[GS] What's the counter to deployed fighters?

[dbergan]

Hi!

In a multiplayer game, my opponent has a single deployed Jet Fighter over the only spot where I could get aluminum. Without aluminum, what options do I have for getting that fighter off that tile? Nukes aren't an option because it's too close to me.

Kind regards,
DB

 

[Victoria]

Wow, interesting tactic. I am unsure and cannot test what is possible because firetuner does not allow me to place an enemy fighter in patrol status.
Enemy fighter cannot patrol in your territory but I imagine the game may stop you taking that tile either by border expansion or settling because of the patrolling fighter.
The only other tactic I can suggest is spam attack with biplanes but at -25 it’s a fairly lost cause. It is annoying that AA is defensive only
If anyone had an unmodded save with an enemy aircraft on patrol for SP I could check the options.

 

[Tech Osen]

Been a while since I really used fighters but I thought they could only be deployed in your own territory, not in neutral.

 

[Victoria]

Been a while since I really used fighters but I thought they could only be deployed in your own territory, not in neutral.

In neutral, not in enemy

 

[Tech Osen]

Then founding a city next to that tile should push the fighter away. Of course the moving of planes has/had plenty of bugs so far as enemy planes staying on aerodromes of captured cities.
A screenshot of the situation would be enlightening here I guess. Are you at war with the owner of the fighter?

 

[Victoria]

should push the fighter away

And this is the crux of it....where would it push it to? send it back to the nearest base? 1 tile out? or does the city border bend for the fighter because you cannot enter it's tile.
It may be that @dbergan 's opposition knows of a loophole and that would be a nasty MP trick. This area is quite possibly an area Firaxis has missed.
If someone had a non mod save on an SP game with a fighter patrolling in neutral space then I could test things but I am having trouble encouraging the AI to patrol and do not know how to instruct the AI via firetuner to change the state of the aircraft to patrolling as there seems to be no visible state of this in firetuner.

 

[Karmah]

And this is the crux of it....where would it push it to? send it back to the nearest base? 1 tile out? or does the city border bend for the fighter because you cannot enter it's tile.
It may be that @dbergan 's opposition knows of a loophole and that would be a nasty MP trick. This area is quite possibly an area Firaxis has missed.
If someone had a non mod save on an SP game with a fighter patrolling in neutral space then I could test things but I am having trouble encouraging the AI to patrol and do not know how to instruct the AI via firetuner to change the state of the aircraft to patrolling as there seems to be no visible state of this in firetuner.

Maybe a duel hotseat game in advanced start could do the trick?

 

[Scaramanga]

It probably just pushes it like any unit of a civ you don't have open borders with.
Air units could be different though.

 

[Victoria]

Maybe a duel hotseat game in advanced start could do the trick?

nope, stated SP because hotseat does not work with firetuner which is very upsetting. I think I'll just have to hotseat a game up to air.

probably

should, probably....

 

[dbergan]

Hi guys,

Thanks for all the responses! Here's what I can tell you about the situation.

1) Since we can't use Firetuner to deploy enemy aircraft in single player, the best way to test this situation is to start a 2-player Hotseat game that begins the in Atomic/Information Age. I used these settings:
- Duel Map
- Online Speed (so units build 2x faster)
- Pangaea
- Abundant Resources
- Legendary Start Position
- Turn off all city-states, disasters, and barbarians
- Disable turn limits and all victory types but domination
- Use shared Map Tacks to tell show the two civs their respective starting spots
- Auto-explore with the Spec Ops, etc that the game gives you until you find some Aluminum, Oil, and Uranium... and settle directly on those resources
- Take the Fascism Government for faster unit production (Logistics and Resource Management are good policies)
- Spin up some Commercial Hubs with Stock Markets for the cash you'll need (kill your Specs Ops, etc once you've settled to save cash)
- Then make 1 encampment+Armory for Military Engineers (you can make airstrips in neutral territory)
- Make Aerodromes
- 2-3 drones for vision on the testing field
- Save the game once you have 20ish of each of those resources and about 1000 gold for all future testing

Attached is a save file that's past the minimum I outlined there. It's got a test ground established and airstrips with fighters/bombers/nukes nearby.

2) Forward settling and buying the tile under the deployed fighter doesn't forcibly move it. However, if the fighter re-bases or deploys somewhere else, it can't re-deploy to that tile (since it's enemy territory now). But these mechanics don't move it from that spot.

3) AFAIK, the only units that can attack a deployed fighter are airplanes and nukes. So, like Victoria said, Bi-Planes at 80 vs a Fighter at 100 are the only option I can think of. That requires 7 Bi-Planes. Against a Jet Fighter, it's 80 vs 110... and each Bi-Plane dies in the attack... meaning, if they have a War Department, it's un-crackable.

4) If I nuke the Deployed Fighter (or the adjacent tiles) it will die... and that doesn't take aluminum. (But it does take Uranium, the Manhattan Project, the Build Device Project, a Military Engineer, and sacrificing a productive tile in my empire to make it into a Missile Silo... plus the fallout of cleaning up the damage from the nuke.)

5) If I take out the Deployed Fighter's air base (i.e. the city, aerodrome, air strip, or carrier it's stationed in), it DOES trigger a forced re-base for that Fighter, moving it off the tile. And that doesn't require aluminum. BUT, if the Deployed Fighter is based in a city, you can't see where it's air-based from. If there are multiple cities withing 8 tiles of the deployed fighter, you'll have to take all those cities.

Thus, it's possible to move that Fighter, but definitely not easy.

Kind regards,
DB

P.S. A deployed fighter can use the "Priority Target" operation to deal 65 damage to any support unit, including Anti-Air support units like a Mobile SAM. That command always does 65 damage in my tests (regardless of terrain or any modifiers) and the fighter never loses any health when using that command. The range of Priority Target matches the fighter's attack range (5 tiles) from the deployed tile. Range of 6 if a Jet Fighter.

 

[Tech Osen]

IIRC I killed planes that were stuck on a conquered aerodrome with the ranged attack from cities/encampments, maybe that would work against patrols as well?
Maybe they should give AT crews and Modern AT a SAM attack (only to attack, no AA rating), would make them a lot more useful. Or perhaps the spec ops.

 

[Scaramanga]

Seems like a legitimate tactic to me since he beat you to air superiority.
You could maybe get anti-air support and lure him into rebasing in another area of the map.

 

[Victoria]

Maybe they should give AT crews and Modern AT a SAM attack (only to attack, no AA rating), would make them a lot more useful. Or perhaps the spec ops.

You could maybe get anti-air support

AA is a passive thing for defence only, you cannot ‘attack’ with it.
Tx @dbergan for the testing, normally I get stuck with it.

 

[dbergan]

IIRC I killed planes that were stuck on a conquered aerodrome with the ranged attack from cities/encampments, maybe that would work against patrols as well?

You're right. To my above list, we'll add:

6) Ranged City Attacks can damage a deployed fighter, IF the deploy square is within 2 of a city center or encampment. The max a city range attack can do is 85 CS (after you've made a Missile Cruiser or Nuclear Sub) vs the 100/110 of the deployed fighter/jet fighter. And that'll do ~16/11 damage per turn to the fighter. But if the fighter has the Ground Crews promotion, it heals 5/turn, I think.

Meanwhile it can snipe all support units within 5/6 tiles using Priority Target, doing 65 HP a shot at them, taking no damage in return. It can also Air Attack any unit within 5/6 tiles that doesn't have an AA value (or AA support) without taking damage in return. And if they get War Department, each kill heals them 20 HP.

You could maybe get anti-air support and lure him into rebasing in another area of the map.

Anti-air units currently cannot attack a deployed fighter, so they pose no threat to him. On the contrary, the deployed fighter can use to the Priority Target command to do 65 damage to the AA unit and take 0 damage in return. He's not stupid, he won't give up that tile, because it would let me have an Air Force. There's nothing I could bait him with. He's got a lock.

Maybe they should give AT crews and Modern AT a SAM attack (only to attack, no AA rating), would make them a lot more useful. Or perhaps the spec ops.

My suggestion would be to let the Anti-Air Gun, Mobile SAM, and Missile Cruiser units be able to attack a deployed fighter. Also remove the Priority Target operation from Air Units, since that makes the AA guns extremely vulnerable to air units (instead of countering them). (Spec Ops already has Priority Target.) Maybe Helicopters could get Priority Target... so you add a couple to your Air Force to counter SAMs.

I'll see if I can make those changes in a mod, but I'm guessing no. In the database, Helicopter, Mobile SAM, and Missile Cruiser already have CanTargetAir = 1... and yet they can't attack a deployed fighter. (Just tested this.)

Kind regards,
DB

 

[Scaramanga]

AA is a passive thing for defence only, you cannot ‘attack’ with it.
Tx @dbergan for the testing, normally I get stuck with it.

Yes I am suggesting an AA unit with a pillaging force causing havoc outside the jetfighter's range so he has to move it. If he's got more than one jet fighter then you're probably toast. No city states had aluminium?

 

[Victoria]

since that makes the AA guns extremely vulnerable to air units

Unless you group your AA.

 

[dbergan]

Unless you group your AA.

Hi Victoria,

That's what I thought, too, until I did these tests. I just re-did them so I could post screenshots. The active player here is America with the Deployed P-51 Mustang in the top-left corner. The target is the Mobile SAM in the middle of the SAM cluster. This first image is what the Air Attack preview looks like:

Looks like suicide. Nobody would do that.

This next image is what the Priority Target preview looks like:

Also suicide.

But, in reality, if you follow through with the Priority Attack option it ends up like this:

65 damage on the Mobile SAM, 0 damage on the Mustang.

Regular Fighters and Jet Fighters give the same results. Note, it's always exactly 65 damage, not subject to any modifiers or even randomness. (Stronger weaker units also do exactly 65.) This is probably controlled by COMBAT_MIN_CIVILIAN_DAMAGE_PERCENT in the GlobalParameters table of the database.

Kind regards,
DB

 

[Victoria]

COMBAT_MIN_CIVILIAN_DAMAGE_PERCENT

Yeah, I had noticed that but never gone through with a suicide mission like that just to see it was all a lie!
Nice job, now the question is....
Is the display wrong or is the priority target wrong.
I do know anti AA attacks IRL are quite effective but this just feels wrong.

EDIT: hmmm... so attacking a WW1 battleship cluster is more dangerous than attacking a mobile SAM cluster?
The fact it is intended for 'support' in a tile with another unit means they have messed up classifications and AA should not be a support unit.

 

[Buni0ns]

If AA was more powerful in relation to debergan's tests game would need a SEAD mission (add it to the list lol) between Arty / Naval Guns and Air. -- Supression of Enemy Air Defense.

 

[dbergan]

Is the display wrong or is the priority target wrong.

Good question. It seems like on a Fighter the Priority Target command should be the same as an Air Attack command... the only difference being that you're attacking the support unit instead of the front-line unit. When I did the Air Attack, the Mustang died and dealt 13 damage to the center SAM... Priority Target should give us the same result.

However, the reason it doesn't, I believe, is because on a Spec Ops unit the Priority Target command feels like it should be the free 65 damage. That's like the SEAL team para-dropping in, assassinating the head of the SAM regiment, and sneaking out before dawn.

Firaxis is using the same code on both units' commands. My request would be to make a new operation for Spec Ops called something like Covert Mission that does the free 65 damage... and then change Priority Target on aircraft into a standard Air Attack against support units.

Anyway, as for the status quo, we now know that deployed fighters are super-powerful... even against SAM units.

Kind regards,
DB

PS Also confirmed that adjusting COMBAT_MIN_CIVILIAN_DAMAGE_PERCENT affects the damage done by Priority Target.