Airpower schmairpower

paulyn8r

Chieftain
Joined
Nov 25, 2001
Messages
4
It seems as if airpower has been grossly mistreated in Civ III. The fact is, airpower is the most flexible and potentially powerful aspect of modern warfare and it has been castrated in Civ III. Maybe it is a little unreasonable to ask for more airpower missions like offensive counter air, or fighter escort for bombing missions. Maybe some folks would think it complicate things, but there must be some way of knocking out enemy airpower offensively. In the game, fighters are merely weak bombers with recon ability, they have no ability to destroy enemy airpower in an offensive mission. This situation might be rectified by adding a Counter-Air mission in which fighters can fly within their radius and exert their influence against any airpower within one square (two for modern fighters). This would fulfill an OCA mission, and also an escort mission if you bombed any of the surrounding squares that same turn.

Another of my major gripes with airpower in the game is the restriction of its offensive capability to merely "bombarding." This severly limits it's usefulness, because units can only be weakened and never destroyed. Unlike previous Civ games, it is now impossible for airpower alone to destroy any units. Jimmy Doolittle would be rolling over in his grave if he knew that Civ IIIs airplanes could never sink a single ship (particularly a wooden one). The current treatment of airpower reduces it to long range artillery. Fighters, bombers, helicopters, and cruise missiles are next to impotent in this game, and it is severly disappointing. In the case of city attacks, this works fairly well. I like what has been done with city bombardment and precision strikes. Additionally it is very difficult for airpower to totally destroy military units not in the open. But something must be done to allow air units to destroy naval units and ground units in the open. Conversely, ground and naval units (preferably something with an "air attack" ability) should have their own inherent ability to shoot back, and this has not been included in the current treatment of airpower. Air defense is one of the greatest strengths of aircraft carriers and AEGIS cruisers.

Finally, the air superiority mission and city air defense doesn't seem to work at all, and I have seen countless enemy WWII era bombers sneak through the radius of my jet fighters imperviously. Fortified fighters should have a zone of control equal to their operational radius versus other air units. The more fighters you have, the better, such that eventually no enemy airpower can sneak through. SAM sites should work in conjunction with defending fighters, ie. their defenses should contribute to each other (sort of like ground controlled intercepts). I don't think the air superiority mission properly simulates any of that.

I'd be glad to hear anyones thoughts, and I hope that there will be a patch to fix these problems, because the unit editor really doesn't have the capability to change how airpower behaves fundamentally.
 
I've heard from others on this BBS that the whole air-superiority thing is a bug. I guess playtesting went out of style over at Firaxis HQ, hmm? ;)
 
Originally posted by -proletarian-
I've heard from others on this BBS that the whole air-superiority thing is a bug. I guess playtesting went out of style over at Firaxis HQ, hmm? ;)

Actually, when knew that the moment we found out that none of the player's fighters intercept enemy bombers.

If anyone had actually played said game, this never would have existed.
 
One thing I have noticed with the air defense missions...

I was attacking the Greeks with a carrier, they bombed my ship but when i put a fighter on board and said Air superiority mission they never attacked me. Several turns later I used the fighter for recon and they attacked the carrier again!!

Also if you attack an enemy unit that is in the territory of someone you have a treaty with, the bomber will fly out, attack, and then you get a message saying this could cause a war. If you select cancel then the bomber acts like it never moved. If you say yes attack then the damage is calculated.
 
That's interesting...
If your enemy is also the enemy of the person who you have the treaty with (does that make sense?) then you should be free to help him defend his sovereign territory!
On the other hand, if the third party is fence-sitting, he might well be unhappy about you dropping bombs on his turf. :D
 
yes, I was at peace with the Russians and at war with the Indians. Indians and Russians had a right of way treaty with each other. The Indians were coming through Russian territory to attack me. My point was the fact that the bomber went out and dropped the bombs and then my advisor asked if i was sure i wanted to do that. After I said no the aircraft still had its turn left.
 
Originally posted by PolarisXP
One thing I have noticed with the air defense missions...

I was attacking the Greeks with a carrier, they bombed my ship but when i put a fighter on board and said Air superiority mission they never attacked me. Several turns later I used the fighter for recon and they attacked the carrier again!!

Also if you attack an enemy unit that is in the territory of someone you have a treaty with, the bomber will fly out, attack, and then you get a message saying this could cause a war. If you select cancel then the bomber acts like it never moved. If you say yes attack then the damage is calculated.


I think you may be right. So far I have played six games to the end, and I have never once been bombed in an area I had defended with a fighter. As AI's in strategy games usually have amazing powers of reconaissance, I am guessing that the AI knows its bombers SHOULD be shot down (without having to spend the money to investigate nearby cities of course), so it doesn't attempt bombing runs.

I have also noticed that the AI picks and chooses which air units to exert its superiority against, so that it will not engage fighter jets on bombing runs, but will shoot down any bomber that comes to close.

I feel lucky that I have not had to experience rampant AI air raids yet, and I hope this will be fixed soon.
 
Yes, I have noticed that the enemy AI never bombs cities with fighters defending them. It doesn't seem to work for units outside of cities. I have had large stacks of ships defended by carriers and AEGIS cruisers get mauled by enemy WWII era bombers although I had 2-3 defending F-15/jet fighters. I then watched my stack of cruisers, a battleship, and a carrier (who by now were at one hit point) get destroyed one by one by a few ironclads and frigates. ARGH!

I thought the intent of the "air superiority" mission should protect units within the fighter's operational radius. At least that is what the manual says, and that is how it works in real life, but the game simply doesn't work that way. You should be able to protect all of your cities, ground units, and ships as long as a defending fighter's radius envelopes them, although they normally should not be able to sucessfully intercept every time.

Not to mention, I think your air units should be able to engage air units in enemy territory (like in Civ II), and there is no provision for this in Civ III. You should be able to send your fighters into enemy cities or over their carriers in an air-to-air role just to attack airpower and not to bombard. This could serve as an escort mission for your bombers if you send enough escorting fighters to engage all the defending fighters so that your bombers can get through.
 
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