Air Force, useless?

[duezeone]

what difficulty do you play on pekkam?

 

[aktme]

I think the reason some people think bombers/fighters are useless is due to the tanks. It takes roughly the same time to build a stealth bomber as it does to build a tank. For myself, I know they're useful, I've built them, had them in groups of 8, and yes, they're effective for taking down city defenses. However, I'm also lazy.

8 bombers = 8 tanks. Tanks can blitz, meaning they can attack several times. By the time I can build tanks, I go all out conquest. Sure, I could save some tanks with bombers by softening defense, but why bother when you just churn out more tanks in same time. Us lazy people go with overpowering standards. Just stacks of 20+ tanks minimum with collateral damage + having more tanks means that you'll always win. Lose half the stack sure, but the rest will take the city. By the time your attacking stack heals up, you'll have already built the replacements and more. Been playing on Emperor and I'm just too lazy to bother moving 2-4 bomber stacks with my 4-6 attacking stacks of tanks.

On a side note, I thought stacks were supposed to be obsolete in civ4... yet you can't do anything WITHOUT the stacks. =/ Sure, collateral hurts, but your stacks just plain survive. And let's face it, the ai doesn't make enough catapults/cannons/arty to threaten your stacks. Even ai doesn't have enough bombers to knock out my stacks of tanks.

... or maybe I should stop putting 30+ units in a stack. Then they'd probably be less effective. =/

 

[cleverhandle]

This whole issue depends hugely on relative tech levels and resources.

If you're up against an opponent without fighters or SAM's, then a decent stack (say 10) bombers can tremendously speed up your offensive and save you hammers by letting you leave your artillery behind. If you're quite certain that the enemy won't gain the appropriate counter units in the time of the campaign and you concentrate on bomber stacks, tanks, and worker teams to build rails you can rip through enemy territory at tremendous speed, taking a city every turn or two.

If the enemy has some air defenses already, then you're more limited. Fighters vs. naval units are still really important for saving hammers on "coin toss" battles as jeremiahrounds described it. Bombers are often helpful in nicking the first few hp off of attacking stacks, even if the AI stacks with a SAM, which they don't always do. And even if cities are well defended with fighters or bunkers, just getting a few rounds of collateral damage in with bombers may be the difference between follow-up artillery surviving or being destroyed.

So overall, I'd say that a quality airforce is incredibly useful. Basically, they provide that stand-off attack capability that artillery lost in the Civ3-4 transition. That may not be enough to stand as a strategy in itself, but it can at least save you a ton of hammers and gain you time in your conquests.

 

[cleverhandle]

Sure, I could save some tanks with bombers by softening defense, but why bother when you just churn out more tanks in same time. Us lazy people go with overpowering standards. Just stacks of 20+ tanks minimum with collateral damage + having more tanks means that you'll always win. Lose half the stack sure, but the rest will take the city.

Dude, you're wasting a ton of hammers on laziness. One battlegroup of mine uses a single group of 8 tanks for the *entire campaign*. With adequate bomber and artillery support, they never die. All I need to produce are garrison units for the towns I conquer and maybe an occasional artillery to replenish the attacking group, though I don't lose many arties once I have bombers for the first attacks.

By the time your attacking stack heals up, you'll have already built the replacements and more.

Again, time wasted. With proper support, your tanks shouldn't need much time to heal. Take a city on turn 1, move in with remaining move points, spend turn 2 resting, and then set out for the next target. If I'm well prepared enough to have 3-4 extra tanks, I can sometimes skip turn 2 and leave the badly wounded ones behind to heal while the fresh, undamaged, or lightly damaged ones advance to the next city.

On a side note, I thought stacks were supposed to be obsolete in civ4... yet you can't do anything WITHOUT the stacks. =/ Sure, collateral hurts, but your stacks just plain survive. And let's face it, the ai doesn't make enough catapults/cannons/arty to threaten your stacks. Even ai doesn't have enough bombers to knock out my stacks of tanks.

True that. Though I think the AI's problem is not so much in not making enough artillery, but in not using them effectively. I've landed stacks in front of cities and only taken arty attacks from one of the two or three artillery units sitting inside the city. The others just sit there, and units in nearby cities just happily wait until my stack gets there to repeat the same futile process. Of course, if I see an AI stack land in my territory I'll throw every artillery in range at it if that means I can finish it off or drastically weaken it with my skirmishers. Heck, even if I lack the skirmishers I'll sac the artillery - they'll do a lot more good as suicide collateral bombs than they will sitting helplessly inside the city waiting to get overrun.

 

[GenericKen]

I think the problem with stacks is that there's a cap on % collateral damage. While this is perfectly reasonable, it can't discourage stacks in the very long game with 30+ units.

Which is why I think they should let you nuke units for 95% collateral damage . 1000 shields to shoot the moon!

 

[Din Ohtar]

i use my airforce a lot. Artillery is too slow to get to the enemy city (so I'm forced to attacking from sea if the city is on the coast, or dont use them at all on the attack). Bombers do seem to get shot down more often than stealth bombers, but enough get thru to take down the defensive bonus. Then they reduce the enemy to 50% damage.

And the recon spotting range is pretty good. With the enemy having a fondness for large invasions (last night I was hit with 4 destroyers as escort, and 4 full transports of gunships, artillery, and sam infantry attack me). With advances warning, ie fighters operating from carriers, then I can see in invasion fleet in time to destroy it before it lands.

Stealth bombers makes war against modern forces so much easier.

 

[syneris]

Something i noticed about air units. They don't have XP. I had one city building all my modern armors (Heroic Epic + Ironworks, didn't have lvl 5 unit for Westpoint due to peace most the game), while the others built air and naval units. Only had 1 city with a barracks. My air and navy already battered down the enemies by the time my tanks got to them, leaving me to blitz away at the weak defenders. Another thing i noticed is that tanks use 2 movement when attacking a hill (making blitz worthless).

 

[PekkaM]

what difficulty do you play on pekkam?

Noble almost exclusively. Built some bombers in my last game. I can see how they mught have really helped in great numbers but did well even with artillery only.

Another point: I play very small maps so this might make the artillery more effective. Many times I have my own border right next to city I attack so it's just "declare war" and bang. No need to move stacks far in enemy territory and most likely war is over after that one attack.

 

[Kilt]

Another point: I play very small maps so this might make the artillery more effective. Many times I have my own border right next to city I attack so it's just "declare war" and bang. No need to move stacks far in enemy territory and most likely war is over after that one attack.

Good point. I never play smaller than standard and usually play huge.

Wow, a stack of 20 tanks. Damn, my invading forces generally have 3-6 tanks at most, and I generally never stack more than 2 tanks together. Enemy artillery and bombers are just too damn efficient. I don't think I have ever owned 20 tanks.
I know I have never committed that many to trying to take a single city. Hmm, if I didn't build bombers, I guess I could use that many tanks.

Kilt.

 

[Holbek]

Well.. In the Prince-Domination game I had build 75 modern armours in the end, going against number2 in the game.
In the end I had 46 or 47 modern armours alive, and 23 stealthbombers.
I don't think I would have had even 20 armours alive, without my constant use of stealth bombers. I took over number2 in the world in 32 turns.
Saladin, as number 3, declared war on me a couple of turns before I declared war on number 2, Mansa Musa. I had some 3600points, Mansa had 3400, Saladin about 3200.
I ended on 7200 ingame-points, Saladin on 2100 and Mansa Musa on 0

I could never have beaten number 2 in 32 turns without stealthbombers, even If I'd had more modern armours instead.

 

[spiceant]

i find my fighter carrier with submarine support extremely usefull in silently surveying the waters in my area, and keeping them secure. submarines with 80% retreat chance do a great job when used in groups and combined with air support (fighters). 1-2 combat strength can make a huge difference which the fighters will do for you, even when they dont attack they can intercept enemy aircraft attacking your own naval force at sea.

 

[Smeee]

i find my fighter carrier with submarine support extremely usefull in silently surveying the waters in my area, and keeping them secure. submarines with 80% retreat chance do a great job when used in groups and combined with air support (fighters). 1-2 combat strength can make a huge difference which the fighters will do for you, even when they dont attack they can intercept enemy aircraft attacking your own naval force at sea.

Thats one thing I do like. In my current running game The Egyptians, Greeks, Aztecs and Germans all have Carrier Battle groups circling the globe. Not going to go warring on eny of them untill those are put of action..... like the American fleet which is resting in pieces now

 

[mrspank]

Eliminating a city's defenses via air unit is much quicker than using artillery. You simply build the bombers in your homeland and rebase them into any nation with which you have open borders. So even if you're on opposite continents, you can quickly strike your opponents defenses using air units.

Then there's the vicious air strike. Four air strikes on a group of units will cut their strength in half. And how useful is that?

 

[Lamrok]

Eliminating a city's defenses via air unit is much quicker than using artillery. You simply build the bombers in your homeland and rebase them into any nation with which you have open borders. So even if you're on opposite continents, you can quickly strike your opponents defenses using air units.

In one of my games, that backfired badly. I'd been playing too long, and wasn't really thinking things through when I rebased my stack of bombers in a country near my target. I declared war, and, between turns, a cavalry unit from my target nation dashed across the border into the third nation and took out my entire air force. ack.

 

[mrspank]

In one of my games, that backfired badly. I'd been playing too long, and wasn't really thinking things through when I rebased my stack of bombers in a country near my target. I declared war, and, between turns, a cavalry unit from my target nation dashed across the border into the third nation and took out my entire air force. ack.

Thanks for the heads up. I didn't realize that my opponent could attack my bombers if he has open borders with that third party nation. Now that I think about it, that makes perfect sense. Ack is right!

 

[anton_z1]

Bombers are a MUST. 3-4 Stealth bombers take city defense in 1 turn. Next turn airstrike the ennemy city to get their HUGE stack of units very vulnerable. Then you take your Barrage level 3 tanks and blow the city. Your tanks will take almost no damage!!!!.thus you can attack several cities without needing to waste your time on healing (which you get anyway while upgrading your abusively overpowered tanks). I have taken a whole civ, with 6 tanks beating 60 units!!!!!!(Tanks, mechs). Also, blitz (ability to attack multiple times with tanks) is only useful when the city is softened. Getting 10 bombers allows you to soften all the cities while moving your tanks.

 

[Joh]

I really hate relying on modern armour in the late game. It takes too long to research, heals slowly, and uses up too many resources.

I find that using large airforces backed by a contingent of marines and especially seals is alot quicker than battering away with tanks.

 

[Smeee]

I really hate relying on modern armour in the late game. It takes too long to research, heals slowly, and uses up too many resources.

I find that using large airforces backed by a contingent of marines and especially seals is alot quicker than battering away with tanks.

I try to move my stacks with an Infantry unit trained up with Medic promotions. Always station a Medic with my Bombers too. Makes for a faster turn around.