B17

[Stalker0]

So in comparing the Ideology unique Guerilla Fighter, Zero, and B17 units....I think the B17 is a good bit weaker than the rest.

Its not the "strength" per say, its the unit design.

The Guerilla and Zero can fundamentally change the way you war. The Guerilla's ZoC and Terrain ignoring allow you to do crazy things with infantry that you couldn't do normally. You can dash in and snipe, pull your units out to heal in areas that a normal infantry would just die in, and cross large areas of rough terrain with ease. And the +50% against wounded makes the Guerilla the strongest CS in the game for its era.

The Zero's lack of strategic resource combined with Autocracy's free airport in every city....turns your "fighter" from a strategic unit into a mass spammable one. There is no reason an autocracy players can't have several zeros in every city, allowing them to rain down aerial fire in a way no other ideology can. Its not that the Zero is the best fighter (though it is), its that I will have 2-4x times as many fighters as my non autocracy rivals.

In comparison the B17 is "quaint". Its a nice unit, good range, good damage, some nice free promotions....but its just a "better bomber", used exactly the same way you use normal bombers.


I feel that Freedom could use a little oomph here, though I'll admit I'm unsure of exactly what to do. Again its not about making the B17 stronger per say, but giving it some of the neat mechanics that the other two units have to allow Freedom a fun niche of its own. Maybe something weird where you can spend money to heal them or give them more attacks...I'm not sure just thinking outside the box right now.

 

[Melchizedek]

Maybe they can spend turns in a city with a stadium performing an airshow to reduce war weariness? Though that is more a fighter thing to do, it would be an interesting bonus.

 

[phantomaxl1207]

It's strange to me that B17's are good vs Cities when the rest of Freedom's kit does not seek conquest. The tenet that unlocks B-17's focuses on City Defense. While Bombers are tuned to attacking Cities, we can make change them to help on the defense. Here are some suggestions:

• Change Siege to Air Targeting, or a unique similar promotion to let it specialize vs Units over normal Bombers.
• Give them Air Repair, which is something that Bombers lost in VP.
• Give them a unique promotion that increases City healing when stationed in the City.

 

[sSs1897]

They are meant to reduce enemy production when bombing cities (without conquering), which is probably not quite reasonable to implement in civ.....

 

[azum4roll]

What about pillaging the tile under when killing an enemy on enemy lands?

 

[Emperorman1]

Or maybe they could steal production like barbarian to simulate destroyed infrastructure?

 

[Melchizedek]

I like the idea of destroying military infrastructure. Maybe they could have an action to pillage strategic resources? This would ignore any units in the tile (except for interception). Another way to go would be to have an area effect where units under its influence temporarily require double strategic resources, to simulate the idea that the bomber is interfering with the supply chain.

 

[Hinin]

I don't know if it's possible, but maybe we could give it the ability to attack tiles without units to automatically pillage them on one side, and automatically pillage the tiles under the units it attacks on the other :
- you could basically negate any defensive bonus from fortress/citadel your enemies have on their frontier with you by destroying them immediatly (though that could be too strong, so maybe an exception could be used there?)
- when in the first turn of a war, you can basically turn all enemy tiles near your potential aerodromes into wastelands, and so deprive them of potentialy large parts of their economy
- pillaging so many tiles can place a heavy unhappiness burden on your opponents (in term of yields and simple pillage unhappiness), which can be useful to shorten conflicts when war weariness begins to appear (and you can easily pillage them again if they send workers, so it's quite horrible for your opponents anyway).

On a historical point of view, it could be a reference to how the British and American airforces (most notably but not exclusively) tended to use bombardment on a massive scale to destroy infrastructures, civilian centers and so on from WW2 onward (against Germany, Japan, Italy, Vietnam, Irak, Afghanistan, Lybia, Syria etc). Maybe we could use the cynicaly euphemistic name "Moral bombings" for the promotion ?

 

[Stalker0]

I like the pillage concept, though i wouldn’t want it if there’s a unit on top, as I think that’s abusive. But either the bomber gains a pillage action or the bomber pillages when it kills the unit could he cool

 

[Hinin]

I like the pillage concept, though i wouldn’t want it if there’s a unit on top, as I think that’s abusive. But either the bomber gains a pillage action or the bomber pillages when it kills the unit could he cool

I think it would be a good way to balance the power of this bonus against Fortresses and Citadels : if the enemy has units inside them, them you have to dislodge them the hard way, but if they are empty, you can them pillage them immediatly.

So that would make something like this :

Moral Bombings

Gains a pillage action against tiles without units. Automatically pillages a tile when killing a unit on it.