Air Superiority: Need It?

[Circuit]

I was wondering how important a good air force is. I don't neglect a defensive air force (as in, fighters guarding my airspace), but I don't do much offensively. Last game, I only had a handful of bombers. Gubships are a totally different matter. Do you guys think an offensive airforce can make or break a game?

 

[Killroyan]

Late game war in my games before BtS was like get a ton of bombers, strip (culture) defense from city, soften up defenders and conquer city. Next turn, move bombers to conquered city and proceed with your army to next city. Now with the restriction of 4 bombers per city this has changed a lot. I have yet to rely on bombers again in a game. Ground forces now rule supreme at least at monarch difficulty.

 

[r_rolo1]

Well ,yesterday I wrapped a game with a massive war on Sury and his 2 vassals.... I had Mobile arties, Mechs and MA but no air units, Sury had infantry, tanks, arties , fighters and bombers. Guess who won..... ( hint: not the yellow faced dude )

Seriously, BtS restriction on air units made air power far more dificult to use... in fact I think that it hurts the AI more than the humans, because humans are far more competent in redeploying units as needed ( and in fact Solver found a bug that made AI to not redeploy planes most of the times when they are in a threathned city.... ). This makes ground attack far more powerful.....

 

[UncleJJ]

Air superiority is the best way to really speed up late game warfare. The aircraft are in many ways much more important than the tanks and paratroopers. Once the targets are softened up by aircraft even cavalry and infantry can easily beat the defenders.

Bombers are good if you already have air superiority but they don't work well if the AI has fighter defences and they aren't too good once he has a load of SAM infantry. The problem with bombers (in BtS with a max 4 aircraft per city) is they can't get enough planes in range to saturate the air defences and do the damage needed to allow for a quick conquest.

One solution is to have a big stack of carriers with fighters aboard. Fighters are cheaper than bombers and can damage or shoot down defending fighters so they can force air superiority much better. The fighters are concentrated and move very quickly from target city to target city without having to rebase, as long as the targets are in range from the sea. If there is a medic in stack damaged fighters can heal while the carrier still moves. This is the preferred solution if you also have naval superiority and the targets can be reached from the sea.

Airports add 4 more aircraft slots to a city allowing 8 to be based there and that can be useful for the initial attack. But as the attack rolls forward the battlefront quickly outpaces the ability of newly captured cities to come out of rebellion and build an airport. An alternative way to base many more aircraft close to the frontline is to build multiple forts with a big stack of workers. Each fort allows another 4 fighters or bombers, so sometimes it can be a way to get enough aircraft in range of the target when it is too far from the sea for carrier based fighters.

 

[Polobo]

With air superiority the 4/city isn't that huge an issue usually. Forts are nice but they require you to wait until the forts are within the cultural radius of your new cities and, depending on the war, I've conquered an entire continent (around 35 cities) before the first cities even came out of revolt.

If you use ships to assist on coastal cities then you have less responsibilities for your air power to cover (just interior bombardment and general air strikes). Having ships nearby also lets you bring over some carriers.

It would probably take a similar amount of time to forgo air power and conquer on land versus actively targeting the air power and then bringing your own to bear once you have superiority; keeping in mind that during the initial phases you can have airports and forts setup.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I don't make much use of it except in very late game land wars. Theoretically I could pack 20+ fighters on a bunch of carriers and that would be more efficient, but I usually wind up just spamming marines/destroyers/battleships on water maps. 10 destroyers and battleships make it very hard for the AI to do anything, and enough marines will overrun the AI's cities, which are invariably poorly garrisoned as you can change targets or even attack multiple cities per turn.

Land wars I'd place higher priority on them. While your troops march at late game enemy cities they have a tendency to get enemy air damaging them. Also, siege at that point is much easier with air than ground forces (tanks and planes come way before mobile artillery, and you can have defenses off before you get there). I seldom bother with air as the game is usually over by then. If it is not, then I tend to use fighters and to a lesser extent bombers, they're actually not that expensive to produce.

Hell, in a couple games I've ignored all that and just had 2 cities crank guided missiles. Those are extremely fun.

 

[TotalPackage]

I use them alot in the late game push. I typically have a tech lead though.

Bombers allow for much faster conquests since taking out cultural defenses can start on the next town much sooner than with cannons. Late game, your conquest forces usually are primarily tanks. Tanks move fast, much faster than cannon. So relying on cannons just slows the war down dramatically, as they add ~2 turns to the movement time between cities, for each city.

With leapfrogging bomber forces, you can take cities about as fast as your tanks can move.

 

[Circuit]

There's no question the importance of a land force. The navy is something else I depend on. A lot of the best cities are coastal, so having a good navy allows you to eat away to the center (marines/Navy SEALs make that even more fun). Like I said before, air power is something I never really depended on. I did use missiles, and know that those can make things easier. Lots of fun to use, too!

I'll probably have to take this stuff into account. I can see ways to get around the 4-per-city as well.

UnlceJJ: Fighters are cheaper than bombers and can damage or shoot down defending fighters so they can force air superiority much better.

How do you get the fighters to shoot down the defenders?

 

[r_rolo1]

Force them to dodge fight your own fighters. If you have superior numbers you'll eventually take them down

 

[UncleJJ]

How do you get the fighters to shoot down the defenders?

Just use a fighter to fly a mission (reduce defence, attack a tile or attack top defender) near or against the city. The defending fighters will then try to intercept. The original attack mission is turned into a fighter versus fighter air battle with both being able to be damaged or even shot down. Once all the defending fighters are shot down or badly damaged then you have air superiority (which is what you asked about ) and now your bombers and airships can attack with little chance of damage. Remember as well though that SAM infantry, and now with the new 3.17 patch machine guns and AT guns, have a chance of one interception each.

 

[Dirk1302]

If i go for modern war i rely heavily on them in combination with tanks. Don't think BTS nerfed them much, 8 bombers (2 cities) is still great and if it's your won cities you can have 16. Thing is your artillery and tanks are just shot to pieces by the enemy artillery, i actually think bombers are even more important on BTS because gunships come late and i used these units to pillage all the roads between my troops and the enemy artillery.