The use of carriers

[DigitalBoy]

Try saying that carriers suck when your battleships and transports are getting raped by airstrikes.

Even with their humble 30 strength, a destroyer could mop up a battleship damaged by an airstrike.

 

[AriochIV]

I wasn't critisising what you were saying I was agreeing with apopholeus813
was saying. Only an idiot would send a Carrier hull to hull against a Battleship. THe Carriers weapons are in its airplanes and not in its meager air-defences.

Historically, a carrier's aircraft should be able to sink a battleship. In Civ4 they can't. Some sort of special anti-ship "torpedo bomber" fighter would be really nice. Granted that it's not needed because the AI is incompetent regarding modern navies, and the modern units in general seem to be an afterthought because of the Space Race, but it would still be nice.

It's also true that there's no "battleship era" in Civ, so to have carrier aircraft able to trump battleships might mean making battleships useless, so I can see why things are the way they are...

 

[Proteus]

Yes, a special torpedo bomber would be nice,
which has more strength than a normal fighter
and can sink ships (but not attack land units)
but on the other hand is extremly vulnerable
to enemy fighters flying CAP and to enemy destroyers.

 

[homan1983]

Its like, I got to have my carriers I like to know I have at least 2 or 3 of them in case some overseas minor (or major) civ gives me problems. Park off the coast, recon and knock out their access to vital resources, goodbye roads, mines, farms, and whatever else. Well no more oil for them now. All of this, and I never had to even step foot on their land. All of the while, I am sitting on my land across the ocean, without much land army at all, my science cranked up and funds rolling in. Guess by this time, my oil flowing in, I may just go ahead and land a small ground force, take some turf. All I have to worry about now is what that enemy had before the battle and any new oil less units it may build. Last important thing, make sure a trade embargo has been signed with others so no overseas oil can be had. I like doing this, its fun

Is it true that you can bomb road/railroads?

I've tried so many times but I've never had the option of bombing once their tile improvement is destroyed.

This is even more iritating as their workers can immediately move onto the Railroaded tile and rebuild what you just destroyed.

 

[alpha wolf 64]

It never lets me bomb roads

 

[Dida]

carriers are nice to have, but they are not cost effective enough, and usually play only minor role in my games, that's why I build at most 3 or 4 of them, and don't keep them fully loaded. If I have spare production, I will build them just for fun, otherwise, they are always at the bottom of my production queue.
Carrier taskforces are only good at harrassing your enemies, and that is too much manual work, for me, to command my fighters to bomb enemy land turn after turn, with little or no effect. Your heavy strike force should always consists of infantry, tanks, artilleries and bombers, add marines if you want.
When you launch and oversea invasion, just use destroyer/battleship to reduce the defense of that city you wish to attack, sacrifice a few artilleries to cause collateral damange and then move in the marines to take over the city. Once you have foothold on the distant continent, you can then move in your bombers for an effective bombing compaign.
Unless your opponents also have a large carrier based navy, you don't need any carrier to achieve your main objectives in the game, they are useless, for the most part.

 

[Jaybe]

Carriers are useful for projection of airpower, but they don't seem to be the battleship-killers that they were in real life. A battleship can swallow up three fighters without a belch.

Since a battleship cannot intercept aircraft in Civ4, that doesn't quite work. I find airpower indispensable to cripple an enemy battleship so my destroyer or battleship (or even maybe a sub or two) can be sure to take it out.

My interpretation of the units
Destroyer: medium task force - destroyers & cruisers
Battleship: heavy task force - cruisers & battleships, a small number of destroyers
Transport: transports and light escort of destroyers

 

[centrelink4]

carriars are crap there to weak and can't carry bombers

Hear hear.

Carriers are pointless.

If your playing the ai, and assuming its not a pangea you need transports to shift your men and a few battleships to guard them. Thats it. No need for carriers. Waste of production.

The ai seems to like to have his own interceptors and sam inf. This negates the small number of fighters you can carry. You get much better value from using that money on artillery. They will have an effect if you go crazy and make 10 carriers, but nowhere near the effect this production spent on more land troops will have.

If you like using planes, use carrier money on more land troops, take a city and rebase your planes there. This land carrier can hold the much more usefull bombers, and has no limit to the number of planes you can base there.

If you want to pillage, drop gunships. They will get the job done faster, attract counter attacks away from your main attack and most importantely they can damage railroads. Your main goal in most pillaging is to stop enemy counter attacks anyway and fighters are useless as they cant pillage roads/rails.

The way war is set up, the navy is only a means to getting your feet on the ground. Controling the seas has no real payoff, once you have shipped your men accross (other then sending more men).

They can recon if you absolutely must. But no better then land based planes, or a sentried destroyer etc.

If your playing another human, well my experience of this is limited, but again I cant see the value in wasting all that production on dozens of ships. Your opponent probably wont be. Competitive human vs human affairs tend to involve the most useful and productive means of attack, not the have a bit of fun lets make a massive carrier task force for nothing strategy.

 

[Dida]

Also remember that, if you have Right of Passage with a civ neighboring the civ you want to attack, you can base your bombers in his cities, and run air raids from there, a few bombers will be 10 times more effective than even 10 fully loaded carrier taskforces.

PS: why the hell can't planes destroy RR and road? they used to be able to do that in civ3, now they are truely useless.

 

[SpriteSODA]

They should change the planes so they wont be able to fly across they entire map to another city, but to need a carier to move them if no city is in range.

 

[Proteus]

Also remember that, if you have Right of Passage with a civ neighboring the civ you want to attack, you can base your bombers in his cities, and run air raids from there, a few bombers will be 10 times more effective than even 10 fully loaded carrier taskforces.

PS: why the hell can't planes destroy RR and road? they used to be able to do that in civ3, now they are truely useless.

They can still be used to deny an enemy civ access to strategic resources
by destroying the mines/pastures ... on the tiles with these resources.

But I agree, planes would be much more useful if they would be able to destroy the transportation infrastructure as well (at least bombers should be able to do this)

 

[Dida]

They can still be used to deny an enemy civ access to strategic resources
by destroying the mines/pastures ... on the tiles with these resources.

But I agree, planes would be much more useful if they would be able to destroy the transportation infrastructure as well (at least bombers should be able to do this)

Well, my point about planes being useless was more of an expression of frustration. Far from useless, planes are useful during war. What is really useless however, is the carrier.

 

[El Koeno]

Also remember that, if you have Right of Passage with a civ neighboring the civ you want to attack, you can base your bombers in his cities, and run air raids from there, a few bombers will be 10 times more effective than even 10 fully loaded carrier taskforces.

PS: why the hell can't planes destroy RR and road? they used to be able to do that in civ3, now they are truely useless.

Make sure your enemy doesn't have Right of Passage too. If that's the case he'll simply move one single land unit in the city where your bombers are based and it's bye bye bombers. Unless you were smart enough to guard them with a land unit that is.

 

[homan1983]

Make sure your enemy doesn't have Right of Passage too. If that's the case he'll simply move one single land unit in the city where your bombers are based and it's bye bye bombers. Unless you were smart enough to guard them with a land unit that is.

Why did you have to bring that up? So many painful memories coming back to me... ARGHHHH!

 

[civ_king]

hello any1 home ????? listen if you group 1 carrier (fully loaded)with 2-3 submarines you can control the seas. because the subs scout out the area the fighters bomb the battleship or destroyer as much as possible then your 90% retreat subs mop them up and gain a ton of exp also muhahaha top that by the way you need 2 give da subs flanking 1-2

 

[alpha wolf 64]

other than sinking what few ships the AI builds, what good are subs? LOL

 

[Warspite2]

Is it true that you can bomb road/railroads?

I've tried so many times but I've never had the option of bombing once their tile improvement is destroyed.

This is even more iritating as their workers can immediately move onto the Railroaded tile and rebuild what you just destroyed.

Sorry, I mislead you, was getting CIV3 and CIV4 confused. Correction, you cannot bomb roads or railroads in CIV4 but can indeed lay waste to the improvements.

 

[Warspite2]

Some of you must not play huge maps on higher levels with alot of ocean or archipelago maps. Just the recon a carrier can provide is totally vital not to mention everything else it can do. Carriers are far from useless in my games, but I do tend to play water heavy maps. You don't need a ton of carriers, just a few in most cases. Sure you can build massive amounts of ground units and land them. Me, I can use my carriers to help take cities and destroy my enemies without any casualties. Don't forget how I mentioned bombing the oil improvements, this will bring your enemy to their knees in no time before you even land your troops. Also in CIV4, the carrier is the only naval unit capable of damaging land units and improvements from long range in the safety of the sea.

A carrier is a very important unit, especially if you are facing a stronger enemy who has more advanced ground armies and larger sizes. Many of times I don't want to use several turns of building a massive ground force and fighting a long war to take cities. Especially if I am going for a tech or cultural victory. Its easier for me to send out a couple of carriers, sit off the coast and bombs away. Destroy alot of their improvements without risking anything at all.

Some menton battleships. I think these are not very useful once you get carriers. Reason being, 3 fighters are extremely versatile and can operate on or off a carrier. Isn't the cost of a battleship more then a carrier? You can't count the cost of the fighters for the reason I mention above. I would rather 3 fighters then one battleship, they can do alot more. There is no other unit more versatile then a fighter. Want range? Try moving a carrier first, then launching the fighters, thats some serious range people. Planes can fight at sea, on land or in the air and at long ranges. Indeed they are powerful, Battleships can only fight at sea or bombard cities.

In the end though, its how a person prefers to play and more importantly the current situation and map type. Some may like using massive ground armies, some may like navies or airforce. The carriers, I think I have found more strategies and uses for those then many players here. More important is how I mention above, move a carrier the use the fighters, extends ranges big time. Can't do this with a city.

At last... give me my carriers!

 

[alpha wolf 64]

I typically build one carrier to soften up the first foreign city that I'm going to invade. After that, my air force moves to that city. The thing about range is that if you are already as close to shore as possible, there still are usually tons of resources outside of your range. Doesnt a BB reduce defenses faster than 3 fighters?

I play on fractal which usually means no more than 4 large continents with almost no small islands.

If carriers planes had the ability to perform the same recons every turn, then the carriers would be 100x more valuable.

 

[Emp. Killyouall]

If you build any carriers outside of an arch map, you've already won or lost. Seriously, the only time I've used them was after I won an SS to just take over the entire map. They are really powerful, and nice to use... Unfortunately, the AI doesn't build enough navy, or use it effectively... I'm going to start a modern era game on Arch to stop my crying...