Aircraft carriers vs battleships

[adam_grif]

Aircraft have a scouting ability, they automatically reveal (I think it was 6 or 8?) hexes in all directions regardless of where they are parked. They don't have to launch a recon mission. SO the carrier is always going to have a scouting advantage, + 3 fighters to use offensively. The additional 1 move over a Battleship is also significant tactically.

The Carrier can simply dance around in circles, staying out of the line of sight of the Battleships, and launch offensive missions over and over and over against them, sinking them all. Carrier + 3 fighters can take on an arbitrary number of battleships assuming no extra support from either side and an infinitely large ocean map.

Obviously neither of these things will be true so the tactical situation will be more interesting than that.

If the Carrier is launching missions outside of the battleships engagement envelope (3 tile bombardment range?), they are invincible. The trick will be to corner the carriers, either with your own units or using terrain as natural barriers.

The carrier can also bombard units further inland, and can hold BOMBERS as well as fighters (improved range), and atomic bombs. All in all, it's a very useful unit and will be worth the steep cost.

 

[Matte979]

So have you guys thought about the problem battleships will have attacking land if the enemy has bomber and fighters and you have no air support? I suspect carriers will be vital when trying to do a beach landing in the later game. The defensive advantages with artillery etc a good player would have would be impossible to break if you did not have air support when you attacking from the sea. Carrier will be as they should vital if you dont have an airbase within range. From what we know it looks it will be harder to just take a city and rebase your air power to that city, specially with the new occupation rule and the incredible risk of loosing the city and all the air planes the next turn from a counter attack.

 

[Schuesseled]

Destroyers and missile cruisers can intercept aircraft, so you don't neccessarily need a carrier for defensive purposes, i'd bring along one for long range support anyway, but thats just me.

(And remember destroyers are resourcelss so you can build as many of them as you want without restricting your fleet.)

 

[Matte979]

Destroyers and missile cruisers can intercept aircraft, so you don't neccessarily need a carrier for defensive purposes, i'd bring along one for long range support anyway, but thats just me.

(And remember destroyers are resourcelss so you can build as many of them as you want without restricting your fleet.)

But how do you take out artillery thats 4 hexes in and can bombard any troops that land on the beach, Battleship only has a range of 3?

 

[hardcore_gamer]

In a real game of civ, you'd chose between a fully loaded acrrier or 3 battleships. I'd take the latter any day. Attack power between the two opponents might be similar, but battleships have more defence and, more importantly, to kill the BB group, you'd have to do 30HP worth of damage. To kill the carrier and all the fighters its carrying, you only have to do 10HP of damage. Unless you can show me that each fighter can do 3 times more damage across the encounter than each battleships, I'll go with the big guns.

Carrier would be 1 Oil + 3 Aluminum for jets fighters or +3 Oil for fighters. Almost 2000-3000 Hammers total dependant on the fighter type.

Battleships are 1 Oil Each and only 500 hammers, for 1 loaded carrier you could have FOUR battleships, wow.

Battleships clearly look the better choice, especially with how many things require alluminum in the modern era, you wouldn't want that many jet fighters in the middle of nowere.

I think you guys are forgetting is that the planes and the actual aircraft carriers they are stationed on have separate move points.

This means that assuming there is enough ocean space, a single aircraft carrier could probably attack a group of 4 battleships over and over until all 4 battleships are sunk without being attacked itself. Because while the battleships have to close in and then attack, the aircraft carrier can simply send in its aircraft and then retreat back to safety, and then return to make another attack and repeat the process making aircraft carriers ideal weapons for hit and run tactics.

Unless the battleships can actually close in and attack most of them will be sunk before they have a chance of attacking so long as the player controlling the carrier knows what he is doing.

 

[Matte979]

Add the english +2 move and thats a great tactic, you would need lots of space to be able to do this so the tactic needs the larger map sizes with plenty of water.

 

[hardcore_gamer]

People are talking about how aircraft carriers can see further then battleships. But what if the player has already cleverly placed subs at important ocean areas allowing him to see what is going on by default? This was a tactic I often resorted to in Civ 4 to keep track of what was going on around my empire's ocean areas.

 

[Schuesseled]

But how do you take out artillery thats 4 hexes in and can bombard any troops that land on the beach, Battleship only has a range of 3?

battleships can be upgraded with the range promotion. And anyways thats beside the point i already said i'd bring a carrier for long rane bombardment and you were saying that you need a carrier to defend against enemy air which isn't true.

 

[Matte979]

I agree with you on that you can use destroyers to help protect you, question is how effective the destroyer and missile cruiser interception is compared to fighter interception, I suspect much less effective. We will find out soon enough I think the strategy of having a carrier as long range support as you indicate is still very good strategy. My point is towards the discussion of battleships being superior to carrier, I am not so sure about this in civ5.

 

[nomooon]

You give yourself a major advantage in giving yourself sight of my BBs from the turn go, and placing yourself at exactly the right range from the start.

But anyway, in such a situation spreading BBs out to hope to catch you is a stupid thing to do. I would move my BBs into my territory/out of the sight of your units so you can't see me. If I'm in my territory, I can see a lot more tiles so I can narrow down where your carrier is easily.

But even ignoring me, taking your scenario where the BB players plays badly, you have a start advantage; you are very very close to the battle being only a draw. If two fighters can kill a BB (which I doubt, probably closer to 3), then 2 BB should kill a carrier. So in the best circumstances imaginable, you are incredibly close to just having a draw.

In circumstances which favour the BBs, or in neutral circumstances, the BBs give you a bit more bang for your buck, but way more armour for your buck.

Is it possible for carriers to "kite" battleships? Like the carriers are moving away from battleships every turn yet its planes keep attacking the battleships?

 

[Schuesseled]

Is it possible for carriers to "kite" battleships? Like the carriers are moving away from battleships every turn yet its planes keep attacking the battleships?

yes its possible, but risky all the same. If a battleship is 7 hexes away it can reach and shoot you, if its been promoted with range, it can do it from 8, if has mobility 9, and its possible to get an extra mobility pormotion and mobility like effects, so you have to be careful.

 

[nomooon]

yes its possible, but risky all the same. If a battleship is 7 hexes away it can reach and shoot you, if its been promoted with range, it can do it from 8, if has mobility 9, and its possible to get an extra mobility pormotion and mobility like effects, so you have to be careful.

but carriers can have same promotions? I mean if carriers can move one hex faster than battleships, then given the same promotions. But how far is carrier/any ship's sight range, and how far can fighters aboard carriers fly? can planes really scout each turn? If planes can scout every turn ( they take turns of course ) and they can fly more than 9 hexes then that means they can hit the battleship without battleship moving in to kill carrier

 

[Abremms]

carriers will beat battleships if properly maneuvered to stay out of reach of the BS's guns, but within range of the carrier strike craft. I get the impression that main purpose of battleships in civ 5 (not unlike thier main purpose in reality) is going to be shore bombardment. there are better options for anti-ship, although a BS should certainly be able to do the job. I get the impression that in civV you will want to keep a balanced fleet that can handle a variety of tasks and threats.

 

[PeterWimsey]

If you have a very large ocean to fight in (as I rarely do in Civ IV), it looks like the carrier should win. And maybe there will be more blue ocean fights in Civ V, since the navy will be much more important.

In more typical (IME) civ iv type naval battles, the carrier won't have a lot of maneuver room and the battleships will be able to close and do some damage. It seems like you would need almost unlimited maneuvering room for carriers to really be able to escape unscathed from 4 battleships.

On the other hand, on more constrained maps, battleships will be very vulnerable to land-based aircraft, while carriers will be able to defend themselves. That may end up being the real weakness of battleships, and strength of carriers.

 

[DeepQantas]

You're going to want to ally a city-state near your target. Naval units only heal in Friendly territory. (pg. 62)

Would be kinda silly to call off a war cos you need to go home and repair your carriers.