I have a differing opinion on this - WWII showed to all the nations of the world that battleships have not much use in the "field" of future wars due to the superiority of air units I think that it should be reflected in the game. Battleships should remain and continue to be powerful forces on the ship-to-ship ship-to-ground combat but against air units they have (and should prove) ineffective
Though I DO think that fighters should be used differently. As it stands they are useless to attack land units/sea units and what I thought was their use to protect the bombers as an escort was once again proved wrong.
One option I DO offer though is that fighter have to return to base(as normal civ2) and have two main uses to defend cities/carriers and to attack bombers. Untill the advent of the fighter/bomber this is what they were designed to do. The bombers should only be able to be attacked by fighters NOT battleships (which is where I have my qualms about), maybe there can be a unit called a fighter escort that will defend the otherwise defenceless bombers
I understand people will stack units underneath the bombers thus protecting them and this is what I have never liked even in the normal game of civ2 but there is nothing you can really do against that save an agreement between the people playing (I never intentionally do it), but it just seems ludicrous that battleship can shoot down a squadron of fighters/bombers.
Maybe you can have a ship that can attack air units but NOT battleships, missile cruisers (or AGEIS cruisers) can engage air units but missiles werent developed overly much until the later stages of the war.
WWII in the pacific underlined the importance of airpower, which is why most countries abandoned building the battleships and concentrated on the smaller cruisers and carriers as their navys during the war
All that crap aside:
Fighters SHOULD be the defence of carriers without a fighter defence a carrier is pretty much a sitting duck so a unit of fighters should be the defence of a carrier
Fighters should have the range to sally forth and attack bombers, but because of the crap attack be able to defeat bombers on their own but be less an even match if they have an escort 60/40 in the bombers favour.
Until the advent of fighter/bombers they should no be effective against ground troops
Fighters should have to return to refuel so a move of 5 or 7 should be preferable (move 2, attack return move 3 attack return)
Fighters as before should defend a city Vs air attack in conjunction with AA guns (this is implemented: D)
Additionally bombers should not be able to be attacked by anything but fighters and possibly later ship advanced that include the first missile batteries on them they fly too high up.
Bombers should have a really bad defence, Unless they come with a fighter escort a separate unit that moves along with it (no attack just defence) that has to refuel same as the bombers but annoyingly doesnt have the range (one of the main problems of the bombers in WWII is the fighter escorts didnt have the range of the bombers and had to leave early half the time)
Units stacking should be limited there is no way you can implement this in the game unfortunately but we can make an agreement that no hiding of units should take place
As this is a playtest about the pros cons of units I think it is best we aired this (sorry about the pun) anyhow there are my thoughts on the air power warfare, flame away.
Incidentally if you look at my civ you notice that a single unit is a blow to the Japanese economy I only have about three productive cities
