Air Combat

[yoshi]

Just wanted to post some stuff on air unit combat.

Post your own stuff, opinions, etc.


Most of this stuff will be used in a WW2 scenario I'm working on (only Germany playable in SP version) so I could really use some helpful criticism.


Immobile 'Air Superiority air unit:

- Allied/Russian AS units randomly appear over German and Axis productive tiles thus preventing those tiles from being used. These unit must be shot down with fighters or AA ground units.
- Axis AS units first appear in places where Allied AS units are ment to appear.
- Allied fighters appear on random turns set to attack squares with Axis AS units in order to clear them for the appearance of Allied AS units.
- AS units will also appear near certain choke points thus preventing ground units from getting through.
- AS units also serve to reveal enemy units to the AI by randomly appearing at heavy traffic points on the map or adjacent to cities.


Fighters (Me 109), Fighter-Bombers (Me 110), Dive Bombers (Ju 87), Medium Bombers (He 111) and Heavy Bombers (B-17):

- Fighters have 2 fuel a movement of 6 so they can stay in the air 1 turn to defend bombers or serve the 'air superiority' role with their high defence (make productive squares unusable to the enemy for 1 turn). Aside from Fighter-Bombers and AA ground units, this is the only unit type that can attack other air units.

- Fighter-Bombers have a greater range than fighters but lower defence. Serve as escorts but can also take out weak ground targets at a greater range than fighters and without having to be escorted (at least not until more advanced fighters come onto the scene).

- Dive-Bombers have 2 fuel and 6 movement like fighters but much higher attack and much lower defence but cannot attack air units. the advantage they have over bombers is that they are faster (more MP per fuel so they can move in, attack and move out quicker) and cheaper to build.

- Medium Bombers have fuel of 6 but movement of 4 thus have a much greater range but are slower and can be intercepted. They have a high fire power factor so they are pretty sure to destroy most ground targets.

- Heavy Bombers have fuel of 8 and movement of 4 thus have more range than any other unit in the game. They are slow, like Medium Bombers but have a higher defence thus giving them greater chances of survival even if attacking without an escort. Attack factor is higher than Medium Bomber thus can take out pretty much any target. Extremely expensiv though.


AI Bomber missions:

- AI B-17s appear set to go to target with P-51Ds accompanying.
- P-51Ds appear at a distance that causes them to stop just before the target so that they don't attack it whereas the bombers do; the fighters remain on that square defending victorious bombers.


Invisible 'Bombardment' air unit:

- Destroyed after attacking.
- Appears via events next to certain units, cities.
- Serves to represent things that are not in scen like V-1 missile attacks.
- Also serves as a unique trigger unit (i.e. triggers special events by destroying particular units in a remote part of the map).

 

[Yuri2356]

Why not include V-1, or even V-2 missiles in your scenario? You could just make a cheep/week cruise missle with short range buildable only by Germany (but the tech can be stolen during conquest.) Or are you keeping them out for a good reason?

Other than that, sounds like a pretty good setup fro air combat.

 

[Boco]

Are you thinking of using the AEGIS flag for some fighters?

 

[yoshi]

@Yuri2356: There are a few reasons for not using missiles:

1. Since they have the 'Destroyed after attacking' ability, they can be carried by sea units with 'Submarine advantages/disadvantages' ability.
In order to prevent AI naval units from making suicide attacks on land targets (esp in cities), I give all naval units this ability--subs just have a very high attack ability and can see other ships in adjacent squares. This means that V-1s could be carried by any ships type, and I don't even want subs carrying them.

2. They can be used to scout with and that's highly unrealistic.

3. They take up an extra unit slot--the Bombardment unit is genericthus can serve multiple purposes.

In the scen, the human (Germany) doesn't control the Bombardment units, the AI (Axis - civ allied to Germany) controls this unit when it appears under that flag at different times during the scen (based on how things play out).


[BTW, in case you're wondering why I don't make all civs playable, it's because the scen is so complex that each civ would need its own scen just to play right (the AI civs function very differently to the human civ). And seeing as how Germany is the wildcard in the war (i.e. has the most to gain and the most to lose), it makes sense to make them the protagonist...not to mention that play is more diverse than playing Russia or Allies.]


@Boco: I usually set this flag for all air units so that if they are attacked by ground units (e.g. when in a city or base), the attacker takes little damage. Additionally, AA ground units can be given a lower attack so that they are not worth using against other ground units.

The biggest problem is with air units defending in cities: when attacking Bombers weak defence does not factor into the combat equasion so the bomber is actually more likely to be successful against defending fighters than a fighter unit would be. Can't really think of any way around this.


Any comments on the mechanics of the Air Superiority unit concept?

 

[yoshi]

Are you thinking of using the AEGIS flag for some fighters?

Did you have something particular in mind?

 

[kobayashi]

- Fighters have 2 fuel a movement of 6 so they can stay in the air 1 turn to defend bombers or serve the 'air superiority' role with their high defence (make productive squares unusable to the enemy for 1 turn). Aside from Fighter-Bombers and AA ground units, this is the only unit type that can attack other air units.

- Fighter-Bombers have a greater range than fighters but lower defence. Serve as escorts but can also take out weak ground targets at a greater range than fighters and without having to be escorted (at least not until more advanced fighters come onto the scene).

- Dive-Bombers have 2 fuel and 6 movement like fighters but much higher attack and much lower defence but cannot attack air units. the advantage they have over bombers is that they are faster (more MP per fuel so they can move in, attack and move out quicker) and cheaper to build.

- Medium Bombers have fuel of 6 but movement of 4 thus have a much greater range but are slower and can be intercepted. They have a high fire power factor so they are pretty sure to destroy most ground targets.

- Heavy Bombers have fuel of 8 and movement of 4 thus have more range than any other unit in the game. They are slow, like Medium Bombers but have a higher defence thus giving them greater chances of survival even if attacking without an escort. Attack factor is higher than Medium Bomber thus can take out pretty much any target. Extremely expensiv though.

Have you ever played my ZWK?

 

[clockboy]

I have a only somewhat related questions. Has anybody noticed that the AI seems unable to use air unts with fuel higher than two, and missiles ith fuels higher than one? Does anybody know how to get around this other than increasing the range?

 

[kobayashi]

I have a only somewhat related questions. Has anybody noticed that the AI seems unable to use air unts with fuel higher than two, and missiles ith fuels higher than one? Does anybody know how to get around this other than increasing the range?

AI can use aircraft effectively as long as the 'range' is an even number, like 4.

I believe the correct terminlogy is 'move' x 'range', check out the unit editor.

 

[yoshi]

Have you ever played my ZWK?

Yes, and it's quite good. You have fighter types with fuel of 2 and bombers 4 I believe. I wanted to distinguish between the two more by giving fighter types significantely more movement per fuel.

(BTW I wanted to ask you, why can the Germans build Fleet Carriers from the outset? Even though they could've built them, it wouldn't have happened for a long time AFAIK. AWAW allows this as well. Is there some historical reasoning behind this? I also ask because if playing SP, the human has a definite advantage over the AI as the latter doesn't use Carriers properly--or at least I've never seen it do so.)

I was thinking of emphasizing the difference even more than what I listed above by increasing fighter movement and decreasing bomber movment just to increase chances of an intercept prior to attack.

Another thing I may use is immobile 'Radar Installation' ground units that can see two squares. They are pre-placed or spawned all over the countryside (might even give them the sub ability so that they are harder to spot). If an enemy air unit enters the radar's visual range, the AI will send fighters to destroy the intruder. So, more radar means greater chances of being intercepted before you can get your bombers to the target. This makes the strategy of destroying radar crucial to success--particularly Britain where the air war is decisive.

Does anybody know how to get around this other than increasing the range?

Increasing the range will do nothing as the AI likes to send its bombers (fuel 2) out to 'explore' the map so adding movement just means the bombers will go out further before returning home. As K implied, the problem is that if you give the bomber 3 fuel for instance, the AI will not stop the bomber halfway through the moves of the second turn; instead, the bomber will go too far in the second turn and thus not be able to get back in the third turn.

-------------

Oh, and if designing a WWI scen:

Airship: Movement 3, fuel 8

 

[kobayashi]

I wanted to ask you, why can the Germans build Fleet Carriers from the outset? Even though they could've built them, it wouldn't have happened for a long time AFAIK. AWAW allows this as well. Is there some historical reasoning behind this? I also ask because if playing SP, the human has a definite advantage over the AI as the latter doesn't use Carriers properly--or at least I've never seen it do so.

yes, they were building a carrier off and on throughout and it was almost finished. Another two hulls originally mean for cruisers were in various stages of conversion to carrier at one point or another.

 

[BKA]

Check this link out if you like Yoshi: (more out there)

http://www.fact-index.com/g/ge/german_aircraft_carrier_graf_zeppelin.html

 

[yoshi]

Oh, I didn't know the Graff Zeppelin was actually completed but just not commisioned. I thought it never left the yard. Thanks both for the info.

Since your scen implies that you have control at the highest level, then there is no impediment to building anything you want (except for your won ability).

My scen, on the other hand, takes party/high command interference in military affairs into account (i.e. the objective is to see how well you do with such limitations) so it's assumed that you don't have the option of building carriers--not proceeding with the planned carriers is considered to have been just one more German blunder but a player given the option will obviously build carriers.

This is similar to another blunder: the delaying of Type-XXI development and production...with plenty of Allied help of course.


I forgot to mention that I tend to put fortresses on almost every square of the map so escorting bombers rally pays off because defenders must first destroy the high-defence escorts and then the bombers rather than all in one shot.

I think I mentioned about the Germans being the human player in my WW2 scen with an allied AI player (Axis). Well, I was thinking that a way of getting the player to attack around certain times is to spawn some Axis units near taget areas at the time of a historical campaign. You can just let them get creamed and attack at some other time (although there are other impediements to as well since this is a campaign-based scen), but you will incure penalties for doing so (more specifically, you will get fewer units and the enemy will get more among other things) so you're btter off taking advantage of these units and attacking at the same time. For example, at some point during the Battle of Britain (assuming you defeat France) Axis air units will appear near London. You're given a text message warning before hand so that you have time to get you're units in position so that you can destroy defenders in and around London--something that you, as a player would obviously never do if you had the choice as attacking London is considered to be one of Germany's biggest blunders as it historically lost them the Battle of Britain and arguably the whole war. The result is that you still have the freedom to engage in strategic air attacks (i.e. attacking the enemy's infrastructure and aircraft on the ground) as opposed to tactical air power (i.e. destroying the enemy in the air--Göring's choice and one of many big mistakes), but you won't have complete freedom to do so as losses incurred for the sake of defending the Axis units will reduce your capability. So, what determines your success will be which specific targets you attack and how you go about it--although in the Battle of Britain, the point will be to weaken the RAF but actually winning (being able to eliminate all the units you have to to trigger a landing of troops) will be nearly imossible.

Anyone know of any other scens that use a 'pushing' system like that above?

This is not a 'what if' scen but rather a 'combat' scen; there is science and production but it's limited, most of the changes occur based on your actions during a particular campaign; e.g. the equivilant powers of a filedmarshall with control over most of the Wehrmact.

BTW, isn't anyone going to post some ideas or something? I want to talk about gameplay mechanics, not just historical facts in relation to scen design.

 

[kobayashi]

Besides the Zepplin, after the hull of the Hipper class cruiser Seydlitz was launched in 42, they began coverting her into an aircraft carrier too - under Project Weser 1. They gave up in 43 after Raedar resigned in favour of Donitz and in the end it was used as a barracks.

http://www.german-navy.de/smb/scalemodels/ships/seydlitzcvl/history.html

Does fortress have any bearing on aircraft?

 

[yoshi]

Well, I guess that justifies adding them in the scen. It just feels odd though being able to build Fleet Carriers from the very start. Perhaps you should make them more expensive or add a new prerequisite like 'Carrier Program' mimicing a decision to go forward with Raeder's plans.
I won't be adding Carriers I don't think. It's just not worth dedicating a unit slot for just one carrier (Graff Zeppelin). Not only that but my scen is SP so the AI won't know what to do with carriers anyway and if I use a purley European map (i.e. no Atlantic, then there's even less reason to add the unit type.

Does fortress have any bearing on aircraft?

Yes. Think that air units in Civ2, unlike in Civ3, are just the same as any other unit only with a different domain thus the mechanics are exactly the same aside from different abilities and combat modifiers, so the fortresses cause air units to be destroyed one by one. Where the defence bonus is concerned, also yes AFAIK (considering what I just said that should be the case; the air domain is hard-coded to ignore walls but the 'Negates...' flag does not affect fortresses so it seems logical that air unit attacking another air unit on a fortress square will not ignore the fortress bonus). I think I remember having some trouble destroying bombers that were over mountain tiles at some point but I'm not 100% sure. Perhaps someone would be so good as to confirm this (I don't have a combat calculator program).