Hi,

Can air units in the game (stealth bombers, jet fighters, etc.) only attack enemy units?

Can it not do recon, attack improvements just like Civ IV?

Is the range of rebasing also limited?

This seems really strange to me.....


Thanks

1. Yes, that seems to be the case.
2. No, but you'll notice that your area of vision increases with air units
3. Range of rebasing does seem to be limited. I don't run into this often on small maps. It can obviously be an issue on large/huge if you're trying to produce units in only one city.

They attack cities as well

Civ 3 air units were perfect--infinite stacking, ability to destroy improvements, and you could do city bombing that would take out a destroy a building or a citizen. They should enable bombers (and Artillery) to destroy things in a city, and also bombard improvements.

you can infinite stack air units

Destroying key improvements would be a nice feature, but I think the ability to snipe buildings in cities would be more irritating than anything else. There would have to be some sort of probability of failure, and a quick way to repair buildings, otherwise a decent fleet of bombers could completely cripple a production or culture city unless you filled it with fighters or surround it with AA instead of a land army.

In the late game buildings are utterly crucial to a city's output.

"otherwise a decent fleet of bombers could completely cripple a production or culture city "

Well, that is exactly what they are for.

"otherwise a decent fleet of bombers could completely cripple a production or culture city "

Well, that is exactly what they are for.

Except the missing feature is the land invasion force. You could completely ignore any ground forces and pester your enemy from an aircraft carrier, crippling them significantly.

It's true that if you have loads of bombers, why not just take the city, but that makes the ability to bomb buildings fairly moot anyway.

Given the current system, if you have enough air superiority to worry about bombing buildings, you can probably take the city with 1 melee unit. This is a very common strategy for me in the late game.

Get 3 SB's with logistics. Pummel a city and take it in one turn with a tank. Wash, rinse, repeat. Raze as needed. Total Annihilation complete.

Except the missing feature is the land invasion force. You could completely ignore any ground forces and pester your enemy from an aircraft carrier, crippling them significantly.

It's true that if you have loads of bombers, why not just take the city, but that makes the ability to bomb buildings fairly moot anyway.

This is neither ahistorical nor bad gameplay. The primary use of strategic bombers historically was to devastate the opposing war effort, NOT to bomb troops (though that's effective too).

What's the problem?

Get 3 SB's with logistics. Pummel a city and take it in one turn with a tank. Wash, rinse, repeat. Raze as needed. Total Annihilation complete.

Sounds like instructions for a washing machine.

Get 3 SB's with logistics. Pummel a city and take it in one turn with a tank. Wash, rinse, repeat. Raze as needed. Total Annihilation complete.

This fellow has the right idea. Give 'im a beer on the house!

For me, when CiIV did away with Fatal Bombardment, along with the ability to destroy tile improvements, it took the fun right out of Air Units, as well as much of the fun of Artillery and ships. I'm not a stickler for historical accuracy in Civ but, for Goodness' sake, the purpose of bombardment is to blow stuff up. Incoming ordnance does not pause and think "Oops! That's a road so I won't detonate." It just goes "Boom!" If the idea is to keep bombardment from being overpowered then nerf the damage.

you can infinite stack air units


Well, clearly. You couldn't in Civ IV, though.

For me, when CiIV did away with Fatal Bombardment, along with the ability to destroy tile improvements, it took the fun right out of Air Units, as well as much of the fun of Artillery and ships. I'm not a stickler for historical accuracy in Civ but, for Goodness' sake, the purpose of bombardment is to blow stuff up. Incoming ordnance does not pause and think "Oops! That's a road so I won't detonate." It just goes "Boom!" If the idea is to keep bombardment from being overpowered then nerf the damage.


Agree whole-heartedly. Civ III had a perfect bombardment system. Obviously the combat in Civ V is vastly superior to the combat in Civ IV (even if the AI does suck more at it, if it were even possible) but I still like the Civ III bombardment system the most ;)

This is neither ahistorical nor bad gameplay. The primary use of strategic bombers historically was to devastate the opposing war effort, NOT to bomb troops (though that's effective too).

What's the problem?

This is true, but you also have to keep in mind that CiV massively massively under-represents the effect of the industrial revolution (necessarily, for balance). In history, this is the effect that counterbalances the effects of bombing. Accurately representing the economic side of bombing presents far-reaching problems.

To a lesser extent, the fact that units repair without any economic cost contributes to the problem as well.

This is true, but you also have to keep in mind that CiV massively massively under-represents the effect of the industrial revolution (necessarily, for balance). In history, this is the effect that counterbalances the effects of bombing. Accurately representing the economic side of bombing presents far-reaching problems.

To a lesser extent, the fact that units repair without any economic cost contributes to the problem as well.

Nice observation. Modelling the effects of the industrial revolution in detail would probably require a game unto itself. The same can be said for the Protestant Reformation and the discovery and exploitation of the New World. Old timers will recall a game titled "Machiavelli" whose sole purpose was to model trade during the Renaissance.

you can infinite stack air units

You would need 1/4 infinite aluminum.

You would need 1/4 infinite aluminum.

Nah, he can just stack 'em all as Guided Missiles, ad infinitum.

This is true, but you also have to keep in mind that CiV massively massively under-represents the effect of the industrial revolution (necessarily, for balance). In history, this is the effect that counterbalances the effects of bombing. Accurately representing the economic side of bombing presents far-reaching problems.

To a lesser extent, the fact that units repair without any economic cost contributes to the problem as well.

I'm not sure what you mean by counterbalance. World War 2 hit Europe so hard that it took massive overseas capital investments to recover from the devastation, and that it catapulted the United States from a reasonably powerful nation (a status it had achieved in the wake of WW1) to a superpower simply because the United States had not been bombed out. This was achieved largely due to strategic bombing.

If anything, industrialization exacerbates the impact of strategic bombing by creating strategic targets. In a feudal/medieval economy, production of things like bows is decentralized; you can target an individual bowyer but the impact will be minimal. In an industrial economy, tanks are produced at gigantic factory facilities. Bomb that factory and production will be massively set back.

I'm not sure what you mean by counterbalance. World War 2 hit Europe so hard that it took massive overseas capital investments to recover from the devastation, and that it catapulted the United States from a reasonably powerful nation (a status it had achieved in the wake of WW1) to a superpower simply because the United States had not been bombed out. This was achieved largely due to strategic bombing.

If anything, industrialization exacerbates the impact of strategic bombing by creating strategic targets. In a feudal/medieval economy, production of things like bows is decentralized; you can target an individual bowyer but the impact will be minimal. In an industrial economy, tanks are produced at gigantic factory facilities. Bomb that factory and production will be massively set back.

So why doesn't civ v allow for strategic bombing on resources such as oil or aluminum?

The effectiveness of area-bombing German cities is still debated, though there's general agreement that it wasn't as important to the war as the people who ordered it thought. The figures of German production actually increased each year of the war (not counting 1945) despite the heavy bombing which began in 1942. The actual fighting, with armies maneuvering across the countryside, accounted for far more devastation. Particularly in White Russia, where the Russians destroyed everything they could as they fell back in 1941, and then the Germans did the same thing as they retreated in late '43 and '44. As far as strategic bombing is concerned, when Allied air forces began targeting the German petroleum infrastructure is when you can discern measurable setbacks to the German war economy.

For realism (WW2 modders, take note!) any combat involving industrial or modern-era units should destroy the tile improvement on which it takes place, automatically. So, if artillery bombards a unit, the tile improvement (if any) on which the unit is sitting is destroyed. Ditto for air bombardment. The tile being attacked onto in melee combat has its improvement destroyed.

Artillery and bombers should be able to target improvements, city buildings, and city population.

So why doesn't civ v allow for strategic bombing on resources such as oil or aluminum?

Same (non apparent) reason you cant bomb infra. ect.

IMHO Civ3 had the best ari attack system in the series. There were a lot of things about Civ3 that I carried on to later games... like the colony system. If they had that in Civ5 You wouldnt have to found 500 cities just to get enough resourses or trade for it...

So why doesn't civ v allow for strategic bombing on resources such as oil or aluminum?

No idea. It probably should.

The effectiveness of area-bombing German cities is still debated, though there's general agreement that it wasn't as important to the war as the people who ordered it thought. The figures of German production actually increased each year of the war (not counting 1945) despite the heavy bombing which began in 1942. The actual fighting, with armies maneuvering across the countryside, accounted for far more devastation. Particularly in White Russia, where the Russians destroyed everything they could as they fell back in 1941, and then the Germans did the same thing as they retreated in late '43 and '44. As far as strategic bombing is concerned, when Allied air forces began targeting the German petroleum infrastructure is when you can discern measurable setbacks to the German war economy.

For realism (WW2 modders, take note!) any combat involving industrial or modern-era units should destroy the tile improvement on which it takes place, automatically. So, if artillery bombards a unit, the tile improvement (if any) on which the unit is sitting is destroyed. Ditto for air bombardment. The tile being attacked onto in melee combat has its improvement destroyed.

Artillery and bombers should be able to target improvements, city buildings, and city population.

I have considered exactly that mod (artillery/air combat/ground combat pillaging tiles automatically). I think it'd play well.

As far as air power having less impact - that's a fair point and should be reflected in the odds that a strategic bombardment actually will set the target back (and the rates at which you recover from bombing).

I'm not sure what you mean by counterbalance. World War 2 hit Europe so hard that it took massive overseas capital investments to recover from the devastation, and that it catapulted the United States from a reasonably powerful nation (a status it had achieved in the wake of WW1) to a superpower simply because the United States had not been bombed out. This was achieved largely due to strategic bombing.

If anything, industrialization exacerbates the impact of strategic bombing by creating strategic targets. In a feudal/medieval economy, production of things like bows is decentralized; you can target an individual bowyer but the impact will be minimal. In an industrial economy, tanks are produced at gigantic factory facilities. Bomb that factory and production will be massively set back.

I have to admit, I don't have an extensive understanding of post WWII reconstruction. I did pick off wikipedia that the entire sum of the Marshall plan to all nations was 13 billion dollars along with 12 billion not from the Marshall plan against a U.S. GDP of 258 billion dollars (tough to translate exactly into civ terms, but doesn't seem that massive to me). In addition, 6 years (approximately the length of the war itself) after the war had ended the economic output of western european nations was 35% higher than before the war started.

That's not exactly my point though, though it is related. When you're talking about bombing a building the only counters to that are to stop the bombing from happening or rebuild the building. It's fairly hard to stop the bombing from happening entirely and I think CiV already skews a bit unrealistic towards letting bombers get through (certainly with regards to the range over which they can successfully bomb, but also a bit when it comes to dropping bombs in spite of interception).
That leaves rebuilding the building, which you do with your hammers/gold (which I'm equating with GDP). The amount of hammers and gold that a civ produces maybe doubles or triples going from the medieval to late-industrial ages. In reality, the GDP of western europe grew 20-fold from 1500 to 1913, 30-fold from 1500 to 1950. That's a pretty big gap between civ and reality.
But for game balance reasons you can't really have a civ which becomes industrial experience that productivity boom. It wouldn't be fun. Such a civ would dominate anyone who came late to that party utterly (incidentally, I think this would be pretty historically accurate).

I would argue that an industrial economy mobilized for war could replace a tank factory more quickly than a medieval one could replace a bowyer, but to get into that discussion requires setting some kind of definition of what constitutes a strategic bombing of a bowyer and I don't think that's a good road to go down.

Even if all the tiles in a large area are pillaged it doesn't take that long for workers to repair it.

Strategic bombing would have to be balanced, yes...perhaps a rebuild feature something like when a worker can rebuild an improvement quicker than he can build it from scratch.

Yeah, that would do it, it would have to be quicker than the worker repair though. The worker repair is actually not that much quicker than rebuilding the improvement. Takes 3 turns to repair an improvement and usually 4 turns to build it from scratch. I wouldn't mind seeing the repair time on improvements sped up anyway. They'd almost certainly have to speed it up if they made bombarding destroy the improvement under the unit. Even better, make some industrial age tech improve worker speed significantly.

Worker speed should improve with Steam Power, if it doesn't already.

Just make building rebuild take only one turn. That would be pretty accurate--but make it pretty likely that a bombing raid will succeed in the absence of anti-air defenses.

Bombers shouldn't take damage unless attacked anti-air units or cities. It makes no sense for my bomber to take damage from enemy riflemen or infantry.

Would it be difficult/impossible to assign HP to tile improvements? I'm not a modder so I don't know. In that scenario, Worker action would "heal" a tile improvement at a given rate per turn. It would be easier, I think, to balance the effect of strategic bombing that way rather then nerfing bombers.

If tile outputs were higher I would suggest a system whereby bombing raids reduce tile outputs and "damage" improvements rather than destroying them.

Bombers shouldn't take damage unless attacked anti-air units or cities. It makes no sense for my bomber to take damage from enemy riflemen or infantry.

I agree with this, but on the flip side I'm really underwhelmed by the ability of anti-air and fighters to fend of bombers. Trying to bomb something with a bomber that is under the cover of an active anti-air should lead to a significantly diminished chance of success and significant damage to the bomber. Trying to bomb something with a fighter intercept active should pretty much negate any chance of the bomber doing damage and do significant damage back to the bomber. I feel like the point of the air sweep mission was to model fighters escorting your bombers, so you can force their fighters to engage yours. In practice it's not that useful since the fighters don't shoot down your bomber anyway and as soon as you take the city the fighters are destroyed anyway.

I think what binthuey said would be a great model, but I would be surprised if there's code in for something like that.

For realism (WW2 modders, take note!) any combat involving industrial or modern-era units should destroy the tile improvement on which it takes place, automatically. So, if artillery bombards a unit, the tile improvement (if any) on which the unit is sitting is destroyed. Ditto for air bombardment. The tile being attacked onto in melee combat has its improvement destroyed.

Artillery and bombers should be able to target improvements, city buildings, and city population.

I like this. Do you think melee units should also destroy an improvement when they attack a unit on that improvement's tile?