How do I attack cities with bombers and guided missiles?

[RobM77]

I've got two cities in range of an enemy city, each with two guided missiles and a bomber, but when I click on "ranged attack" I can only attack units, not cities. This happens every turn. Is this a known bug, or am I doing something wrong?

thanks

 

[Randall Turner]

You have to be able to "see" the cities. Otherwise, should work fine.

 

[RobM77]

Thanks Randall. There's flat land between both cities and the one I want to attack, but when I select "ranged attack" in either view I don't get a red border around the enemy city's tile (in either view). I had this problem earlier in the game and it was intermittent. It's really starting to get in the way now though

 

[Randall Turner]

Well again, you've got a limited sight range, they're just beyond it. Move a helicopter or mech inf up there to scout and everything should work fine. (I do this all the time, if it's not working for you after you have the city sighted, it's a bug.)

 

[RobM77]

Ah, sorry, maybe I mis-understood you, because I've just solved the problem and I think I know what you meant. The land is flat and the enemy city is about four or five tiles away from each of my cities.

What I've done is move a land unit adjacent to the city ready to attack, and then the aircraft can attack. I didn't know that was a requirement!...

Anyway, enemy city now taken Thanks!

 

[Wezqu]

Thats not the requirement to bombard something. You need to see the tile so it can't be under fog of war. Thats the only requirement is that you see the tile you are shooting at somehow.

 

[RobM77]

How strange. I discovered satellites many turns ago, so I had no fog of war at all. The city I was attacking was about 4 tiles away from two of my cities, each of which had multiple bombers and guided missiles. My plan was to get the city's strength right down by bombardment, and then move a ground based unit in to capture it. It turned out thay I could only bombard the city with bombers and guided missiles if I had a land unit adjacent to the city. I've seen this before, maybe it needs flagging as a bug?

 

[eric_]

Can't you do a recon run over the target with an aircraft and then bomb it/fire a missile at it, even if it's still not within site of a ground unit?

 

[Wezqu]

How strange. I discovered satellites many turns ago, so I had no fog of war at all. The city I was attacking was about 4 tiles away from two of my cities, each of which had multiple bombers and guided missiles. My plan was to get the city's strength right down by bombardment, and then move a ground based unit in to capture it. It turned out thay I could only bombard the city with bombers and guided missiles if I had a land unit adjacent to the city. I've seen this before, maybe it needs flagging as a bug?

You seem to mistake fog of war with the white not discovered areas. Fog of war is the area thats is grey trasparent area where you don't see units even if they would be on the tile. Satellites does let you see the whole map but it doesn't let you see all the units and in short it only removes the white undiscovered areas not the fog of war. You can easilly know what I'm talking about when you move your view to other side of the map away from you civilizations areas or your own units. You don't see the units there because of the fog of war. Even if you see the land or the city tile it doesn't mean you see the units that are on that tile or in the city.

You say your city is four tiles away from an enemy city as I understood you mean there is four tiles between the cities. So even if you have two of those four tiles inside your culture borders and two others on the enemies side then you can only see one tile over to his side and the city is still over two tiles away in the fog of war. Without using units to see further you can only bombard in those tiles near your border that you see. So in short you need to see the city without the fog of war to bombard it as I have been saying to you all along.

 

[Randall Turner]

Can't you do a recon run over the target with an aircraft and then bomb it/fire a missile at it, even if it's still not within site of a ground unit?

Yeah, it's real common at this stage of the game to base a fighter in your forward cities. (Exposes everything within 6 hexes of the base city.)

 

[thadian]

the scouting missions are gone but fighters do their job for 6 tiles. too bad no airport.

 

[RobM77]

Thanks Wezqu. Yes, I didn't understand the 'fog of war' properly; I had incorrectly assumed it was the white clouds that over unseen areas. I'm sure that was my problem.