Are fighters useless?

[silver spork]

I'm on my second civ 3 game, and I'm beginning to see that the fighters, so far, are pretty much useless. They hit, at most, 10% of the the time in a city. I hope the stealth, and F-15s are more accurate. I should get them by tonight.

Anyway, I'm at war with a civ (zulu) whose best unit is the knight, and I'll attack their size 6 city with 10 fighters and 2 bombers every turn, and maybe one will do something, and it's usually a bomber. They seem to be a little more effective (but not much more) attacking single units, or damaging terrain improvements.
Anyone have any tips on using them, or are the f-15s and stealth fighters that much better?



p.s. Last night a single zulu knight attacked and destroyed an elite fortified tank in one of my cities a few times. I don't care how big their swords are, they are not gonna do squat against a tank.

 

[Svar]

Use fighters for recon.

 

[zerksees]

I use them on borders to keep enemy fighters from pillaging my territory. Just one or two in border cities seems to keep the enemy fighters away. Put them on "air superiorty" missions and watch them shoot down or scare off enemy fighters.

 

[Longasc]

Fighters are no good attackers - you will need bombers for that.

Their main reason is to prevent that YOU get bombed. An air carrier without fighter cover will be sunk itself or lose its Destroyer/Battleship escorts.

The same with cities. Fighters are much better than Flak/SAM.

 

[silver spork]

zerksees - that's the main thing I was thinking, but it just seems to me that they should be more accurate. In the real world fighters are relatively accurate. I think it's just because I'm used to civ 2 when I'd build massive amounts of stealth fighters and completely pummel the enemy.

 

[Szpoti]

Originally posted by zerksees
I use them on borders to keep enemy fighters from pillaging my territory. Just one or two in border cities seems to keep the enemy fighters away. Put them on "air superiorty" missions and watch them shoot down or scare off enemy fighters.

Yes, at the defensive "air superiority" task they work great, I very seldom use them in offensive operations. But we must remember, they work like all kinds of artillery únits, they can bring an enemy units to 1 hp, but they cannot kill it completely.
But since silver sponk is playing against a civ without air forces (is it regent level?) he can use them virtually for any task without any risk.

 

[silver spork]

It's actually chieftain right now. This is only my second civ 3 game and I wanna warm up. That's also why I'm fighting the Zulu's knights with tanks and fighters.

I'm bumpin' up the difficulty on my next game for sure.

 

[Szpoti]

Originally posted by silver spork
It's actually chieftain right now. This is only my second civ 3 game and I wanna warm up. That's also why I'm fighting the Zulu's knights with tanks and fighters.

I'm bumpin' up the difficulty on my next game for sure.

Thats good, we all are learing here I would suggest you at the beginning to read all the articles in the War Academy if you havent yet, especially those about the starting position, like for instance Crackers one (very difficult but it is really worthy!). Take a part also in some learing SGs maybe. By exchanging thoughts towards problems in the same game you will gain a lot.

 

[ryankim]

Fighters are natural enemy of Bombers.
(until Jet fighters appear of course.)

 

[Speedo]

I only use fighters/jet fighters to attack if my enemy doesn't have flight yet. Dunno about fighters, but jet fighters are extremely effective at getting bombers. That's really their main job.

 

[superpelon]

Fighters are pretty useless as far as bombardment goes, but are very effective at intercepting bombers. The key is place 4+ fighters per city. This, coupled with MoSAM/Flak are very effective at bringing down bombers. At sea, a carrier or two loaded with fighters plus destroyers and AEGIS crusiers are good AA defense.

Fighers are good at air superiority and recon. I like to use the Sealth Fighters for recon and precision strikes, since they are good at that.

 

[The Economist]

Another good use of fighters is to recon, allowing you to keep an eye on things without risking the loss of any of your units (I don't think fighters can intercept a recon mission, but I'm not 100% sure on that). Its useful when you want to see what is going on in a friendly country's territory, but they keep telling you to get off of their land.