If you've been following the latest ALC game by Sis, he used carriers as a major part of his attack fleet. My question is are carriers worth it? they seem to be a bit expensive on the hammers and wouldn't it be better just to build Battleships?:confused: You could still attack coastal cities, and bombers would probably do a better job

Anyways i rarely use carriers at all, can someone tell me why carriers are so good?

Carriers act well as mobile air bases for air defense (which is obvious i suppose) but they can make great platforms for striking strategic resources of the enemy as well as units. If you totally blind side the enemy and whipe his strategic resources (oil, aluminum, etc) on turn one, the enemy then has a pretty big handicap to overcome once the slugfest begins and he starts losing units / cities.

Battleships can't attack units or resources.

Bombers are nice, but with a limit of 4 per city, you have a very limited force size during an overseas invasion, at least until you establish yourself and take over a few cities.

There are several good articles in the Strategy Articles subforum on naval warfare (just search for "nav" on the first page).

Hmmm..they would be to me if they could carry Bombers too.

The first time i used carriers i tried to load on bombers:lol::p

If I have a late-game naval fleet (which I don't... normally I just use Airports), I only have 2 carriers (they have 4 cargo, yes?) 3 of my fighters are interceptors, 2 airships are anti-sub, and 3 fighters are strike force, for pillaging some resources / bombing the target city from about 2 turns trip away.

Bombers on carriers would make them VERY useful... perhaps TOO useful??

Yea your probably rite, Bombers on Carriers are a bit TOO powerful. 4-5 carriers can destroy a city many times over.

I mainly use carriers to defend my units from my opponents air force, however, they are also useful to attack some of his best defenders in a city. Another good way to use them is to free up space in cities for bombers. In cities where you have an airport, you can station a total of 8 air units, so its not so much of an issue there. However, in cities you've just captured, you usually won't have an airport, so it is very difficult to have a squad of bombers that can be an effective offensive force and still have fighters for defense without using carriers. With carriers, you can have an infinite amount of fighters in a city (they only hold 3 fighters each, though). Carrier based fighters are also effective for weakening enemy ships before finishing them off.

To be honest I have not tried this myself yet, as I did not get this far in a game recently. However, with the impossibility to have siege attack from ships, carriers with fighters have become the best option to "soften up the defenders" when attacking amphibiously. If I understand correctly this is how Sisiutil used his carriers in his last ALC game. In fact this provides them with a unique ability. While powerful, it does require quite some dedication to actually use this.

IF IF IF you have the time to take advantage of flight before the AI has an easy counter, do it. Otherwise you're better off striking while they still have rifles/before they have battleships/tanks/flight themselves.

Carriers are good only against Terran. Zerg first outexpands you, then kills you with Hydralisks. And a Protoss can smite them with Dragoons, High Templars, and even maybe Archons.

Oh, wait... :crazyeye:

Carriers are good only against Terran. Zerg first outexpands you, then kills you with Hydralisks. And a Protoss can smite them with Dragoons, High Templars, and even maybe Archons.

Oh, wait... :crazyeye:

My thoughts exactly, except you cast plague on the carriers first of course. Ehh.. not but I have no idea if carriers are good in CIV, my games don't last that long.

Carriers are a luxury you can invade without.

They're only a luxury against the stupid AI :p.

If you prefer to know what's going on in the seas around your fleet then you will want carrriers. On the other hand, I suppose if you like to move around blindly and don't care if the enemy fleet moves past yours before you even notice, you don't need them.

Carriers are good only against Terran. Zerg first outexpands you, then kills you with Hydralisks. And a Protoss can smite them with Dragoons, High Templars, and even maybe Archons.

Oh, wait... :crazyeye:
You know... it's possible to use a high-tech unit in the late game without having squandered your early game to rush for it. :p

Carriers in my opinion ( in CIV 4 not Starcraft, although that is a awesome game) need way to many hammers to use effectively

Somebody recently said in a post, and I'm sorry but I can't find it again, that one good strategy for the use of carriers is to counter enemy SAMs based in cities. The basis of the argument was that if you know the enemy has either interceptors or SAMs in the city you want to hit, using a couple of fighters first takes up the attack/defense move of the SAMs that round. Then you fly your bombers in unmolested, do all of that collateral damage, and then let your ground forces attack. Repeat until city becomes yours.
I tried this last game and it works quite well. Yes, your fighters get damaged in the process, but if you have something in your naval stack with a medic promotion or two, they heal up quickly enough. I always have at least one carrier for just this purpose now. If I have any others in the area I use their fighters to hit improvements and I save my bombers to soften the city up for my land forces. As it's been said, you can only put 4 bombers in a nearby city (if you don't have an airport), but they can do a lot of damage if they aren't intercepted. IMHO anyway.

EDIT: BTW, if the city is a friendly AI and has an airport, can you put 8 planes there if the AI has none there? Or are you limited to 4? Or 8 minus any planes the AI has? I haven't been able to figure that out.

Carriers are great if you need to dominate the land, sea and air. Here are a few statistics from my Justinian game. It is now turn 833 and 1814 AD in a marathon game and I'm coming back from a poor start and being hit badly by Monte and being on the wrong end of the AP resolutions. That meant Louis pulled far ahead on the other continent, building nearly all the wonders, a huge army and was about 8 to 10 techs ahead when I finally subdued my continent. At that time I had Rifling, Astronomy and Steel and Louis had Electricity, Fascism and Artillery and was researching Rocketry. Plus I was at war with Ragnar and his colony Roosevelt who both had Combustion and was invading me with destroyers and transports. What would you do?

I decided my only hope was to research Combustion and Flight while building up enough EPs to steal techs. By that time I now controlled the AP and had the Shrine (so a 40% EP discount in the right city).

Here are the promised stats:
Airships: Current 9, Built 9, Killed 11, Lost 0
Fighters: Current 27, Built 36, Killed 20, Lost 9
Bombers: Current 12, Built 12, Killed 20, Lost 0

Most of the air casualties inflicted on Louis were from fighters on intercept and most of those were based on carriers as that was the only way to get enough concentrated air power. I think you can see the intensity of the air conflict. In doing that I've so far wiped out Roosevelt (9 cities), vassalised Ragnar (6 cities, 2 liberated by me) and I'm still at war with Louis having taken and defended 4 cities. My WW is at 1212 :mad: and fortunately I have PS from the captured Pyramids and so I can still press on.

An interesting point to note is that shooting down enemy planes gets huge amounts of experience for the fighters involved (often 2, 3 or 4 exp) and since Justinian is Imperialistic that gets doubled for GGs and since I also have captured the GW that can be doubled again if over my territory (and a newly captured city counts as that even if its on the other continent :lol:) So one of my carrier fighters shoots down one of Louis's bombers attacking a city I just captured and the fighter gets 4 exp and I get 16 GG points. This is the only game I've ever played where I have produced more GGs than GPs, currently 11 versus 9 :D

Naval warfare has mostly been been about destroyers and here are some more stats:

Destroyers: Current 18, Built 20, Killed 32, Lost 3
Carriers: Current 8, Built 8, Killed 0, Lost 0
Submarines: Current 6, Built 6, Killed 2, Lost 0

So I killed 32 destroyers (Ragnar's, Roosevelt's and Louis') and only lost 3. How is that possible? Most destroyer versus destroyer battles are close to a50% chance. Well if the target destroyer is hit by a few carrier bourne fighters the odds change to better than 95% in favour of my destroyers. So it could be argued that building the carriers saved me having to build the 30 extra destroyers I would have needed to rule the seas.

Carriers are great for blowing up the resources of an advanced nation like Louis. I sailed a raiding force of 3 carriers with 9 fighters and 4 destroyers slowly up Louis' coast where there was no hope of an invasion yet. They could destroy about 5 improvements each turn (on marathon it takes workers 15 turns to just build a farm). I targeted towns (reduced to village) and resources but also knocked out workshops, watermills and farms. Sometimes over 2 or 3 turns I could destroy every improvement in the BFC of a size 18 city. Needless to say it starved and was essentially useless for a long time. Obviously Louis doesn't have any oil left but has Uranium (for destroyers) and repairs the oil as fast as he can. Plus I don't really mind him building aircraft since I have such a good dominance.

The game continues with Louis 2 turns away from Industrialism just as I get Advanced Flight. So I have loads of highly promoted cataphracts upgrade to gunships just in time to meet his armoured forces. A very interesting game I hope you'll agree and impossible to win without the carriers. I'm currently at 52% land area of the 58% I need, so maybe another 20 turns ... :)

Carriers are definitely worth it if you're playing a late game conquest or domination. They can strike inland at strategic resources and weaken enemy reinforcements that might be coming to your beachhead.

I like building a navy, perhaps it is because I spent more than a few years in one, but I find a strong navy can cripple your enemy. Pretty similar to real life. I send out my own task forces consisting of carriers, subs, destroyers, carriers and maybe even a battleship. Blockade your enemy, bombard his defenses and bomb his resources. You will cut him off at the legs.

If I'm going for a space race or cultural victory, I rarely build them.

In my last game I was lucky enough to take a Chinese crap city on an island off the coast of China (playing earth map) it served me well as a base of operation for my Celtic air units without needing carriers, later on with ships and airships I was able to get to the mainland with ease. The city in question never produced much but it was really useful in that game.

So IMHO taking an isolated border city like this can be useful as a first stage in launching a whole scale attack.

It would have been much later in the game if I had to wait for carriers.

Don't under estimate the carrier because you can't under estimate the value of fighters. I believe industrial era wars are primarily about strategic blitzkrieg, massing and use of FIghters bombers and Tanks.

Now granted you only get 4 air units per occupied city (which greatly increases the value of carriers for multiplication) but you can always base 4 air units per fort. Build a couple forts along your enemies' borders for several reasons. Obviously the first few cities in a major war (same continent) are going to involve the most casualties and determine the length and outcome of the war most significantly. So a few additional bomber strikes can seriously cut siege time and I personally believe that as long as you knock out the initial enemy counter attack they don;t have much gas to attack so there is no need to have infantry keep up with the armor divisions. Simply use the air force to keep the enemy on its heals.

Back to fighters. They may not cause collateral dmg but they do clear the skies of the last real annoyance in enemy bombers and are greatly underratted in knocking out key strategic railroads, resources, and especially in unit attack. They attack the strongest unit in a stack so a couple fighter passes in any city and one has removed the most significant threat. Once you get past those initial large defending stacks, its easier I think to maintain momentum with fighters than bombers as you plow through those 4-5 defender cities a couple at a turn and wait to sort out their defense later with infantry.

Carriers allow you to deploy point attack units all around an enemies' empire crippling infrastructure and softening the interior for more rapid advancement and fewer counter attacks. Remember that aircraft completely replaces the use of artillery in the industrial and makes mobile artillery less necessary than in the cannon and prior eras.

Plus anti-air ground units are very ineffictive. They may dmg units here and there but never offer a serious threat to actually shooting them down. So as long as you remove the enemy fighter force and have a good number of planes it'd take some serious disadvantage to lose a modern war.

If you are a protoss and not a mere human, yes.

UncleJJ, can you give a rundown of how you have used all your GGs so far in that game?

Sure hal08; two are Medic3 Gunships now and they allow me to have two main armies, one is a military academy, another was used to promote 3 catphracts, and the remainder are all settled in my two best military cities. Constantinople has 4 MI and with Theocracy and HE can produce units in one or two turns with 13 exp and mounted troops (before stables was obsoleted) with 15 exp. The other city Achen is the main naval production centre with a drydock and a MA and enough MIs to give my carriers navigation 2.

The game is getting near to the end and I wanted to try out commando promoted gunships. As I had 3 cataphracts within a few exp of the commando promotion I attached a GG to one and shared the exp with the other two. The warlord was upgraded for free and the other two cost 440 gold each. I now have a superfast hit squad of 3 commando gunships :D