Comments desired re: late game warfare CivCon

[Core Imposter]

In a quest for balance and a more fulfilling play experience I am working with a new ruleset, not a modification. This self imposed, limiting, ruleset has gotten me into new spots. For instance, I am noting that in attacking large modern cities that my artillery seem to always target and damage ground units, air bombardment seems to enage air units, unless ships are in the city, in which case I think naval units are damaged first.

Tactically, it seems that if CivCon handles this consistently, one should avoid air bombardment if possible, since I have yet to have an artillery unit shot down by an enemy fighter.

Naval bombardment seems to be more useful for the same reason. Also, I was surprised to see that naval units have the lethal bombardment capability when attacking ground units in port as I have not noticed naval units being sunk by other naval units at sea, which might simply be that I have not tried it in CivCon as it did not appear to ever work in CivV.

It seems rather better to kill enemy airpower by directly attacking them on the ground.

Another thing was that the game allows me to parachute units into empty cities but I always get a failed result. Can it work?

In general, as my ruleset normally puts me in combat with an enemy on equal terms techwise, the use of air power seems problematic at least as it applies to regular bombers once jet fighters are present. The losses are simply too high.

And carriers are trouble, the loss of a loaded one is so severe in terms of shields invested. The enemy always seems to know just where they are and how to stike from the fog of war. Maybe I am doing it wrong but I don't see how they can be effectively used to project power. I suppose I should experiment with large formations and hope the AI avoids attacking them as it avoid strong ground stacks and strongpoints.

 

[Fiddlin Nero]

Civ has never been an Airpower or Naval game. IMHO your navy comes down to defending convoy duty and nothing else. Airpower, as you said is too costly for the losses and you really don't need it. Of course, never forget that a tremendous amount of fun can be had in pursuing large navies and masses of fighters/bombers, so whatever floats your boat.

 

[Elephantium]

I've dealt with carrier task forces in two ways.

One, have at least four carriers per force. Each carrier has one fighter and three bombers, and the fighters are on Air Superiority at all times. I sometimes put in one or two extra fighters to do recon, so I'll have anywhere from 4 fighters and 12 bombers to 6 fighters and 10 bombers. I also stack up at least 4 other warships with AA capability (the higher AA rating, the better).

Two, if you have lots of shields available, make 8 extra Destroyers per carrier force, and have them scouting in a circle around your carrier force. That way, enemies can't sneak in and attack your carrier stack from the fog.

This doesn't necessarily help against land-based bombers, but in that case you can lurk just outside of range and dart in 1/2 movement, launch your airstrikes, and then move back out.

 

[vmxa]

If you want to see ships in harbors sunk by boats check out (iirc) Handy900 SG Sid game. We played as Byz and just parked Droms in front of iirc Russian cities and sunk every boat as soon as it was made. Never came out of the harbor.

I cannot tell you the last time I made a carrier on any size map or level. Better to just keep taking towns.

 

[Elephantium]

Good point, vmxa. Carriers aren't very efficient in Civ 3. It IS great fun to put together a mighty carrier task force, though

 

[Core Imposter]

In the style of game I play I am always coming from behind in terms of combat shields deployed so I can't afford the luxury of massive anything. The ease with which we can attain 10-1 kill ratios on land with artillery isn't possible in naval or air combat as far as I can see. Since I am often outnumbered 2 or 3 to 1, or more, in sheer numbers, a war of attrition is not an option. This is why I am trying to learn more details about all this. Obv., this isn't applicable to the type of game where you have essentially rolled up the map by the time you learn military tradition.

 

[timerover51]

What size and type of map are you playing on? Are you on Pangaea, Continents, or an Archipelago map?

And naval units will sink other naval units at sea, it just means that without "lethal sea bombardment" checked, they will need to be in adjacent squares.

 

[MysteryX]

I usually play on a continents map, and carriers can be quite effective. When fighting a big and spread out opponent, well-positioned carriers can knock out an opponent's strategic resources quickly so it cannot make its best units. Knock out out an opponent's luxuries as well and force it into a government overthrow so it can't even produce its worst units.

Battleships are well-suited to protect your carriers (if you don't need to move them around a lot). Keep a cruiser around for spotting enemies, and a few destroyers to engage. Deploying your carriers grouped together lessens the burden on protecting them. In my experience, the computer opponents don't seem to attack a reasonably well-guarded carrier group.

 

[vmxa]

Prior to destroyers ship battles are just so shakey. Losing frigates to caravels, galleons and sometimes even galleys, when fighting straight up. Does not suit me, I prefer to just drive them away with bombardment from land or let them do their little pings.

Carriers are expensive, need planes and escorts and take time to go anywhere. I put those shields into my armies and just take those resources for my empire.

Scenarios are a different story, suchs as AoI where you may start off with lots of shipping and the world is already filled and very large.

Even on island maps I only make as many ships as I need to invade, mostly all transport types with just 3 or 4 escorts. Frigates for galleons and DD for transports or maybe cruisers as they have the same speed as transports.

 

[creamcheese]

I've dealt with carrier task forces in two ways.

One, have at least four carriers per force. Each carrier has one fighter and three bombers, and the fighters are on Air Superiority at all times. I sometimes put in one or two extra fighters to do recon, so I'll have anywhere from 4 fighters and 12 bombers to 6 fighters and 10 bombers. I also stack up at least 4 other warships with AA capability (the higher AA rating, the better).

Two, if you have lots of shields available, make 8 extra Destroyers per carrier force, and have them scouting in a circle around your carrier force. That way, enemies can't sneak in and attack your carrier stack from the fog.

This doesn't necessarily help against land-based bombers, but in that case you can lurk just outside of range and dart in 1/2 movement, launch your airstrikes, and then move back out.

This is generally what I do when I feel like splurging on some carriers, or when the scenario gives them to me (Rocoteh's WWII comes to mind). The wall of destroyers keeps subs away and a few escorts can soak up air strikes.

I was actually playing Rocoteh's scenario recently as the US and had a lot of fun building up a huge 10-carrier task force, with massive battleship escort and then going out and taking a bunch of islands in the pacific really quickly. The key advantage is that carriers can move and then bombers can strike in one turn, no need to rebase. Other than that kind of island-hopping they aren't cost efficient.

Even not being cost efficient doesn't mean they aren't a lot of fun though! I got a lot of enjoyment out of retaking the Philippines in one turn, and crushing aside all opposition. That said, it took forever (and a ton of shields) to prepare.

 

[King of Anshan]

bombers work better than artillery in a certain aspect, they allow blitzkrieg.
With a bit of luck the bombers bomb the jets before they get knocked out.

Atleast in my experience nothing pownes a 40-stack bomber force. Bomber Rule!

 

[bigFRANK]

Bombers hit the top of the stack downwards which is aircraft first, ships second other land units/infrastructure next, trick to there use is massed power not many places have more than 3 or 4 fighters and after that you just start to flatten the city prior to pushing in and taking the city with a 2nd line unit (single cavalry units are very good against either zero or red line defence). Thus allowing your front line troops to move freely through those squares onto your next target.

Naval combat and naval bombardment are different things, to engage in combat you have to try to enter the same square as the unit you wish to kill, bombardment on the other hand just come up next to (or 2 squares away for a battleship or AGEIS Cruiser) and bombard. Naval bombardment by comparison to normal artillery bombardment is less effective. Naval bombardment works well (as demonstrated by the AI) when you or your opponent is in the early days of iron ships and they/you still have wooden ships. Japan ran a stack of frigates in a bombarded and run on my ironclads and once they where redlined a couple more frigates came along and sank them.

Carriers are a vastly expensive enterprise to do right, you want 4 carriers, a battleship a couple of cruisers and at least 8 destroyers (4 in the group, 4 making an outer box defence) to make a carrier battle group, plus each carrier needs an air group (this is there main weakness as they don’t carry enough aircraft to be singularly effective) my suggestion is that all carriers have 1 fighter on CAP duties and 3 bombers for doing the job, as soon as they have supported the landing though build a land base and bring those bombers across from your main base.

Parachuting units directly into a town with no defences gets them killed instantly, same if you try and heli drop units directly into a town (haven’t tried it with a marine but would expect the same result) infact heli’s are pretty much useless as you cant load them up and stick them on a carrier (that would make an awesome rapid assault group).

 

[Core Imposter]

Thanks for the responses guys.

I like to use the copters with 3 TOW infantry but you have to have a pretty rare setup for it to be useful.

Paratroops can go 8 squares but only from an airfield. Copters can drop only six but from any city and if you are going to find an application for them you probably need to use the tougher TOW. Haven't tried a marine but I will check that out at first opportunity.

At the moment I am using paired carrier groups on the premise that it gives me more manuverability and survivability at the cost of less punch.

I have experienced AI destroyer packs of up to 20 ships and you pretty much are toast anyway if one of those gets to you.

The sea is a dangerous place. Carriers are becoming in my mind a specialty unit rather than a main force component.

 

[Core Imposter]

Bombers have a range of ten, stealth bombers 16. Essentially you can project power an additional 8 squares by running carriers out of ports, 4 if you want them to duck back in.

You can use them the same way with fighters for scouting purposes.

So thats a very limited capability and in putting them to sea for multiple turns you need a very important task because they are sitting ducks in a competitive game.

 

[MysteryX]

Of course, never build units just because you can, but because they are of use to you.

I finished a game a few days ago in which my carriers with stealth bombers helped give me a decisive victory. I was down to one opponent left, whose power level was pretty close to me. A couple of carrier groups gave my stealth bombers striking distance to all of my opponent's strategic resources necessary for creating modern units. Though he made the first move of attacking me before I was quite ready to attack him, the counter-attack on my turn knocked out his capability to create anything better than TOW infantry to attack my mechanized infantry and modern armor. Within three turns, I was also able to knock out all of his luxuries except one, enough to cause his people to overthrow his government and completely shut down his ability to create anything.

But that was exactly the scenario I was anticipating when creating the carrier groups. I might not have done it if I had more opponents (too many carrier groups needed to cover them all) or if my land-stationed stealth bombers were in range of critical targets of my dangerous enemies. The availability of stealth bombers over normal bombers also makes a big difference; it may take too many turns to take out my opponents' strategic resources with regular bombers, since I favor the shortest wars possible.