Dont understand.

[Twoedge]

I have played both civ2 and civ3 , beating the computer at the toughest level. Now i play at warlord level and i simply can win.

I go for military win ,and i am now at year 2208.

The thing that makes me wonder what kind of crap these game is when i concentrate 45 stealth bomber to attack one city.
The city is on an island and it is defendend with one,, ONE fighter (not a jet fighter) . This single fighter shoots down 35 , and damage 5.

During a battle on one of my border citys i lost over 80 armoured units , and the computer lost 4. That round took over 10 mins to finish.

So my question now is how to win cos there are 3 more stronger civ:s after i finish this one (If i can)

 

[Greeneyedzombie]

Use a varied stack of units.
If the ai comes with tanks, use bombers first or sacrefice an artilery for collateral damage. Use gunships against tanks, they have a bonus against armoured units. IF possible always use bombers or artilery or tanks with collateral promations to soften up the ai, then finish it with other units.
You can use your own fighters to intercept enemy fighters.

 

[Twoedge]

Use a varied stack of units.
If the ai comes with tanks, use bombers first or sacrefice an artilery for collateral damage. Use gunships against tanks, they have a bonus against armoured units. IF possible always use bombers or artilery or tanks with collateral promations to soften up the ai, then finish it with other units.
You can use your own fighters to intercept enemy fighters.

Thanks for the reply .. But i cant soften up the ai when i loose 77 % of my bombers.
The moment i stick my units out to the other side of the border it is a total massacre on my units

 

[Greeneyedzombie]

if it is a coastal city, use marines and battelschips. Don't worry abouth them dying. they are there to get you a beachead. 3-5 ships with marines can overun every coastal city. Imideatly airlift some mechinf.
Build sufficiant fighters to protect your bombers. If you can't use bombers use artilery. 1-2 artilery with barrage? promotion will make short work of a stack while dying. afterwards mob up the survivers with drill tanks.

 

[Greeneyedzombie]

here are some guides to help you.
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/indmodconq.php
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/tank_warfare.php

 

[oyzar]

go for war earlier, personaly i have never wared in the modern age much... Colleterall damage is probably key as allways.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

Well, nothing about that sounds right in the first place, because against a city, a stealth bomber can only bombard city defenses and attack garrisoned ground units.

In the scenario you laid out, all you did was bombard the city 45 times -- each time with a 25% chance of being shot down by that one lonely fighter.

That would make you the unluckiest CivIV player. Ever.

Conversely, there could have been a ground unit you didn't notice because its artwork wasn't shown. In this case, you probably kept beating it down for -30% per strike (likely -8% since the city prolly had a Bunker.) Again, that one, lonely fighter had a 25% chance each strike to shoot down your stealth bombers.

As far as losing all those armoured units, you probably didn't bombard the city's defenses down -- in which case every one of those units was 100%+ stronger than you thought they should've been (ignoring any promotions they had received). They were probably over twice as strong as any one of your units.

--------

In both scenarios, there appears to have been a lack of attention to detail. Before embarking on any future campaigns, I highly recommend reading this guide:


Combat Explained

 

[shyuhe]

fighters have larger ranges than just one square. It is possible that you were trying to bomb a tile that was in the coverage of multiple fighters from different cities.

 

[Swedishguy]

Warfare in Modern Times just doesn't pay off. You should concentrate on Space Race or Diplomatic victory instead.

 

[Rycheman]

go for war earlier, personaly i have never wared in the modern age much... Colleterall damage is probably key as allways.

I agree.You should start wars as early as possible.I never have to war in the modern age.

 

[Napalm102]

If you HAVE to invade in modern ages then the first things that should go into enemy territory are the Drill promoted armor and gunships. So just send in like 10 or so tanks with Drill I and II, or higher if you can produce them. If enemy has gunships then send with each tank a drilled gunship also. Don't send the whole group as a stack, the whole point of this is too avoid collateral damage and kill as many of his artilery as you can, before sending in your real stack.

Modern age is also very late to be fighting wars. By that point in the game you should be just mopping up the remainder. Try also bribing Civs into fights with each other. This is especially usefull if you bribe a Civ to attack your target, the wait couple turns and attack that Civ yourself.

Also I don't think fighter can intercept more then once per turn. SAM infantry can do it multiple times, but only if they are the target of the bombing run (ot the tile which they are on)

 

[JimT]

I have played both civ2 and civ3 , beating the computer at the toughest level. Now i play at warlord level and i simply can win.

I go for military win ,and i am now at year 2208.

The thing that makes me wonder what kind of crap these game is when i concentrate 45 stealth bomber to attack one city.
The city is on an island and it is defendend with one,, ONE fighter (not a jet fighter) . This single fighter shoots down 35 , and damage 5.

During a battle on one of my border citys i lost over 80 armoured units , and the computer lost 4. That round took over 10 mins to finish.

So my question now is how to win cos there are 3 more stronger civ:s after i finish this one (If i can)

Late wars can be destructive. In order to complete a domination victory I needed two of my erstwhile allies cities and the ensuing war seems less WWII (Blitzkreigh) than WW1 (no sodding movement).

From my experience the worst thing is getting down the defences and causing collateral which requires

- artillery is too slow when the cultural borders can be four tiles wide
- bombers, never my favourite and easily disrupted by SAM and Fighters. Have to say your situation sounds exceptionally unlucky are you sure there is not another city/carrier with fighters. Are you using fully healed bombers as I rarely get them shot down, merely damaged in most cases
- battleships, destroyers, etc. Brilliant but only on coastal tiles and can't attack cities.

Against an island it should be reasonably easy. You need to use your navy to get down their defensive bonuses. A few Artillery with collateral bonuses can suicide against the breached walls. Then a marine (preferably) onslaught or heavily promoted modern armour can finish them off. If I had that many bombers i would use them all in one turn for collateral but I would have expected less casualties than you have.

I promise it can be done, my rival has techological and military superiority. The tricks above have meant I can capture his colonial outposts and raze his coastal cities but neither of us can keep any terratorial gains on our main continent and I have oscillated around 60 - 63% of the required 64% for twelve turns now.

 

[cabert]

If I'm not completely drunk, you're not actually attacking that city.
DO you have any land troops to take it?
Bombers (stealth or not) don't kill units. Never.

 

[UncleJJ]

Also I don't think fighter can intercept more then once per turn. SAM infantry can do it multiple times, but only if they are the target of the bombing run (ot the tile which they are on)

I believe you are both right and wrong here. A patrolling fighter, SAM infantry, Mech infantry and destroyers all get 1, and only 1 chance at intercepting an aircraft attacking their tile or a nearby one. At least that is what happened in all the games I have played. I believe it is a general rule.

They only get 1 chance of interception per turn so I find it amazing that the OP says he lost 30 stealth bombers shot down... I only lose about 1 fighter or bomber in about 6 interceptions. The remainder get damaged. If he continued to attack with damaged aircraft then maybe that explains the casualty rates. I usually heal my damaged aircraft and with a medic and in a city bonus they are back in action after 1 or 2 turns healing.

And please 45 stealth bombers could reduce the city defence and all defenders to their collateral damage limit in one attack. I think there might be some exaggeration going on here. Once the defence is reduced to zero and the defenders are all damaged to their limit the bombers will no longer accept the attack order.

 

[cabert]

I believe you are both right and wrong here. A patrolling fighter, SAM infantry, Mech infantry and destroyers all get 1, and only 1 chance at intercepting an aircraft attacking their tile or a nearby one. At least that is what happened in all the games I have played. I believe it is a general rule.

They only get 1 chance of interception per turn so I find it amazing that the OP says he lost 30 stealth bombers shot down... I only lose about 1 fighter or bomber in about 6 interceptions. The remainder get damaged. If he continued to attack with damaged aircraft then maybe that explains the casualty rates. I usually heal my damaged aircraft and with a medic and in a city bonus they are back in action after 1 or 2 turns healing.

And please 45 stealth bombers could reduce the city defence and all defenders to their collateral damage limit in one attack. I think there might be some exaggeration going on here. Once the defence is reduced to zero and the defenders are all damaged to their limit the bombers will no longer accept the attack order.

IMHO the OP didn't understand that bombers wouldn't kill the fighter. Never. ANd I think he bombed the city for 50 turns

 

[erkki]

The city is on an island and it is defendend with one,, ONE fighter (not a jet fighter) . This single fighter shoots down 35 , and damage 5.

This happend in one single turn? How is it possible... If this is really true, i think it should be somehow fixed.

 

[Kietharr]

If a city only has one fighter defending it, land marines, fighters can't hold a city verses land troops. But I have to echo others, as you go up in ages, war weariness increases. So in the ancient age you can be at war for 50 turns at a time and get one war weariness, while in the modern age you get the same for 5 turns. War weariness cripples your production, and slows any steamrolling you can do. Once you have 6-7 axemen, you should start attacking, after courthouses, start conquering. This is why my last 3 games have ended in the mid 1500's. I don't get to have much fun with modern stuff, I'm usually just getting infantry when I hit domination cap.

 

[Twoedge]

Thanks again for all the replies:

I feel that i have to make things a little clearer.

The island i talked about as no other citys close to , other than mine. There are no hidden carrier or so.
The enemy units in that city is that fighter , 3 infantry (not mechanized), 5 tank, 2 battleships and 2 gunships.
And yes i have 3 transports with 12 modern armour and mech infs. with amphibious , barrage , city raider and drill promotions.
Of course i do blow out the rest of defence after i made my bombing.
Still it makes me wonder why bombers are so weak.

The other battle i was talking about is a chinese city that i have 95 units in.
It is at the border to Saladin, and it was the latest city i took from the chinese before i made peace with them.
The 3 turns before that battle , i have peace with Saladin , resistance is gone and i hurry all kinds of building just to make the cultural border to expand.
Suddenly Saladin attacks and wipes out almost everything.
It is not fun sitting for 10 min and see almost everything i have going up in smoke knowing there are 5-6 harder levels.

One thing makes me sad , and that is the fact that the bomber can't destroy roads or railroads.

My starting position is an isolated continent, and when i make contact other civs. are far more advanced even if i invest a lot in reserch.


One more question:

On and on i find that i have to rebuild improvments that destroyed, but i dont get any message and i dont know why it is destroyed.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

One more question:

On and on i find that i have to rebuild improvments that destroyed, but i dont get any message and i dont know why it is destroyed.

I guess "spies".

 

[JimT]

95 units and still getting wiped suggests something is wrong

- are they all top notch units (95 archers is just free xp)
- are they the right units (mix of gunships, tanks/modern armour and modern infantry plus may be a marine or two.
- have they the right promotions - a large stack is an obvious target for artillery so drill promotions are handy

I would spread out units more, the last time I lost a well defended city (well it wasn't well defended but I didn't expect it to get attacked) I had 8 land units and 12 bombers, remember the bomber can't defend and will just get wiped. Plus if you attack a city and can't guaranatee holding it then RAZE it. RAZE the next cities, reducing cultural pressure, LATER plant your own city and defend that.

Razing cities means you don't offer them back on a plate and border cities tend not to be as desirable at the last few you capture. Even if a different AI settles the area then its easy enough pickings later on.

You also find early in the war AI will have a seemingly continuous supply of troops but once they have been defeated it takes a while to build it back (especially when he finds his empire being swallowed up). Send small stacks in with drill to soak up the artillery and/or capture a frontier city and leave it weakly defended but get ready to capture it again with CR3 and collateral units. If the cultural defences are down you should be able to get a very good return (for the era). A helpful trick is to plant a couple of spies near his aluminium to make sure he can't build new top notch units.

Although IMO your main problem is playing to 22xx By that point any self respecting AI will have masses of troops, bunkers and other improvements. All of which are designed to frustrate you enough to start a new game.