Do You Actually Use Aircraft Carriers?

[Civthing]

Yes, I'm a noob (laugh if you wish). I use carriers the same way I use Artillery (maybe even better).

The problem I've always had with artillery (and its respective ancestors) is that they lag! I'm aware that the artillery in real life lag behind the front lines as well, however, modern artillery has a MUCH longer range than CIV artillery have but enough about that.

Carriers are the perfect thing to have if your opponent has a large and/or advanced navy. That's what they were designed for! Whooping the snot out of the battleship before my weak little destroyers clean 'em out! They are great escorts for large fleets of transports. Pre-Mass Production transports would have to be protected by at least two times as many destroyers (or cruisers) to defend against the AI's battleships. Now you might only need a few to get the job done with a couple of loaded carriers.

*whew!* I'm all done.

Civthing

 

[k-a-bob]

An island conquest - I'm using them now.

I love using artillery, but I didn't want to risk them on someone's home island (building and building units) so I have 5 carriers bombing away at a city - it went from size 8 to size 1 and all units yellow/redlined. Made it easy for my armor to take the city, err town - and then move on and take 2 more in the same turn.

 

[rajwhitehall]

Here are some thoughts on carriers for Vanilla Civ3. It's very true, they are the only way to project airpower into areas that bombers can't reach. On huge non-pangea maps this will become quickly apparent. However the problem is, they can't carry enough aircraft to be, alone, really powerful. So you need several carriers. Which is expensive. Of course to protect the carriers from the enemy fleet, you need a few battleships too. So in order to get those airplanes to the fight, it is almost cost-prohibitive. Then if you lose a bomber or two to enemy fighters your effectiveness is that much reduced, and you can do nothing about getting those fighters unless you resort to nukes. I also detest the fact it's not possible to upgrade air units while on aircraft carriers. So on a long mission your carrier fleet will be attritioned and become obsolescent at the same time.

However sometimes there is no other way. It's necessary for assaults on Islands or any objective that can't be reinforced by the AI or reached by overland assault.

Now, sure the battleships that protect the carriers can also bombard, so they are not only for protection, but then you come to the realization that it's much cheaper to build only battleships! Since they can bombard 2 hexes they can alone isolate a target city from reinforcement, and usually reach a good portion of enemy territory. Ahh, but if they are going to bombard, then they need protection from enemy air attack. And SO my friends, you come 180 degrees, to the best use of aircraft carriers - fleet protection. One carrier with 4 fighters travelling with your battleship fleet is an extremely potent force. It forces you to keep your fleet concentrated but thats a good thing anyway as it protects the weak ships until you can berth the fleet in your newly captured port.

It's a bit off topic, but for home continent defense don't rely on surface ships which should be out taking the fight to the enemy, but instead use a combination of subs, bombers, and cruise missiles. Use the subs as pickets 5-10 spaces out between you and the AI continents. When an enemy fleet is spotted, move bombers and SSMs (er, cruise missiles in CIV parlance but they really work more like Surface-to-Surface missiles or SSMs). into the expected zone of attack (and switch production to more cruise missiles of course). When they get within range of your missiles, it's one of the best parts of the game to see the enemy ships be destroyed so easily.

 

[vmxa]

To the question of do I use carriers, the answer is no.

 

[Aleph-Null]

I recently played a game where there was a highly fortified island and a marine invasion simply wasn't going to work. I needed the bombing ability from a few planes to soften'em up so I ended up using an AC.

 

[dresdor]

I usually send an Carrier Battlegroup to harass enemies who declare war on me, but don't field anything towards my cities. My carrier group usually consists of two destroyers, a battleship, a carrier with 6 bombers and 2 fighters, and a submarine, sometimes with a nuke just in case. I use those planes to bombard enemy resources and supply lines. sometimes, I also load a transport with some calvary or tanks and drop them to capture enemy workers repairing the damage I cause. Nothing is more fun than destroying an enemy's access to a resource, then grabbing a few workers on the way out.

EDIT:

@Raj I thought you could rebase planes to your carriers if they weren't full in vanilla. And if you want to upgrade them, you could rebase the planes on your ship back home, and rebase the planes in your cities (the advanced ones) to your carrier. You're rotating out forces. You can sell or upgrade the old planes, and still keep a potent fighting force.

Also, the key to carriers is mobility. They can't take a battleship head on, nor can destroyer escorts (most of the time), but they can soften up a battleship, and hope the destroyer makes it through to see port again. Having a few extra destroyers isn't nearly as cost prohibitive as having a few extra battleships. Loosing a destroyer to sink a battleship isn't a loss you sould feel very heavily.

In other words, destroyers should be your screening vessels