SoulSkorpion
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jan 21, 2005
- Messages
- 24
In the process of experimentation for a mod I'm working on, I did some testing to try to "fix" air combat. I thought the results might be of interest to modders. Some of this is in the Civ 3 FAQ, but some of it isn't.
First, the "chance to intercept enemy air missions" percentage in the "general settings" tab of the editor controls only the probability that aircraft assigned to air superiority in the region will engage the attacker in combat. This means two very important things. Firstly, this percentage does not affect surface based anti-aircraft (that is, a land\sea unit with an "air defense str"). Secondly, if the interceptor's numbers come up and succeeds in intercepting the enemy, it does not automatically mean success.
As far as I can tell, only bombing and precision bombing can be intercepted (but I have not tested this!). When an intercept occurs, the outcome is decided by comparing the interceptor's attack with the bomber's defense. As far as I can tell, the procedure is the same as for any other kind of combat between two units in that one aircraft will be destroyed and the other may take damage in the fight. An aircraft going into a fight without full health will suffer the same penalties as a land or sea unit would.
From the FAQ:
So... what happens if we turn the intercept probability up to 100%? We get a scenario that looks a bit closer to reality (well, WW2 era at least (afaik)). One of the tasks of fighter aircraft is to protect friendly bombers by attacking enemy fighter aircraft which may try to intercept the bombers - either to shoot down the enemy aircraft or to simply draw them off and away so that the bombers can do their job. Further, initial bombing raids against Germany by the USAF showed quite dramatically that sending unescorted bombers is little short of suicide, as the defending fighters will cut them to pieces.
If we change the intercept probability to 100%, this is exactly what can happen. Say we play with the numbers so that fighters have an equal attack and defense value, with bombers having a lower defense than the fighters' attack (note that it doesn't matter what the bomber's attack rating is since it can't perform air superiority). The result is that bombers will usually lose if they attack alone, and even if they win they won't be able to bomb the target. However, the attacker can "escort" the bomber by ordering fighter aircraft to bomb the target first. The defending fighters will always engage the attackers, and a fight will take place. In this way, the attacking force can try to achieve control of the skies before sending vulnerable bombers. Even if the attacking fighters fail to destroy the defenders they will have kept them busy, reducing the number of defending aircraft available to intercept bombers.
There's one major catch: I doubt the AI will take advantage of this when attacking. For the fighters to be able to conduct "escort" missions they need the "bombing" ability, and for that they need at least one point of bombard strength; the closest applicable AI strategy is obviously "air bombard", and I would assume that the AI chooses what aircraft to use for bombing based on whichever has the highest bombard strength (ie, the vulnerable bomber). My assumption is pure conjecture - I have no evidence either way and I haven't read anything on the topic.
Some final points:
First, the "chance to intercept enemy air missions" percentage in the "general settings" tab of the editor controls only the probability that aircraft assigned to air superiority in the region will engage the attacker in combat. This means two very important things. Firstly, this percentage does not affect surface based anti-aircraft (that is, a land\sea unit with an "air defense str"). Secondly, if the interceptor's numbers come up and succeeds in intercepting the enemy, it does not automatically mean success.
As far as I can tell, only bombing and precision bombing can be intercepted (but I have not tested this!). When an intercept occurs, the outcome is decided by comparing the interceptor's attack with the bomber's defense. As far as I can tell, the procedure is the same as for any other kind of combat between two units in that one aircraft will be destroyed and the other may take damage in the fight. An aircraft going into a fight without full health will suffer the same penalties as a land or sea unit would.
From the FAQ:
- if an aircraft is intercepted it will always fail to bomb the target even if it wins the air battle.
- A defending (air superiority) aircraft can't intercept more than once per turn (even if it wins).
- Interceptors will only attack aircraft that target squares inside the interceptor's radius of operation. In other words: it does not matter if an aircraft tries to bomb a square lying outside the intercept radius of any fighter if there is no route to the target square that doesn't pass through intercept regions - for all intents and purposes we can assume Civ 3 doesn't consider routes for air missions.
So... what happens if we turn the intercept probability up to 100%? We get a scenario that looks a bit closer to reality (well, WW2 era at least (afaik)). One of the tasks of fighter aircraft is to protect friendly bombers by attacking enemy fighter aircraft which may try to intercept the bombers - either to shoot down the enemy aircraft or to simply draw them off and away so that the bombers can do their job. Further, initial bombing raids against Germany by the USAF showed quite dramatically that sending unescorted bombers is little short of suicide, as the defending fighters will cut them to pieces.
If we change the intercept probability to 100%, this is exactly what can happen. Say we play with the numbers so that fighters have an equal attack and defense value, with bombers having a lower defense than the fighters' attack (note that it doesn't matter what the bomber's attack rating is since it can't perform air superiority). The result is that bombers will usually lose if they attack alone, and even if they win they won't be able to bomb the target. However, the attacker can "escort" the bomber by ordering fighter aircraft to bomb the target first. The defending fighters will always engage the attackers, and a fight will take place. In this way, the attacking force can try to achieve control of the skies before sending vulnerable bombers. Even if the attacking fighters fail to destroy the defenders they will have kept them busy, reducing the number of defending aircraft available to intercept bombers.
There's one major catch: I doubt the AI will take advantage of this when attacking. For the fighters to be able to conduct "escort" missions they need the "bombing" ability, and for that they need at least one point of bombard strength; the closest applicable AI strategy is obviously "air bombard", and I would assume that the AI chooses what aircraft to use for bombing based on whichever has the highest bombard strength (ie, the vulnerable bomber). My assumption is pure conjecture - I have no evidence either way and I haven't read anything on the topic.
Some final points:
- Evidence suggests that combat against surface units works differently. It seems that the bombarding aircraft's defense value is compared with the target's air defense value to determine the probability that the aircraft is shot down outright (not damaged and\or driven off!). I'm pretty sure surface AA only works on bombardment targeting the square which the surface AA unit is on (I think there's no radius involved as there is with air interception).
- The only actual impact of the "stealth" flag for aircraft is that the "Chance to Intercept Enemy Stealth Missions" is used instead. Everything else about air combat seems to work the same way (if you so desired, you could swap the probabilities around completely with no other effects).
I don't remember what the third thing was going to be[edit]I have not tested the impact of terrain, radar towers, fortresses or barracks on air combat. (I knew there was something more!
)[/edit]
you are correct on all of your points.
