Air General / "Ace" great person

Does anyone else think that there should be an air unit great person equivalent to the great general? For example, an "Ace" great person.

I was thinking that such a unit could perhaps have the following effects:
1.) it's a non-combat air unit, so it has to be stationed in cities.
2.) Grants a combat bonus (equivalent to generals and admirals) to all air units stationed in the same city as well as an interception bonus to the city itself.
3.) If the city is targeted with a nuclear weapon, the Ace unit is expended to intercept and shoot down said nuclear weapon.

What does the community think?
Is there a place in the game's mechanics for an "Air General" of some kind? What powers should such a unit have, if it were to be added to the game?

bombers are powerful enough, they don't need bigger boost ...

dragonxxx said:

bombers are powerful enough, they don't need bigger boost ...

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Yes, especially if it's called an 'ace', then the bonus should only apply to fighter planes. Although it could also apply to bombers when their in defense from fighters, because their are several Aces who were turret gunners on heavy bombers( an Ace being someone who has shot down 5 enemy planes).

I like the idea for flavour, especially as a defence against nukes. However, bombers are indeed powerful enough. perhaps is the air game was more balanced this could work. or perhaps it gives a bonus only to fighters to defend against bombers.

in general I find fighters pretty useless. enough bombers with the right upgrades and the fighters can't do all that much.

Fabio1701 said:

I like the idea for flavour, especially as a defence against nukes. However, bombers are indeed powerful enough. perhaps is the air game was more balanced this could work. or perhaps it gives a bonus only to fighters to defend against bombers.

in general I find fighters pretty useless. enough bombers with the right upgrades and the fighters can't do all that much.

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Fighters are hugely important for defense. The deference between having a few fighters on intercept duty or not has made a huge impact on my domination victories. If the enemy sends bombers at you, a few fighters will fend them off with ease. It's also very important on your carriers, so they don't get sunk and lose their bombers.

I personally always build fighters before bombers because of how great they are on defense. I'll get bombers going after, of course, as both are important.

If you're actually engaging in warfare (that is both sides are approximately equal in tech) then you must have fighters. If you're just rubbing a weaker civ's nose in it, then bombers alone are fine.

I like the idea of the air ace - perhaps it should be primarily defensive? That is, it helps fighters/cities to shoot down bombers. It would assist with the slightly uneven air wars at present.

Personally I think the concept makes sense on paper but just doens't make sense with how air combat is implemented in Civ5. Air attack is already (too) powerful, and the ace would cater more to air defence, but since only the Triplane has an interception chance that's less than 100 %, it doesn't make too much sense within the current frame imo. If interception worked differently and always only had a chance to succeed, I think the concept of an "Ace" would make more sense - but then again, I supposed that's why we have the Dogfighting and Interception promotions, to reflect that.

Uzael36 said:

Fighters are hugely important for defense. The deference between having a few fighters on intercept duty or not has made a huge impact on my domination victories. If the enemy sends bombers at you, a few fighters will fend them off with ease. It's also very important on your carriers, so they don't get sunk and lose their bombers.

I personally always build fighters before bombers because of how great they are on defense. I'll get bombers going after, of course, as both are important.

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hmmmm... i may have to raise my difficulty level...

kaspergm said:

Personally I think the concept makes sense on paper but just doens't make sense with how air combat is implemented in Civ5. Air attack is already (too) powerful, and the ace would cater more to air defence, but since only the Triplane has an interception chance that's less than 100 %, it doesn't make too much sense within the current frame imo. If interception worked differently and always only had a chance to succeed, I think the concept of an "Ace" would make more sense - but then again, I supposed that's why we have the Dogfighting and Interception promotions, to reflect that.

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perhaps the ace could negate all bomber promotions for bombers that try attacking that turn on the city? that would be pretty cool, as a bomber with heal on action,, two city bombard upgrades and two attack runs per turn is devastating. And bombers are pretty easy to upgrade if you are careful with letting them heal frequently. This way it won't just be a matter of upping already powerful unit stats but change game mechanics which is always a more fun for decision making.

If you're going to have an Ace what about a GreatPerson that functions identically to a fighter and upgrades strength automatically with each Flight related tech (from BiPlane, to fighter to Jet...).
As an Ace unit this special fighter would have a unique promotions.
The Ace would appear after you accumulate the 100 points.

That is an interesting idea, I use many air units around atomic era or when they are still useful and not totally destroyed by anti-air

That is an interesting idea because there are admirals generals but nothing for air. But an ace could only help one plane because planes go 1 at a time