Things civilopedia can't explain

[nyarmondt]

Well, I've got some questions and I didn't find answers to it in the well beloved civilopedia.

1) Militaristic:
Is it possible that this trait also gives the benefit of upgrading your units already at half price? ATM, I'm doing a game with the Romans, and I noticed that uprgrading their old units did cost me only 15 gold, while with the Byzantines I have 30 gold to pay for this.
After I conquered the town with Leonardo's Workshop, that got lowered to 7 gold per unit That's cheap, to say the least...

2) AA defense:
This is something far more sinister... There is not even an entry for it in the civilopedia. So you've got this low number for AA defense, but seemingly those AA units dont do jacknaught against those airplanes - be them small or big. I have never downed a plane with surface AA...

[maurcus]

I believ that the AA interception chance is 25% while the sam is 50% although i may be wrong.

The thought about militaristic is interesting i'll try to look into it.

[Quintillus]

1. I've never seen it before. One thought is, do Legionaries cost 35 gold in the version you are playing (I feel like they did at some point, though they don't seem to in Conquests). That would account for their lower cost.

2. I don't remember exactly what the anti-air defence values translate into in percentages. I recall reading that having up to 4 FLAK provides increasing benefits, but none beyond that (unless some are destroyed), but I don't know what the basis for that is.

However, it is possible for surface AA to successfully down planes - even fairly effectively. But it does help to concentrate them. In my experience, too, FLAK tend to do better than ships. Put 2-4 FLAK in a city that the AI is targeting, and within a few turns you'll wear down their air forces fairly well - either that or they'll start targeting another city. Better than Fighters? Probably not, but they're helpful if you find yourself behind in the air wars and in a situation where any Fighter is likely to get destroyed before it leaves the runway.

[maurcus]

I ran some tests and it doesnt appear militaristic does anything with upgrade costs . were you playing a mod because it might have had a wonder that provided the same benefit as Leonardo's workshop.

[maurcus]

i RAN SOME MORE TESTS THIS is what i found out odds of soot down 1flack 2/11 with 2flack 1/10 with 3flack 3/10 with 4 flack 1/10 that is my test results im sure their inaccurate feel free to do your own.

[MysteryX]

I have read that there is something bugged when it comes to jet fighters intercepting bombers. I don't recall what the specific details were, except that they did not perform as they should.

I have only used Flaks for the first time in the last game I played, and without keeping any actual numbers, I felt they were more effective than jet fighters at downing enemy bombers. I have found SAM effective, and some ships have decent chances of knocking down a bomber.

[MarkK]

Interesting. I've seen where Flak have had a limited effect (less than 25%) against my Bombers, but Destroyers are a more formidible foe. Upwards of 50% when they're lucky. This is based solely on observation.

[bigFRANK]

Its hard to test succesfully as its a RNG quirk but each flak unit I believe has a 25% of engaging an enemy aircraft so stick 4 units in a town and whilst it wont be bomber proof theres a very real chance than the bomber will be shot at, SAM's have the added advantage that if they shoot they almost always down the enemy aircraft.

[Civinator]

Here is (once again) the AA combat formula from alexman (not from me !):

The real strength of each AA unit is 1/10th of the value shown in the editor. So Flak has a strength of 0.2.

Each AA unit in the tile being bombarded takes a shot against the defense of the bombarding air unit. The chance of shooting down the air unit is A/(A+D), as with all other forms of combat in Civ3. Remember, A is 10 times less than what is in the editor for the AA unit.

The maximum number of AA units that are given a chance to shoot down the plane is 4. Any AA units above 4 are ignored.

So, for example, if you want the formula for the probability of N units with a strength of A shooting down a plane with defense of D, here it is:

1 - (D / (D+A))^min(N,4)

D is the defense value of the bombarding air unit (2 for a bomber). No modifiers apply. A is the AA strength of the AA unit (0.2 for flak). N is the number of AA units, not the number of air units.

min(N,4) = N, if N less or equal to 4
min(N,4) = 4, if N greater than 4

The SAM battery works like this:

For each bomber, there is a chance equal to the interception chance for the SAM to fire (50% against conventional, 5% against stealth)

If the SAM doesn't fire, the bomber continues as if the SAM were not present. This includes the chance of getting shot down by AA fire.

If the SAM fires, it has a A/(A+D) probability to shoot down the plane (A=8 for the SAM, D=2 for the Bomber). If the plane is not shot down, the Bomber survives, but it loses its chance to do any damage as well.

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You can be sure, Alexman (=Alexander Mantzaris) knew what he did write about. Some years later he became lead designer of Civ 4 and it is very obvious, that he had deeper insights into Civ 3, too.