Flak

[voodooshack]

Does flak really work? Does fortifying it put it to sleep so that it doesn't fend off bombers? I'll have a couple of them in a city and it will be about 20-25 raids before it finally shoots one down.

 

[TyranusBonehead]

My guess would be that they (like all Civ units) wake up in the presence of the enemy. So the fact that they don't shoot down a bomber is more a result of chance than the fact that you fortified a flak gun, or put it on sentry.

Anybody else? Am I way off target?

 

[gunkulator]

All I know about Flak is the computer thinks all my cities should be building it.

 

[TyranusBonehead]

Boy, I hear you there. I guess you can never have too many flak guns.

I think I need one in my backyard to go along with my pumpkin chunking trebuchet.

 

[Turner]

Actually, there's a simple way to make the AI stop building flak. Use the govenor. No, seriously.

Allow me to explain.

Open a city. Any city will do. Click on 'Contact Govenor'. Then click on 'Production'. Change the options for any kind of millitary unit and change it to 'Never' and 'All Cities' You'll have to do it for several choices. You can also tweak the other settings, and the govenor will suggest based upon these guildlines. Make sure you click on 'Default Setting for New Cities' as well.

It should be noted that this works for any city, reguardless of whether or not you're using the govenor. Of course, if you're using the govenor and not choosing your city builds, this will greatly affect what's made. And if you're not using the govenor and picking your own builds, it will change the suggestions when the build order screen is displayed.

 

[thetrooper]

All I know about Flak is the computer thinks all my cities should be building it.

Cheap defense units - governor flavour of the year...

 

[andis-1]

I think best way to stop AI's suggestions is go to preferenses and click on "always build previously built unit"

 

[El Justo]

i always "Sentry - Enemy Only" all of my AAA units.

also, i've modded their stats as well (boosted the AA defence).

they work much better after raising their stats just a smidge. they certainly don't shoot evey plane out of the sky (Patriot Batteries and M42 Dusters are a whole lot more successful). i'd say, roughly, 1 out of every 10 which, in reality, isn't too far off.

however, the best air-defense is an interceptor force which seems to be a whole lot more successful than the AAA (at least as far as the combat-calculator is concerned).

 

[TyranusBonehead]

I'm thinking a flak gun in the backyard would also make for a good hedge or tree trimmer.

 

[HellboundHeathcliff]

I think someone did a study that showed you need 4 flak stacked for optimum chance to shoot down planes.

 

[vmxa]

From alexman

AA combat formula

The real strength of each AA unit is 1/10th of the value shown in the editor. So Flak has a strength of 0.2.

Each AA unit in the tile being bombarded takes a shot against the defense of the bombarding air unit. The chance of shooting down the air unit is A/(A+D), as with all other forms of combat in Civ3. Remember, A is 10 times less than what is in the editor for the AA unit.

The maximum number of AA units that are given a chance to shoot down the plane is 4. Any AA units above 4 are ignored.

So, for example, if you want the formula for the probability of N units with a strength of A shooting down a plane with defense of D, here it is:

1 - (D / (D+A))^min(N,4)

D is the defense value of the bombarding air unit (2 for a bomber). No modifiers apply. A is the AA strength of the AA unit (0.2 for flak). N is the number of AA units, not the number of air units.

min(N,4) = N, if N less or equal to 4
min(N,4) = 4, if N greater than 4

The SAM battery works like this:

For each bomber, there is a chance equal to the interception chance for the SAM to fire (50% against conventional, 5% against stealth)

If the SAM doesn't fire, the bomber continues as if the SAM were not present. This includes the chance of getting shot down by AA fire.

If the SAM fires, it has a A/(A+D) probability to shoot down the plane (A=8 for the SAM, D=2 for the Bomber). If the plane is not shot down, the Bomber survives, but it loses its chance to do any damage as well.

 

[voodooshack]

Thank you very much. I guess 4 per city is the ideal then.

 

[vmxa]

That seems to be right. It is all so rng. Most of the time they are ineffective, but my last game I got all 5 bombers sent. I just put them in and hope for the best, until I can stop them for good.

 

[ChuckDizzle]

Does flak really work? Does fortifying it put it to sleep so that it doesn't fend off bombers? I'll have a couple of them in a city and it will be about 20-25 raids before it finally shoots one down.

It's historically accurate. All those bombers in WWII didn't get shot down by a single flak cannon.

 

[Bluemofia]

When Japan was bombing me, they sent many many bombers at me, so I ended up shooting down about 2/5 of the planes that came with flak alone, so that was decent, and then when my airforce came, that kind of took care of the rest. I also noticed that the AI avoids bombing tiles guarded by flak, and whenever I would put a rail somewhere, i would park a flak or 2 to guard it, and the AI avoids bombing the tile.