. I respect your modding abilities, and I don't doubt that your solution would work for someone who just really wants airplane action at all cost, just for the sake of it. It's clever. It's ingenious. But from the more casual user point of view it's rather unwieldy to have to load the warheads AND the airplanes separately, then load each warhead onto a plane, then individually cary it, launch it, go back to port for more warheads, etc. It's probably realistic, no doubt, but that kind of realism doesn't exist anywhere in the rest of the game. E.g., that BB can roam around the seq for ever, and I don't ever have to load ammo onto it manually. The whole game is at a different... wossname... level of abstraction, and that kind of "only one type of unit needs you to load its ammo manually" gameplay kind of sticks out and is fairly inconvenient.

Some of us are less of an inventor, and more of your average point-and-drool gamer.

That's in the end the whole reason for asking for support from the game engine, instead of making our own Incredible Machine contraptions that need manual winding and reloading for each shot.

[Aurochs]

I put this in another thread already, so I'll just link the reasoning behind my response:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...621#post655621

[korn469]

Moraelin

well this thread was started by the same person who said "Can you sink ships with airplanes with the new patch? if u cant im not playing it?"

so if it bothered him that bad, then even instead of making a completely new unit he could of made airplanes be able to carry cruise missiles which pack quite a punch

so this problem can be somewhat alliveated in the editor...then what you are left with are two arguments for aircraft being able to sink ships

1) it'll make aircraft more balanced (and therefore more fun)
2) it'll make the game more realistic (and therefore more fun)

i disagree about the balanced part and ralf gives a good summary here

I think its a very good idea that airplanes cant sink ships, and I believe that decision is gameplay-related, rather then reality-related. Partly it has to do with the fact that modern ships in Civ-3 is generally more shield-expensive then airplanes:

Transport = 100 shields
Destroyer = 120 shields
AEGIS cruiser = 160 shields
Carrier = 180 shields
Battleship = 200 shields

Compare with:

Fighter = 80 shields
Bomber = 100 shields
Jet Fighter = 100 shields
Stealth Fighter = 120 shields

The only exception is the Stealth bomber, with a hefty prizetag of 240 shields, but that unit comes rather late in the game.

In addition to above generally more expensive navy shield-costs, remember that foreign warships outside your coastal cities, far away from their harbour-equipped homecities cannot heal their battlewounds easily, until 5 hospitals (= 5 x 120 shields = 600 shields) + the small Wonder "Battlefield medicine" (= 500 shields) have been built. Even then the healing-advantage is on the coastal city-defenders side, because an naval attacker cant move and heal its injuries at the same time. It must be inactive for one turn (and therefore loose momentum).

Now - IF Firaxis really should let fighters and bombers sink battleships for example, it could lead to big gameplay-unbalancing consequences. Remember that fighters and bombers cannot get killed other then by counteracting enemy-fighters. Sending airplanes to sink modern ships would be a 100% riskfree operation, the way air-attacks are currently designed in Civ-3. Even a carrier + 4 jetfighters (= 160 + 400 shields) would be at an disadvantage, because the landbased defender, with lots bombers and jetfighters in his cities, would probably initiate the attack-wave in advance, in order to fend off naval attacks and transport-landing operations, prepard as he is. And the attacker has always an succesfull battle-outcome probability advantage against single unprepared (= unfortified) enemy-units.

One could argue to above; "Well, then they should add offensive airplane-attacking abilities to modern warships, as well". But then we are talking MAJOR unit-ability alterations, with unforeseen gameplay-consequences - requiring weeks and weeks (if not months) of inhouse playtesting all over again; for this single unit-ability alteration alone.

At the end of the day; would it really be worth it? Isnt their OTHER additions and feature-alterations the Firaxis-team can emphasize instead?.

If you want to counteract enemyships lurking outside your coastal cities, just build your own damn ships and coastal fortresses, and use your artillery, for crying out load. Try to live (and have fun) with those rules instead. And stop whining about above airforce-vs-navy limitation, as if it is some kind of major gamebreaker. It simply isnt.

and as for being more realistic, possibly but then again Civ3 has nothing to do with realism

hopefully firaxis can give us a patch that has a toggle switch in the editor at least, so we could have it both ways, but as far as being helpless because your airforce can only severly damage an opposing navy, that is not the case
unhurt veteran destroyers will make quick work of 1hp battleships, then they can return to port and heal any damage they might have suffered

[Kolyana]

Okay, simple answer to this one - and a logical answer:

Aircraft *CAN* sink ships *IF* it's offensive capbility is sufficently higher than the targets defense.

This would allow a bomber to sink a trireme, but not a battleship. Same battleship may get sunk by a stealth bomber (or whatever).

This would seem to provide a logical solution. Not easy to implement, but logical.

[siredgar]

I want my opponents to scream like Tattoo on Fantasy Island: "The plane! The plane!" BUT with FEAR.

[Admiral PJ]

In the meanwhile, aircraft carriers could be given a big bombard attack, with a long range to simulate torpedo bombers etc which
can launch from aircraft carriers.

I know you can make MOBILE airunits too, that can move across
the sea like the old aircraft could.. this makes units like helicopters, it MAY be able to attack ships especially if given
a artilerry bombard setting (then it wouldn't be an air unit though).

[Barnacle Bill]

Frankly, the argument that, since certain aspects of Civ are inherently unrealistic and can't be fixed without making an entirely different game, it is not worthwhile to fix unrealistic things that can easy be fixed just doesn't hold water. The reason should be obvious - let's make it as realistic as possible within the limitations of the game engine.

That aircraft can't get hurt bombing ground units & ships under the current rules is NOT an arguement against letting aircraft sink ships. Modern units can just as easily be given a defensive anti-air capability, and that should be part of the deal.

As to killing ground units, air units alone have just not destoyed major ground units alone, even taking "destroyed" to mean rendered incapable of further combat rather than killing everybody. The basic rule for an abstracted game should be that if something happens only as a freak circumstance in real life, it should be ommitted from the game unless it can be modelled in such a way to make it just as rare. If air units can destroy ground units at all, it will happen routinely. However, in real life most air attacks on ground units are pretty integrated with friendly ground unit operations - "close air support". The way air power in Civ3 works today with respect to ground units models what happens 99% of the time in real life pretty well (within the limits of the game engine). Letting air units kill ground units would not.

BTW, 60% of combat tank loses are returned to service within two weeks unless the owner has fled the battlefield, tank loses are usually 10 times the tank crew loses, and any modern army has spare tanks in the logistical pipeline. Again, wacking an armored division down to 1 HP so it needs to limp off and "heal" is a pretty good model of reality.

[Sevorak]

The reason they can't do this is because they have to set it such that bombard either kills or does not kill, and in a fit of utter stupidity they made it possible for SHIPS TO BOMBARD SHIPS. If bombard could kill, naval combat would simply cease to exist, with both sides simply building masses of battleships and bombarding each other to death.

No other units in the game can both attack another unit of the same type normally, and also attack a different way without being shot at in return. Removing the ability of ships to bombard ships would solve a LOT of problems.

-Sev

[Barnacle Bill]

Originally posted by Sevorak
The reason they can't do this is because they have to set it such that bombard either kills or does not kill, and in a fit of utter stupidity they made it possible for SHIPS TO BOMBARD SHIPS. If bombard could kill, naval combat would simply cease to exist, with both sides simply building masses of battleships and bombarding each other to death.

No other units in the game can both attack another unit of the same type normally, and also attack a different way without being shot at in return. Removing the ability of ships to bombard ships would solve a LOT of problems.

-Sev

Isn't "masses of battleships bombarding each other to death" pretty much a description of a sea battle between 20th Century battleships?

I think the other ships would still have their missions -
Transports to carry troops
Carriers to carry aircraft, which have a longer reach than the battleship's bombardment
Destroyers as (1) cheap scouts to find the other guys battleships and (2) escorts to stack with transports because of the submarine threat.
Submarines can't be bombarded by battleships, and continue as before.

However, nothing says that just because aircraft bombardment can kill ships you have to let ship bombardment do it. They can program one and not the other - let ship bombardment factors only work against shore targets.

[barefootbadass]

Originally posted by GePap
barefootbadass:
Airplanes can sink ships, period. We can always give ships the ability to hit back, which would allay your fears. The fact is that carriers are the most important ships of all in terms of naval combat, not BB's (as much as I love BB's).

I never said otherwise, but it would unbalance the system if aircraft were merely changed to be able to kill ala cruise missiles(the unit in the game). Anyway, the system as it is effectively models reality as an abstraction. Carriers are still very important in dominating naval battles or in coastal invasions. Basically changing bombers to be something besides a bombardment unit would involve changes to several elements of the game, and is IMO unnecessary, and fretting over this difference is a bit trite, since air power is as important in the game as it is in real life, period.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Hi Guys,

Wouldn't it be possible to build a non-immobile ground unit, give it a high defense and medium attack strength. Give it about move 3-4, ability to treat ALL terrain as roads, and a limited bombardment ability. This could then be your divebomber! Like the ones they used to take out the battleships at Pearl Harbour. This way, you could take out enemy ships, but the flip-side is that you would be susceptible to ground attack.
On a related issue, is their any way to give modern naval vessels (and some ground units) the ability to bring down air units (at least fighters!!) Any info on this would be appreciated.

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker

[Bundaybd]

Kills units quick!

And not being able to sink ships with air (or any other bombardment, like artillery on the coast or from battleship bombardment) is not right. Oh yeah, nukes should also be much nastier, killing all units (including ships) in the target space and half those at radius 1 (maybe have a modifier for units at radius 1 but in a fort). Maybe have ICBMs (should be like H-Bombs, bigger than tactical nukes) kill 1/4 of units out to radius 2, and 3/4 of city population. Plus more pollution at radius 2. Plus cause lots of damage to units not killed. Maybe they could make these options in the mods?

[Sevorak]

Isn't "masses of battleships bombarding each other to death" pretty much a description of a sea battle between 20th Century battleships?

Not when using the Civ 3 definition of bombard, which is "an attack that can be undertaken without fear of retaliation".

-Sev

[codemast01]

How can the CivIII bombardment system be justified when cruise missiles kill a unit when 1000lbs (normally what aircrafts carry) bombs cannot?

Yes bombing didn't win the Vietnam war. However, aside from being uncommited, the US lost because of massive foreign aid from communist nations, not because they didn't kill the ground troops they bombed. While the US loses were high, the north VN loses were much more horrendous.

Some people have said that air can attack sea units without being damaged. Doesn't the AS mission solve this? (Adding combat bonus for AGEIS cruisers when defending against air would also help to solve this) There is no reason why air unit shouldn't be able to sink ships.