Aircraft Carriers

[bonafide11]

I watched a show on the History Channel (okay, it was actually the Military Channel) about Aircraft Carriers and I realized how important these ships were in the twentieth century wars, especially beginning in WWII. The problem is these ships have very little purpose in Civilization. Sure, they can carry fighters to protect the skies, but destroyers can do the same thing. Unless the opponent doesn't have rocketry yet, the fighters have almost no chance of any effective attack. So what is the point of the aircraft carrier? It really serves no useful function. It isn't a good attacker or defender. I don't understand what use it serves to have the carrier only carry fighters/jets. As soon as you take a city on another continent, you can fly fighters/jets there for defense. You don't need the carrier for that. The carrier would be useful before taking the city when you could potentially use bombers to reduce the city's defenses and cause collateral damage. So why can't the carrier carry bombers? It doesn't make sense, aircraft carriers have always carried bombers.

 

[Gaius Octavius]

Aircraft carriers do not carry bombers; they carry fighters and fighter-bombers.

The difference is that the bomber unit in the game is basically your World War II medium or heavy bomber, like the B-17 or B-29. There is no way they could land on or take off from a carrier deck. The only exception that I can think of is the squadron of B-25s that led the Doolittle raid over Japan in April 1942, but that was a one-way trip (they had to fly to China, as they had no hope of returning) and required specially modified planes, stripped down of non-essential gear.

However, I do agree with you; the carrier is not all that useful in comparison to its real-life role. The simplest way to fix this is to let aircraft sink ships!!!

End rant.

 

[jkp1187]

Gaius,

I think your idea might be best implemented via promotion... Combat I as a prerequisite. Rationale: anti-ship warfare requires a more specialized skill/equipment set than merely tossing 'dumb' bombs at ground troops. This would also encourage the player to develop a more dedicated naval aviation contingent versus the 'regular' air force.

Thoughts?

 

[Lurking Liu]

It's useful in some maps... Basically serving as a mobile fort that can carry fighters... But, yeah, they're seriously underpowered.

Also bear in mind that full-health Fighters will intercept at 100% rate (so says the Civalopaedia, at least) so having three of them on Intercept mode is guaranteed to stop three incoming attacks, while your Destroyers are only, what, 20% Intercept?

 

[ShredZ]

Cities(4) & cities w/airports(8) have airplane caps, with carriers around, the cap is only limited by the number of carriers you can build... ok ok that was weak but still, its something.

 

[Rusty Edge]

However, I do agree with you; the carrier is not all that useful in comparison to its real-life role. The simplest way to fix this is to let aircraft sink ships!!!

End rant.

Torpedo promotion!

 

[jkp1187]

Maybe the solution is a new unit? A naval aviation unit that is the ONLY unit that can deploy to fighters. It can sink ships...but -50% ground attack....?

 

[UERD]

Would it be a balance-breaker if they could carry and launch Paratroopers? Of course, realistically speaking, the transport planes that carry the Paratroopers are probably as big as, if not bigger than WW2 bombers (I'm not too clear on the subject), so it would be a long shot.

 

[Galatian]

Would it be a balance-breaker if they could carry and launch Paratroopers? Of course, realistically speaking, the transport planes that carry the Paratroopers are probably as big as, if not bigger than WW2 bombers (I'm not too clear on the subject), so it would be a long shot.

Actually a good idea. Doesn't the Navy use Osprey's on the Carriers to deploy Paratroopers?
But worse then the Carrier is definetely those missiles, because they don't even reach from one city to another...

 

[Fugl]

ehm, totally disagree on this, fighters+carrier compo fex are overpowered, and need a nerf imo, in relative few numbers they can easily destroy a 1000 years of cottage economy in very short time, or take 50% heath of any stack, they can attack _anything_ with good odds, nothing counters them good, not even sam inf`s, they might have ok odds to damage them, but rarely shoots them down, ai prolly suck at this, but try it yourself vs an ai or player

 

[Lurking Liu]

ehm, totally disagree on this, fighters+carrier compo fex are overpowered, and need a nerf imo, in relative few numbers they can easily destroy a 1000 years of cottage economy in very short time, or take 50% heath of any stack, they can attack _anything_ with good odds, nothing counters them good, not even sam inf`s, they might have ok odds to damage them, but rarely shoots them down, ai prolly suck at this, but try it yourself vs an ai or player

Damaging them is all you need--That cancels the entire mission for that unit.

That said, I do agree that it's way too easy to destroy a cottage economy with air power. It's a little better now that you can fail to destroy an improvement (That may have been in Warlords and Vanilla, too, but I haven't faced it until BTS) but it's still too easy compared to real life...

 

[Elrohir]

ehm, totally disagree on this, fighters+carrier compo fex are overpowered, and need a nerf imo, in relative few numbers they can easily destroy a 1000 years of cottage economy in very short time, or take 50% heath of any stack, they can attack _anything_ with good odds, nothing counters them good, not even sam inf`s, they might have ok odds to damage them, but rarely shoots them down, ai prolly suck at this, but try it yourself vs an ai or player

That's why you build your own planes. Fill all the cities nearby up with planes, and then build forts and fill them with planes and SAMS. If you leave the skies to the enemy, and only build land units, of course you're going to be destroyed - but if you take the fight to the air, and fight his sea based planes with your land based planes, you will assuredly win, and he can't build enough carriers to match all the planes you can have in your territory.

 

[Antilogic]

If an enemy has a large air force and you are making an amphibious landing, carriers are necessary to protect the skies.

In a modern war, I also used fighter planes on a pair of carriers (escorted by 1 battleship and 3 destroyers) to destroy improvements along the AI coast. The harrassment attacks were fun, to say the least, although popping several towns was an excellent commerce-destroying move on my part. Especially because the AI only stations SAM infantry over resources, not directly over towns (so several were unguarded).

I've considered a carrier-specific fighter-bomber that got extra damage attacking ships since Vanilla, but I don't have the graphics know-how to make one.

 

[Quagga]

I think that the negative comments about carriers applied better to Vanilla and Warlords than to BTS. The carrier-based fighter escort is very helpful in the initial turns of a sea-land invasion because of AI airships. Airships will do a number on your invading troops.

If you take the first city with a sea invasion, you can fly cover in, but they won't do intercept until the next turn. You suffer a turn of airship bombardment, followed by every land unit that the AI can bring to bear. You may lose those fighters along with the troops in the city.

If you try to take the first city by landing on a hill and attacking next turn, the airships will have two turns to do damage to your troops. You'll have to bring a lot more of them (including building more transports), in order to take and hold that first city.

Instead, build an aircraft carrier and put fighters on it doing intercept duty. Place it where it can cover your troops. They are very effective against airships: All will intercept and most will successfully shoot down.

Also note that the AI airships love to pummel naval craft. They can't sink them, but your combat 2 destroyer will not fare well against contemporary enemies once it's been battered by airships.

 

[Littlelisa]

I love aircraft carriers

I always send 2 with about 6 Destroyers and 2 battleships when making an invasion.
Land 4 transports of troops, use ships to bombard defence, then use fighters to bombard the units in the city, capture.
Once you capture a city you can fly in 4 bombers and start air dropping in reinforcements.

You can also use them to bomb and destroy all towns and important resources near the coast.