Planes + Rocket Artillery + Drones = OP

[civfan_999]

Planes alone are a bit broken and OP. Reasons:

• They have an insane attack range. You can even build airstrips in the front to push the attack range even further, though its rarely necessary.
• They don't take damage when attacking unless there is anti-air, a jet fighter, or a death robot in the vicinity
• It only costs 190 gold to upgrade a bomber to a jet bomber (It costs more than 1,000 to do some other upgrades to your army units. This is insanely cheap by comparison.

Add to planes, the fact that a level 4 rocket artillery with a drone can shoot from 5 tiles away, and you are untouchable.

The AI places their cities so close together and builds so many encampments that when advancing across enemy territory you can literally keep all your units safe from harm. One rocket artillery with a drone in a city. Another rocket artillery with a drone in an encampment. Maybe another rocket artillery one tile behind the city or encampment and still impacted by the drone. Then you have a few planes (or really as many as you can with your available aluminium). Plus, the drones give vision, so you don't even need a spotter melee front line unit like you used to.

All that together and you are shooting cities when they likely can't even tell what is hitting them. They probably can't see my rocket artillery because its so far away. They definitely can't see where my planes are coming from because they are very far away. (Unless they have spies.)

Yeah, the AI should be building anti air and jet fighters, but they don't build much of either. And even then, that only helps them against the planes. What do they do about my rocket artillery that is whittling down their defenses while hiding in cities and encampments? I've never had to play against this strategy, but I don't know how you would defend against it.

Late game, a few planes, a few rocket artillery, a drone or two, and a single helicopter or tank to take the city when it reaches 0 are all you need. It's a little crazy. I don't know what the fix is, but this is very broken IMO.

 

[Sostratus]

Yeah, the AI should be building anti air and jet fighters, but they don't build much of either. And even then, that only helps them against the planes. What do they do about my rocket artillery that is whittling down their defenses while hiding in cities and encampments? I've never had to play against this strategy, but I don't know how you would defend against it.

Well obviously you would have air defenses, to start with. That will put the kibosh on bomber sortie rates real quick. If my air defense deals ~45 damage (only need a 10ish point gap in strength to get this) a bomber will usually die after 2 interceptions if it doesn't heal.
A fighter intercepting a bomber of equal tech level will always cause any strategic action like nuking or bombing a tile to fail (when the bomber loses at least 50% of its hp, it won't attack before retreating.) A SAM battery is less potent but still can limit your bomber to 1 sortie then heal. Missile Cruisers have a ridiculous air defense of 110 base that increases with fleet/armada status. I haven't checked it if gets the full +17 from armada (patch notes only mention +7 for fleet) but if so that's a one shot on jet bombers. So parking some ships in your coastal cities can substitute for defensive jet fighter coverage.

Generally speaking though, the air war favors the defender - each bomber means one less fighter you can field, and the defender only needs fighters.

Dealing with rocket artillery...
Option 1:
The rocket artillery is a land unit, and you need a land army protecting them. (Recall that a competent defender will have your bombers heavily mitigated.) This means the defender's land forces can engage yours and either break the screening force and drive to the rockets, or a fighter can snipe them directly. At only 70 melee strength, A jet fighter will one shot a Rocket Corps. A Rocket Army will barely hold on. The key is just abusing the fact that fighter aircraft are basically the late game ranged units. But, since Aluminum is so fickle, there's little chance each side has comparable aluminum income, so it's more likely that the better air force will steamroll (rough empire sizes being equal.)

Option 2: Nukes. Nukes everywhere. (On your border, before they get in.)
Option 2.5: when available, the people's protector, ol' St. Giant Death Robot

It's a little crazy. I don't know what the fix is, but this is very broken IMO.

Making the AI build fighters, at least, and possibly granting encampments innate air defense at some tech. (I'm iffy on city centers.) Civ5 had the same end game strategy of bomber blitz.
Ultimately, this kind of operation really only works against people who are not at your level militarily. I'm also a big advocate for some kind of way to generate aluminum & oil income if you don't have any, at least before the Aerospace Contractors future era policy. That would also help a lot of the imbalances of the resource system.

 

[civfan_999]

The rocket artillery is a land unit, and you need a land army protecting them. (Recall that a competent defender will have your bombers heavily mitigated.) This means the defender's land forces can engage yours and either break the screening force and drive to the rockets, or a fighter can snipe them directly. At only 70 melee strength, A jet fighter will one shot a Rocket Corps. A Rocket Army will barely hold on. The key is just abusing the fact that fighter aircraft are basically the late game ranged units. But, since Aluminum is so fickle, there's little chance each side has comparable aluminum income, so it's more likely that the better air force will steamroll (rough empire sizes being equal.)

This is missing that I noted my rocket artillery is shooting the AI cities and encampments from inside my cities and encampments. So the AI can't get my rocket artillery and drone without taking out the walls and HP of the city and encampment, which basically makes my rocket artillery untouchable. This would never be possible without the ridiculous range, but being able to shoot from 5 tiles away means that you can be defensive and aggressive at the same time.

I'm also a big advocate for some kind of way to generate aluminum & oil income if you don't have any, at least before the Aerospace Contractors future era policy. That would also help a lot of the imbalances of the resource system.

I definitely agree with this. The lack of access to resources can be a game changing problem. Without niter, you basically can't do mid-game war (no bombards and no musket men). Without coal, oil, and aluminium, you are seriously handicapped in the late game.

Anther big issue here is that the AI and city states really don't use builders enough. I had a recent game where the only two aluminium tiles anywhere near me were in a city state territory. I already was its suzerain by the time aluminium was displayed on the map. Yet, the city state didn't have either tile developed. It had a builder walking around, so I waited a dozen turns, but after it built two farms and lost its builder, my only choice was to declare war and take it over. It would be nice if city states actually improved their luxury and strategic resources. In absence of that, a suzerain should be able to benevolently send over a builder and improve the tiles for them.

 

[Buktu]

If you hide your artillery in cities/encampments the defender can try to kill all your melee units. I mean planes and artillery can knock down cities but they can't take them on their own. Also you can try to block the path to your cities with your own units. Sure rocket artillery can shot units as well, but they suffer a quite high penalty against units and even with all promotions they end up quite even iirc. Or the defender can take back the city once it is conquered.
Also if the attacking ground forces are defeated you might also lose rocket artilleries in cities, if the defender can reconquer them.

 

[Sostratus]

This is missing that I noted my rocket artillery is shooting the AI cities and encampments from inside my cities and encampments. So the AI can't get my rocket artillery and drone without taking out the walls and HP of the city and encampment, which basically makes my rocket artillery untouchable. This would never be possible without the ridiculous range, but being able to shoot from 5 tiles away means that you can be defensive and aggressive at the same time.

As the other poster mentioned, controlling the melee line is critical (against competent defense.) besides just blocking the incoming tank, if the defender has control over the front line they can pull all sorts of stunts, including using a Spec ops to remove the Drone.

When you seize a city after bringing down the walls, you don’t get any repairs (except the edge case where you have steel but they don’t.)
This means the defender can just use his fighter jets to zap that green bar of health and use his own tank to retake the city. Or encampment- wherever your rocket is hiding!
(General harassment can ensure you never get to repair your walls.)

Remember that war is both ways- you need to advance your front line and defend it. The defender may have his own promoted rocket artillery etc.

 

[Illianor123]

The lack of air units from the ai is the main problem for single player. Even a bunch of aa units would help. You can fight an ai on an equal tech footing and bring a bunch of planes and they won’t build anything to stop you.
The AI have no defense and no offense once you unlock air.

against players the gameplay is more balanced. Access to strategic resources is the main tiebreaker