I've said more than once that the Civ 3/4 "mission" model for air units is a lot less appealing to me than air units that behave as actual units, and the general response seems to be that people find the Civ 1/2 model air units that run out of fuel and crash if not back in a city every turn or two frustrating.
A proposal for a Civ 5 air unit model avoiding both of those issues.
Positing that air units that stay in the air turn after turn are no more of a "realism" problem than triremes that spend multiple centuries at sea.
Air units fall into a handful of basic categories.
Fighter-type units have attack and defense values against other air units, increasing over time. They can neither attack nor be attacked by regular ground units.
Bomber-type units have (generally lower) attack and defence values against other air units. They also have Civ3-type bombard functionality including lethal bombard against ground units; they can do damage or not do damage but will not take any damage from the act of bombing. Completing a bomb run uses up all a bomber's remaining movement points.
Combined fighter-bomber functionality can be modelled by adjusting attack and defence values accordingly.
Unarmed scout-type air units are also a possibility, having a one-tile or in later game two-tile range of vision on the ground beneath them.
The other model, for units that fly low and engage ground units in actual combat while in flight rather than bombardment, is of ones that land at the end of every turn, in whatever square they happen to be in, or can choose to do so before using all movement points. They count as air units in your turn and ground units in everyone else's (like the gliders in C-evo). I see this as appopriate for helicopter gunships, for example. (Yes, they can be shot down by spearmen. A spear in your jet intake really messes you up.) Or indeed for Montgolfier balloons early in the game.
Air transport functionality can then be modelled either with bomber-type units carrying paratroops, or with something in the helicopter mode that can unload land units at the end of its turn.
Anti-aircraft defence ground units have effective Civ3-type bombard functionality against air units, as a separate stat from their attack and defence values. Anti-aircraft defence is normally a function of specialised units, though late-game modern armour/mechanised infantry/cruiser/destroyer units have some limited amount of anti-aircraft functionality. City air defences are I think better represented as units with movement ) than as awkward hacking about with improvements to make them do unit-combat-type things.
Air units in general have far fewer hit points than contemporary ground units. And they cannot heal at all without returning to a city or a carrier (which prevents the lack of need for refuelling from rendering carriers obsolete). They also lose movement points when damaged.
Missiles are represented as air units which "bombard" a square by landing on it.
Fighter interception of air units from other civs is simulated by the equivalent of a sentry command for a land unit, combined with a Civ3-type zone of control allowing a fighter one free "bombard" shot at an incoming air unit, ecept that unlike Civ 3 every fighter on a square gets that shot.
This is a rough first draft; what I see it as enabling is large air forces as a technological transition point to make carrier groups obsolete battleships at some point even if battleships get un-nerfed. Yes, it leads to the airborne equivalent of SoDs; this is not something I consider a minus. (Particularly when you think of the difference getting a series of cruise missiles or a nuke through to a carrier group would make.)
A proposal for a Civ 5 air unit model avoiding both of those issues.
Positing that air units that stay in the air turn after turn are no more of a "realism" problem than triremes that spend multiple centuries at sea.
Air units fall into a handful of basic categories.
Fighter-type units have attack and defense values against other air units, increasing over time. They can neither attack nor be attacked by regular ground units.
Bomber-type units have (generally lower) attack and defence values against other air units. They also have Civ3-type bombard functionality including lethal bombard against ground units; they can do damage or not do damage but will not take any damage from the act of bombing. Completing a bomb run uses up all a bomber's remaining movement points.
Combined fighter-bomber functionality can be modelled by adjusting attack and defence values accordingly.
Unarmed scout-type air units are also a possibility, having a one-tile or in later game two-tile range of vision on the ground beneath them.
The other model, for units that fly low and engage ground units in actual combat while in flight rather than bombardment, is of ones that land at the end of every turn, in whatever square they happen to be in, or can choose to do so before using all movement points. They count as air units in your turn and ground units in everyone else's (like the gliders in C-evo). I see this as appopriate for helicopter gunships, for example. (Yes, they can be shot down by spearmen. A spear in your jet intake really messes you up.) Or indeed for Montgolfier balloons early in the game.
Air transport functionality can then be modelled either with bomber-type units carrying paratroops, or with something in the helicopter mode that can unload land units at the end of its turn.
Anti-aircraft defence ground units have effective Civ3-type bombard functionality against air units, as a separate stat from their attack and defence values. Anti-aircraft defence is normally a function of specialised units, though late-game modern armour/mechanised infantry/cruiser/destroyer units have some limited amount of anti-aircraft functionality. City air defences are I think better represented as units with movement ) than as awkward hacking about with improvements to make them do unit-combat-type things.
Air units in general have far fewer hit points than contemporary ground units. And they cannot heal at all without returning to a city or a carrier (which prevents the lack of need for refuelling from rendering carriers obsolete). They also lose movement points when damaged.
Missiles are represented as air units which "bombard" a square by landing on it.
Fighter interception of air units from other civs is simulated by the equivalent of a sentry command for a land unit, combined with a Civ3-type zone of control allowing a fighter one free "bombard" shot at an incoming air unit, ecept that unlike Civ 3 every fighter on a square gets that shot.
This is a rough first draft; what I see it as enabling is large air forces as a technological transition point to make carrier groups obsolete battleships at some point even if battleships get un-nerfed. Yes, it leads to the airborne equivalent of SoDs; this is not something I consider a minus. (Particularly when you think of the difference getting a series of cruise missiles or a nuke through to a carrier group would make.)
