Preventing AI Rebasing

Does anyone know a way to prevent the computer opponent from being able to rebase their air units? Removing the rebase command in the editor has not been successful, as the AI is still able to rebase these units around. This has been a large problem for me lately so I'd like to see if anyone knows any good work-arounds. Thanks in advance.

This is a pesky problem I had with SOE, too. I set the range for the planes to 1, so they couldn´t reach another place to rebase and let them upgrade to planes with full range, when it´s time for them to be used in the game.

To control features like that, I had to transform the techtree to a kind of a calendar.

Civinator said:

To control features like that, I had to transform the techtree to a kind of a calendar.

Click to expand...

I'm looking at a similar situation - how did you equate tech advances to time (i.e., making certain a Civ's research output mirrored calendar time?)

Best,

Oz

Ozymandias said:

I'm looking at a similar situation - how did you equate tech advances to time (i.e., making certain a Civ's research output mirrored calendar time?)

Best,

Oz

Click to expand...

In SOE I set the minimum and maximum time of research to 1 turn. So each turn has its own "tech". In SOE one turn is one month. To give a little bit of flexibility in that system symbolizing some kind of research, too, SOE has 3 completely fixed points in the calendar (Early..., Mid... and Late... of a year). each of the fixed points in the calendar has 3 perequisites (Land, Air, Sea) containing the units of each category that were commissioned in these three months.

The calendar also allows to trigger events in C3C, a feature I have always missed in Civ 3. This can simply be achieved by a strategic resource that appears at a certain time in a certain place, or by wonders that give special benefits. Per example, if you look into the German calendar of the first phase of WW2, in Land41/I you can see the start of Operation Barbarossa and the Africa Corps, in Mid 1941 you can see the Russian Mobilisation allowing the upgrade of the range 1 planes of Russia to the full range and so on.

@Civinator: TY

Best,

Oz

Thanks, Blue, I saw your method using the tech tree and the 'Barbarossa Border' and it looks great.

Reducing the range of the air units won't work as they start mostly at sea and their range is a crucial factor. Everything works great except that the computer thinks it is special and doesn't need to follow the rules of no airbasing. It seems that there is no way to prevent this.

I don't think the AI is "intelligent" enough to handle this in a human way, but have you tried making carrier specific a/c (e.g., the old throwing in the "foot units" parameters?)

Best,

Oz

Yeah, Oz, I have tried seven different ways to make this work. Making the units Ground units means they can't be located on sea tiles at the start. Giving them reduced range means they can't attack properly. Making them sea units means they can't be intercepted. They work well in every aspect except being able to rebase when they shouldn't.

When you try a method that doesn't work, you shrug. When you try a concept that fails to work within the game's progamming, you shake your head. Next up, I'll try moving the units to different areas of the map. Hopefully it produces some surprising results.

Yes AnthonyBoscia, each workaround here has its own flaws. The tendency of the AI to strip off the carrier of its planes is partly encountered in CCM and SOE by the ability of long-range bombardement of the carrier with a range of the combat radius of the planes that are aboard that carrier. But even this setting has its downsides, too.

One of the bigger problems in your scenario connected to the rebase problem of planes could be the following:

In SOE with tons of preplaced aircrafts on the map I observed the following: The AI has the tendency to concentrate nearly all of its airpower in a certain location near to the front. In the WW II scenario SOE this is not such a big problem, as nuclear weapons only appear in the last phases of the war. But in a scenario starting with nuclear weapons this can become a real gamebreaker. One (or some) nuclear bombs on that point and most of the AI airforce can be destroyed, especially if this point is in range of a landunit that can conquer that point.

Attached is a screenshot of turn two of a SOE testgame. The French AI concentrated nearly all of its airforce in the city of Metz. All units in the screenshot above the red line are air units. The landunits in that city are somwhat weak.

@Civinator - perhaps the Airport improvement could be given serious defense capabilities, representing CAP ("Combat Air Patrol") and air force defensive ground units?

Best,

Oz

I keep copious notes as well as bookmarks and The Archive ... I was going through my notes and found the following from an unknown author. I'm just going to quote the whole thing and MAYBE some of the thoughts around flags can be of use to you:

"Remove Airlift from everything and add it to all aircraft and remove the re-base function. Now you can only move them between airports and you need transport aircraft to move ground units.

One side effect is that you need to load your carriers at a port - you can't add more planes when it is at sea. Add a Tactical Missile flag to heavy bombers to keep them off the carriers.

Why make it a tactical missile? All you have to do is uncheck the Load Special Action and those airplanes can't land on carriers."

Good Luck,

Oz

Oz, thank you for this look into your archive. I had something similar, until it was lost when my old pc caught fire some years ago.

The problem is, that the AI rebases the planes even when the rebase option is removed. Therefore it seems, this is no solution to that problem.