Fun with cruise missiles and stealth bombers

[Marzipan]

What do y'all think about . . .

- giving cruise missiles a range of 7
- letting Aegis cruisers carry 6 missiles (could be cruise or nuke)
- letting nuclear subs carry 4 missiles
- letting radar artillary carry 2 missiles

I'm not sure if it's possibleto do, how about giving stealth bombers the ability to strike anywhere on the map (no range limitations) and along with that up the cost a bit. In my latest game, I have to have my stealth bombers operating out of a city near the front lines so that they can hit things on the front. This is not in keeping with reality. Stealth bombers based in the U.S. can strike anywhere in the world. On the surface these may seem like dramatic changes, but from what I've seen artillery and bombing, while certainly very useful, is not the overwhelming, decisive force that it can be in some other games (Total Annihilation comes to mind).

 

[RogueNine]

Being able to use Stealth Bombers from anywhere in the world is true in real life, but it would be a huge gameplay imbalance. You'd have to station fighters in every city you own to prevent bombardment, when in real life no bomber would reach St. Louis from somewhere like China: It would be intercepted off the coast by a California Air Force Base. Thats probably why it has a range limitation. It also depends on the map size. For a huge map, the range is very limiting, but for a tiny map it is good as-is. I often double the range of planes when I start a huge map.

The cruise missile idea, I'm not sure cruise missiles can go over water. (Who's genius idea was THAT anyway??) So I'm not sure if it could be made to work.

 

[Marzipan]

Cruise missiles will bombard across the water (I already tried it out ), but you have to load them into the ship when they're in port. Do interceptors only intercept bombers trying to attack the city they are in, or will the attack bombers that fly within there operational range?

 

[RogueNine]

Yep, I just read in another thread how to get cruise missiles to work over water. So my bad there.

About the aircraft, I'm not sure. Something I'll test out.

 

[IceBlaZe]

How do I make AEGIS able to carry cruise missiles?

 

[jju_57]

The rules only allow a maximum range of 8 for air units or cruise missles. The only way around this is to change air units to land units but then you can't get them to attack ships at sea. I would love to be able to increase the range of air units. Eight is fine for a small map but almost useless for a hugh one. I don't want unlimited range but it would be nice to have a range of about 20 hexes.

This way you can launch an air attack to bomb the rail road net before the sea invasion. Just like Normandy.

 

[Cosine]

Not to be the barer of bad news, but those B2 bombers, that are stationed in Missouri can NOT strike anywhere in the world. When they bomb Afganistan, they each had to refuel FOUR times to make it to the British Island in the north Indian Ocean, so unless we include Refuel planes in the game, the B2-like bombers can only do the deed within a certain range.

 

[Marzipan]

Well yes I know they have to refuel; nobody said they can strike anywhere in the world UNREFUELED. Having to build refueling airplanes to extend the range of bombers would be fine with me, but until someone figures out how to do it I'd rather just give the B-2's global reach in the game, if possible.

 

[papajohns]

by the same token then you should have all jet fighters be able to hit anywhere in the world..hey..they can refuel too...

i think the icbm tag should let the unit hit anywhere worldwide...
but not sure how well this is gonna work...that means that any time a bomber that goes up it wil prob get hit by all the fighters everyone else has that are in war with you..

 

[Kryten]

About putting Cruise missiles onto AEGIS Cruisers. I agree, but I've had a thought about all
the hassel of reloading them when they are dozens of moves away across the globe. Why not
simply up the AEGIS Cruiser's bomardment to 16, it's range to say 6, and it's fire rate to 3.
In other words, give the AEGIS Cruiser the same bombardment factors as a Cruise missile.
You now have modern cruisers with lots (well...lets be honest...unlimited) numbers
of missiles, which can't be shot down, and outranges battleships.

I like this because I think that battleships should become obsolete after AEGIS Cruisers
come into play (after all, how many battleships have been built since WWII?), and AEGIS
Cruisers need to be powerfull enough to replace them.

 

[Maugan]

Looking for a way to make bombers have global reach? Funny, Firaxis accidently accidently already added this for you...

Refueling Bug

 

[Thoth]

Originally posted by IceBlaZe
How do I make AEGIS able to carry cruise missiles?

In the editor make the following changes to the Cruise missile and AEIGS cruisers:

Cruise Missile

Set the "Tactical Missile" flag.
Set the "Footsoldier" flag.
Tick the "Load" special ability box.


AEGIS Cruiser

Set the "Carry Tactical Missiles" flag
Set the "Carry Footsoldiers Only" flag.
Tick the "Unload" special ability box.
Tick the "Missile Transport" role box (in addition to "Naval Superiority")
Increse the number of holds to the number of Cruise missiles you want your AEIGIS Cruisers to carry. (I use 2)


This will allow both Nuclear subs and AEGIS cruisers to carry Cruise Missiles, but only Nuclear subs will be able to carry Tactical Nukes.

 

[Scipio Africanu]

My personal opinion is that letting an Aegis cruiser take 6 cruise missles is a little too much. The cruise missle itself isn't representative of just one missle, it represents a much larger capacity for them. In real life a Missle Cruiser/Frigate (what usually fires off cruise missle's) can launch only 2 - 3 at a time and if the cruise missle itself represents a lot of them, which it must (hey a tank isn't represenative of one tank, we can't expect one missle to take out over half of an entire battallion), then I think you should scale down your numbers a bit.

My personal opinion is

Aegis Cruiser - 4 cruise missle's
Battleship - 1 cruise missle (yes, if we had battleships in service they would be prep'd for missle use)
Nuclear Sub - 2 missle's

I also think that a 7 square range is just a little to big for a cruise missle. The Tomahawk AMG-86b cruise missle (standard issue for the U.S. since 1997, besides the CALCM missle or Conventional Air Launched Crusie Missle used by B-52's, B-1's, and B-2's) has a maximum range of around 1000 klicks or about 750miles when the warhead is reduced in size for a class 30d anti armor punch. Each terrain square alone has to represent at least 100 miles, and thats on a huge map. When targeting and low altitude flying comes into effect (more fuel is used since it has to mimic the terrain it flies over to stay at its maximum height of 200m above ground level) this can be reduced to about a 550 - 600 mile distance. I think a better representation of conventional cruise missle use is 500 miles or about 5 squares since JSOC (Joint Strategic Operation Command) doesn't like to push the fuel to its limits or it may effect its punching power.