Fixing the Air War in Civ 3

[Colonel D.]

The purpose of this thread is to focus on the air war aspects of Civ 3 and brainstorm ways to fix it. Hopefully Sid, et. al. will read and heed what we write here!

Colonel D.

[Colonel D.]

The first thing I'd like to see in improving the air war in Civ 3 is to return to us players the ability to actually move our aircraft again! It is so frustrating to fly a recon mission only to find out later your fighter overflew that carrier task force, but apparently did no see it!

Moreover, what is more frustrating than to hit a ship at sea with a heavy bomber and then realize you need yet another fighter to perform recce so you can bomb the ship again in the same square? If we could physically move our air units we could perform armed reconaissance missions as occurs in real life.

[Jon Shafer]

Both the naval and air aspect of Civ III need to be tweaked. They need to have more importance. Air units need longer range. Like you said, reconaissance needs to be 'fixed' to allow it to be more useful. There ought to be some sort of 'esccort' mission, where a fighter will simply follow a bomber to its target, and if they find any enemy planes, the fighter will engage, and if destroyed, then the enemy fighter will get a shot at the bomber afterwards. That's all I can come up with now. More later.

[Colonel D.]

Air combat in the game now is way, way too abstract. It needs to be more like the way naval combat is presented in the game.

A moving bomber or fighter (see my post above) should be liable for interception by enemy fighters once in range. Here's how this would work.

A bomber or fighter is moving into enemy territory and triggers an interception. The intercepting fighter's range would be one half its normal movement rate. For each square the player's air unit enters, the interceptor would move two until they are adjacent. At that point, combat ensues.

Combat would occur as in Civ 2 with both firing and receiving damage simultaneously until one or the other is shot down. If the moving player's bomber survives its attack, it may continue on to its target, or return home. If a fighter was intercepted and survived, it would return home immediately (having used up its fuel and ammo in the dogfight).

If the moving player decides to press on with his bomber(s) to the target that bomber is liable for further interceptions and/or anti-aircraft fire -- both guns (AAA) or missiles (SAMs). I should point out here that AAA and SAMs should be military units in the game -- not city improvements.

If the bomber attempts to move into a square having AAA or SAMs it will be fired upon. This would be a bombardment mission -- and could result in shooting the bomber down, or merely damaging it.

When on the defensive (i.e., when the AI is the mover) the player would be able to react to and defend against incoming enemy aircraft in this manner. As the AI air units enter into friendly airspace, they will continue to move until they trigger a possible interception. When this occurs, the moving AI aircraft will stop and any interceptors in range will blink. A dialog box would appear and the player would have the option to intercept now, intercept later or no intercept this turn.

If the player waits, the AI aircraft moves one more square and again all potential interceptors blink, and so on until either the AI aircraft move out of range or an interception occurs.

SAMs should have an interception range of one square and would be activated in the same way as intercepting fighter would be. AAA would have to be in the square being attacked to be able to fire at attacking aircraft.

[Colonel D.]

Trip,

I agree with you about fighter escorts. Here's my solution to this. Alow the player to build bomber boxes (sort of aerial task forces) into which he can add up to four aircraft of any flavor -- four bombers, four fighters or a mixture.

As with armies, the unit would move only as far as the shortest ranged aircraft. Moreover, damage would be spread among the aircraft attached to the box, with not bomber or fighter shot down until all have suffered at least some damage.

Building a bomber box (assembling aircraft into massed formations) takes time and fuel, so, this should reduce the range of these aircraft by one or two mps.

[Colonel D.]

This is the most disappointing aspect of Civ 2 and Civ 3 aerial warfare. Strategic bombardment needs to be emulated in a manner that permits the player to devise a strategy to affect the enemy's economy, or culture, or science, etc., by allowing the player to target specific city improvements.

For example, say I want to bomb a city's morale. I should be allowed to send my bombers to hit cathedrals, colleseums, corthouses, etc. This does not necessarily mean I will hit what I am targeting, however.

If a bomber is damaged by interceptors or by AAA/SAMs, there is a higher probability of a miss. A miss may mean "bombardment failed" or it may cause collateral damage.

Some collateral damage may be killing city workers (something that might erode the bombing player's own morale and increase war weariness if the player is a democracy) or cause the city's morale to be affected in some manner. Other collateral damage may mean hitting a city improvement other than the one you wanted to hit.

While this is not the place to discuss it in detail, I would like to see the possibility of being able to damage as well as destroy city improvements. This would be particularly effective in terms of production facilities.

My basic idea is that you may build more than one mill, factory or production plant per city with each producing a certain numer of shields. Strategic bombardment would be able to attack and destroy or damage these production facilities.

Repairing damaged facilities would require money and/or time. More on that in another thread.

In short, then, I want to have the opportunity to seek to destroy an enemy's warfighting ability through strategic aerial bombardment as was attempted in WWII.

Colonel D.

[Ben Williams]

First of all, we need more units. There should be several generations of planes, and a whole new catagory of "recon" planes (spy planes). You would be able to see into a city with these, and some could have radar that could see into a country from outside their borders (so you could spy if you're not a war). Lethal bombardment is a must, and one should be able to choose the target of attack (a unit or the underlying terrain, or if a stack which unit). Battleships should be able to carry one helicoptor with a unit on board, and all modern ships should carry cruise missiles. Ships should be able to take shots at attacking aircraft (anti-aircraft guns), and subs should not be bombable (unless the captain is really, really drunk).

Furthermore (you shouldn't have gotten me started ), air battles need to be more complex. When you bomb hills or mountains you should be able to target to create a road block, and there should be a napalm option that would do the same for jungle. Stealth bombers need to be much more powerful, but have an extreamly high production cost and upkeep (something like 5-10 gold per turn, with extreamly high range and low intercept rate). Plus we need patrol missions, more needs to be automated.

That's all for now.

[player1]

Simple.

Give lethal sea to Fighter, and lethal sea&land to Jet, F-15 and Stealth Fighter (NO LETHAL for bombers).

Increse ROF of Fighters & Jets to 2 (from 1).

This way, you made bombard with non-bombers usefull, made from F-15 and Stl. FIghter usefull units and made sinking ships possbile (but not unbalancing).

[BigRed515]

How about a Close Air Support aircraft (A-10) that has a CAS mission button instead of the bomb mission button. The CAS aircraft wouls have lethal ground bombard, but would be intercepted 95% of the time (opposite of the supposed stealth modifier). To go hand in hand with the CAS plane, and to ensure it's not just a wasted novelty units like the Stealth Fighter, fighters defintiely need to have an escort mission where they have something like an 80% chance of combating an interception within 3/4ths of their range. This way, bomb runs to medium-deep targets could be escorted, but bombing a traget at the edge of a bomber's range would leave the aircraft unescorted an vulnerable. I think this would work better than having the fighter "bomb" the target first to clear the way.

[Blake]

The solution is simple.
Stacks. Put bombers and fighters in a stack (or armada, if you please) to:
A) Provide escorts.
B) Reduce tedium.

Air combat is so bad in Civ3 that adding stacks (or armadas, if you please) would only be a step in the right direction. Longer range, specific target categories and so on would also help.

[Odd]

bomber boxes:

stealth bombers taking off from carriers built before planes were invented:

precision strikes that target only the civilian population, to maximize the number of civil deaths or destroy hospitals and libraries: wasn't the other way around?
use $40000 laser-guided missile to kill anyone is a bit strange

[Ben Williams]

Ya, precision strikes should target units, not improvments or population. Maybe to balance it out they could cost one gold or so each time, to represent the use of expensive weapons.

[GeneralTacticus]

stealth bombers taking off from carriers built before planes were invented:

[steve p]

they should take a leaf out of CTP2 for how air and sea units should work.

[NeoStar]

You've brought up some good points.

Originally posted by Colonel D.
...While this is not the place to discuss it in detail, I would like to see the possibility of being able to damage as well as destroy city improvements. This would be particularly effective in terms of production facilities...
Colonel D.

That would do well for the game-being able to repair improvements. When I want a big city (not often) I'd prefer to stop operation of their buildings for a few turns rather than destroying them.

It just makes you the one who has to rebuild them.

Originally posted by GeneralTacticus

quote:
stealth bombers taking off from carriers built before planes were invented:

I think he's referring to the weirdness of making carriers available before planes and how real stealth bombers can't take off from carriers.

But Civ3 is a game. If the decision to make aircraft simply an extravagant but essentially useless option (for anything besides improvement killing) was historically based they have a point in the fact that no nation has ever been ever conquered by jets.

Too bad they took it too far.

[Jon Shafer]

Colonel D., I agree that we should be able to target specific parts of a city. That would add a lot of depth to the air war. However, I think the way that air units are 'based' out of cities and have to be sent on 'missions' more realistically represents how they were used. You don't just have air units flying about all over the place non-stop, you have to arm them with ammunition (they don't carry all that much heavy ordinance), and need to be refueled constantly. That's not like a Rifleman or Infantry unit, which holds thousands upon thousands of rounds of ammunition and can just march about the land. You do bring up good points though, and I do think that various aspects of the air war (i.e. more missions, picking of a specific target [tile improvements, unit in a stack or building in a city], more air units and a longer modern 'air era') need to be added or tweaked to allow air units to be more useful and powerful.

[seano1]

The only really criminal omission is that there’s no non-sheath jet bomb, the counterpart to the jet fighter. That way you have 3 generation of strategic and tactical aircraft.

That being said, they could add WW1 era fights and bombers. One problem is that, to be historically accurate, they’d have to suck, or at lest be much more useful for recon then bombing. Another option is Zeppelins. They’d probably need to have a %100 change of being intercepted to represent there vulnerability, but they could be effective against a country without flight.

Also carriers should only be able to carry fighters, not bombers. The US is the only country that ever uses full size fighters from carriers. Maybe they could make a super carrier unit that could carry bombers and make it the national unit of the Americans.

Another thing they could add is an air transport unit, that could drop units anywhere with in its, very long, range.

[publius]

the only change i would make is to increase the bombard values of the current units... i think they should be much more destructive. but i'm glad air units don't have lethal bombard against land targets... this would unbalance the game.

what i would like to see is an attack chopper unit... it could still operate within the air combat system as it is now, but instead of bombarding enemy targets it would attack... this way it could be destroyed during its attack but it could also kill land units. it would also have to be very vulnerable to other kinds of air units. the idea is to set up a kind of late industrial cavalry.

maybe a pure recon plane/spyplane would be nice too.

[SultanofATL]

If they added a new unit like a radio man who could call in air support or bombing runs, I think it would solve our problems. Where ever he is he can call in an air strike to the adjacent squares. If not in his countries radius there must be a carrier with the specific air craft on board. It could be like an army. You take a great leader and make a squadron. You add air craft up to three into it. Once you do so you can then send the leader out to where you want the strike to take place. He has no defense so you would need foot units to protect him. Now the air war in CIV III finally exists. What do you guys think?

[Theodrik]

Originally posted by seano1
The only really criminal omission is that there’s no non-sheath jet bomb, the counterpart to the jet fighter. That way you have 3 generation of strategic and tactical aircraft.

Agreed. They missed the boat (airliner?) with that one.

That being said, they could add WW1 era fights and bombers. One problem is that, to be historically accurate, they’d have to suck, or at lest be much more useful for recon then bombing. Another option is Zeppelins. They’d probably need to have a %100 change of being intercepted to represent there vulnerability, but they could be effective against a country without flight.

Actually, it wasn't until late in the war that either side had interceptors that could fly highand fast enough to catch a zepplin. The (german zeplins at least) carried up to 4 machineguns for defense, making them tough targets. Thing is, by the time that high flying fighter were available, storms had destroyed most of the airship fleets. Being iron framed and filled with flamable hydrogen, well.....

Also carriers should only be able to carry fighters, not bombers. The US is the only country that ever uses full size fighters from carriers. Maybe they could make a super carrier unit that could carry bombers and make it the national unit of the Americans.

nice idea for a UU. IF the Americans last that long, dangerous they will be.

[candidgamera]

Originally posted by Colonel D.
The first thing I'd like to see in improving the air war in Civ 3 is to return to us players the ability to actually move our aircraft again! It is so frustrating to fly a recon mission only to find out later your fighter overflew that carrier task force, but apparently did no see it!

Moreover, what is more frustrating than to hit a ship at sea with a heavy bomber and then realize you need yet another fighter to perform recce so you can bomb the ship again in the same square? If we could physically move our air units we could perform armed reconaissance missions as occurs in real life.

Thought from the read me of 1.21 they fixed this - if not - dissappointing.

Like the basic mechanics laid out Colonel. Reminds me of how air combat worked in GDW Scortched Earth/Fire In The East. Bomber boxes as "air armies" basically. Like the idea of a dialog box for assigning constituent unit missions. The other thread, but that would be great for "fleets" especially or ground armies for that matter. Like how the game would be more interactive when taking on an incoming bombing raid - seems this would require a significant change to the way the turn structure is handled in the game - not that I'm against the idea though.

Some other points, am playing with now:

*Currently playing with bombers, airports, carriers, and paras only available with advanced flight. Air units are then inherently weaker until getting advanced flight, and prevents airlifted troops in "1914". Think I make helos come with rocketry now also.
Aluminum comes with flight now.

*Make it now so bombers and stealth can't fly off carriers.

*Anti-Aircraft: the building air strength that gives the SAM site its attack against air seems very under utilized - I give a smaller value to other buildings. Factory 4, Nuke Power Plant 6, for example. Why this "air strength" wasn't added to units - especially ships I'll never know (let's put the AEGIS cruiser in the game, but not give it any ability to take on aircraft - no excuses for this, its just stupid). Haven't tested this with 1.29 yet, so don't know if it will crash game, or get ignored - hidden hard coding related to SAM.

*Give air units more than 1 move, this gives them the ability to stage and then do a combat mission.

*bombers get the recon mission - this was silly to leave out in the basic game.

*Give bombers lethal land bombardment. Ask the survivors of Panzer Lehr Division after the opening of Cobra whether bombing is lethal. Just because bombing is lethal doesn't mean it kills all the time if hit points/rof/missions are managed right - bump up industrial/modern(except arty) hit points by 4-6 with a base scale of 2-4-6-8 - my mechs have veteran 12 hit points for example.

*Have made my fighters much more deadly also.

[Barchan]

These are all excellent ideas, but I think some may be a wee bit complex for the scope of the game. I don't think the game needs a plethora of new units or abilities to spruce up the air war, but it does need a few changes to the way it currently implements air missions. Some are more simple than others, but I doubt we'll see any fixed.

1) Not enough time between props and jets. Advanced jet fighters should become available later in the game than they currently do.

2) There should be an advanced jet bomber, which would become available in an advance just following jet fighters.

3) Include escort missions. Currently, CAP missions only protect the city or carrier where the fighter is based. Escort missions would allow the fighter a chance to intercept an enemy interceptor anywhere within its maximum range (if the range were halved, it would pretty much make this option useless).

4) Allow for combat recon. When a bomber or fighter attacks a square, that square should be “explored” for the rest of the turn. However, only recon missions will reveal the larger 2x2 (or 3x3?) area as currently implemented.

5) Allow for target selection when bombing cities. This should be extremely limited before jets (i.e. target population, improvements or troops) and should have a roughly 50-50 chance of hitting the intended target type (meaning when the bombs do hit something, 50% of the time it’ll be what you were aiming for). With jet fighters and bombers, this success rate should increase to 75%. With the advent of stealth, you should be able to pick your target specifically (i.e. barracks) and hit it 90% of the time.

6) Include group missions. Ideally, a pop-up screen would show where you could click a radio button for each unit you wanted to include in the mission. You’d then get a target cursor and pick your target. If it were a city, you’d get the pop-up mentioned in paragraph five for your specific target selection.

7) Allow workers to build airbases. This should have been in there from day one.

I’m sure there are tons of other things that could be included or done, but I think these would be the quickest and (presumably) easiest fixes to implement.