Suggestion: strengthen the carrier!!

[Quagga]

... but wouldn't it be better to make America's unique unit the supercarrier instead of making it a standard unit?

This makes almost too much sense!

 

[qwert]

No, it doesn´t made any sense.
Today only America has Steathl Bombers, and because of their cost it is very probably that no other nation will have build any other before the B-2 goes obsolete, in fact the f-35 and f-22 are going to replace the f-117. But this is because there are no needs for such units because there is no risk of wars between mayor powers.

In civ there are wars between mayor world powers, because of this it is logical that all powers want to build and use the most useful weapons that are technologicaly posible. This is why every civ can build steahlt bombers.

But you are wrong at saying that only the US has supercarriers. While no other country has carriers as big as the US ones, France has a group of big nuclear carriers and the UK had some until recently, and they are now building new ones. India is also one country that has a small fleet of jet-carriyng aircraft carriers. Not to forget that the USSR had a big aircraft carrier program before the country collapsed.

 

[marioflag]

I think this is the central point- carriers should be the most important naval unit in the modern age, but instead they're arguably the least important (when compared to destroyers/stealth destroyers, which can find subs and blockade, and missile cruisers, which can carry missiles and have high brute strength). The sad relegation of air power in civ naval battles to an auxiliary function means that modern civ naval battles are a lot like WW1-era real life battles- tons of ships slugging it out at close range. Aircraft, sometimes carrier-based, undoubtedly play a part, but due to the small capacity of carriers and the inability of fighters to deal lethal damage, they're not the primary damage-dealer, as they should be.

Undoubtedly, the carrier unit in itself should not have high strength; 16 for the carrier and perhaps 18-20 for a supercarrier would suffice. But a supercarrier's speed should be around 8, and it should gain recon bonuses and first strikes based on the number of aircraft aboard. That's the way it works in real life; and my maxim is, unless it presents a very serious game balance problem or unnecessarily complicates the game, civ should be fairly realistic. Since this change would just adjust the balances, not destroy them, and it's hardly very complicated, no one seems to have anything to lose in including it.

I'm sure the only way to strenghten Carrier should have been the introducion of a Naval Bomber unit.
Carriers should remain really easy to destroy if unescorted but perhaps making them a bit better as air support for your fleet would have made them a bit more realistic.A realistic implementation i'm sure would have destroyed game balance and we wouldn't have a naval warfare as fun because in modern naval warfare we don't have naval battles as in WWI and WWII.
Making a Naval Bomber loaded on this ship able only to bombard ships with an higher max damage like 75% strength (lethal bombardment is OP) would have made those ship a lot more important, with Fighter on Carriers able to intercept Naval Bombers, Carriers would have become both more important to attack ships both more important as countermeasure to air attacks, and Carriers would have got also more functions: antiair and air support for troops with only fighters, antiair,antinaval role and air support for troops with both fighters and Naval bombers, antinaval role with only Naval bombers.
To balance it all modern ships should have higher strength so that Naval Bombers wouldn't make enemy modern ship attacked easily destroyable by industrial era ships like Frigates or Ship of the Line.

 

[bloodhawk]

No, it doesn´t made any sense.
Today only America has Steathl Bombers, and because of their cost it is very probably that no other nation will have build any other before the B-2 goes obsolete, in fact the f-35 and f-22 are going to replace the f-117. But this is because there are no needs for such units because there is no risk of wars between mayor powers.

In civ there are wars between mayor world powers, because of this it is logical that all powers want to build and use the most useful weapons that are technologicaly posible. This is why every civ can build steahlt bombers.

But you are wrong at saying that only the US has supercarriers. While no other country has carriers as big as the US ones, France has a group of big nuclear carriers and the UK had some until recently, and they are now building new ones. India is also one country that has a small fleet of jet-carriyng aircraft carriers. Not to forget that the USSR had a big aircraft carrier program before the country collapsed.

Every civ can build stealth bombers because making it a UU would necessitate replacing something, and that would make no sense.
The 'supercarrier', however, could be a the American UU, because it would replace the standard carrier. The current and future French and UK carriers carry 48 aircraft, which would be represented by being able to carry 4 air units. The Nimitz can carry up to 90 aircraft, and the new class may be even larger. And extra 3 or 4 air units qualifies it as a UU, and its thematically appropriate too, at least more so than the SEAL.