Help: How does the anti air capability work?

[Adler17]

Can you help me to understand how civ II is dealing with the AA- fire of units? I mean how is this working? A SAM unit has an AA value of 2, so what does it mean to a plane with a value of 5/5?
Thanks in advance.

Adler

 

[MarineCorps]

I don't think that AA value is an actual attack value but rather a chance value. With AA it either shoots down the plane or it doesn't. So it can't be an attack value. But rather the chance it has to shoot down the aircraft. with an AA of two you have two chances to shoot it down. The first chance might be a no while the second is a yes. If it's a yes then the aircraft goes down. So it stand that with a value of 50 you are more likely to shoot down the aircraft. Just a theory.

 

[BadKharma]

The AA either shoots the aircraft down or it doesnt. If the AA has an AD of 2 and it is engaging a fighter (hopefully) of 5/5. The AA has a 3.8% chance of shooting the aircraft down.

 

[mrtn]

I tried to give AA 4 to a unit to make it somewhat immune to spells missiles, but it doesn't seem to work against them.

 

[BadKharma]

Mrtn, if a units AA defense is 4 and the aircrafts defense is 2 (like the standard for bombers) there is a 16.6% chance of the AA destroying the air unit. It may seem like it doesnt work because less than 17 times out of a hundred the aircraft will be shot down.

 

[Adler17]

Can you give me a more abstract formula how this is working?

Adler

 

[BadKharma]

Wish I could I used the Civ combat calculator to obtain the numbers.

 

[Civinator]

Hi Adler,

I wrote the complete AA-formula made by Alexman (Alex Manzaris) into the SOE-Civilopedia (entries: "Improved AA Battery" and "Enhanced AA Defenses"). Alex Manzaris later got credits for programming parts of Civ 4 and he had without doubt deep insight knowledge in the programming of these things with Civ 3.

Astonishing how well these civilopedia entries are been read.

But I posted it here at CFC in an old thread too. May be I find it again.

Edited: Here is the whole thread (it´s worth to read it): http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=125337

And here is the AA-formula by Alexman: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3004362&postcount=12

I hope this is "abstract" enough.

 

[Adler17]

Thanks Civinator. That is just that I wanted to know. To be clear that I understood:
In my example above the bomber has the defense of 5 and the SAM the value of 2. That means it has the chance of 2/ (2+5). So in 2 of 7 runs the plane is shot down, if the SAM intercepts. If the SAM is fired only in 50% of all atacks, only 1 of 7 runs are deadly for the bomber. But to have such a value in the game (2), I have to give 20 to the SAM unit in the editor.
Thanks alot.

Adler

 

[Steph]

It seems I have to redesign a good part of my mod...

Why can't they make a consistent and straigthforward system?

 

[Civinator]

Hi Adler, welcome. Concerning your example: Today after work I don´t want to do any more calculations.

 

[BadKharma]

It seems I have to redesign a good part of my mod...

Why can't they make a consistent and straigthforward system?

Because they didnt want things to be easy for modders.
When considering AA you really need to look at how inaccurate AA fire was before the advent of modern radar fire controls.

 

[Adler17]

To give a historical example: To shoot down one enemy plane in ww2 flak shells for 100.000 RM were fired. A C2 Wasserfall SAM did cost only about 10.000 RM, thus a kill costed only 12.000 RM.

Adler

 

[mrtn]

Mrtn, if a units AA defense is 4 and the aircrafts defense is 2 (like the standard for bombers) there is a 16.6% chance of the AA destroying the air unit. It may seem like it doesnt work because less than 17 times out of a hundred the aircraft will be shot down.

I was talking about missiles.

 

[BadKharma]

Although various components had been tested as early as 1943, the first launch did not take place until February 28, 1944 on the island or Oie, near Peenemünde. The missile did not reach supersonic speed on this first test, only reaching a height of about 7000 meters (23000 feet), but the second launch reached a speed of 2772 km/h (1772 mph) in vertical flight. By July of the same year, seven more missiles had been fired, and by early January 1945 a further 17 had been launched. Out of the 25 fired, 24 had radio control, and of these, ten failed to operate properly.
@Adler I was referring to gun system AA's but the information on the Wasserfall is very interesting.
@mrtn not really sure what you are driving at there.

 

[mrtn]

Does missiles work the same as air units when it comes to AA?
You answered my post about missiles with talking aobut airplanes, I don't know if that's relevant, or even the same subject.

 

[BadKharma]

Do you mean cruise missles? I'm not sure cruise missles are interecepted by AA because the AI strategy for air defense is to intercept air missions and cruise missles are a land unit.