How in the heck do you battle gunships in a stack

[sabo]

Say you have a stack of inf, tanks, and gunships off of your city. You want to attack the gunships with you SAM infantry but every time you active the SAM inf, the stack of ground troops is your only option.

Then if you select your tank to attack the stack your only option is to shoot at the gunship. Both of they scenarios are suicide. I would have thought that you can shoot down a gun ship with a fighter.. but NOOOOOOOOOOOOO... you can only injure them. Come on, I mean these things aren't that powerful. In real life they go down with one stinger missle.

 

[axident]

Say you have a stack of inf, tanks, and gunships off of your city. You want to attack the gunships with you SAM infantry but every time you active the SAM inf, the stack of ground troops is your only option.

Then if you select your tank to attack the stack your only option is to shoot at the gunship. Both of they scenarios are suicide. I would have thought that you can shoot down a gun ship with a fighter.. but NOOOOOOOOOOOOO... you can only injure them. Come on, I mean these things aren't that powerful. In real life they go down with one stinger missle.

You know how the computer selects the best defender in your stack to defend against the AI's attacks against you? Guess what, it applies from THEIR point of view, too. Their best defender will get matched up against whatever you select. My solution to this dilemma is to simply bomb their stack to hell so my tank faces a half-dead gunship.

 

[Bushface]

The "best defender" method makes specialised promotions almost worthless in attack, I find. Say you have two Swordsmen, one with Cover and one with Shock, to attack an Axeman and an Archer: the one with Cover fights the Axeman and the one with Shock fights the Archer, assuming that one defender does not have so much more XP than the other as to be the best defender against either attacker.
Of course, if you are the defender then you benefit !

 

[SilverTab]

The "best defender" method makes specialised promotions almost worthless in attack, I find.

Yeah, it definitely lessens their usefulness, but they're not completely worthless. I make sure that my stacks are diversified. Some with Shock, some with Cover, Some with Combat II, some with Medic, etc. I'm usually guaranteed a good matchup. After the stronger defenders in the AI's stack are gone, the rest will often have to defend against a unit that has a promotion advantage over them.

 

[DigitalBoy]

Artillery.

 

[sabo]

I've figured it out... just bomb the crap out of them with bombers. When they're weak enough, Move in with SAM inf.

 

[largedarryl]

I don't want to make you sound like an idiot, but this paper-rock-scissor approach is used in every era of CivIV. The same thing happens when you create stacks of pikemen/macemen/knights or archer/axemen/spearmen. Basically every era should allow you to create an uber stack that has a unit that defends very well against any unit. The solution to this problem is the same in every era, you need to use collatoral damage to your advantage and suicide weaker/cheaper (cat,treb,can,artillerty and later era bombers/stealth) units to make the stack weaker.

I don't mean to sound condesending, but the entire idea behind the armies in this game is that every unit is made to have strengths and weakness. Basically a complicated version or rock-paper-scissors.

 

[sabo]

I think you misunderstood me Darryl, the problem wasn't the stack the problem was the gunship. Collateral damage against a gunship does not work very well.

 

[aelf]

I think you misunderstood me Darryl, the problem wasn't the stack the problem was the gunship. Collateral damage against a gunship does not work very well.

Bombers and mass arty can do wonders.

 

[Napalm102]

Gunships suffer collaterall damage same way as other units. Unless it has like Drill III promotion in which case you may need too loose a few units, but hey its war....

Bombers and arty are best choices here.

 

[sabo]

Gunships suffer collaterall damage same way as other units. Unless it has like Drill III promotion in which case you may need too loose a few units, but hey its war....

Bombers and arty are best choices here.

hmmmm, So how does that apply for realism? I mean how many Apache helicopters have been damaged in real life by artillery and bombers? I would have never guessed this was possible in Civ IV

 

[Neoclast]

hmmmm, So how does that apply for realism? I mean how many Apache helicopters have been damaged in real life by artillery and bombers? I would have never guessed this was possible in Civ IV

Well, Considering you are launching the attack on them, that means they are probally sitting on the ground at the beginning of it. This makes it very easy for your artillery and bombers to damage them. Another point to remember is that one gunship unit represents a bunch of helicopters not just one unit. Hope that helps!

 

[axident]

hmmmm, So how does that apply for realism? I mean how many Apache helicopters have been damaged in real life by artillery and bombers? I would have never guessed this was possible in Civ IV

What ticks me off is that gunships can't fly over water or mountain peaks. And they even get dinged for attacking across water. Also, SAM infantry should only be given a chance to damage aircraft if it's a Fighter doing a direct attack or bombing. Jet fighters (armed with missiles not machine guns) doing a direct attack should get off scot free, and Jets and any kind of bomber doing a bombing run should be able to get shot down by SAM infantry at all. Yeah, gameplay balance, but the more I think about it, the more I think it's just lame shoring up of the extremely stupid AI which otherwise would be too weak against air units.

EDIT: I meant that jets and bombers should NOT be able to get shot down at all by mere SAM infantry. Fine, I can live with no helicopters crossing peaks, but not being able to fly over at least coastal sea, let alone inland lakes, and not being automatically Amphibious = bogus.

 

[largedarryl]

I agree that gunships should be able to fly over water, but helicopters should not be able to fly over mountains. Since helicopters are not capable of flying where the air density starts to decrease.

Basically in modern warfare, air superiority rules. To win the modern war, you need bombers and jets, and you need lots of them. Since bombers are so powerful, your ground forces do not need to be overwhelming in numbers. It doesn't really matter what units are in a stack after you've bombed them to 50% health, if you still don't think you can win by attacking a half strength stack, you don't really have to worry because a half strength stack can barely kill anything anyways.

 

[coffeeholic]

Basically in modern warfare, air superiority rules. To win the modern war, you need bombers and jets, and you need lots of them. Since bombers are so powerful, your ground forces do not need to be overwhelming in numbers

Unless the fight goes into the cities, think Stalingrad, Iraq ect. Thats why I like the city defense bonus.

AJK

 

[largedarryl]

I'm only talking in game terms. Even in reality it stands true, I'm thinking of the german invasion of france in WWII.

And even ingame, with enough bombers/fighters taking cities become easy.

 

[Rusty Edge]

What ticks me off is that gunships can't fly over water or mountain peaks. And they even get dinged for attacking across water. Also, SAM infantry should only be given a chance to damage aircraft if it's a Fighter doing a direct attack or bombing. Jet fighters (armed with missiles not machine guns) doing a direct attack should get off scot free, and Jets and any kind of bomber doing a bombing run should be able to get shot down by SAM infantry at all. Yeah, gameplay balance, but the more I think about it, the more I think it's just lame shoring up of the extremely stupid AI which otherwise would be too weak against air units.

Like largedarryl said, helicopters don't work that well in thin air. ( I've toured Mt. McKinnley by both airplane & helicopter ) . I can justify no peak crossings above 10 or 12 thousand feet.

But no sea operations? & river penalties? A gunship should automatically be amphibious. Even a WWII era machine gun prop fighter should have a big bonus against gunships because of the doubled speed and cieling. And for that matter...

For that matter air and sea forces aren't so well developed in CIV IV. There aren't enough unit types to represent those aspects of the game , their interactions and counters. I consider it unfinished business.

But lame shoring up is another way to look at it. The computer won't war as well as a human so making war more complex only helps the human.

But SEALS supported by Cobras would be so much fun....

 

[sabo]

But no sea operations? & river penalties? A gunship should automatically be amphibious. Even a WWII era machine gun prop fighter should have a big bonus against gunships because of the doubled speed and cieling. And for that matter...

For that matter air and sea forces aren't so well developed in CIV IV. There aren't enough unit types to represent those aspects of the game , their interactions and counters. I consider it unfinished business.

But lame shoring up is another way to look at it. The computer won't war as well as a human so making war more complex only helps the human.

But SEALS supported by Cobras would be so much fun....

That says it in a nutshell, I think Firaxis spent most of their resources developing land units only. Sea and Air units were after thoughts. Civ III was the same way. I played Civ II when it was out also, but I don't remember if sea and air units were just as lame back then or not.

 

[axident]

That says it in a nutshell, I think Firaxis spent most of their resources developing land units only. Sea and Air units were after thoughts. Civ III was the same way. I played Civ II when it was out also, but I don't remember if sea and air units were just as lame back then or not.

Civ 2 battleships were the s#!7. Offshore naval bombardment for damage (not non-damage reduction crap) = very nice. Except against coastal fortresses. But you could snipe off units in non-fortresses or wandering along the shore very easily and repeatedly. Pair AEGIS cruisers with the battleship to thwart cruise missiles and aircraft.

Also, three words for you re: Civ2 naval units: Early Veteran Ironclads. City walls? What walls?

Bombers worked fine except the unhappiness penalty part, but a police station thwarted that just fine. But the howitzers were probably more efficient, as there isn't much you can do against howitzers paired with mech inf and the occasional armor. You could attack twice with the howitzer, too, something you couldn't do with the bomber, which was also susceptible to fighters.

 

[Watiggi]

The "best defender" method makes specialised promotions almost worthless in attack, I find. Say you have two Swordsmen, one with Cover and one with Shock, to attack an Axeman and an Archer: the one with Cover fights the Axeman and the one with Shock fights the Archer, assuming that one defender does not have so much more XP than the other as to be the best defender against either attacker.
Of course, if you are the defender then you benefit !

An interesting side effect to this is to come in with more of one type of unit rather than using mixed units - exactly what they're trying to avoid!

Simple put: If you attack a stack which has a Spearmen and an Axemen in it, then attacking it with a Horse Archer will result in attacking the Spearmen. Attacking it with an Axemen will result in attacking the Axemen. If you bring along 2 Horse Archers, then one will do significant damage to the Spearmen and the other will kill it - eliminating it's ability to defend against your Horse Archers there after. I find this strange as it actually encourages you to attack a stack with more of the same type of units in order to overwhelm their best defensive unit until the stack can no longer defend themselve from that type of offense.