Drawing Board: Bombers and air power

[WildWeazel]

Hello! It's been a while since I've talked mod design. This is the first of a loose series of threads on general game balance topics I've been thinking about. These issues are nothing that haven't already been discussed over the years and addressed in some mods, but I want to take a fresh look at them as they are in the base game, and examine our options from a general gameplay perspective outside the context of any particular mod. (Of course I do have a context of my own, but nevermind that for now!) I don't pretend to have the answers here, but I hope the questions spark some innovative thinking for future projects.

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First up is the matter of Bombers and air power in general. I think it's fair to say that Bombers are the single most effective unit in the game. They're able to smash cities and kill any combat units outright. They hit harder than artillery at a range of 10 tiles from any city, carrier, or airbase. Suede Doctrine calls for simply amassing huge stacks of Bombers to destroy the enemy from afar. Smarter people than me have determined that in the real world such use of strategic air power does not work, but in Civ3 it is effectively the win button. At the very end of the game you can also build Stealth Bombers, which are even more OP but usually too late and expensive to be of much use.

Suffice to say Bombers, and bombing in general, are overpowered. Now I don't even have a specific proposal for what to do about them, but here are some further thoughts about air units to consider:

• There are a few special abilities to play with in the bombing role: Stealth, Lethal Land/Sea Bombardment, Create Craters, Collateral Damage, Stealth Attack, Precision Bombing, possibly Blitz? I'm not even sure how or if some of those work in combination, but remember with C3X we have some more options than before.
• It's been posited that Bombers are OP with LLB, but weak without it because artillery is cheaper. I'm not sure the latter is true, but how would you compensate for removing LLB?
• What about Bomber vs Stealth Bomber balance? Stealth Bombers are significantly better but at 240% of the cost and you have to build them new.
• Fighters do actually upgrade (to Jet Fighters). I don't see a strong argument for why they should but not Bombers.
• Stealth Fighters: why? They're just a much worse version of the Stealth Bomber with the same requirements. And having such a niche role in the real world, I have to think that the only reason they're in the game is because of the Sid Meier connection.
• Since none upgrade, Bombers, Stealth Bombers, and Stealth Fighters will all be in the build queue by end game. Another reason to lose the Stealth Fighter.
• Fighters and Jet Fighters both have negligible bombing potential: 1/4 the strength and 1/3 the ROF of Bombers, making them all but useless against any contemporary target. As-is, they only serve as a counter to the enemy's bombing (and occasional recon, but the shorter range vs the Bomber limits even that use). In the real world, strike fighters and attack aircraft carry out many of the bombing/ground-attack missions in a warzone.
• Is there room in the base game for a third type of combat aircraft, be it a fighter-bomber or attack aircraft or even attack helicopter if we can work out the settings?
• Related to that, are there possible applications for a mobile air unit, or a land unit with air missions, or other alternative configurations for an aircraft?
• Any aircraft can rebase to a carrier. Realistically, I'm not aware of any carrier-capable heavy bomber. Another possible use for a third type. With careful use of the Foot Unit and Tactical Missile flags, you can arrange a few different subsets of transportable units.
• Did anyone figure out a way to implement nuclear bombers?

That's all I have for now. Again, I'm starting from where we are with the base game here, not trying to design a modern aircraft-heavy mod with a bunch of specialized roles. How would you address the existing balance issues and make air power more interesting?

 

[AnthonyBoscia]

Hey Weazel, it's cool to see more progress being made in the design of Civ 7. If the goal is to balance air combat in the base game with the lightest touch and without overspecialization, these are the things that come to mind:

• Remove lethal land bombard from bombers.
• The traditional advantages of airpower are flexibility and mobility. Your whole bomber force can amass or disperse as necessary, while artillery has to crawl across the battlefield. The disadvantages are cost and vulnerability. Airpower should be expensive, weak on defense, and industry/resource intensive. The comparison between artillery and airpower can be tuned in production costs, ranges, and damage outputs.
• I'm with you that the stealth fighter/bomber could be removed entirely and never be missed. Alternately, available as a unique unit or late game aside.
• Bombers should have an appropriate upgrade, as you said, just like jet fighters. The descendants of two- and four-engine bombers are interdiction/strike aircraft.
• The relationship between fighters and bombers in the game is probably the area that needs the most refinement. There are lots of ways, as you know, that these have been tweaked in different mods. I've used three different systems in my own games. Since we're trying to avoid any particular mod type, here are some general possibilities. For fighters, changes could include increased range, lower cost (a B-17 cost four times as much as a P-51), greater bombardment (high rate of fire and low damage, or vice versa), lethal sea, and a much higher attack value that allows them to shred on interception missions. Their capabilities could scale ever higher at jet fighter, when they become true multi-role fighters.
• There's a hundred ways you could explore a third aircraft line, but I think starting with the two should be the baseline.
• The AI can't use mobile air units or land units with air missions, though the human player can.
• With improvements made to fighters, the carrier could simply be designed to carry fighters only. Bombers would have to count on their superior range, while fighters would be more mobile. The AI kinda sorta uses naval air power once it's on the map, they just don't usually build carriers without a little modder influence.

 

[Virote_Considon]

• It's been posited that Bombers are OP with LLB, but weak without it because artillery is cheaper. I'm not sure the latter is true, but how would you compensate for removing LLB?

More range/more bombard strength/bigger ROF?

• Fighters and Jet Fighters both have negligible bombing potential: 1/4 the strength and 1/3 the ROF of Bombers, making them all but useless against any contemporary target. As-is, they only serve as a counter to the enemy's bombing (and occasional recon, but the shorter range vs the Bomber limits even that use). In the real world, strike fighters and attack aircraft carry out many of the bombing/ground-attack missions in a warzone.

The bombing ability for Fighters does actually already have a use in Vanilla Civ3 - send in your cheap Fighters first to flush out the enemies' air defenders, then follow up by sending in your more expensive Bombers hopefully unimpeded.

• Any aircraft can rebase to a carrier. Realistically, I'm not aware of any carrier-capable heavy bomber. Another possible use for a third type. With careful use of the Foot Unit and Tactical Missile flags, you can arrange a few different subsets of transportable units.

The Tactical Missile flag will work, but apparently the Foot Unit flag doesn't work for air units.

 

[timerover51]

The current US tactical fighters have a greater payload than a World War 2 heavy bomber, with comparable range. I give the F-15 the same bombardment rating as a bomber with greater range, allowing for aerial refueling. Current tactical fighters are also considerably more accurate than World War 2 bombers, by a factor of about 4 depending on release height and type of attack. I give the standard jet fighter a bombardment rating of 12, and the World War 2 bomber and the F-15 a rating of 18, with no lethal land bombardment. I give the artillery unit a rating of 18 as well.

 

[Takhisis]

The bombing ability for Fighters does actually already have a use in Vanilla Civ3 - send in your cheap Fighters first to flush out the enemies' air defenders, then follow up by sending in your more expensive Bombers hopefully unimpeded.

Well, that'd be historically accurate to a degree, but the thing is that the AI would never do that. It'd only use bombers anyway.

Also, something that might compensate for a stack of fighters is naval bombardment. Which wouldn't ever hit flak or SAM units in any case unless the defences were really that bad.

 

[Predator145]

1) Collateral dmg doesn't work on bombard units bombarding. They only work on units with bombard value attacking a unit inside a city and winning a round of combat. So unless your air units are free moving and attacking things, it's a non factor.

2) Bombers are not weak without lethal. Artillery doesn't have the range to reach deep into enemy territory or far out into the ocean and fight naval battles. Without lethal bombard, both have their place. With lethal bombers and smart artillery it becomes either or. If anything, it's artillery in C3C that got hugely busted with their smart targeting. So now you either play pure artillery and forget about an air force because it's not necessary and bombers are only good in huge numbers or you just focus on teching to Flight and mass 50 of them to walk in unopposed with cavalry not taking any losses. Stock game C3C is that silly. The game does not reward balanced combined arms. For minimalist stock game improvement modding, I suggest removing lethal bombard on both sea and land and use C3X to give all land artillery the PTW style targeting back. Also armies need to be nerfed as well. Who needs strategic bombing when you can just pillage everything with armies?

3) Stealth Bombers are for strategic bombardment cutting off resources or pure strategic bombing in the enemy rear. They're not cost efficient for emptying front line cities in stock game. Stealth Fighters are glorified scouts. Their bombard value is useless and the only thing they can do is recon with 12 range. Their stealth ability prevents them from being engaged most of the time by fighters so their 6 def stats rarely matters. Their job is mostly to provide passive defense for your frailer bombers from enemy offensive counter air or naval bombardment. Their attack stats can't even be used. It's just there to have the AI build some because how badly the Stealth Bomber outclasses them.

But all that being said, the passive defense of 6 is worth having them in the que. My suggestion for minimalist modding would be to give Stealth Fighters Air Superiority mission, ROF of 3 and maybe Stealth Attack to selectively bombard (but not combined with lethal cuz that's hella busted) or remove their stealth ability to have them be offensive air superiority fighters. Use them to bomb first in the hope of sweeping enemy fighters from the sky, but if you don't get intercepted their now significant bombard stats will dent the fighter on the ground.

4) WWII Pacific scenario has fighter-bombers. They're flagged as air defense and bombard. But I suggest if you want a true multirole fighter flag it as air defense only. The AI does use air defense flagged units to bombard. Yes, they use their fighters (that were only flagged as air defense) to bomb. I've seen that enough times to confirm. But if you want the AI to efficiently use a "strike fighter" as both a bomber and air superiority fighter I suggest giving it high defense stats, good bombard stats and 0 attack stat with no air superiority mission and flag it as air bombard. A bomber with high defense is Civ3's implementation of an offensive air superiority fighter.

My helicopters are configured as such: Every land unit has the token air def value of 1. Air units have their combat stats tripled (and AA units and ships having their AA value trippled to scale up also). This also serves to make them less vulnerable from offensive counter air and naval bombardment. Only attack helicopters have lethal bombard. That's their niche. They have short range, 2 movement+ blitz and stealth attack AND Stealth from nap of the earth. So what's the catch? Their def stat starts with 2 and is upgraded to 4 max. Every unit on the ground has the AD value of at least 1. Their losses will come mostly from ground fire and offensive counter air. Having to attack twice to get the most of their meager bombard value, they expose themselves twice as much to enemy ground fire. Flak and SAM eat them alive. But they have the potential to take off 6 HP per turn or finish off 2 units. For minimalist modding just give them stealth, low defense stat and blitz. They shall be the super responsive close air support asset with long loiter time tks to blitz.

5) In stock game, you don't even need fighter line. Bombers defeat fighters with offensive counter air alone. A bomber has 12 bombard stat with a ROF of 3. A fighter has a def stat of 2. All the bomber needs is to land a hit on the fighter to cripple it to be shot down in combat or lethally bombed by the next bomber. You don't ever need offensive fighter escort in stock game. It's a waste of shields. Just overwhelm with your death stack of bombers. Why even bother with tanks and fighters?

Fighter line should have high defense stats as well to conduct offensive air superiority bombing missions. Their bombard stat should be significant enough to hit contemporary units (not as hard as multi roles or dedicated bombers of course). It should take a couple of fighters hitting the same target to generate the same dmg as a single bomber. Also, their now high defense stat serves as passive cover for the frailer bombers from enemy offensive counter air.

6) If you don't want heavy bombers to be loaded on carriers give them a transport capacity of 1 and the "carry only aircraft" ability. Take away the load ability from all of your non-carrier based air units. The AI won't load them into your heavy bombers anyway as they're not flagged as "carrier". But this makes stock game modding dependent on C3X perfume. On naval maps, the AI needs to focus its air unit production on the carrier based variants. But I suppose most people would have their heavy bombers have far superiority bombard strength than carrier strike aircrafts. That means on these maps, you need to have separate perfume values emphasizing naval variants.

7) Since nuclear weapons can't be intercepted you can't really have a proper nuclear "bomber". Neither can cruise missile ability units. Tactical Nuke AI flag is broken and the unit doesn't leave the city. But you can get the AI to use nuclear bombers by having them upgrade into a king ability unit version of themselves. King units can't be built, only upgraded into. That king unit shall have the "air bombard" AI strat flag. The draw back of this is that the AI now has zero diplomatic inhibition to nukes. Expect it to nuke you as soon as it has access to them.

 

[Takhisis]

5) In stock game, you don't even need fighter line. Bombers defeat fighters with offensive counter air alone. A bomber has 12 bombard stat with a ROF of 3. A fighter has a def stat of 2. All the bomber needs is to land a hit on the fighter to cripple it to be shot down in combat or lethally bombed by the next bomber. You don't ever need offensive fighter escort in stock game. It's a waste of shields. Just overwhelm with your death stack of bombers. Why even bother with tanks and fighters?

It is true that a big enough stack of bombers will just pound anything into a pulp, but maybe that's because bombers are overpowered? Precisely this thread is about how to balance that a bit.

 

[Ozymandias]

1. Except for ship-to-ship combat, I am entirely against Lethal Bombardment: it is simply too overpowering.
2. I also find Craters & Collateral Damage dubious - What real game purpose do they actually serves?
3. Upgrade lines:
a. Biplane Fighters to better & better fighters.
b. Biplane “spotters” to a Light Bomber Line.
c. True WW1 bombers (Gothas etc) to a true Heavy Bomber Line.
d. A new Fighter -Bomber line introduced ca. WW2 & upgrading to multi-role jet fighter aircraft.

I also think that Heavy Bombers should be strategic bombers, targeting Improvements (OK, maybe with some collateral damage here.)

There should also be an anti-ship line: again begin with biplanes and go to B1Bs(the entire US B1B fleet has been converted into anti-ship platforms.

Also, transports, from trimotors to C-130s..

Nuke bombers: “klugge” paratroop units.

Stealth… Can wait..

 

[timerover51]

1. Except for ship-to-ship combat, I am entirely against Lethal Bombardment: it is simply too overpowering.
2. I also find Craters & Collateral Damage dubious - What real game purpose do they actually serves?

Here is an analysis of bomb damage against European load-bearing brick construction by various sizes of bombs. A B-17 bomber box was expected to place 50% of its bombs within 600 feet of the aiming point of the box, and 90% of its bombs within 1500 feet of the aiming point. Collateral damage was inevitable.

The current crop of bombs would do similar damage. The damage is calculated assuming TNT loadings. Different explosive loadings could increase the damage radius by up to 25%. The image is taken from a post-WW2 analysis of weapons effectiveness.

As for the craters, I find them perfectly reasonable, given my studies of weapon effectiveness. I am not a fan of using the standard Civ3 Bomber against ships, as level bombing against ships, especially combat ships, was a waste of time, avgas, and bombs. To hit ships required very low level attacks, torpedo planes, or dive bombers. Having something like a TBF Avenger or even a Fairey Swordfish in the game for use on carriers would be a very good option.

3. Upgrade lines:
a. Biplane Fighters to better & better fighters.
b. Biplane “spotters” to a Light Bomber Line.
c. True WW1 bombers (Gothas etc) to a true Heavy Bomber Line.
d. A new Fighter -Bomber line introduced ca. WW2 & upgrading to multi-role jet fighter aircraft.

I also think that Heavy Bombers should be strategic bombers, targeting Improvements (OK, maybe with some collateral damage here.)

There should also be an anti-ship line: again begin with biplanes and go to B1Bs(the entire US B1B fleet has been converted into anti-ship platforms.

See above comment.

Also, transports, from trimotors to C-130s..

The Allies used the C-47/DC-3 for transport in World War 2, and some are still in use. The Germans used the Junkers Ju-52. The Japanese used bombers adapted to carry personnel. The C-130 would be a good aircraft for the current crop of military transports.

Nuke bombers: “klugge” paratroop units.

Stealth… Can wait..

 

[Ozymandias]

Here is an analysis of bomb damage against European load-bearing brick construction by various sizes of bombs. A B-17 bomber box was expected to place 50% of its bombs within 600 feet of the aiming point of the box, and 90% of its bombs within 1500 feet of the aiming point. Collateral damage was inevitable. View attachment 659708

The current crop of bombs would do similar damage. The damage is calculated assuming TNT loadings. Different explosive loadings could increase the damage radius by up to 25%. The image is taken from a post-WW2 analysis of weapons effectiveness.

OK, so what we're really talking about then is CEP ("Circular Error Probability") - what % chance is there of bombs falling within a given circular area. I think that we might be talking at cross peruses: my point was about "Collateral Damage" being applied to Units, as opposed to Improvements. If so, then this could become quite interesting: every Bomber, up to and including Stealth, is given a specific Improvement to bomb, with accuracy increasing, from, e.g., Norden Bombsites on up, with Collateral Damage then being randomly assigned to Improvements which weren't targeted.

As for the craters, I find them perfectly reasonable, given my studies of weapon effectiveness. I am not a fan of using the standard Civ3 Bomber against ships, as level bombing against ships, especially combat ships, was a waste of time, avgas, and bombs. To hit ships required very low level attacks, torpedo planes, or dive bombers. Having something like a TBF Avenger or even a Fairey Swordfish in the game for use on carriers would be a very good option.

I agree: I think that an anti-ship line of aircraft would be great, from that hypothetical "War Plan Orange" forward - but the challenge/truth does remain how the line progresses to B1Bs. (One B1B's payload could have taken out the entire, pre-Ukraine-War, Russian Black Sea fleet.)

See above comment.

The Allies used the C-47/DC-3 for transport in World War 2, and some are still in use. The Germans used the Junkers Ju-52. The Japanese used bombers adapted to carry personnel. The C-130 would be a good aircraft for the current crop of military transports.

I think we're in agreement here, as the Ju-52 was a trimotor.

 

[Kangaroo262]

• It's been posited that Bombers are OP with LLB, but weak without it because artillery is cheaper. I'm not sure the latter is true, but how would you compensate for removing LLB?
• What about Bomber vs Stealth Bomber balance? Stealth Bombers are significantly better but at 240% of the cost and you have to build them new.
• Fighters do actually upgrade (to Jet Fighters). I don't see a strong argument for why they should but not Bombers.
• Stealth Fighters: why? They're just a much worse version of the Stealth Bomber with the same requirements. And having such a niche role in the real world, I have to think that the only reason they're in the game is because of the Sid Meier connection.
• Since none upgrade, Bombers, Stealth Bombers, and Stealth Fighters will all be in the build queue by end game. Another reason to lose the Stealth Fighter.
• Fighters and Jet Fighters both have negligible bombing potential: 1/4 the strength and 1/3 the ROF of Bombers, making them all but useless against any contemporary target. As-is, they only serve as a counter to the enemy's bombing (and occasional recon, but the shorter range vs the Bomber limits even that use). In the real world, strike fighters and attack aircraft carry out many of the bombing/ground-attack missions in a warzone.
• Is there room in the base game for a third type of combat aircraft, be it a fighter-bomber or attack aircraft or even attack helicopter if we can work out the settings?
• Related to that, are there possible applications for a mobile air unit, or a land unit with air missions, or other alternative configurations for an aircraft?
• Any aircraft can rebase to a carrier. Realistically, I'm not aware of any carrier-capable heavy bomber. Another possible use for a third type. With careful use of the Foot Unit and Tactical Missile flags, you can arrange a few different subsets of transportable units.
• Did anyone figure out a way to implement nuclear bombers?

I've played with many of these in my personal mods over the years and there's quite a bit that can be adjusted with respect to air war gameplay. Rather than just using the vanilla Civ3 units, I've added several unit upgrade trees to the available game. I try to balance my mod's unit stats using those provided in the Civ3C3C.pdf to prevent biasing any civ's unit over another or just making something OP. Credit to Wyrmshadow, Delta_Strife, and many others for providing the units and animations. All of my mods were made prior to discovering that C3X was a thing, so that will affect plans for any future modding adventures.

Suffice to say Bombers, and bombing in general, are overpowered. Now I don't even have a specific proposal for what to do about them, but here are some further thoughts about air units to consider:

• There are a few special abilities to play with in the bombing role: Stealth, Lethal Land/Sea Bombardment, Create Craters, Collateral Damage, Stealth Attack, Precision Bombing, possibly Blitz? I'm not even sure how or if some of those work in combination, but remember with C3X we have some more options than before.

In my most current mod I currently have the following unit upgrade lines by type:

• Fighter >> Jet Fighter >> Interceptor >> Strike Fighter
• Fighter Bomber >> Attack Bomber >> Interdictor >> Strike Fighter (the fighter and fighter bomber lines converge to the same unit type)
• Heavy Bomber >> Jet Bomber >> Strategic Bomber

All units of a given type have identical stats so that they can upgrade fairly. For instance, the fighters upgrade: F6F -> A6M -> Bf 109 -> Yak-9 >> F2H -> T-1 -> He 162 -> MiG-15 >> F-4 -> TF-104J -> Tornado ADV -> MiG-23 >> FA-18 -> F-2 -> Typhoon -> MiG-29 for America, Japan, Germany or Russia as each civ discovers a new tech. Likewise, the bombers develop the same way. In some mods I allowed strategic bombers to upgrade to stealth bombers and strike fighters to upgrade to stealth fighters, but that was rare owing to the lack of aircraft models to use when I first started modding my game. Instead I more often allowed strike fighters to upgrade to stealth fighters, but had to adjust their stats to be less reflective of their real-world counterparts (Raptors weren't designed to carry bombs originally).

I wish I had the most current mod stats I use with me, but here's a look at the aircraft stats from a 2018 mod:

Stealth - I've adjusted the air intercept probabilities in the general settings for both mission types so that bombing missions get intercepted more often (base rate is 50% vs 5% iirc for stealth bombing missions). Using stealth offensively on a fighter such as the F-22 isn't very useful because it defeats the purpose of sending them on fighter sweeps before the strike aircraft arrive. It works better for the aircraft like F-117s and F-35s on bombing missions.

Lethal Land Bombard/Lethal Sea Bombard - For the Americans late-industrial era I typically give them the F6F Hellcat for air defense and counter-air, the TBF Avenger (with LSB) for anti-shipping work, and either the SBD Dauntless or SB2C Helldiver (with LLB) for close air support work. I did find an air dropped torpedo attack animation just to sell it all the more since the TBF is a torpedo bomber. For longer ranged bombing missions I use the B-29 Superfortress without either LLB or LSB. As stated previously above and in multiple works such as Pacific Crucible and Shattered Sword, large strategic bombers were pretty much useless in the anti-shipping role in this era. In the Cold War era, guided anti-ship missiles would make strategic bombers a danger to the fleet. There were a few exceptions to this during WWII, such as the G4M Betty armed with the kamikaze MXY-7 Ohka, but not enough to justify giving a 2 or 4-engined WWII-era bomber the LSB ability. Later bombers, such as the Tu-22M armed with the Kh-22 "Kitchen" anti-ship missile could be given the LSB ability.

Creates Craters - I usually give the strategic bombers this ability due to their higher damage potential. I haven't gotten the chance to see how effective this is now that I'm using the C3X mod in conjunction with my unit mods.

Collateral Damage, Stealth Attack - I either hadn't noticed any difference or couldn't get it to work. I haven't tired these with C3X yet.

Precision Bombing - I usually save this as a perk later aircraft (Interdictors, Strike Fighters, Jet Bombers, & Strategic Bombers) can get if the unit precedes that tech. With C3X R14, there was a feature where certain buildings could be required to produce certain units, like needing a Factory to build Tanks or a Nuclear Plant to build ICBMs. I haven't yet implemented it, but I foresee it becoming very important in a future mod.

Blitz - In a previous mod I gave attack helicopters 2 moves, blitz, and LLB. Air intercept was set to 95% in that mod so fighter sweeps were important before any air strike could go in. Helicopters also had a low defense so sending them over strong AA defenses got you scrap metal for your trouble. All that being said, when the computer sent a stack of death to your doorstep they could pick off a few enemies with the help of generous artillery and air strikes to soften them up first. I remember The Chieftain mentioning towards the end of one of his YouTube videos about the tank destroyer branch how the modern attack helicopter wound up fulfilling the role of the old WWII tank destroyer doctrine in practice.

The current US tactical fighters have a greater payload than a World War 2 heavy bomber, with comparable range. I give the F-15 the same bombardment rating as a bomber with greater range, allowing for aerial refueling. Current tactical fighters are also considerably more accurate than World War 2 bombers, by a factor of about 4 depending on release height and type of attack. I give the standard jet fighter a bombardment rating of 12, and the World War 2 bomber and the F-15 a rating of 18, with no lethal land bombardment. I give the artillery unit a rating of 18 as well.

I typically have the fighter bomber line's bombardment stats increase with each tech upgrade to reflect this. To try an balance this, I add a separate Air Superiority Fighter type (F-14, F-15, Su-27, J-11, etc.) just before Smart Weapons where Interceptors and Interdictors merge into the Strike Fighter. I also adjusted the naval artillery values similarly since Battleships weren't all that much stronger than Artillery, despite a 14", 16", or 18" gun having way more firepower than 105mm pack howitzer.

If you don't want heavy bombers to be loaded on carriers give them a transport capacity of 1 and the "carry only aircraft" ability. Take away the load ability from all of your non-carrier based air units. The AI won't load them into your heavy bombers anyway as they're not flagged as "carrier". But this makes stock game modding dependent on C3X perfume. On naval maps, the AI needs to focus its air unit production on the carrier based variants. But I suppose most people would have their heavy bombers have far superiority bombard strength than carrier strike aircrafts. That means on these maps, you need to have separate perfume values emphasizing naval variants.

I haven't tired this, but it's worth a shot. Again, I only discovered C3X a few months ago, but if it solves the B-52 on a carrier problem, then I'm happy.


All the units I use can be found on the downloads page, but a lot were pulled from the following threads:

• https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/usaf-usn-post-war.227484/
• https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/red-air-force-post-war.209137/
• https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/rest-of-the-worlds-air-forces.221985/
• https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/nato-air-forces.275259/

 

[Ozymandias]

A quick note on Lethal Bombardment: the game can be easily won by making a beeline for Bombers:

 

[timerover51]

I typically have the fighter bomber line's bombardment stats increase with each tech upgrade to reflect this. To try an balance this, I add a separate Air Superiority Fighter type (F-14, F-15, Su-27, J-11, etc.) just before Smart Weapons where Interceptors and Interdictors merge into the Strike Fighter. I also adjusted the naval artillery values similarly since Battleships weren't all that much stronger than Artillery, despite a 14", 16", or 18" gun having way more firepower than 105mm pack howitzer.

• https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/usaf-usn-post-war.227484/
• https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/red-air-force-post-war.209137/
• https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/rest-of-the-worlds-air-forces.221985/
• https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/nato-air-forces.275259/

The British rated the 15 inch High Explosive Shell, weighing 1938 pounds, as equivalent to six 6 inch rounds when it came to suppressive effect. The US Navy's 16 inch High Explosive round weighed 1900 pounds and would be equivalent to the British 15 inch round. This means that an 8 gun broadside from a British ship with 15 inch guns would be equivalent to 48 six inch shells, basically the same as 155mm artillery rounds. A US battleship with nine 16 inch guns would equate to fifty-four 155mm rounds, the number fired in a single salvo by 3 artillery battalions, the normal complement of a division. Then you add in the much greater range and deeper penetration of the battleship rounds.

The following data on the effective burst radius of US artillery rounds is taken from a 1956 staff manual covering logistic and technical reference data. Effective burst radius is defined as:

By effective radius of burst, it is meant that this is the area of fragmentation where a stationary, standing man or level ground would have a 50% chance of becoming a casualty.

The burst radius is oval in form. Actually, the fragment pattern looks a lot like a butterfly viewed from above.

The 105mm howitzer, projectile weight 33 pounds, effective radius is 50 X 15 yards.
The 155mm howitzer, projectile weight 95 pounds, effective radius is 60 X 18 yards.
The 8 inch howitzer, projectile weight 200 pounds, effective radius is 80 X 20 yards.
The 240mm howitzer, projectile weight 360 pounds, effective radius is 100 X 25 yards.
The 280mm howitzer, projectile weight 600 pounds, effective radius is 200 X 60 yards.

The 280mm howitzer equals an 11 inch gun, so the rating of the British of the 15 inch shell, over three times the weight of the 280mm round, appears to be perfectly reasonable. Then you also have the secondary battery of the battleship, which could also be used. Those guns would be 4.5 inch, 4.7 inch, 5 inch (US Navy), and 6 inch in caliber.

The burst radius for the 105mm round and the 155mm round has not changed to any great degree since World War 2, as you are still using the same weight of projective filled with the same explosives.

For some information on Bomb Damage see post #9.

 

[Spoonwood]

First up is the matter of Bombers and air power in general. I think it's fair to say that Bombers are the single most effective unit in the game.

I'll assume you mean military unit, because workers and settlers are better. Perhaps as a rule bombers are that effective, but the exception I think important. Bombers overpowering nature could in principle lead to a mistake in a 20k game. Someone without an army in the modern era may have a sound strategy for winning, but their strategy is mid quality at best, because the shield to culture ratio of The Heroic Epic is higher than most Great Wonders. It also can get built in a single turn more reliably than great wonders. Bombers are overpowered for protecting a 20k city having too much power relative to other units leading to other units seeming useless, but they require care to even consider using effectively if spawning leaders has enough value. Perhaps the following may seem contrived, but if you play a game where you build all spaceship parts with MGLs or focus on generating leaders, bombers also probably more clearly end up stupid.

An alternative to nerfing bombers might be to have some way so that all great and small wonders and spaceship parts had to get MGLed rushed. That may lead to what seems like silliness like the U. N. requiring war... except the U. N. got built because of so many wars throughout history. The Apollo Program, well, that had something largely to do with the German military, and many of those who lead things for building those rockets were involved in those German war programs. Great Wonders needing MGLed rushed has unhappy strategic consequences, since then on high levels where MGLs became relatively easy, Great Wonders became much more likely to get made under difficult conditoins. Perhaps just having some way to MGL lock The U. N. and the spaceship program would be enough for bombers to not have overwhelming power, since their overwhelming becomes more situational. Probably all spaceship parts though would make sense also, because how much did rocket advances originally have to do with those terrifying missiles developed then?

I also don't recall ever thinking bombers optimal for fast finishes, but this may verge into irrelevance. And trying to force optimal play on players can lead to less strategic thinking not more, since there's basically a puzzle to figure out, instead of possibilities that have advantages and disadvantages.

 

[WildWeazel]

*pops back in like nothing happened*

Great points all, keep 'em coming! To be clear I'm interested in what we can do now with Civ3, C3X included. C7 is a whole other matter.