Aircraft annoyingly difficult to use

[bigjim1]

I'm finding aircraft massively useless and annoying compared with previous Civs. Just wondering how others feel?

Apart from the relative difficulty of deploying them (why can't they just move from city to city, as in previous games?), it really bothers me that they aren't active when built, so it's easy to forget them. Even more annoyingly, they don't automatically take their turns like other units. You have to go round all the bases clicking on each individual plane and ordering it to attack. Seems like really poor design.

 

[Bangau]

Agreed. Have only used them once so far, but the way they work is truly awful.

 

[Disgustipated]

Agreed on how easy it is to forget them. I had been using aircraft carriers mainly because that reminds me to use my aircraft. But I seemed to randomly lose an aircraft carrier my last game, and I don't recall seeing a message that it was defeated. Which is another problem the game has in not showing combat that results in your units being defeated. I honestly don't think it was sunk, but glitched. The aircraft that were on it were sent to the nearest aerodrome thankfully, so I didn't lose those. But having the aircraft carrier turn comes up reminds me to use my aircraft.

 

[GoneFishingX]

On a controller the UI for them is brutal. There's no group selection or ability to stay clicked on the thing you want to hit and cycle the planes. Click air base, click plane to use, move to spot, select attack type, click the target, move back to base and repeat. Considering the ranges it makes planes take triple the time anything else does. In the modern era At least 3/4s of my turn is managing planes if you have any meaningful number.

 

[gdr_willter]

What? Use commander action. It is one of the coolest aircraft feature in the series.

 

[CoconutTank]

Air units are easier to use in Civ 7 than in Civ 6 imo, but you have to be making use of Squadron Commanders and Aircraft Carriers to get the most benefits. Both of those units are Commander types that can fit up to 4/6 air units each, and they also have group commands which can dispatch air units of the appropriate type to do an attack. Squadron Commanders in particular are pretty convenient, much moreso than having to spam Airfields everywhere with Military Engineers, because they can establish Airbases within a certain range, and bring their air units along.

Also, Squadron Commanders and Aircraft Carriers are units that will come up when cycling through active units awaiting orders, so that should help with giving out orders to air units.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

Interesting thread... Squadron Commander??? Has anyone made a video about them???

 

[Lazy sweeper]

I'm finding aircraft massively useless and annoying compared with previous Civs. Just wondering how others feel?

Apart from the relative difficulty of deploying them (why can't they just move from city to city, as in previous games?), it really bothers me that they aren't active when built, so it's easy to forget them. Even more annoyingly, they don't automatically take their turns like other units. You have to go round all the bases clicking on each individual plane and ordering it to attack. Seems like really poor design.

Do you have any video Stream link where we can watch some of Air gameplay??

I found just this

 

[aelf]

I'm finding air power supremely powerful when uncontested. It has allowed me to wage lazy wars where I lay waste to enemy units and cities from afar while my land army takes its time to get there and claim territory. No more stress about unit positioning and trying to fire over vegetation with artillery. And squadron commanders go through the promotion tree quickly too.

I've only had one experience of the AI actually having fighters so far, and I think their numbers were just too few to matter after the first few turns.

 

[chrisgatt7]

 

[chrisgatt7]

I'm finding air power supremely powerful when uncontested. It has allowed me to wage lazy wars where I lay waste to enemy units and cities from afar while my land army takes its time to get there and claim territory. No more stress about unit positioning and trying to fire over vegetation with artillery. And squadron commanders go through the promotion tree quickly too.

I've only had one experience of the AI actually having fighters so far, and I think their numbers were just too few to matter after the first few turns.

Yes I agree, units need basic Anti Air capabilities. Plus the addition of pure anti aircraft gun like in previous Civilization titles. As of now the only way for the Ai to combat user Air power is to build Fighters which they aren't the best at. Not even Naval units have Anti air abilities.

 

[SDZald]

The more I use them the better I am getting at using them. What I HATE is having to find them and even forgetting to use them. They really need an option to have them appear in the normal unit cycle, it really baffles me why they aren't.

 

[stealth_nsk]

The more I use them the better I am getting at using them. What I HATE is having to find them and even forgetting to use them. They really need an option to have them appear in the normal unit cycle, it really baffles me why they aren't.

Civ7 needs normal unit cycle in the first place. But I'm pretty sure, that's UI change which is soon to come.

By normal I mean switching between all units, even those who have something to do. Currently we only cycle between idle units, so sleeping ones are normally ignored.

EDIT: The separate problem with air units is that they are always within commanders and units within commanders are considered sleeping. But since air units operate from within commanders, they clearly need to be considered idle if they don't have orders.

 

[evonannoredars]

Like a lot of Civ 7 things, I really like what they've done mechanically with planes, how you interact with them just needs to be improved.

Besides what other people have mentioned, I think the way commanders target units needs improving - after attacking and killing a target, grey out all the planes that have taken their turn and keep the option to target another unit with the remaining planes. It's a hassle to otherwise click through the planes to figure out which ones can still attack.

 

[Vincent_lacruz]

What? Use commander action. It is one of the coolest aircraft feature in the series.

Yes, and no... The problem is that you can mass attack with only one type of aircrafts per turn. And also it is kind of "dumb", because when you ask him to bomb one city tile he sends ALL bombers, even if you only need two of them to destroy the city defence and unit, meaning you waste unit for nothing (you don't even get XP for excedent drops...)...

I really hope they fix the carpet bombing so that you only send relevant units...

But on the other hand squadron commander are neat, since you can easily move them (and still attack) so that you are in range of your targets. The only limitation is that their range is too limited to change continents (and you can't even host them on air carriers...)...

 

[aelf]

The more I use them the better I am getting at using them. What I HATE is having to find them and even forgetting to use them. They really need an option to have them appear in the normal unit cycle, it really baffles me why they aren't.

Squadron Commanders do, so this problem really only affects aerodromes.