Invincible Fleet

[Maugan]

I have the most hilarious invasion going on right now. I'm Germany, on continent A with England, Russia, and France. I beat up Russia early on, and it has been all peace and happiness on our island since 1000 bc. China, Japan, Greece, and India are on Continent B. By 1700AD, Japan and China basically obliterated continent B in an alliance. India and Greece are completely occupied by Japan, so Japan now dominates the score. I decided that the only way I was going to win was to hobble the Japanese.

Their empire has several big 10+ square lakes in it. One of them was ringed by 20 pop cities, and had a city/bridge into it via a 1 square shore section. So, I brought my fleet of 3 Aircraft carriers, 6 destroyers, and 2 battleships in with a bunch of Panzers, and took the boarder city. I funneled the fleet into the lake, then abandoned the city which would have probably reverted the next turn anyway. (which it did) So, now I have an entire fleet parked in a lake in the heartland of their empire.

The first thing I did was bomb all harbor cities until that little anchor icon disappeared. (wouldn't want them to actually be able to hurt me or something) Once this was done, I just looked up and waved as fleets of enemy bombers rocked my ships. Who cares when I know I won't see any more boats firing at me and know bombers cant sink me.

12 bombers and 30 turns later, I can't find a land improvement to destroy, and those 20 pop cities are down to like 10. I think I'm gonna have to re-take that city for a way out of this damn lake.

 

[Civilizator]

Very funny. Yet it is also the strongest evidence that
planes must be able to sink ships. It must be corrected,
it is absurd as it is.

 

[RomanLegatus]

In the early 20th century, it was thought that planes and the ocean did not mix. Then a great "naval aviator" (term not yet born) showed admirals and others that watched, that bombs dropped from a bi-plane could sink a battleship, and on his third attempt, he was succesful! I regret to remember the aviators name, and maybe someone would reply it to me. Planes should be able to sink and destroy ships.

And that was a pretty funny incident about the "invicible fleet"

 

[Dreadnaught]

Wasn't it Doolittle, no wait I KNOW I KNOW...ah what was it, I REALLY know. DAMN!!! was it doolittle?...crap.

 

[Phalon]

I chased an enemy AI frigate all over the world with two iron clads, bringing their life level to 1 red tick, but I could not sink them. Wat's the deal there?

 

[jc011]

what do you mean by chase??? you mean you were bombarding it all along the way?? from what i've seen from bombers, they are not allowed to kill a unit completely, it can only injure it down to one.

 

[Dreadnaught]

Ding Ding Ding!!

My friend that is the correct answer, you cannot kill a unit by bombarding it (which I might add, I disagree) but in order to kill an enemy unit you must directly assult it.

 

[ironfang]

I agree. You need to be able to sink by bombard/Cruise missile. I sent some battle ships off the coast of China and just kept bombarding the crap out of them. Sure, they pounded me with cruise missiles, but they didnt have the fleet to back it up, so the bombardments continued.

ironfang

 

[Ferd]

Pearl Harbor = Classic example of planes sinking ships.

Bombardment not being able to actually kill stuff is definitely NOT true to life, but I think a necessary part of the game. Otherwise you could just build a large bombardment force and never have any risk of taking damage. It's already a powerful technique, but you still need the backup. A stack of catapults can ALMOST take out a city without even being damaged, but if you actually want to TAKE the city, you still need a couple of horsement or something. I like it that way.

I think the indestructible fleet is funny.

 

[ironfang]

I am going to have to disagree with you Ferd for several reasons.

1. Artillery cannot occupy a city.
2. Artillery is slow moving.
3. Artillery cannot fight back. Instantly captured.
4. Artillery has range 2 while cavalry can move 3 and take artillery without a fight.
5. Defensive artillery only gets 1 shot regardless of how many artillery is stationed there.
6. Bombers can be shot down my interceptors.


I dont think I need to go on. Artiller can destroy units. Look at Afgahnistan now. Look at pearl harbor.

ironfang

 

[Gray]

Glenn H. Curtiss, the inventor, test flew the first U.S. Navy aircraft, the A-1 in 1911. Lt. T. Gordon "Spuds" Ellyson, then flew twice in the A-1 and became Naval Aviator No. 1. In 1912 the Navy developed and patented the first airborne launched torpedo (which does sink ships… just like bombs do---come on Civ3). Not sure what the first ship sunk by a Naval aircraft was called.

FYI, Doolittle is the name of the American flyer, Lt. Colonel Jimmy Doolittle, who led the bombing raid on Tokyo in 1942. Doolittle’s 16 B-25 Mitchell medium bombers were launched from the USS Hornet and most were ditched in the South China Sea due to lack of fuel...

All in all I agree that bombards should sink ships, and that bombers and fighters should be able to destroy land and naval units!!!

 

[Maugan]

I have no problem with bombardment not fully killing ground units. It is much more reasonable to assume that a few guys from the unit survived. On the ground, a manual sweep is needed to clear out the remaining defenders on the ground regardless of the strength of bombardment.

A unit's survival is dependant on the number of people left afer an attack. If only a few vets of the squad remain, they can recruit new members and re-create it. On the ocean, however, it is a whole different story. A naval unit's survival is all or nothing. It sank, or it didnt. If the battleship goes down, a few guys in a life boat are not going to go sail home and recruit a new battleship and call it the same unit.

 

[rikhis]

I second Maugan:

Bombardment should destroy naval units but not ground units.

Another reason to add is that naval units are completely exposed to attack whereas ground units can take cover in shelters, caves, rubble, etc.

For example, in the Waikato War the British used continuous artillery and naval bombardment to utterly level the Maori fort of Gate Pa. Expecting few survivors, they moved in to occupy the remains and were completely routed. You see, the Maori had anticipated this sort of attack and built reinforced chambers below the ground. So when the British arrived, they were greeted by a hail of unexpected fire from gaps in the floor below.

Just one of those things that wouldn't happen at sea.

 

[Ohwell]

Originally posted by rikhis
I second Maugan:

Bombardment should destroy naval units but not ground units.

.

I totally agree. Ships are very easy targets, air strikes against them are intended to completely destroy. But Air raids against ground targets are intended to soften up, shock the men, and reduce morale. Artillery is a diferent story. Artillery should NOT be able to destroy ships, because I have not heard one story of a ship being sunk by ground artillery. A ship would be able to evade before any permanent damage is done. Also, who has ever heard of an entire artillery brigade dispatched to destroy a ship? Ha, didnt think so

 

[Peer]

AFAIK some german destroyers were sunk by norwegian coastal batteries when entering the fjords in WWII.

About gameplay:

The computer starts to retreat his ships when they have been bombed. This way you could easily keep them off your coast, even when there are none of your ships.

The computer never even thinks about bombarding the coast when his ships are damaged.

So to avoid such exploitation of the ai behaviour the rules should really be changed so that the airforce is capable of sinking ships!

 

[knowltok]

It wasn't Doolittle who demonstrated Airpower to the Admirals, it was Billy Mitchell. He sunk an old German Battleship that the Americans had gotten after WWI.

I'd say we all agree that planes should be able to sink ships, hopefully they wiil address this in the patch. If not it would be nice to see a reason why not.

 

[Dmitry]

I second (or triple, or whatever planes sinking ships thing.
It should go without saying that the bigger/more modern the ship the harder it should be to sink (it would manuver and shoot back in modern times at least), also the planes on the carrier should protect the ship as in air superiority mission (I don't know if that happens or not now). Also - there should be an off chance that a plane on the carrier is destroyed during an attack...! That would be Grrrreeaattt

 

[Qin2002]

Originally posted by RomanLegatus
In the early 20th century, it was thought that planes and the ocean did not mix. Then a great "naval aviator" (term not yet born) showed admirals and others that watched, that bombs dropped from a bi-plane could sink a battleship, and on his third attempt, he was succesful! I regret to remember the aviators name, and maybe someone would reply it to me. Planes should be able to sink and destroy ships.

And that was a pretty funny incident about the "invicible fleet"

That was Billy Mitchell!..

Doolittle lead the raid on Tokyo from the Carrier Hornet in 1942.

 

[Ohwell]

Originally posted by Peer
AFAIK some german destroyers were sunk by norwegian coastal batteries when entering the fjords in WWII.
\

Ah, but you see Peer, I was not talking about the coastal fortress, I was talking about artillery units. Yes, coastal batteries have sunk ships, I know. Another thing, catapults should not be able to damage my ships!

 

[Endureth]

Let me play devil's advocate here.

We all know that planes can indeed sink ships, that's a gimme, someone even mentioned PearlHarbor so let's use that example.

You really can't think of the units in Civ III as one for one. While this is obvious for ground units you need to remember that it includes naval units also.

Imagine that each ship actually represents a seperate fleet consisting of multiple fleets or groups. One aircraft carrier on the map is actually an aircraft carrier group consisting of not only aircraft carriers but support vessels as well. A destroyer represents a destroyer fleet and so on.

Back to Pearl Harbor.

If it was a Civ game, there would probably be 3 battleships, 2 destroyers and some aircraft. This is a good example since air sup is broke as it didn't really help iin Pearl Harbor, teehee. In game terms, they were all knocked down to 1 hp, in real life about 90% of the fleet was sunk. See, the game represents well.

---------------

But I digress. I think you should be able to sink ships as well, I'm just giving you something to think about.

Endureth