Carriers, Ridiculous?

[Roland Johansen]

Building Carriers is not a free lunch like the inherent ability to hold at least 4 units in a city is. Factor in all the hammers required to build a Carrier fleet and then think about what adding square limits to aircraft would do for the incentives to build Carriers.

It would do nothing at all as you'd still want them to protect against fighter/bomber attacks and to weaken land defences before an attack. You don't need to be able to concentrate many carriers on a water tile to make the unit viable.

But I'm more in favour of removing the limit for land based airplanes as the limitation isn't working as aircraft carriers allow you to exceed the limit in most land tiles anyway by placing the carriers close to the coast. So it's a game rule that isn't working and just making things tougher for the AI who doesn't understand the ways to circumvent the limitations.

 

[nullspace]

I wouldn't quite call carriers ridiculous like Ghpstage because the carriers do cost a lot of hammers. But I can see how in a big war where both sides spend huge numbers of hammers on their militaries , the concentration of air power in a carrier fleet is unstoppable. It's kind of like bombardment units in Civ 3: once you have enough of them in one stack, you can steamroll your enemy with a nearly perfect kill ratio. I think the change from Civ 3 to "suicide catapults" in Civ 4 was specifically made so that even when you're winning the war, you're still losing some units. That rule is probably still supposed to apply to carrier fleets.

So there needs to be a way for a strong enemy to counter the carrier fleet, or at least a way for a weak enemy to cause some attrition in a losing war. The AI will never be a genius at modern war, but if it can cause some losses, an AI with a big advantage in military and production could overcome a player.

Nuclear weapons are one counter to a mega stack, but there are some hurdles to jump before you can build nukes and the carrier fleet can split up to reduce their vulnerability to nukes. That's not a reliable counter. Does the AI even use nukes against units, or just against cities?

I think that surface-to-air units are supposed to be the counter to striking fighters, and the fact that they're not actually very good at it is what makes carriers an unstoppable offensive weapon. The main problem is that the attacking fighters rarely die even when they are intercepted. Interception prevents damage to the ground units and damages the aircraft, but this only delays the inevitable. If surface-to-air units were more lethal, then using carrier based fighters to attack ground units might be too costly for a mega stack of carriers to be overpowered.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

If we're talking MP, humans can counter any carrier-based strat by doing it back and intercepting ...or diverting hammers into an earlier strike.

If it's the AI we're talking about, the air power everywhere is sort of overkill...there are so many other options. Tac nukes are probably best, since high-level AIs love stack-clumping and won't adjust for the fact that the entire thing is going down for cheap unless they split up.

The marines only thing was kind of ignored earlier, so let me post proof, although I'll spoiler it since it contains such for the current Immortal University game:

Spoiler :

Well, there goes the entire navy for izzy. I actually did attack a mini-stack of naval units belonging to her earlier, it was like 2 battleships and a bunch of destroyers, but I have enough battleships as you can see that the whole thing got collateral'd to hell. I lost like 2-3 marines per city, but the initial hammer investment to prepare this force was less than that of massed airships.

More importantly, I had to do this to MM/Asoka first since they were both close to culture. MM was VERY close at one point:

So waiting for flight wasn't practical .

The result of marines + industrialism navy against tech-leading AIs?

UN win. Razz the coastal cities and bend them over! No need for these sissy planes . It's all about seafaring logistics! Haha! Screw airlifts!

 

[PibbZ]

In my opinion, the problem here is the unlimited range of which an aircraft can re-base.
If you had to load them like ground troops/missiles, it would look way different, and would be harder to abuse.

 

[Kaosprophet]

What happens in Civ can only be compared to the British fleet being able to turn up on the US coast, and enjoy absolute air superiority over a region encompassing a few cities, even when they are expected. Which is obviously ridiculous .

Also ridiculous: Roosevelt leading the American people from 4000bc to the landing on Alpha Centauri. In fact, compared to that I'd say the scenario posited in the quoted material isn't even on the radar.

 

[nullspace]

If it's the AI we're talking about, the air power everywhere is sort of overkill...there are so many other options. Tac nukes are probably best, since high-level AIs love stack-clumping and won't adjust for the fact that the entire thing is going down for cheap unless they split up.

The marines only thing was kind of ignored earlier, so let me post proof, although I'll spoiler it since it contains such for the current Immortal University game:

Spoiler :

Well, there goes the entire navy for izzy. I actually did attack a mini-stack of naval units belonging to her earlier, it was like 2 battleships and a bunch of destroyers, but I have enough battleships as you can see that the whole thing got collateral'd to hell. I lost like 2-3 marines per city, but the initial hammer investment to prepare this force was less than that of massed airships.

More importantly, I had to do this to MM/Asoka first since they were both close to culture. MM was VERY close at one point:

So waiting for flight wasn't practical .

The result of marines + industrialism navy against tech-leading AIs?

UN win. Razz the coastal cities and bend them over! No need for these sissy planes . It's all about seafaring logistics! Haha! Screw airlifts!

OK, I guess the main problem is the AI's general incompetence at modern war. But even in your marines example, you were losing some units at each city. I think that's more balanced than a stack of carriers plus marines that can raze cities with no losses.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

OK, I guess the main problem is the AI's general incompetence at modern war. But even in your marines example, you were losing some units at each city. I think that's more balanced than a stack of carriers plus marines that can raze cities with no losses.

Yes, but the point is that carriers and fighters are a huge investment, and for them to pay off, they have to be needed. If you can win the game outright with less hammers invested in another approach, the carriers/fighters stack makes less sense.

If I'd waited for flight in this game, I'd have lost. I believe I had 2 turns left before losing tops, forcing me to declare ASAP.

 

[nullspace]

TMIT, in your situation you made the right decision. You were under time pressure so you needed a solution with low initial cost, and some losses in combat were acceptable because you didn't need to take very many cities to prevent the AI victory and force them to capitulate. You also had the production capacity and naval logistics need to replace your losses.

But there are other situations in which the carriers are desired or needed. If your enemy is an AI with much more tech, military, and production than you, but they're not going to score a victory in the near future, then you may need a solution with high initial cost but very low losses. This is when the carriers are ridiculous. The carriers and fighters are a large investment of hammers, but it's doable. That force can then take down an opponent that has infinite military power and production power because the enemy cannot concentrate their power any better than the carriers. I don't think that a military tactic is supposed to give this much advantage in Civ 4.

Now, it's not a situation that will come up much in a "normal" game, (you might need to turn off space and culture victories) but I can see where Ghpstage is coming from in his rant.

 

[PieceOfMind]

I agree that it's pretty weird game-wise to be able to concentrate air power so easily by using massed carriers - I was doing this in my recent game. Having a stack of about 10 carriers packed with jet fighters moving along the coast made it very easy to amphibiously take each city. Use a few CR3 tanks on each city after the air strikes...

But on the whole I don't have a problem with there being no limit on air units by use of carriers.

Perhaps the land-based limit was introduced partly to encourage the use of carriers? Let's face it - when there were no limits for air units in each city, carriers were rarely needed.

If the player has X cities, Y airports, and Z forts, then there is obviously a capacity of X+Y+Z air units in his territory, ignoring carriers. One could then think of carriers as a means to increase air unit capacity.

Going back to the realism argument briefly, I think it's fair to stack a large number of carriers on one tile but restrict the air units in an airport. I'm no expert on this stuff but in real life, carriers actually are an extremely effective way to concentrate air power, right? Allowing carriers to support land-based air power by putting them in cities seems sensible. Those carriers can still be wiped out while in port if the city is taken.

In reality, military air bases cannot just be put in the middle of a massive city (or at least, they aren't usually). Having to put them away from the population is represented by the need to use forts in less useful terrain. On the water however, there's plenty of space for carriers!

The AI could certainly improve its understanding on how to best use carriers, but then it needs improvement in nearly everything else as well. As I think someone said earlier (maybe TMIT), massed siege has a similarly overpowering effect. At least with siege there is Flanking to counter it (somewhat) but the AI is poor with flanking human siege stacks.

 

[Rusty Edge]

Aren't flanking subs with guided missiles a counter to carriers?

Is this a "I shouldn't need a navy when I have an army and an air force" argument ?

 

[6K Man]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Kure_(July_1945))

 

[Roland Johansen]

Perhaps the land-based limit was introduced partly to encourage the use of carriers? Let's face it - when there were no limits for air units in each city, carriers were rarely needed.

I disagree with this. Carriers are needed to protect a fleet that is going to attack a strong civilisation on another continent. They are also needed to get on land and get that beachhead on the other continent. They are even more needed for this purpose when the enemy isn't strongly limited in the number of airplanes they can station in a city as the fleet is at far more risk from air strikes in that case.

Furthermore, the aircraft limit for cities was introduced to make airplanes less overpowering when used en masse. (Solver worked on this change in BTS and told about it.) Now, the human has a way to circumvent this rule with aircraft carriers that is even harder to counter by the AI. Why introduce a rule when its this easy to circumvent? And really, the cost of the carriers isn't that high compared to the cost of the extra fighters in the area.

Note that I dislike realism arguments as realism doesn't make for the best games. But why do people repeatedly say that carriers are an efficient way to station airplanes in an area in reality. Yes, carriers were a magnificent achievement by mankind: the ability to make a moving airstrip that allowed a nation to move its airpower closer to the enemy shores is an achievement that changed warfare. However, it wasn't a cheap way to wage war. When a nation wants to create more airstrips near a city, then it isn't going to build an aircraft carrier to place in the harbor. The cost of creating a stationary land based airstrip near the city with the same capacity is probably less than 1 thousand of the cost of the aircraft carrier.
The power of the carrier in reality is to bring airpower in sea battles and against foreign shores out of range of your land based airstrips, not to create extra landing strip capacity in your own cities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Kure_(July_1945)

What was the goal of this (broken) link? I did find the article by the way. But I don't know why you posted this link. You were arguing against Ghpstage, but this shows that the Japanese were able to get a huge number of planes in that area from land based airfields, likely more than the Americans had in the area. I didn't know that the Japanese could even field that many aircraft that late in the war, remarkable! Of course, at that stage of the war, the American planes were far better than what the Japanese could produce. Did you wish to argue that land based airfields should get an unlimited number of airplanes?

 

[6K Man]

What was the goal of this (broken) link?

Fixed, thanks.

But I don't know why you posted this link. You were arguing against Ghpstage, but this shows that the Japanese were able to get a huge number of planes in that area from land based airfields,

I think we are reading different articles. I see no mention of the number of planes the Japanese engaged. There is a note on the number of lost/damaged planes, but 3rd Fleet embarked roughly double that number of planes.

Did you wish to argue that land based airfields should get an unlimited number of airplanes?

Nah, I have no particular axe to grind on that point.

 

[Roland Johansen]

I think we are reading different articles. I see no mention of the number of planes the Japanese engaged. There is a note on the number of lost/damaged planes, but 3rd Fleet embarked roughly double that number of planes.

Yeah, I noticed the number of planes lost by the Japanese in that one battle and was astounded by it: 306 lost, 392 damaged. So the Japanese had a huge number of planes in that region. Of course, the American planes were a lot better than the Japanese ones at that stage of the war. I don't know why you think the third fleet was carrying many more planes than that. The American aircraft carriers of WWII carried typically something like 30 planes apiece at maximum capacity.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

TMIT, in your situation you made the right decision. You were under time pressure so you needed a solution with low initial cost, and some losses in combat were acceptable because you didn't need to take very many cities to prevent the AI victory and force them to capitulate. You also had the production capacity and naval logistics need to replace your losses.

But there are other situations in which the carriers are desired or needed. If your enemy is an AI with much more tech, military, and production than you, but they're not going to score a victory in the near future, then you may need a solution with high initial cost but very low losses. This is when the carriers are ridiculous. The carriers and fighters are a large investment of hammers, but it's doable. That force can then take down an opponent that has infinite military power and production power because the enemy cannot concentrate their power any better than the carriers. I don't think that a military tactic is supposed to give this much advantage in Civ 4.

Now, it's not a situation that will come up much in a "normal" game, (you might need to turn off space and culture victories) but I can see where Ghpstage is coming from in his rant.

Actually, I was markedly behind in tech and also power (briefly, it's amazing how their power drops when their entire navy sinks in port). Probably not in production at least since I had so many towns with gold infrastructure. I torched double digit cities in a short period of time . But that's beside the point.

The concept of using carriers in this way IS a little ridiculous compared to real life, but it's hardly imbalanced. Humans have multiple ways to counter this strategy, not the least of which is screwing you before you get there...but also nukes, surprise attacks, copying the tactic, or using a very thick coating of SAMS with the interception promotion (70% interception rate! If you're running up against 8 fighters and say 10 SAMS that intercept @ 70%, that's going to hurt. You'd need over 30 planes and their carriers to put any realistic dent in a stack like that). The problem is actually damaging anything significantly w/o being intercepted, SAMS make this far lest cost-effective and increase the losses. And, they can be had just as quickly.

Now, of course the AI doesn't do any of that, but IMO this is just another in a long list of AI failings . You can run circles around the AI in modern warfare using pretty much anything, so carriers/fighters in force don't especially stand out over say nukes or even just MASSED infantry/arty.

 

[Ghpstage]

One thing on thick coating of SAMs TMIT, couldn't the carrier force simply outrun them? I mean it can hit any city within 11 tiles every direction (slight approximation but near as dammit) before any promotions are used . Thats quite likely to cover 3-4 or more cities, as land AA can only move 10 tiles on railroads your going to need those 8 fighters and 10 SAMs in every city in range
Unless your talking about flying them around in airports?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

One thing on thick coating of SAMs TMIT, couldn't the carrier force simply outrun them? I mean it can hit any city within 11 tiles every direction (slight approximation but near as dammit) before any promotions are used . Thats quite likely to cover 3-4 or more cities, as land AA can only move 10 tiles on railroads your going to need those 8 fighters and 10 SAMs in every city in range

Probably not. First of all, you might walk into something unwanted while trying to out-run the SAMS. More importantly, even if you can hit within 11 tiles, what good is doing so unless you can physically ATTACK those locations? Causing collateral w/o kills is pointless. They can easily out-maneuver the navy itself and protect their SoD, especially since they're moving to defense points that are more centrally located than ships skimming the perimeter.

Edit: And you don't want to get in a situation where the precious carrier fleet is within range of a port with battleships, or it gets really ugly really quickly. The defender can use planes to scout, too, and can position accordingly making it very difficult.

 

[PieceOfMind]

When a nation wants to create more airstrips near a city, then it isn't going to build an aircraft carrier to place in the harbor. The cost of creating a stationary land based airstrip near the city with the same capacity is probably less than 1 thousand of the cost of the aircraft carrier.

And building a fort doesn't cost anything but worker time. But anyway... I know you don't want to continue with realism arguments.

Purely on gameplay then, I'd be more concerned if if there was some limit on the number of air units per water tile. Firstly, how would the rule be enforced? An aircraft carrier would be disallowed from moving onto a tile that has exceeded its allowed capacity? As far as I can imagine this would be a PITA in terms of micromanagement, shuffling around fleets.

What is the actual gameplay problem you think exists? Is it just that using carriers is a way to circumvent the air unit limit and the AI is not aware of it? "Circumventing the rule" is how you put it, as if it is inherently clear that the intentions of the rule are not being carried out and that alone is enough to be called a problem. It doesn't matter what Solver's intentions were if his solution worked well, perhaps working better than he intended.

I don't see any massive issue with the player being able to concentrate unlimited airpower via the use of carriers. A well placed nuke can wipe out the lot, potentially. If your argument is that because the AI can't use it then the rule should never have been implemented in the first place, then sure, that and the other milliion things the AI doesn't know how to do. The AI needs improving. But I would argue the actual gameplay implications of carriers are not that problematic.

Having said that, I think Ghpstage's other point - that they can be reinforced from anywhere on the globe is far worse. Air units effectively have infinite mobility, like teleportation. Your country could be completely surrounded by SAM batteries yet your WW2 fighter can rebase to the other side of the world with no stops in between.

I'm not sure of the best way to address the problem though. Making carriers have to load untis from forts/cities would be going too far IMO.

 

[Ghpstage]

Having said that, I think Ghpstage's other point - that they can be reinforced from anywhere on the globe is far worse. Air units effectively have infinite mobility, like teleportation. Your country could be completely surrounded by SAM batteries yet your WW2 fighter can rebase to the other side of the world with no stops in between.

To be fair I think the issue isn't one or the other, its the combination of both (apart from coast city/fort hugging and even in this case it worsens it). Unfortunately as you have mentioned limiting water fighters isn't workable, and stopping teleporting fighters would make carriers almost worthless.

 

[6K Man]

Yeah, I noticed the number of planes lost by the Japanese in that one battle and was astounded by it: 306 lost, 392 damaged. So the Japanese had a huge number of planes in that region. Of course, the American planes were a lot better than the Japanese ones at that stage of the war. I don't know why you think the third fleet was carrying many more planes than that. The American aircraft carriers of WWII carried typically something like 30 planes apiece at maximum capacity.

Well, most of the planes the Japanese lost during the raids were either destroyed on the ground or were "kamikaze" planes. The loss rate for the latter would be near 100%. So I don't think the losses necessarily suggest that they had vastly more planes available in the area under attack.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that 3rd Fleet carriers embarked 30 planes each - the light carriers may have carried about that many, but not the larger fleet carriers. The Essex-class (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essex_class) which made up the bulk of the 3rd Fleet's carrier force, embarked around 90-100 planes each. So a force of 10 Essex-class and 6 light carriers would have somewhere over 1000 planes embarked, at a minimum.

My point being, that there is real world precedent for a large offshore carrier force overwhelming local defenses. And that it is therefore not 'ridiculous' for the same thing to be possible in Civ4 BTS, as the OP postulated.