Air Combat - How does it work?

[Pir Lan Tota]

Bonjour All,

found another question.

I understand the basics of aircombat. You put fighters on patrol and they shoot the living sh*t out of attacking bombers. Fair enough, simple, straight forward.

Now here comes my question, if I send a fighter to recon enemy lands, but he comes within range of an enemy fighter who is set on Patrol (intercept), will that
A. Shoot at each-other and the one that losses crashes/goes home and cries to mommy
B. Defender will try to hunt down my scout
C. Ignore eachother

Anyone know what will happen?

 

[r_rolo1]

Afaik C .....

 

[UncleJJ]

Option C
Fighters and (airships and bombers) are only intercepted when they make an attack on a tile inside the defending fighter's range.

 

[Pir Lan Tota]

Ok, lets change the question a bit....lets say my fighter attacks a tile and is being intercepted. Does it shoot back at the defending fighter or will it just try to do its bombing run?

Also, someone should mod in the Mosqiuto, as a weak but very evasive bomber (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Mosquito)

 

[pxpdoo]

Yes, handled like regular combat. Three possible outcomes:
1. Attacker is destroyed, Interceptor gets XP;
2. Interceptor is destroyed, Attacker gets XP, bombing run continues; or
3. They withdraw from combat, bombing run does not continue. (Not sure about XP, if any, for this one... )

 

[Emperor Giulio]

Build airports, it give aircrafts XP just like a barrack does for ground units.

 

[Emperor Giulio]

In future games, I suggest b-lining to Flight. It gives you an incredible advantage over Civs that have no way of countering it. Then you can sit back and totally obliterate the opposition.

 

[Bushface]

Yes, handled like regular combat. Three possible outcomes:
1. Attacker is destroyed, Interceptor gets XP;
2. Interceptor is destroyed, Attacker gets XP, bombing run continues; or
3. They withdraw from combat, bombing run does not continue. (Not sure about XP, if any, for this one... )

In my games wherein I've got it wrong and my enemy has managed to build fighters, the possible outcomes of my attacks are :-
1. Attacker is destroyed, interceptor gets XP;
2. Ditto;
3. Ditto;
4. to 10. Ditto;
11. to 15. Attacker withdraws, damaged, no XP, no attack on intended target; defender withdraws, XP not known;
16. Interception fails, attack succeeds, no XP.

If I am the defender, then the results are :-
1. Attacker is destroyed, defender gets XP but is damaged and will be shot down by a second attacker before the XPs are counted;
2. to 5. Both withdraw: defender is badly damaged;
6. to 20. Interception fails, attack succeeds.

Not once have I seen one of my attacking aircraft gain any XPs. Mind you, I haven't had a great deal of air combat in my games.

 

[Frostite]

C, its jsut reconisance you cant help it

 

[Pir Lan Tota]

C, its jsut reconisance you cant help it

Yea, but recon makes me Para drops into my lands possible....its not a big issue, as I am ussually the one with the stick, but it would be nice if in Civ5 even the recon planes would be intercepted.

 

[PibbZ]

Yea, but recon makes me Para drops into my lands possible....its not a big issue, as I am ussually the one with the stick, but it would be nice if in Civ5 even the recon planes would be intercepted.

Move up to the next difficulty level perhaps?

 

[Pir Lan Tota]

Move up to the next difficulty level perhaps?

How is this going to help interception of recon planes?!?!? Its only going to make the problem worse since the AI will have more of them, earlier and will attack with better stuff.....please explain how moving UP in level is going to solve the not shooting down of recon planes, please please, as my limited wisdom is unable to grasp the deeper levels of your knowledge...

ps. read with sarcasm and a pinch of salt...just getting ticked off by "move up a level" replies in each and every thread....

 

[Bushface]

Nothing will help to intercept planes on recon as they are not making an attack. Paradrops can, it says, be intercepted, but I've never had the occasion to see this happen.

 

[Dubai Vol]

Recon planes being impossible to intercept is historically accurate. In fact your beloved Mosquito was a successful recon plane, as were stripped-down Spitfires, etc. Rem the U-2? Still in service.

 

[pauldst]

Um, a U-2 was shot down once. Recon aircraft are far from impossible to shoot down. Ground-based weapons and fighters can suppress and/or eliminate air recon.

 

[Stuck in Pi]

one thing that civ V could add is a tech that lets you "recon" a certain area by using satellite imagery to look in an area. Now that's what I call uninterceptable.

 

[Thanny]

FYI, there are only up to five combat rounds for air units. If one or the other isn't shot down after that, then both survive.

The minimum damage per round is 10hp, so the total damage to both air units combined is at least 50hp.

Maximum damage per round is 50hp, so you can see why it's fairly rare for both units to survive.

I don't think either unit gets XP for an aborted air combat (it's not like either is actually withdrawing, in the normal Civ4 sense), but I haven't looked at that part of the code.

 

[PutCashIn]

Paradrops can be intercepted, I've had my paratroopers shot down (destroyed) a few times even. Often they just get damaged though.

 

[lordqarlyn]

In future games, I suggest b-lining to Flight. It gives you an incredible advantage over Civs that have no way of countering it. Then you can sit back and totally obliterate the opposition.

Its amazing the havoc you can wreak with fighters and bombers on an economy of a civ that does not have flight !

 

[lordqarlyn]

Um, a U-2 was shot down once. Recon aircraft are far from impossible to shoot down. Ground-based weapons and fighters can suppress and/or eliminate air recon.

Well once out of thousands of flights is an impressive record. And the SR71 was never shot down in spite of being shot at thousands of times.