Jet Fighter v. Steath Fighter

[XOVER]

In the current game I'm playing, I just want to control various cities on the AI's continent that possess the luxuries I desire. So I'm concentrating on defense on the cities I have on the AI continent.

I've got stealth technology, and stealth bombers to take care of weakening the AI's units whenever it chooses to engage in a little warfare. No problem there.

But I don't like stealth fighters. Primarily because they don't have the ability to "control the skies" that jet fighters have. I have to believe this is a mistake in my strategy, though. I mean, how in the world can a jet fighter be "stronger" or "better" than a stealth fighter?

The manual claims stealth fighters have all of the abilities of a jet fighter, but also have the added abilities of SAM battery resistance (as well as precision strike). Which, if true, obviously means I should build stealth, not jet, technology.

But I never seen a stealth fighter fend off enemy aircraft. I have seen jet fighters fend them off.

Is this because the AI "knows" not to send aircraft to attack the carriers / cities defended by stealth fighters? Or maybe because the jets already taught the AI a lesson in avoiding aircraft attacks?

I did see the related thread below about naval / air superiority question, but have not seen this subject addressed. I realize this is a true niche question so any guidance appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Oh yea . . . one other thing. I've never been able to ugrade bombers / jet fighters to stealth. Even in cities with airports, and, of course, possessing the requisite strategic resources. Is the theoretical upgradability true -- and somehow I'm missing something -- or is the manual in error?

 

[Rammstein]

Jet and stealth fighters don't fly the same missions, do they? The stealth is an attack unit, the fighter does all kinds of missions (I have yet to succeed in attacking ground units, so I exclusively use jets for superiority). That's why you can't upgrade, and that's why jets are still around to build after stealth tech, while stealth bombers take over after the ordinary bomber.

 

[Sgt.Hellfish]

Jet fighters vs stealth fighters
Staelth fighters are more fighter bombers, better if say u hava ship full of aircraft u can either bomb or defend so I think stealth is better

 

[DaDoo]

I believe in the civilopedia and maybe the manual too, stated that stealth fighters can do everything a jet fighter can do *EXCEPT* air superiority missions. The only time an aircraft can intercept another aircraft in Civ is when they are on air superiority missions. I think you are able to upgrade bombers into stealth bombers but you won't be able to upgrade jet fighters into stealth fighters because I think the game treat those as 2 separate units instead of one as an upgrade of another.

 

[cracker]

(I tried to post this last night but the chat monkeys had the database all locked up again).

Stealth Fighter is probably a misnomer and it really should be viewed as an itty bitty strike aircraft. This is true in real life just as it is in Civ3.

If you look at you editor, you will see that "stealth fighter" does not even have the "interception" mission ability so it is defacto just a little bomber with recon ability. You will never see these planes engage any other planes except when they get caught on a bombing run by enemy fighters and in that case they will always die.

The bombard strength of the civ3 stealth fighter is only a 4 so it will miss almost all of its targets over 20% of the time.

The precision stike mission sounds good on paper but is a total waste of programming code because it guarantees that your bombs will target buildings in the city you are attacking. Think about it for a minute:

1) all the culture buildings in the city will automatically be destroyed when you capture the city, so precision bombing them is stupid.
2) great wonders and small wonders can never be destroyed by bombardment because of a designed in programming choice, so bombing those is futile.
3) The improvements you can destroy that you might want to destroy would be: walls and perhaps the barracks and SAM batteries.
4) The only other improvements would be things you would want to keep: like banks, markets, the local pub (just kidding).

Stealth also comes so late that it adds almost nothing to the game and just sucks up resources from other more valuable pursuits.

Nothing in the hardcopy or electronic versions of the Civ3 manuals that I have would provide any indication that bombers or jet fighters upgrade to stealth units. I can't find any of this confusion in the civilopedia either.

They look kinda cool but from a strongly tested standpoint, I can find no reasonable purpose for you to build any stealth fighters unless you are just bored.

 

[Bismarck]

In the interests of gameplay, I would say that stealth fighters should be made improved versions of jet fighters, rather than the crippled bombers they currently are.

It may not be true to real life, but then again, neither is the fact that bombers cannot destroy battleships, or the fact that 19th-century cavalry can occasionally destroy tanks, etc.

It seems silly to strictly adhere to "realism" in this one tiny regard (and at the expense of gameplay), when there are far worse violations of realism in the game.

 

[DaDoo]

Precision strike is NOT a total waste of programming code.

When my attack forces are stretched too thin and I have to keep the war going (due to the other side won't negotiate or I have a pact for several more turns of war), I'd use all my bombers for precision strikes against cities. There's no point reducing hitpoints of enemy defenders when I could not spare enough attackers to take over the town. So why not just bomb every building to the ground so when the war is over, the AI will be slower to recover.

 

[cracker]

My list of general bombardment priorities in Civ3:

1. Weaken or destroy potential attackers.
2. (missing from Civ3) Destroy airpower on the ground
3. (missing from civ3) Destroy artillery
4. Destroy improvements of supplies that allow the enemy to wage war
5. Weaken and/or destroy defenders
6. Kill the 13th or 7th citizens (technically weaken defenders)
7. Bomb all the citizens into the dust
8. Bomb away all the culture and happiness improvements
9. Bomb away all the improvements you could capture and sell or use
10. Bomb away all the defenseless people you could capture and starve in to history.
    [/list=1]
    
    Precision strike missions effectively do not focus on the top 5 issues on the list because barracks woudl be the only real improvement that fits and there is some major strategic value to capturing a barracks if you do not have Sun Tzus.

 

[Tassadar]

The best combination is jet fighter on air supperiority ( 4 in a carrier) within 3 tile of carriers full of stealth bomber ( long range + precision strike ).

Usualy i will precision strike to destroy factory and power plant to cut down their production which is very understandable, and to decrease population size ( cut down income and pollution and thus reducing global warming in modern era).

 

[Rn Streak]

Here’s my take: While I do think Stealth Fighters are fairly realistic (F-117’s are NOT air-to-air fighters), I find them fairly useless. Can be used for recon, which saves the Jets for defense. As for the precision strikes, while they can be very useful, they are anything but precise. Seems our Bombers have the ability fly in undetected while avoiding SAMs and fighters, but once at target, attacking a specific structure is something we CANNOT do. No prob, we’ll just launch a “precision” strike at “one of the buildings”. Real Precise. Wanted your Bio Lab – Hit your Hospital, sorry. Also very unusual that with a single strike we can wipe out a factory, but no way can we sink an unarmed transport nearing our coast, no matter how many strikes we make.The big bombers can take off and land on a carrier, but Helos cant?Same logic applies to our “air transports” While Airports can airlift a seemingly endless supply of infantry, etc., it is never, ever allowed to fly in explorers, settlers, workers, even a single VIP (leader).No Artillery allowed!! Hey, it’s got wheels, it can drive there, I guess. Well, I hope this don’t sound too much like a rant, cuz despite all these “flaws”, the combat system is still an improvement over the Civ2 “defending unit killed means entire stack dies”

 

[Rammstein]

I would like for cruise missiles to have a precision strike capability, just like they have in real lilfe.

 

[Tassadar]

Usually the first building to go is barrack,police station,courthouse,cathedral,coliseum, libray-university, then factory and power plant, me i use 20 stealth bomber on city over size 20 and 2 run destroy everything ( i clear the sky first ) but i use a mod with lower defensive value for building and citizen ( i use 4 like original version unsteed of 16 for 1.29f).

So you may need 50-60 stealth bomber to be able to get 15 succeful hit.

 

[DaDoo]

Originally posted by cracker
My list of general bombardment priorities in Civ3:

Destroy improvements of supplies that allow the enemy to wage war

Bombing away majority of the city's improvement does hamper the enemy's way of waging war. For one they can't use that city to produce units to attack nor can it contribute much money to pay upkeep. in some cases, that city might even need to take citizens off of tiles to keep it from rioting. It does work, just it's harder to see that it works, I suppose.