Dislodging Enemy Aircraft

[SpaceHamster]

AI has 3 standard fighters flying over their city and a massive stack (~25 units) of ground units defending. I have a massive airforce of jet fighters and stealths staged next door which I'd like to use to turn that stack of gunships and marines and mechanized into dust.

*** Is their ANY way for me to attack their fighters directly? ***

It seems odd that only 3 outdated fighters are able to completely shut down my whole airforce, with no counter what-so-ever. Further, its beyond silly that their fighters can intercept my jets, blow them up, and yet suffer no damage at all.

 

[Khaim]

Sounds like a job for suicide artillery, actually. I could be wrong though.

 

[SpaceHamster]

An artillary suicide would work, certainly, but im short of turns (facing a space-lose fairly soon). I cant waste six or seven turns building and deploying them. My gripe is that whereas it seems every unit in the game has a counter, there seems no way to realistically deal with a defensive airforce. History has shown this not to be the case.

* England was able to defend itself in the battle of Britain, but their airforce took enormous a beating.
* The outdated Iraqi airforce was helpless to defend against our modern airforce.

 

[Zhahz]

I do with there was a way to engage interceptors with your own fighters/jets.

Stealth bombers are great at avoiding interception. Once you've bombarded and softened up the defenders all those interceptors will die off when the city falls without ever getting a chance to defend.

I guess the fact that air does nothing to aid the actual city defense is the tradeoff.

 

[SPQR300]

Isn't it like:
1. Jet plane attacks, and if not intercepted it attacks some ground unit
2. if intercepted by ground unit, then no success
3. if intercepted by an air unit, THERE IS A DIRECT fight between the 2 aircrafts

 

[SpaceHamster]

Isn't it like:
1. Jet plane attacks, and if not intercepted it attacks some ground unit
2. if intercepted by ground unit, then no success
3. if intercepted by an air unit, THERE IS A DIRECT fight between the 2 aircrafts

If there is such a fight, im not noticing it. Fighters intercept my jet fighters all the time, with only my jet taking damage.

 

[nullspace]

If there is such a fight, im not noticing it. Fighters intercept my jet fighters all the time, with only my jet taking damage.

If your jet survived, doesn't that mean the enemy interceptor died? That's how it worked in Civ 3.

 

[SpaceHamster]

If your jet survived, doesn't that mean the enemy interceptor died? That's how it worked in Civ 3.

No, isnt that odd?

All you need is like 3 or 4 fighters in a city, and they can defend over and over against just about any size airforce in their range, which is 10 for jet fighters. As long as you dont send them out on a mission, they cant be touched.

 

[NCC81701]

I wish they had an option for your fighters to do Air Superiority mission over a certain selectable area, maybe 3X3 square. That way it can hunt an destory enemy fighter and open up the sky for your bombers to get through. Cuz the way it is, if they had an airforce there is no cost prohibitive way of actually using bombers until you get stealth bombers.

 

[SpaceHamster]

The stealths work ok, but they still get intercepted by fighters very often.

Does anyone know how the stealth's 50% bonus works? Is it:

a) 70% fighter base intercept * 50% = 35% adjusted intercept, or
b) 70% fighter base intercept - 50% = 20% adjusted intercept?

Basically with three standard fighters covering a city very few stealth missions will succeed, and no standard missions will succeed. So the only reason to have an airforce is to defend against one, and therefore you only need to bother with fighters.

Can anyone give me a good case for building an offensive airforce late in the game?

 

[meowsqueak]

No, isnt that odd?

All you need is like 3 or 4 fighters in a city, and they can defend over and over against just about any size airforce in their range, which is 10 for jet fighters. As long as you dont send them out on a mission, they cant be touched.

Sounds like a bug to me. Is there a formal procedure for submission of bug reports to the developer?

 

[SlayerofDeitys]

I agree that you need to be able to have your fighters target the enemies fighters. The only consolation I suppose is that if I recall correctly those three fighters can only intercept three aircraft. Therefore if you send your fighters first and let them get intercepted then your bombers can follow up without incident (unless the enemy has SAM infantry). My other major issue regarding planes is that your aircraft carriers can't carry bombers. What genius thought that one up? Although I have parked a carrier off the coast while attacking a city one tile in and set all three jets to intercept. This covered my attacking army from enemy air assault which saved my butt big time.

 

[TigrisJK]

That is utterly bizarre, and you're correct, that seems ridiculous in implementation.

All I can say to that is... hopefully, they fix that. Someone needs to buzz Firaxis and let them know that a completely outdated and miniscule air force can fend off a modern, vast, and overwhelmingly large one.

And a VERY large concern on my part, since my late game strategy almost always involves bombing a city to dust before I move in and laugh. Especially when trying to prevent someone from winning a space race.


EDIT: I had an idea. A poor idea, since it requires building of the Manhattan Project, but if you can obtain ICBMs... which are otherwise only strategically useful for softening up for a land or amphibious invasion or to starve out an enemy... (which is a lot of usefulness, heh)... they can swat planes out like nothign else. Planes have a notoriously low health rating...

I would know, because in a game against a friend he nuked my airforce town and demolished my airforce in a fell swoop.

Now I always have my planes spread across my front, even if it takes longer to do what I want to do.

 

[SPQR300]

I tested the situation a good 20minutes in the worldbuilder, and i got to this conclusion:
EVERY ENEMY UNIT CAN ONLY INTERCEPT ONLY ONCE PER TURN!
So you should attack with your jet fighters first, and wait till the three fighters intercept them. They will probably get seriously injured , but after that it's free-roaming for you air force on the city.

 

[Lazarous]

I know from experience that jet fighters can cause damage to normal fighters that are set to intercept over an enemy city - just target the jet fighters on the city, and there is a chance the two fighters will tangle, generally to the jet's advantage. Haven't had a chance to try this with normal fighters vs each other or jets vs each other though.

 

[Sputty]

I noticed this while playing the Africa WWII scenario, you can intercept enemy fighters on intercept missions when they themselves attack aircraft by having aircraft in range. I did this by having a carrier with all 3 planes on intercept near the enemy city. It was pretty rare, though.

 

[SpaceHamster]

I tested the situation a good 20minutes in the worldbuilder, and i got to this conclusion:
EVERY ENEMY UNIT CAN ONLY INTERCEPT ONLY ONCE PER TURN!
So you should attack with your jet fighters first, and wait till the three fighters intercept them. They will probably get seriously injured , but after that it's free-roaming for you air force on the city.

Yeah, that seems about the only way to do it. Im still bothered that the balance seems tilted so very far toward the defense. What other situation in this game ever involves zero risk?

 

[jar2574]

Yeah, that seems about the only way to do it. Im still bothered that the balance seems tilted so very far toward the defense. What other situation in this game ever involves zero risk?

that definately needs to be fixed. a fighter shouldn't be able to intercept a jet without the risk of being shot down. In fact, older fighters should lose most of the time.

hope they fix it on the first patch