Role of bombers in relation to fighters

[CrazyG]

The are land that ship cannot reach, and using both land units AND planes make things done a lot quicker because the limitation of space. The biggest strength of planes is they dont need a tile to sit on (well just a city).

That's what I mean by specific terrain. It works well in chokepoints like mountains or lakes. Or I guess along coast. But in general things like fighters are a lot of hammers spent on a unit that does not deal very much damage.

 

[Enginseer]

inb4 we buff aircraft to its original vanilla state and then someone complains and gets a nerf again

 

[Minh Le]

That's what I mean by specific terrain. It works well in chokepoints like mountains or lakes. Or I guess along coast. But in general things like fighters are a lot of hammers spent on a unit that does not deal very much damage.

I mean theyre useful but not neccessary. When I have all the land units I need, I dont have enough tiles for more, then I build planes, because whatelse can I build? I dont need buildings, happiness,... At that point of the game. And planes can speed things up a bit.

 

[Owlbebach]

The are land that ship cannot reach, and using both land units AND planes make things done a lot quicker because the limitation of space. The biggest strength of planes is they dont need a tile to sit on (well just a city).

This is true, but another question is - do you really need to fight there? You can use land units and attack another neighbor instead of trying to get through this chokepoint.

In my opinion it would be way more interesting if planes are cheaper and become available earlier. War almost does not change from classical to Modern Era. You just get stronger units but they act exactly the same. On the other hand if you take a look at real world - air domination is everything, even the biggest army has zero chances of winnign without ar domination. It would be much more cool if starting from Modern Era war is about planes and anti-air units and then you have couple of tanks that you only need to do final move

My question to people building planes is have you tried spending a similar amount of hammers and gold on other military units and compared the two approaches?

Exactly my feeling. When planes are available i just look that they take 15 turns to build and become upset. I only build them when i have a huge lead - as a toy, because i can.

Do you enjoy this? Do you care that the Information Era might as well not exist for you?

When i' play science - whole Information Era usually take 15-20 turns. When i play something other than science - it already does not exist because i just shift-click technologies that i need and after that do not care about science screen

 

[Stalker0]

Exactly my feeling. When planes are available i just look that they take 15 turns to build and become upset. n

Planes are expensive but not that expensive. It doesn't take me 15 turns to build them. Also...you can of course buy them.

 

[Gazebo]

The best way to balance late game units is to make the late game last longer. Dropping production values is a band aid. Inflating late game tech costs may make the science victory virtually unattainable, however.

G

 

[Owlbebach]

The best way to balance late game units is to make the late game last longer. Dropping production values is a band aid. Inflating late game tech costs may make the science victory virtually unattainable, however.

G

But it does not solve the problem. Problem is cost-effectiveness of planes vs other units.

 

[Mad Madigan]

Dropping production costs for post-Industrial units may be a bandaid, but it could also be just enough to smooth out this wrinkle. I agree that inflating tech costs is the worse option as it does nothing but drag on the game for non-Domination victories. I've commented before that the cost versus cost of post-Industrial units needs adjustment as it is currently way too inefficient to produce new units in the later Eras given how many relative turns they require. Even in cities with full to near-full infrastructure (Ex: All buildings save for maybe a coal/nuclear/solar/wind/hydro plant) it takes 10-16 turns in Epic (6-9 turns Standard) to produce Bombers, Tanks, Machine Guns, etc. In that same number of turns I could build two new buildings or a Wonder, or if at war conquer several cities. And that's for a high-production, non-Capital city with full military infrastructure. Once you get to the Modern Era things progress at a rapid pace if you're playing well, unlocking new technologies every 10 turns or so (again, on Epic) with lots of Great People and instant yield bonuses to speed up Tech and Policy accumulation. Wars start and end over the course of a dozen or two turns, and entering the Modern Era means you suddenly have to start worrying about a large variety of unit types. You can't just upgrade all your old units as you'll need to start producing submarines, AA guns, aircraft, missiles, nukes, and carriers all from scratch. And with the unit costs currently as they are, there just isn't enough time to make all these new unit types before you move on in tech. Thus I almost always end up purchasing new units rather than producing them.

I'm not suggesting anything major here. I think a fare start would be lowering costs for Modern Era units by 10-15%, and then Atomic and Information Era units by 15-20%. Then increasing the purchase costs of these units by at least 10-15% as well.

 

[Stalker0]

Dropping production costs for post-Industrial units may be a bandaid, but it could also be just enough to smooth out this wrinkle. I agree that inflating tech costs is the worse option as it does nothing but drag on the game for non-Domination victories. I've commented before that the cost versus cost of post-Industrial units needs adjustment as it is currently way too inefficient to produce new units in the later Eras given how many relative turns they require. Even in cities with full to near-full infrastructure (Ex: All buildings save for maybe a coal/nuclear/solar/wind/hydro plant) it takes 10-16 turns in Epic (6-9 turns Standard) to produce Bombers, Tanks, Machine Guns, etc. In that same number of turns I could build two new buildings or a Wonder, or if at war conquer several cities. And that's for a high-production, non-Capital city with full military infrastructure. Once you get to the Modern Era things progress at a rapid pace if you're playing well, unlocking new technologies every 10 turns or so (again, on Epic) with lots of Great People and instant yield bonuses to speed up Tech and Policy accumulation. Wars start and end over the course of a dozen or two turns, and entering the Modern Era means you suddenly have to start worrying about a large variety of unit types. You can't just upgrade all your old units as you'll need to start producing submarines, AA guns, aircraft, missiles, nukes, and carriers all from scratch. And with the unit costs currently as they are, there just isn't enough time to make all these new unit types before you move on in tech. Thus I almost always end up purchasing new units rather than producing them.

I'm not suggesting anything major here. I think a fare start would be lowering costs for Modern Era units by 10-15%, and then Atomic and Information Era units by 15-20%. Then increasing the purchase costs of these units by at least 10-15% as well.

I’m on board with the production reduction, not the cost increase. The argument is thst new units don’t show up fast enough late game. Fair enough, but no reason to nerf the very mechanic that allows for fast late game unit production (aka unit buying). You don’t need to do both, a reasonable hammer reduction would be enough.

 

[TheBigFundamental]

AA units are way too strong, both against air units and against other units. Fighters are too strong vs. bombers. Fighters, IIRC, take damage when attacking cities&non-aerial units, which is counter-intuitive and unrealistic.

Those are some of the reasons why in a tight game I don't bother with air units, I just build AA units because they're great against all units.

 

[CrazyG]

The best way to balance late game units is to make the late game last longer. Dropping production values is a band aid. Inflating late game tech costs may make the science victory virtually unattainable, however.

G

I disagree. Often times the end game is just waiting to get the tech you need to formalize a victory.

If you make science costs higher, it makes culture more appealing than other peaceful victories. The problem is just air units, not units in general. Make the units themselves cheaper. Or add like +25% production of military units to factories, this way units are built faster, without throwing off the balance of buildings.

 

[Owlbebach]

add like +25% production of military units to factories, this way units are built faster, without throwing off the balance of buildings.

You meant air units, right?

 

[chicorbeef]

Let's not over think this and throw off the balance regarding Factories. Just reduce the costs of planes.

 

[Minh Le]

But then we still never build bomber, because fighter is much better. An anti - land units promotion line for bomber sounds reasonable.

 

[tu_79]

Bombers should excell at sinking ships.

 

[vyyt]

@Borussia , I thought the same thing. I tried giving the fighters a malus against land and naval units and also cities in my mod-mod(-mod). I also moved flight one tier earlier in the tech tree.

I am currently testing it in my game and I just reached the Modern era and built my first triplane. I am in no war at the moment, but I am pretty sure it will change soon. I will report back on my findings.

 

[Stalker0]

There's a lot of sentiments being thrown around in the thread right now, so I wanted to summarize them and give my thoughts:

1) The end game comes too quickly, which is why planes aren't used.

This might be true, but ultimately we may be past the point of a true correction here. The fundamental problem is the Dom Victory, there is no real way to stop a player from winning at war much earlier than other types. So even if the other types occur at roughly the same time, pushing them back simply makes the DomV stronger.

2) Planes are too expensive, and should get a cost decrease.

I think this is reasonable, as at this point most of your units are already built, so planes being a new type have to get started from scratch. A cost decrease makes sense to me.

3) Planes are too weak in general, and don't compete with ground units.

I'll strongly disagree here. Planes are amazing, they can systematically take out any units they wish, they can instantly move across your territory to respond to other threats, and they can keep hitting again and again without worrying about counterattack.

Land units need more protection, or for melee have to attack and then heal in order to avoid getting snipped. And in choke points, land units can only bring so much force to bear, where planes can stack their offense 10 fold on a single tile.

So while I can agree it takes too much to get them going, once you have a strong airforce, they wreck land forces. I see no reason to give them a big buff.

4) Bombers are too weak to fighters.

I agree. Fighters are significantly more versatile than bombers, and only suffer on city attacks. Otherwise, they are just a superior unit in just about every other way.

 

[Rekk]

The best way to balance late game units is to make the late game last longer. Dropping production values is a band aid. Inflating late game tech costs may make the science victory virtually unattainable, however.

G

I'm fine with making the late game last longer, but it needs to be longer for all victory conditions and needs to be meaningful.

Are modifications to victory conditions worth spending the time on at this point? I'll always say yes, but I think it'll significantly interfere with the gold release date.

More immediate concerns are cost effectiveness of air vs other units, and the cost effectiveness of fighter vs bomber.

 

[tu_79]

Reduce production cost a little, give bombers a bonus vs ships and I think we will be done.

I agree we should not change end game duration at this stage.

 

[vyyt]

Reduce production cost a little, give bombers a bonus vs ships and I think we will be done.

I agree we should not change end game duration at this stage.

I'd rather give a malus against land and sea units to fighters.