Air Defense: SAM vs Jets

[stalin83]

I'm considering a defensive posture for my republic and considering which would be better value-for-money when protecting cities & troops from bombers:

• Ground-based Mobile SAMs
• Fighter Jets

 

[Gosnork]

Both are good. I'm a little confused as to why your republic can't afford a large military though, you should have tons of cash. Fighters can cover 9 cities if you use CxxC city placement, while SAMs can only cover 1 city. However SAMs can be moved into a city and provide air defence the same turn, fighters have to sit out their rebase turn.

I'd build both. If the AI has a large ground based military, the SAMs also have a defensive rating, so they can defend if the AI kills your Mech Infantry. However, remember, fighters defend anything within 5 tiles of their base when you perform air superiority. The problem is, you never know where the AI will bomb until they do, and if you move your fighters into the city the AI has chosen to bomb, they will get hurt/destroyed once they have been re-based. If you have another city within 5 tiles, move them to that city and perform air superiority missions.

 

[stalin83]

I'm focusing my economy on commerce not expansion , so I wont be on a massive build-up (my usual style of play is a expansionist communist russia with a massive army: but im looking for a new challenge =)).As such my army will be busting invading armies , not taking cities.how about moving the jets to an airbase near the enemy border?wont they shoot down bombers flying from enemy cities more effectively (bombers in transit)?

 

[Gosnork]

The way air defense works is that fighters cover an area around their base. This means that if they are in a border city, and the enemy tries to bomb anything within 5 tiles of the city, the fighters have a chance to shoot them down. If they target anything outside that 10 tile wide square, the fighters can't touch them, even if the bombers have to fly past the area controlled by the fighters.

I understand the non-expansion approach, but that doesn't mean you can't afford a very well equiped military. Trade those techs for massive gpt and you can afford just about anything.