How to Fix Anti-Air Units

[Fish Man]

Anti-air units need a change. They have many problems, and don't fulfill their role well enough.

Why do they need a change?

For once, AA units are too viable as melee units; in fact, their combat strength is pretty much equal to the standard infantry units one would use at the time (AA gun to GW infantry is 50-50; Mobile SAM to Infantry is 65-70). This means that, besides intercepting aircraft, they are almost completely immune to bombers, can engage in combat, and take cities. This makes them take over the role of their infantry/armored counterparts, making them OP. It is no wonder, then, that the AI prefers them over standard infantry.

Ironically, AA units also fail to fulfill their purpose as intercepting units most of the time. A single air sweep with 100% success chance nullifies their abilities; their effective range of interception is too short; and stealth bombers can just ignore them.

What does this mean? It means that AA units have to be spaced so closely together to be actually effective - and they're so strong as melee units on their own - that theoretically and practically, there's no reason to use standard infantry units.

How to fix this?

I propose a 2-part plan: promotion changes and combat strength nerfs.

First, the melee prowess of AA units need to be severely nerfed. In all of WW1 and 2, have you ever heard of a squadron of AA guns taking a city? The concept of these units doing so is historically inaccurate and infringes upon the niches of infantry/armor units (as said before). I propose that AA guns have their combat strength lowered from 50 to 35 and mobile SAMs from 65 to 50; that way, they still have a chance of self-defense if needed, but can't actively engage in combat. In addition, both AA units should suffer from lack of terrain bonuses (hill, forest, citadel, fort, etc.) and should not be able to melee attack.

The interception range of both AA guns and mobile SAMs is 1 tile. The range of mobile SAMs should be two tiles, to make it more of an upgrade.

Now that we've made AA units inferior combat-wise to their infantry counterparts, it's necessary to make them superior in regards to their role with different promotions. First off, remove all the standard melee promotions from these units. With that aside, these are just a few new promotions that I can think off the top of my head...

1. Range: increases the interception range of the unit.
2. Logistics: the unit can intercept twice a turn.
3. Medic: same as standard, except it befits AA units more since they stay out of combat.
4. Dodge: increases the chance that an AA unit will evade an air sweep, possibly damaging or even killing the fighter.
5. Detection: increases the chance that an AA unit will detect and intercept a stealth bomber.
6. Hunter: any intercepted unit will take more damage/instantly die.
7. Positive Influence: all units next to the AA unit will receive a passive 25% bonus against bombers.
8. Prevention: can intercept atomic bombs/nuclear missiles.

Closure (or tl;dr)

AA units are too good at combat and not good enough at intercepting. Combat strength nerfs and different promotions should and will help fix this.

 

[Gyra Solune]

Air combat is kind of wonky, especially how strange it is that sending in aircraft to nullify anti-aircraft is the best way to deal with them, and not, you know, actually sending in troops to deal with them.

They definitely should be ranged units instead of melee units, maybe even serving the role Archers did since Gatling Guns and their lowered range makes them more useful as a front-line anti-infantry, instead of a ranged offense and city defense. But they should have a drastically lowered defensive strength and not be that suited to actual front-line combat. That way they serve best away from the front lines or stationed in cities when attacked. Also Air Sweeps should do a bit of damage to fighter units, and...augh, air units need an overhaul in general, the way they work is too wonky and they haven't been adjusted at all since vanilla.

 

[Socratatus]

It always annoyed me how AA units were as effective as ground units in melee battles. They shouldn`t be. I know in WW 2 AA guns were sometimes turned on Allied tanks to be quite effective, but they should still always suffer heavily in any kind of battle with dedicated ground units... Ground Infantry units should wipe out AA nearly every time unless Green meeting Vets.

In other words I agree with undefeatable.

Add this to fixing gunships thread too!

 

[Browd]

WHoward's mod AntiAir Only Defensive takes the right approach. Let AA units keep their melee combat strength on defense, but, like ranged unit, disable their ability to melee attack.

 

[Zaimejs]

I really don't get anti air in this game. I attack them with bombers, and they do worse than machine guns and cavalry in defense. Makes no fudgingg sense.

 

[Fish Man]

I really don't get anti air in this game. I attack them with bombers, and they do worse than machine guns and cavalry in defense. Makes no fudgingg sense.

Really? They do have a staggering 150% bonus against bombers, which means even a stealth bomber will only scratch an AA gun for ~10 damage, in return for 20-35 damage on the stealth bomber. Try with any other bomber and it gets intercepted, meaning the AA gun takes like 3 damage and the bomber unit 80-100. Mobile SAMs are even more resistant.

 

[TyBoy]

I don't think they're so far off of where they should be. To address your realism concern, I would be surprised if most major infantry divisions in battles from the world wars didn't have flak gun components, including the ones that won battles and took cities.

I think they should be a reasonably strong infantry unit. The additional equipment that an AA unit would carry is not all that complex. At the same hammer cost you would expect it to still mostly look like an infantry unit from the same era, just with a few specialized items and a bit fewer personnel to compensate. Also, AA are from a deeper tier than GW infantry and SAM are from a deeper tier than infantry. Infantry and AA are from the same tier. SAM are closer to mech infantry than they are to infantry.

They should also be a sub-par, if somewhat more resilient anti-air defense (low damage done, low damage taken when bombed). If you really want to control the skies you should have to use fighters for that. Fighters probably could use some tweaking, particularly in the mechanics of interception. The interception/sweeping system as a whole could probably use a looking over.

Currently their role is something like "Infantry specialized for fighting under enemy air superiority" which seems reasonable to me. They definitely shouldn't become a strong counter to enemy air units. A weak counter is a much more fitting role. Ground based anti-air just isn't that effective a counter to airplanes. It's just better than nothing.

EDIT: I'm actually having a really hard time thinking of a real world example where ground-based anti-air was really able to shut down a clearly superior enemy air force. Something like the Soviets in Afghanistan is the best example I can come up with, but that had a lot more to do with the ineffectiveness of an air force against a guerrilla force than the strength of ground-based anti-air. That would have gone very differently if the Afghans had been trying to field armies and protect them with stinger missiles.

 

[wigwam]

You shouldn't disable their ability to melee attack—they won't be able to destroy helicopters.

 

[Socratatus]

EDIT: I'm actually having a really hard time thinking of a real world example where ground-based anti-air was really able to shut down a clearly superior enemy air force. Something like the Soviets in Afghanistan is the best example I can come up with, but that had a lot more to do with the ineffectiveness of an air force against a guerrilla force than the strength of ground-based anti-air. That would have gone very differently if the Afghans had been trying to field armies and protect them with stinger missiles.

I think the war with Israel, Egypt and the Syrians is an example. I don`t remember the exact details, but when Syria\Egypt attacked with their tanks they had an umbrella of SAMS protecting them. When the Israeli`s tried to retaliate they were almost all shot out of the sky and had to fast fall back. It wasn`t until the Syria\egypt tanks moved too far forward (from the SAM protection) that the Israeli airforce was able to destroy the tanks.

In WW2 America bombers attacking japanese did not instantly succeed in hitting the carriers first time round. I know that at least one bomber squadron were wiped out to a man by ship AA defences.

Later in WW2 the German AAA Werbelwind ( I think it was called) made life very difficult for allied aircraft flying low, which often they wouldn`t.

 

[Rex_Mundi]

A little thing that bothers me is that the AA units does not get experience from successful interceptions.

The way I imagine they are supposed to be used, is to have them move behind the front lines, to guard the front from air attacks, and doing this will never promote them.

 

[Falconiano]

I agree that they should have a penalty for attacking non-air units.
I've seen too many times the AI use AA guns/SAMs as their main infantry, it just doesn't make any sense.

 

[redwings1340]

anti-air units are pretty good, but to make things worse, I generally actually counter them with bombers. As long as you can get an air repair bomber fleet, you can target the anti-aircraft guns individually, and as long as they aren't protecting each other or you send in fighters to air sweep first, a fleet of bombers can take out a bunch of anti-aircraft guns without suffering all that much. Regular bombers (non great war) can even take out mobile SAM's if you have enough of them. The anti-aircraft line should probably be a bit more anti-aircraft focused because right now bombers are the best counter to them...

 

[VainoValkea]

The interception range of both AA guns and mobile SAMs is 1 tile. The range of mobile SAMs should be two tiles, to make it more of an upgrade.

No, it's two tiles for both of them. Three hexes for mobile SAM wouldn't still be overpowered, given how easy they are to saturate with fighters.

 

[TyBoy]

...

That's interesting. I simply wasn't very aware of the Arab-Israeli conflict you described, but it does sound like a good example.

The WW2 case is a good example of the thinking I was talking about in terms of AA effectiveness. You can set a small area up that is bristling with AA defenses and effectively protect that particular area from aircraft, but it would be very difficult to extend that principle over an entire front, unless AA emplacements were spread liberally throughout the whole thing. In civ terms, I think it's fine and good that AA are themselves very resistant to air attacks. But spreading a few AA units around in your army shouldn't be a very effective way to make the whole thing immune to aircraft.


It would make a lot of sense to cut AA gun interception range down to just 1 tile, but AA don't need nerfs in that department unless the interception mechanics are fixed up a bit.

If you've got enough bombers to bomb down the enemy's AA and still have a healthy, large fleet left over than you had a pretty dominating amount of air power compared to the amount of AA the enemy had. There's nothing wrong with being able to brute force a defense if you've got overwhelming strength.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Changing their "base" promotions to
Interception (I-III)
and
Survivalism? (I-III) (extra Defense and healing)

Then having Medic, Range +1, Interception +1, Sentry

and instead of disabling Melee attack, just cut their melee strength to ~35 AA (~45 SAM) with ~+30% Defense (Their AA defense would be bigger)


Also, making Air sweep units take damage (and do damage.. so it is actually a combat)

 

[vyvianarygos]

I like it KrikkitTwo you should write them and suggest it!

 

[z284pwr]

anti-air units are pretty good, but to make things worse, I generally actually counter them with bombers. As long as you can get an air repair bomber fleet, you can target the anti-aircraft guns individually, and as long as they aren't protecting each other or you send in fighters to air sweep first, a fleet of bombers can take out a bunch of anti-aircraft guns without suffering all that much. Regular bombers (non great war) can even take out mobile SAM's if you have enough of them. The anti-aircraft line should probably be a bit more anti-aircraft focused because right now bombers are the best counter to them...

I actually prefer using rocket artillery to attack SAMs first then let the bombers do the damage to other units after artillery has taken them out. Much less bomber damage this way. Even with air repair a logistics bomber will usually end up out of service a few turns after attacking a SAM

 

[MarshalN]

A little thing that bothers me is that the AA units does not get experience from successful interceptions.

The way I imagine they are supposed to be used, is to have them move behind the front lines, to guard the front from air attacks, and doing this will never promote them.

This is the single biggest problem. Units gain XP even when they are just shot at by artillery/arrows, so it is completely weird that an AA shooting at planes never gain any XP.

 

[George Abitbol]

You shouldn't disable their ability to melee attack—they won't be able to destroy helicopters.

Why not? They can still range attack and destroy helicopters? As said above, it's also true historically, land guns were used as AA weapons (german 88)

 

[wigwam]

Why not? They can still range attack and destroy helicopters? As said above, it's also true historically, land guns were used as AA weapons (german 88)

Giving them a ranged attack is fine, I was just responding to a suggestion that they should have no attack at all (and be purely defensive).