What exactly is wrong with Air combat?

[Tech Osen]

Like desert being easy terrain to move through, this might be a Civ wrinkle that takes me a while to assimilate. Sometimes I still catch myself wanting to march my troops around the desert instead of straight through it.

Sometimes it's the little things. I still wonder who would rather live on a baren tundra penninsula in an artic ocean than on a grasland hill next to some jungle.

 

[Yavid]

Thanks. I assumed otherwise. My bad for extrapolating Civ 5 rules to Civ 6.

You're Welcome, As far as I can tell there is no reason to not have a fighter on patrol

 

[Yavid]

I don't know if it's been said yet but another thing wrong with air combat/ air units is losing your fighters or bombers from your carrier and having to go back and get them.

 

[Jaybe]

I don't know if it's been said yet but another thing wrong with air combat/ air units is losing your fighters or bombers from your carrier and having to go back and get them.

I’m having that problem in my current game. Worse when you don’t notice it for a couple turns. My remedies atm are (1) have fighters skip turns instead of sleep (laborious), and (2) bring an extra empty carrier along as a backup.

Carriers which conduct a naval attack will generally leave their fighters behind.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Carriers which conduct a naval attack will generally leave their fighters behind.

Carriers which conduct naval attacks are unlike any carriers ever built. Even cruiser-converted carriers in WW2 didn't retain the gun deck.

 

[Yavid]

I’m having that problem in my current game. Worse when you don’t notice it for a couple turns. My remedies atm are (1) have fighters skip turns instead of sleep (laborious), and (2) bring an extra empty carrier along as a backup.

Carriers which conduct a naval attack will generally leave their fighters behind.

If it helps I've noticed every time my carrier passes through a tile with another unit in it, it will leave the planes behind. I've been able to move the carriers more manually and keep the planes on board.

 

[Tech Osen]

Carriers which conduct naval attacks are unlike any carriers ever built. Even cruiser-converted carriers in WW2 didn't retain the gun deck.

And yet you need to somehow gain exp with it to increase the flightdeck...

 

[Yavid]

And yet you need to somehow gain exp with it to increase the flightdeck...

Here's a novel idea then: How about giving the Carrier XP every time the planes on board launch a combat mission

 

[Disgustipated]

I would rather carriers carry 4 planes, but only fighters, not bombers. If I knew how to mod, I would do this. And cut the cost of fighters and biplanes as well.

How about giving the Carrier XP every time the planes on board launch a combat mission

good idea. And carriers shouldn't even be able to attack offensively. You could justify it by saying they are attacking with air support, but makes no sense if you have no planes on board.

 

[Jaybe]

good idea. And carriers shouldn't even be able to attack offensively. You could justify it by saying they are attacking with air support, but makes no sense if you have no planes on board.

Two thoughts: (1) To assume that a carrier unit consists exclusively of 1 carrier is presumptuous, just as assuming that it contains no other ship types (such as a couple destroyer SHIPS, not destroyer UNITS) is very short-sighted. (2) Just because a carrier has no air units on it doesn't mean it has NO aircraft on it.

A carrier meets up with a barb galley or a very damaged ironclad, either of which might represent small armed patrol boats: The carrier unit wipes it with no problem other than potentially being diverted from its intended course (which the barb ZOC might do anyway). The carrier may take some damage, or if the RNG gods are given to whimsy at the time even sunk. I've even taken a coastal (with almost zero hit points) city with a carrier once or twice.

 

[Tech Osen]

I would rather carriers carry 4 planes, but only fighters, not bombers. If I knew how to mod, I would do this. And cut the cost of fighters and biplanes as well.

Been a while since I build one but iirc carriers already can't carry bombers in civ 6.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Two thoughts: (1) To assume that a carrier unit consists exclusively of 1 carrier is presumptuous, just as assuming that it contains no other ship types (such as a couple destroyer SHIPS, not destroyer UNITS) is very short-sighted. (2) Just because a carrier has no air units on it doesn't mean it has NO aircraft on it.

A carrier meets up with a barb galley or a very damaged ironclad, either of which might represent small armed patrol boats: The carrier unit wipes it with no problem other than potentially being diverted from its intended course (which the barb ZOC might do anyway). The carrier may take some damage, or if the RNG gods are given to whimsy at the time even sunk. I've even taken a coastal (with almost zero hit points) city with a carrier once or twice.

Just because it can happen in Civ, doesn't mean it makes any sense.

Last test game I played, one of the AI civs cleared a Barbarian Camp with a Great Musician. I mean, sure, maybe the Great Musician units really represent the Great Musician and his entourage of bodyguards, who stormed the camp. And just because the Great Musician isn't depicted in an airplane doesn't mean he isn't actually flying in a heavily armed one. But I prefer to think he convinced the Barbarians to join the ranks of the civilized by playing them a soothing melody. Then he sold them a bunch of mix tapes after the concert and donated the profits to the government coffers.

 

[Tech Osen]

I'm not sure what to think of this situation. The destroyer can't attack the fighter and thus can't reach the city to conquer it. Should a fighter be able to block a ship that has build in AA guns indefinitely (in theory, he moved the fighter the next turn, of course...)?

Side note: this was the third city I was about to raze. He had at least half a dozen fighters flying back and forth along the coast there, not a single attempt was made to attack my fleet with them. The AI's inability the use it's air force properly makes late game combat feel really unfulfilling, even if you don't use any planes yourself.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

View attachment 503127
The AI's inability the use it's air force properly makes late game combat feel really unfulfilling, even if you don't use any planes yourself.

It's particularly unfulfilling for those of us who enjoyed Civ 5. The AI in Civ 5 was tactically inept with land units (though still far more dangerous an opponent than the AI in Civ 6), but it handled airforce very well, and the nature of warfare changed materially once planes were researched.

There's no reason for what worked well for the AI in Civ 5 to also work in Civ 6. Civ 6 is built on a different engine, and also introduced more complicated rules on how to use airplanes.

Again, it goes back to Civ 6 is a different game from Civ 5. In Civ 6, the AI is built as a foil, not a serious threat to your plans. The various military tools like airplanes are for human players to use against each other or to use to beat up the AI in new and different ways from game to game. It's just a different type of game experience and has its own fans.

 

[DemonMaster]

There was someone who modded so fighters attacked. The code he used was ...

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
-<GameInfo>
-<AllowedMoves>
-<Update>
<Where AllowedMoveType="Air Assault"/>
<Set Value="7"/>
</Update>
-<Update>
<Where AllowedMoveType="Attack Civilians"/>
<Set Value="29"/>
</Update>
</AllowedMoves>
</GameInfo>

If I am guessing this switches the set values between "Air Assault" and "Attack Civilians".

I know nothing about coding so I don't know what this means, but this didn't made the AI build more of them but they used them all the time. The problem with this code is that (and this is me guessing) the AI didn't see the planes as planes so they never deployed them, but at least they attacked with them.

Perhaps someone that knows about civ coding can modify this so the planes attack and deploy.

 

[Kryxal]

Just because it can happen in Civ, doesn't mean it makes any sense.

Last test game I played, one of the AI civs cleared a Barbarian Camp with a Great Musician. I mean, sure, maybe the Great Musician units really represent the Great Musician and his entourage of bodyguards, who stormed the camp. And just because the Great Musician isn't depicted in an airplane doesn't mean he isn't actually flying in a heavily armed one. But I prefer to think he convinced the Barbarians to join the ranks of the civilized by playing them a soothing melody. Then he sold them a bunch of mix tapes after the concert and donated the profits to the government coffers.

If it was Russia, the Great Musician was probably playing "Back in the USSR"...

 

[Yavid]

View attachment 503127

I'm not sure what to think of this situation. The destroyer can't attack the fighter and thus can't reach the city to conquer it. Should a fighter be able to block a ship that has build in AA guns indefinitely (in theory, he moved the fighter the next turn, of course...)?

Side note: this was the third city I was about to raze. He had at least half a dozen fighters flying back and forth along the coast there, not a single attempt was made to attack my fleet with them. The AI's inability the use it's air force properly makes late game combat feel really unfulfilling, even if you don't use any planes yourself.

Well let me unpack this one item at a time 1) Navy units can take cities now? Wow who knew. 2) Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. IMO Every unit should be able to attack another unit, if they can't stuff like this happens. 3) You were razing cities? Can I ask why? 4) Completely agree. AI thinks the only thing fighters are for is patrolling, on the bright side they will bomb you.

 

[Tech Osen]

1) The melee ships (galley, caravel, destroyer) can take cities.
2) I wouldn't mind a swordman not being able to attack an airplane but the destroyer has an AA build in.
3) Got dragged into a war half way through my space race and he managed to sink a battleship armada on the turn he declared that just happened to be in range of a city, encampment and a submarine. Retaliation was in order!
4) He didn't use his bombers.

 

[Tech Osen]

Digging this topic up again.

I've been using a mod for a while that makes the AI build more planes but so far they still didn’t use them properly.
But yesterday I was actually attacked by Aztec bombers repeatedly. They sunk a battleship armada and a nucleair submarine armada (both one shotted) and even bombed one of my cities. I was way ahead in science and half way through my space race but I hadn't bothered building any planes yet so had to scramble some AA.
That felt quite refreshing though, had to completely rethink my tactics there. Wish the AI did this consistently. Surprised one bomber could take down a battleship armada though. Not sure how big his luxury bonus was but still.

 

[Yavid]

I found that the mod that makes the aerodome district not take up a population spot for districting and not needing one to build fighters, the AI will build aerodomes and fighters, the Patrol only with the fighters and only one or two times have they built a bomber, but hey it's progress.