I'm a fan of big, late game wars in Civ. If I'm ahead and on my way to a win, I'll usually start a tank war just for fun.
One thing I found, especially in hard games where I have to fight (a custom game with all but domination and time VC's turned off), is that stealth bombers are THE unit to have. The are so versatile, mobile, powerful and survivable, I think they become unbalancing.
In a recent game, I had about 25% less military than my two biggest rivals individually, who had an alliance (Together, they had roughly 2.5 times as many units as I did). I knew a war was coming, and to prepare I built a ton of stealth bombers (20-30), a good stack of tanks, and a big enough Navy that I had almost as many ships as one of my opponents. Basically I had no serious troubles defeating these two opponents simultaneously who were more powerful than I, and the key unit for me was the bombers.
I kept my Navy safe in my ports and waited for his ships to come to me. I used fighters/bombers to scout for their approach and would bomb them when they got close to land. Then my ships would pop out of port, kill the enemy stack easily, and pop back into port to repair. Even with the AI's carriers and fighter support, I rarely had a stealth bomber shot down. With a carrier full of fighters, maybe 30% of my bombers would get intercepted - damaged, but not destroyed. The next turn I would set these to heal unless I really needed them. I basically held off a sustained naval attack 2.5 times bigger than my Navy using battleships, a few destroyers, and about 20 stealth bombers. I think I only lost two or three bombers to his carrier fighters and about 30% of my fleet. In contrast, I destroyed all but 20% of both my enemies fleets.
Once his Navy was pretty much gone, his big stacks of land units finally made it to my border citys. The stealth bombers combined with small stacks of tanks make quick work of his superior numbers. The bombers would, again, simply punch down his stacks to 50%, and my tanks would mop them up with little to no casualties.
After you have some stealth bombers in this game, artillery becomes worthless. Artillery can't keep up with tanks, and the bomber's range means a smaller number of units can cover a much larger area for defense or offense. Attacking with artillery to reduce a whole stack will sacrifice the arty 99% of the time - not so with bombers. Bombers can give your defenders a much better chance of success simply by reducing the combat power of a whole stack. Also, with bombers, I don't need to spend promotions on collateral damage improvements and can concentrate on combat, city attack or flanking. I also find little need for gunships, since tanks+mech inf + bomber support can easily take out any enemy stack with up to 2x the number of units your stack has.
So, does anyone else feel this is overpowered? It seems that sam infantry or maybe fighters should get a promotion to improve their chances against stealth bombers. As it is, the rate at which bombers actually get destroyed is very low. The worst that happens is the bomber gets damaged, but 1-2 turns later, it is back at 100%.
The AI isn't always very smart, but Stealth Bombers would be almost as effective against a human opponent, simply because there isn't mechanism in the game that reliably counters them. Since it's so easy to rebase them, capturing the city they're in is not an option.
/discuss
One thing I found, especially in hard games where I have to fight (a custom game with all but domination and time VC's turned off), is that stealth bombers are THE unit to have. The are so versatile, mobile, powerful and survivable, I think they become unbalancing.
In a recent game, I had about 25% less military than my two biggest rivals individually, who had an alliance (Together, they had roughly 2.5 times as many units as I did). I knew a war was coming, and to prepare I built a ton of stealth bombers (20-30), a good stack of tanks, and a big enough Navy that I had almost as many ships as one of my opponents. Basically I had no serious troubles defeating these two opponents simultaneously who were more powerful than I, and the key unit for me was the bombers.
I kept my Navy safe in my ports and waited for his ships to come to me. I used fighters/bombers to scout for their approach and would bomb them when they got close to land. Then my ships would pop out of port, kill the enemy stack easily, and pop back into port to repair. Even with the AI's carriers and fighter support, I rarely had a stealth bomber shot down. With a carrier full of fighters, maybe 30% of my bombers would get intercepted - damaged, but not destroyed. The next turn I would set these to heal unless I really needed them. I basically held off a sustained naval attack 2.5 times bigger than my Navy using battleships, a few destroyers, and about 20 stealth bombers. I think I only lost two or three bombers to his carrier fighters and about 30% of my fleet. In contrast, I destroyed all but 20% of both my enemies fleets.
Once his Navy was pretty much gone, his big stacks of land units finally made it to my border citys. The stealth bombers combined with small stacks of tanks make quick work of his superior numbers. The bombers would, again, simply punch down his stacks to 50%, and my tanks would mop them up with little to no casualties.
After you have some stealth bombers in this game, artillery becomes worthless. Artillery can't keep up with tanks, and the bomber's range means a smaller number of units can cover a much larger area for defense or offense. Attacking with artillery to reduce a whole stack will sacrifice the arty 99% of the time - not so with bombers. Bombers can give your defenders a much better chance of success simply by reducing the combat power of a whole stack. Also, with bombers, I don't need to spend promotions on collateral damage improvements and can concentrate on combat, city attack or flanking. I also find little need for gunships, since tanks+mech inf + bomber support can easily take out any enemy stack with up to 2x the number of units your stack has.
So, does anyone else feel this is overpowered? It seems that sam infantry or maybe fighters should get a promotion to improve their chances against stealth bombers. As it is, the rate at which bombers actually get destroyed is very low. The worst that happens is the bomber gets damaged, but 1-2 turns later, it is back at 100%.
The AI isn't always very smart, but Stealth Bombers would be almost as effective against a human opponent, simply because there isn't mechanism in the game that reliably counters them. Since it's so easy to rebase them, capturing the city they're in is not an option.
/discuss
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