Modern Age Air Power Question

[chrisgatt7]

Hello Everyone,

After watching both LIVE streams show casing off the Modern Age, I have a couple questions.



So, stated in one of the streams was the fact Fighter aircraft can NOT be deployed to protect specific areas of the map. Previously in Civ 5/6 the ability to intercept was only adjacent to the aircraft. Now if I cannot deploy fighter aircraft to specific areas of my territory and they only protect one tile adjacent to the airfield how am I supposed to protect my empire from air attack.

Side Note: I have NOT seen any Anti air gun or battery units like in previous CIV entries possibly showing or the Anti air ability from Modern Naval units.



What yal think ?

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Fighters defend the area around their aerodrome/squadron commander/carrier, and squadron commanders and carriers can be moved around the map. Thus Fighters provide point air defense via positioning of the Commanders and Carriers and buiding Aerodromes in hostile areas. There is no ground-based air defense.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Fighters defend the area around their aerodrome/squadron commander/carrier, and squadron commanders and carriers can be moved around the map. Thus Fighters provide point air defense via positioning of the Commanders and Carriers and buiding Aerodromes in hostile areas. There is no ground-based air defense

As part of the general simplification of mechanics in the game compared to earlier Civs, they have apparently left out not only ground-based air defense, but also strategic air attack. At least, I have not seen any example of air units attacking buildings, structures, districts, railroads or other 'fixed' infrastructure.

Not sure how I feel about that. Only the USA and Britain actually formed and maintained strategic air forces in WWII, and it took an immense amount of resources to build the forces to mount 1000-plane raids that devastated German cities, but not having the option at all removes another strategic/grand strategic decision from the gamer in the Modern Age.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

As part of the general simplification of mechanics in the game compared to earlier Civs, they have apparently left out not only ground-based air defense, but also strategic air attack. At least, I have not seen any example of air units attacking buildings, structures, districts, railroads or other 'fixed' infrastructure.

Not sure how I feel about that. Only the USA and Britain actually formed and maintained strategic air forces in WWII, and it took an immense amount of resources to build the forces to mount 1000-plane raids that devastated German cities, but not having the option at all removes another strategic/grand strategic decision from the gamer in the Modern Age.

France had a small strategic bomber wing in the 1920s and 30s. Unfortunately, there was a lot of infighting within the Armee de l'Air about their policies and objectives. The horrendous result was the commissioning of jack-of-all-trades aircraft that in theory could be ground attack, strategic bombers, and heavy interceptors. These lumbering behemoths succeeded in none of these roles.

Perhaps the cruelist irony is that they feared Germany would develop a strategic bomber force and utterly destroy Paris, however Germany ended up using the same bomber policy that the French used in WW1: focusing on using light and medium bombers to support ground assaults. They never needed heavy interceptors.

The French did smarten up around 1938 (the right people won the infighting), but the newer, faster, sleeker, better armed designs came too little too late.

 

[chrisgatt7]

Fighters defend the area around their aerodrome/squadron commander/carrier, and squadron commanders and carriers can be moved around the map. Thus Fighters provide point air defense via positioning of the Commanders and Carriers and buiding Aerodromes in hostile areas. There is no ground-based air defense.

Yes but taking Carriers out of the equation your air commander can only move onto an tile with an airfield.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Yes but taking Carriers out of the equation your air commander can only move onto an tile with an airfield.

Your air commander IS the airfield. They can go on any flat terrain in friendly territory

 

[chrisgatt7]

Your air commander IS the airfield. They can go on any flat terrain in friendly territory

That is silly, I get the idea of having a mobile temperry airfield but no actual airdrome is crazy

 

[AriochIV]

That is silly, I get the idea of having a mobile temperry airfield but no actual airdrome is crazy

There is also an Aerodrome building/improvement, which acts like an immobile Squadron Commander. Both exist.

Aerodrome (permanent airfield)

Squadron Commander (temporary airfield)

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

That is silly, I get the idea of having a mobile temperry airfield but no actual airdrome is crazy

You have three things:

An Aerodrome, which is a building. It's where Air units are made.

A Squadron Commander, which is effectively a mobile air base.

An Aircraft Carrier, a sea-going air base.

 

[Rajendran_P]

I suppose more gameplay content, like anti-air weapons, Surface-To-Air-Missile, Advanced Fighter/ Bomber, etc will be released in future DLCs

 

[chrisgatt7]

I suppose more gameplay content, like anti-air weapons, Surface-To-Air-Missile, Advanced Fighter/ Bomber, etc will be released in future DLCs

we need anti air weapons and anti air naval units

 

[Taefin]

we need anti air weapons and anti air naval units

Idk, I think the fighter will fill this role. It fits the AI mechanic of “buy the unit and put it in the most normal place and hope it works”.

 

[chrisgatt7]

Idk, I think the fighter will fill this role. It fits the AI mechanic of “buy the unit and put it in the most normal place and hope it works”.

Hopefully they will do better inregards to the air power. Ai has traditionally sucked at Airpower.

 

[Krikkit1]

As part of the general simplification of mechanics in the game compared to earlier Civs, they have apparently left out not only ground-based air defense, but also strategic air attack. At least, I have not seen any example of air units attacking buildings, structures, districts, railroads or other 'fixed' infrastructure.

Not sure how I feel about that. Only the USA and Britain actually formed and maintained strategic air forces in WWII, and it took an immense amount of resources to build the forces to mount 1000-plane raids that devastated German cities, but not having the option at all removes another strategic/grand strategic decision from the gamer in the Modern Age.

No they had that.
3 air units
anti ground/sea unit
anti air
anti city district

Hopefully attacking a district damages buildings besides just the “walls”. But since there’s an air unit specializing in city attack I would hope it could also attack unwalled districts.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

The real question for me is : "how far away from airfield can fighter intercept an incoming aircraft?"

• If it's just one tile like in previous games, then air defense will be really difficult without the ability to position our fighters where we want them to intercept enemies (commanders will be few and far between, carriers can't go on the land and there's no sign of a "military engineer" type of worker to plant airbases in strategic locations, just the airport which as a district will have to be part of your city-sprawl)
• If it increases to 2-3 tiles, then we (and the AI) will be able to defend much more efficiently with only a few airports required to protect our borders

Not sure which one i'd prefer, but the AI would certainly be helped by wider defensive radius for fighters

 

[Krikkit1]

The real question for me is : "how far away from airfield can fighter intercept an incoming aircraft?"

• If it's just one tile like in previous games, then air defense will be really difficult without the ability to position our fighters where we want them to intercept enemies (commanders will be few and far between, carriers can't go on the land and there's no sign of a "military engineer" type of worker to plant airbases in strategic locations, just the airport which as a district will have to be part of your city-sprawl)
• If it increases to 2-3 tiles, then we (and the AI) will be able to defend much more efficiently with only a few airports required to protect our borders

Not sure which one i'd prefer, but the AI would certainly be helped by wider defensive radius for fighters

It seems to be more like 4-6 tiles

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

France had a small strategic bomber wing in the 1920s and 30s. Unfortunately, there was a lot of infighting within the Armee de l'Air about their policies and objectives. The horrendous result was the commissioning of jack-of-all-trades aircraft that in theory could be ground attack, strategic bombers, and heavy interceptors. These lumbering behemoths succeeded in none of these roles.

Perhaps the cruelist irony is that they feared Germany would develop a strategic bomber force and utterly destroy Paris, however Germany ended up using the same bomber policy that the French used in WW1: focusing on using light and medium bombers to support ground assaults. They never needed heavy interceptors.

The French did smarten up around 1938 (the right people won the infighting), but the newer, faster, sleeker, better armed designs came too little too late.

The Soviet Union actually had a separate 'strategic bomber force', the DBA, in the late 1930s, complete with the TB-3, the first 4-engined 'heavy' bomber (heavy in quotes because its bomb load was laughable conpared to later aircraft). By 1941 they had 1500 heavy bombers in their Long Range Air Force, organized into 5 Air Corps.

But, like the French (and the Germans, Italians, Japanese and everybody else except the UK/USA) they never developed the infrastructure to produce and field heavy long range bombers by the hundreds and get them all over the target to produce concentrated attacks that flattened the entire center of a city, and were able to keep coming back to keep the city flattened. While everybody from Douhet on talked about 'destruction from the air' of cities and civilian populations, nobody realized until they tried it just how much work it required, in personnel on the ground repairing, refueling, reloading the aircraft, target finders to lead the bombers to the target, fighters to protect the bombers to and from the target (and fighters that required special long range capabilities to do that) and even specialized munitions and combination of munitions to do the most effective damage to the targets.

The strategic air war turned out to be quite a separate and expensive war to wage, and it turned out to be quite beyond the capabilities of most countries, even those that thought they could wage it before 1939, Having a sleek 4-engined long range bomber was really the easiest part of the bucket of problems that had to be solved.

 

[Gen.Washington]

As part of the general simplification of mechanics in the game compared to earlier Civs, they have apparently left out not only ground-based air defense, but also strategic air attack. At least, I have not seen any example of air units attacking buildings, structures, districts, railroads or other 'fixed' infrastructure.

Not sure how I feel about that. Only the USA and Britain actually formed and maintained strategic air forces in WWII, and it took an immense amount of resources to build the forces to mount 1000-plane raids that devastated German cities, but not having the option at all removes another strategic/grand strategic decision from the gamer in the Modern Age.

Strategic bombing and AA guns absolutely need to be added back. Strategic bombing almost plays a bigger role than ground combat in post-WW2 warfare irl. War should be a tool to disable the enemy without actually taking cities.

 

[Taefin]

If there is going to be an AA unit, I would put it on the tech tree as an automatic upgrade to walled districts. This would also lessen the imbalance in games where the player gains an air advantage, where in 6 the steamrolling began. Interestingly the AI in 6 had the capability (buried somewhere) to conquer cities using bombers and land units, getting into a rhythm of capturing a city every turn or two, but I only saw it deployed in an all-AI game with various tweaks to their decision weightings. If not actively disabled in the coding of 7, I suspect that if the AI builds the units, they will use them.

 

[Krikkit1]

If there is going to be an AA unit, I would put it on the tech tree as an automatic upgrade to walled districts. This would also lessen the imbalance in games where the player gains an air advantage, where in 6 the steamrolling began. Interestingly the AI in 6 had the capability (buried somewhere) to conquer cities using bombers and land units, getting into a rhythm of capturing a city every turn or two, but I only saw it deployed in an all-AI game with various tweaks to their decision weightings. If not actively disabled in the coding of 7, I suspect that if the AI builds the units, they will use them.

An upgrade to walled districts and commanders seems appropriate