[GS] Firaxis has improved AI AirPower.

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I kinda worry about planes getting increased strength. I currently use the AI Air power fix mod, and in my current Immortal minus the starting units for the AI game I've encountered no less then 20 japanese fighters. After turn 1 of the war - taking two cities one with 6 battle ship armada's, they took out 3 of those with 6 fighters. If there increasing plane strength - they better give anti-air units the ability to launch multiple defense attacks instead of the current one.

The whole explanation about keeping air power weak because it was OP'ed in Civ 5 made no sense to me. First, I haven't heard complaints about airpower being OP in Civ 5. It changes the nature of warfare, no doubt, but my impression was that most people liked that, as it made late game war quite different than early game war. (People hated how slow the air attack graphics played out, but that's a whole different matter.) There were a lot of things about Civ 5's play balance that could benefit from a change (and I say that as someone who loves Civ 5), but the relative strength of airforces compared to other late game units wasn't one of them.

Second, airplanes in R&F aren't noticeably weak. I've stopped entire AI invasions using 3 Fighters plus city defences. I didn't feel like airplanes needed a boost to make them useful. They're too expensive, but so is every unit that opens up after the Classical era. Making airplanes more powerful is a round-about way to make them less expensive, but I don't agree that they need to be made more powerful relative to late game ground units. Unless they're intended to be a counter against GDRs, but then, why not say that they're boosting planes so you have something to fight GDRs if you don't have GDRs?

I found it an odd comment. It reminded me of the weird statement that came out when they nerfed England's free melee unit, saying that was never intended to work that way when it was working exactly as described. It made me wonder if the airpower increase was for some other reason, but they needed to give a marketing approved explanation for the change or something. Like maybe they discovered the easiest way to get the AI to use airplanes was to increase the relative strength of airplane attacks, but they're not allowed to admit that the AI rarely uses planes currently, so they had to find another explanation for the change?

Alternatively, maybe they have data to suggest that players aren't building or using many planes, and rather than attributing that to the lack of a need for planes, the dev team is attributing that to players viewing them as under-powered.

I also find it interesting that at the same time they're buffing planes, they're cutting the number planes you can put in an aerodrome, hangar, etc. by half. Maybe this is conservativism because the dev team is concerned that the higher firepower planes may be too strong, so want to limit how many you can assemble. Except you can still put 1 plane in each city, so really it's just cutting down on how much an airforce you can assemble in any one Aerodrome.

 

[acluewithout]

@Trav'ling Canuck I don’t think FXS are acting in bad faith. I’m happy to accept their statement about Airforce at face value, although I’m sure there are other reasons at play too. The whole England nerf thing was odd, but my guess is that the error was with the person doing the patch notes (ie they wrongly described it as fixing a bug).

One reason Airplanes may have been buffed is so they can have less planes. And it may be they want less planes, so the AI can better use planes.

 

[Disgustipated]

Alternatively, maybe they have data to suggest that players aren't building or using many planes

Unless I am purposely holding off on domination victory with the intent on using airplanes, nukes, etc, then I never build them. Except possibly as a city state quest. I have games where I never build an encampment or an aerodrome.

 

[AriochIV]

Second, airplanes in R&F aren't noticeably weak. I've stopped entire AI invasions using 3 Fighters plus city defences.

I've stopped entire AI invasions with a rolled up newspaper and harsh language, so I'm not sure that's a good measure. Bombers are currently good at reducing city defenses, but I don't find Fighters to be effective enough in the strike role to be worth the huge infrastructure cost (and goodness knows they're not needed for air defense).

I'm fine with increased strength of air units, but it won't make much difference if the AI still doesn't know how to use them.

 

[tedhebert]

Fighters are totally useless, I never build any... Why do so when the AI never builds any air force ? But Bombers are the monsters in this game... When I play a domination game, getting bombers is usually the turning point of the game. You can use them to clean out
opponents units even when they have more than double what you have... then use them to pulverize city defenses. It's actually sad, lately I've simply held off building them to make my end games harder, because getting air superiority is so strong it's laughable

*Edit... I will rephrase my opening statement... fighters are totally useless as air defense... they are of course valuable as defense against other kind of units, but... I just don't make them

 

[tedhebert]

I also find it interesting that at the same time they're buffing planes, they're cutting the number planes you can put in an aerodrome, hangar, etc. by half. Maybe this is conservativism because the dev team is concerned that the higher firepower planes may be too strong, so want to limit how many you can assemble. Except you can still put 1 plane in each city, so really it's just cutting down on how much an airforce you can assemble in any one Aerodrome.

Plus you can just build military engineers and build airstrips at the door of your enemies... so...

 

[redfox85]

There are also bugs with Air Forces in game that are evident when using the AI Air Power Fix..

a) Taking a AI city does not clear the airport of AI airplanes. And the AI does indeed still use these planes to attack.
b) I've noticed I can attack a bi-plane that is deployed over the city center and attack it with Bi-Planes, Fighters and Jet Fighters. However, if its a Fighter or Jet Fighter the air attack complete ignores them, leaving no way of clearing the way for bombers.

I also wonder if the Amphibious Penalty you get when attacking from a Carrier is a bug.

Also - as I finished my last game as Germany against the Aussies (who took out a city state, Zulu and Khmer .. ) I came under heavy air attack on multiple fronts. They would hit the the unit with AA first - and then start trying to pick off my units once the AA was gone. They didnt care about ships AA. Made for a very slow advance on two fronts until I get a couple thermo nukes to clear out the airports. They had not built any on the Zulu and Khmer side so had a much easier time on the third front.

 

[kb27787]

Do ppl here play with advanced era starts?
Ive never seen an airodrome from the AI in any of my games (supposedly it also takes up a district slot?)

The AIs pop usually stagnate at that point in the game and theyve maxed out all their slots with other districts

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Needing an aerodrome to build one makes them seem not worth while to me most of the time (of course I rarely do domination).

 

[tedhebert]

The AIs pop usually stagnate at that point in the game and theyve maxed out all their slots with other districts

This seems like a very valid comment to me. Maybe the simple solution to AI air usage is to make the aerodrome a district that is NOT linked to population,
like the neighborhood ?

 

[FearSunn]

This seems like a very valid comment to me. Maybe the simple solution to AI air usage is to make the aerodrome a district that is NOT linked to population,
like the neighborhood ?

No. That would not work. Simple solution is linked in my signature.

 

[AriochIV]

I'm at war with the Mongols, and OMG! They built a bomber! First I think I've seen in Rise & Fall.



Of course, they didn't actually use it...

 

[steveg700]

The AI doesn't build aircraft, therefore as a player I don't build them. Too much advantage.

I'm mildly surprised anyone else looks at the situation any other way. Sure, can't match the AI for every shortcoming it has, but this one's to big to shrug off. "An airstrip too far", as it were.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

I was shocked when I lost this bomber yesterday. I never check damage or take promotions.

 

[redfox85]

using the AI Air something something mod I came across an Aussie empire that conquered its continent (conquered Khmer and Zulu), and was using bombers like mad against me when I launched my invasion, prolly over 20 of them while it rushed .. a fairly weak land force my way. I'm going to miss my Tank Army's en masse in GS.

 

[Disgustipated]

The AI built a fair amount of fighters and jet fighters real late in the game in Quill's game if anyone is wondering about current state of AI air use. I didn't notice any bombers, but he does move the map around kind of fast, so it's hard to spot. I only spotted a bomber in Firaxis Hungary stream.

I still think it suffers from the problem with having to have an aerodrome and buildings in it. The AI is faster at getting GDR's out than aircraft. That shows you how broken it is.

 

[Disgustipated]

So I'm finding they certainly did improve air power, provided your game goes on long enough. I'm finding my jet bombers shot down by enemy jet fighters, even at full health. Kind of frustrating. I was hoping they would only take 70% damage, but can't really touch cities with jet fighters, though I did still do damage despite being shot down.

Also enemy jet bombers are tearing up my GDR pretty good as well. The thing is, I didn't see air units until the 1900's. The problem to me isn't that the AI isn't using air units, but that you can win victories before 1900 easy. And higher level AI's can also win before this time.

 

[Jkchart]

So I'm finding they certainly did improve air power, provided your game goes on long enough. I'm finding my jet bombers shot down by enemy jet fighters, even at full health. Kind of frustrating. I was hoping they would only take 70% damage, but can't really touch cities with jet fighters, though I did still do damage despite being shot down.

Also enemy jet bombers are tearing up my GDR pretty good as well. The thing is, I didn't see air units until the 1900's. The problem to me isn't that the AI isn't using air units, but that you can win victories before 1900 easy. And higher level AI's can also win before this time.

I've noticed this too. But also, they don't always place their interceptors well.

In my Sweden game the Zulu and I were at war (not my fault, they started it) and they had jet fighters around ulundi, but there was a nice clean path to the city away from the interceptors so my Jet Bombers flew easily every turn and bombed the crap out of them, and they didn't even attempt to rectify their positioning. And it was a LONG bombardment. So...yeah it's better, but the AI still needs to be able to recognize that if its city is being bombed, it should probably move fighter positioning if the interceptors are out of range of the bombers.

 

[Disgustipated]

I also noticed that their interceptors seem to only protect the city they are stationed in, I don't think they actually have it set to patrol? I can bomb the crap out of their land units out in the open, it's only when attacking the cities I get hammered. But yeah, sometimes they have the interceptors in the wrong cities.

Eventually I got a mobile SAM over to help protect my GDR, but they stopped using their bombers for some reason. It seems silly I need a mobile SAM to protect my GDR, but if you think about it, it makes sense a target that big is susceptible to air power.

Also I overran their aerodrome with a modern tank army, but I don't think that killed their air units, they seemed to move elsewhere maybe? Because after I left the air units were there again. It's possible this is a bug? Or the AI is very good at hiding jet bombers under the brush. I originally thought it was an airstrip, but later realized it was an aerodrome. I should have pillaged it, but didn't think of it at the time.

 

[Jaybe]

Also I overran their aerodrome with a modern tank army, but I don't think that killed their air units, they seemed to move elsewhere maybe? Because after I left the air units were there again. It's possible this is a bug? Or the AI is very good at hiding jet bombers under the brush. I originally thought it was an airstrip, but later realized it was an aerodrome. I should have pillaged it, but didn't think of it at the time.

You will have to hit any bombers on the aerodrome with fighters to get rid of them, though ranged attacks might work (I don’t recall). I don’t think pillaging it would have helped.

Note: This primarily applies to cities I conquer, not those just rampaging/pillaging around.