City bombers never intercepted?

[Aristos]

I posted this in GD because I don't know if it is a bug or not, I prefer to ask if others saw something similar first.

I was invading France, took a beachhead (coastal city), full air support with 5 fighters in two carriers, all in range. France bombs the city two or three times, and not a single fighter of mine intercepts. Now, it is possible that the RNG made a nasty joke on me, but the likelihood of that is very low... 5 fighters and no interception in 2-3 bombing runs??? Seems very very unlikely. Chatting with my little boy, he tells me that he never saw an interception of enemy bombers when attacking cities; he was so sure, that his attitude was "what? dad, you didn't know that rule???".

Did anyone see this behaviour before? I could not find any bug report in the bugs forum... was I just THAT unlucky, or is something very strange going on here?

V 1.0.2.21, FYI. CivWillard and InfoAddict light, no other mods.

Anyone?

 

[Irkalla]

You actually have to tell them to intercept.

 

[Matthew.]

Was intercept on? Intercept is for when the enemy is attacking. Air sweep is used on your turn to preemptively get enemy AAguns and air to waste their attack.

 

[WChrisMullen]

I think only anti-aircraft guns and mobile SAMs automatically intercept. With planes each turn you have to have them intercept.

 

[Aristos]

Oh, come on guys, yes, they were all on Interception mission. They were also all within range (2-3 tiles from the city)... I even moved two to the city after the first non-intercepted bombing run, and they did not intercept the next two... I have never noticed this before, so I was surprised, but what really struck me is the surprise in my son's face as if I did not know "that rule by which city bombers cannot get intercepted"... I wonder if I was missing this before, or if I am missing something now? Cannot be pure luck for such a bomber.

So, do you see normal interceptions when bombers attack your cities? Up until now I was sure they did, but this last experience got me confused.

 

[kaspergm]

Well if you moved them into the city after the first strike, obviously they wouldn't intercept the second one (asuming it came on the turn right after the first one) because they can't intercept on the turn that you moved them.

Secondly, I assume he didn't use any fighters of his own to perform air sweeps to eat your interceptions? I don't think the AI is capable of doing this (sigh) but if you were playing against a human player, he would have been.

I think from the game files there are indications that interceptions were actually originally planned to be chance based, i.e. your fighter has a certain chance for doing an interception, but also could fail. However, I don't think that's the case anymore, if I'm not mistaken the fighter *should* intercept if he was ordered to do it (and didn't take any other action that turn!) unless someone performs an Air Sweap which will use an interception shot.

 

[krc]

This answer is highly speculative.....

If you bomb an anti-air (or mobile SAM unit) in the open, then I think the attack does not get intercepted. It is possible that the same thing happens when such a unit is inside a city.

So, was your city garrisoned by an anti-air unit? Can someone test if this makes a difference?

 

[dac050]

Hmmm, interesting, I have seen my fighters intercept enemy bombers many times, but all the examples I can remember was the AI going after troops outside a city. I honestly can't remember the last time I saw the AI bomb a city, it usually likes to target the troops first.

So, if you have lots of fighters on intercept, make sure there is a land unit to attract the AI bombers and just shoot them out of the sky. Since the AI will fly its planes "to the death", a few fighters on intercept can generally eliminate an AI airforce within about 3 turns.

 

[Deggial]

So, if you have lots of fighters on intercept, make sure there is a land unit to attract the AI bombers and just shoot them out of the sky. Since the AI will fly its planes "to the death", a few fighters on intercept can generally eliminate an AI airforce within about 3 turns.

That might be a work-around. But his is not the point! The question is:
Do intercepting fighters still defend cities (...since the last patch)?

And honestly, I was wondering, too. I haven't had the opportunity to check it explicitly and systematically - but I remember I was puzzled by some unexpected fighter behavior lately. Unfortunately, my memories are not very exact here.

Therefore, I am following this thread with interest! But then - how could a bug like this pass undetected by the players?

 

[Aristos]

OK, some additional information to clear any confusion about the fighters being in the correct stance:

+ All fighters were on intercept mission when the city bombing runs occurred.
+ No fighter had moved the same turn when the runs occurred, as in point 1, all of them were correctly ordered and able to perform interceptions when the runs happened.
+ No AA weapon of any sort was in the area (not mine)
+ I had two marines covering access to the coastal city, and when the AI decided to bomb these units instead, there was always an interception occurring.
+ When the AI decided to attack the city, interception never occurred.

I am more and more curious too, because when I saw it I thought I had missed something new from the latest patches. But as others said, I don't clearly remember if this was present before or not, because usually you only see the AI going for units with its bombers, and interception works as expected in that scenario.

We would need one person that can clearly remember, or reproduce, the scenario of interception when bombers attack cities, to at least deny the possibility of a bug (to some extent).

 

[Deggial]

For whatever it may be worth, I definitely remember that fighters used to do so in the past!
Of course - and unfortunately - I am not able to prove this claim, as my game got patched as everyone's game was...

(By the way: AI bombers usually attack my cities - at least the recently conquered ones with low HP. Not very useful in most cases, as there aren't ground units to take them back.)

 

[RedFuneral]

OK, some additional information to clear any confusion about the fighters being in the correct stance:

+ All fighters were on intercept mission when the city bombing runs occurred.
+ No fighter had moved the same turn when the runs occurred, as in point 1, all of them were correctly ordered and able to perform interceptions when the runs happened.
+ No AA weapon of any sort was in the area (not mine)
+ I had two marines covering access to the coastal city, and when the AI decided to bomb these units instead, there was always an interception occurring.
+ When the AI decided to attack the city, interception never occurred.

I am more and more curious too, because when I saw it I thought I had missed something new from the latest patches. But as others said, I don't clearly remember if this was present before or not, because usually you only see the AI going for units with its bombers, and interception works as expected in that scenario.

We would need one person that can clearly remember, or reproduce, the scenario of interception when bombers attack cities, to at least deny the possibility of a bug (to some extent).

Did they by chance bomb the soldiers(and get intercepted) before they attacked the city? I'm still a bit of a noob at the later stages of the game so correct me if I'm wrong, but is there a chance each fighter can only do one interception per turn hence they were used up when the AI went for the troops on the ground?

 

[Aristos]

Did they by chance bomb the soldiers(and get intercepted) before they attacked the city? I'm still a bit of a noob at the later stages of the game so correct me if I'm wrong, but is there a chance each fighter can only do one interception per turn hence they were used up when the AI went for the troops on the ground?

Nope. No interception was used in the turn when the AI decided to bomb the city. The AI did not mix the missions (bomb unit and bomb city in the same turn), so what you suggest is not an option. In fact, one of my interceptors had the promotion by which it can intercept more than once in one turn.

 

[locks]

From what I have experienced, on the turn you put your fighter on intercept, they wont intercept anything, only the turn after, if you don't give them any other orders, they will then intercept, it's like their is a 1 turn delay for them to intercept.

I may be wrong but this is the behavior I experienced in my last game (this was my first game with the G&K expansion), not sure how it was before, but in this last game, this is how it was for me, after conquering an enemy city, I would move some fighters in the new city, end turn, city get bombarded as expected, set fighters to intercept and end turn, city get bombarded again with no retaliation, don't touch the fighters and end turn, this time they intercept the enemy bombers...

 

[Aristos]

I have recreated the problem with a save from 2 turns before... no matter how I play the turns , the bomber never gets intercepted when attacking the city (changing the order of moves and commands is supposed to alter the RNG ordering somewhat, IIRC).

Another thing that I forgot to mention: there is a guided missile attack on the city in the same turn, before the bombing run (but not immediately before), and lo and behold, my fighters "intercept" the guided missile... what? Are they supposed to be able to do that?

I start to wonder if it is an "animation queue" problem or something like that?

 

[Aaron90495]

Posting a save would really help. Could you upload it?

 

[Luca_zbr]

Maybe the bombers have the evasion promotion ?

 

[Aristos]

Maybe the bombers have the evasion promotion ?

This is something I considered before, but then I looked into the pedia only to find out that the "evasion" bonus is only a decrease in damage done to the bomber, not an increased chance of evading the interception.

 

[Luca_zbr]

Thank for information, I didn't know that

 

[nokmirt]

Wow fighters should have an intercept rating of 100. In my WWI scenario my early planes have a intercept rating of 50, which sometimes gets annoying when several triplanes cannot intercept a GW bomber. With fighters and jet fighters this should be much easier. Jet fighters also intercept at 100. So these units should regularly intercept bombers no matter where they attack as long as your fighters are in range. It must be a bug, let me know if you find out any more.