XP for carriers?

[Hieronimous Bosch]

Hello,
I would submit my suggestion about XP for carriers.
This unit arrives late in the game, and they have 2 range, without the possibility to flee after bombard, but to my knowledge they gain XP only via bombardment. What about if they gain xp (just 1xp) every time a unit they carry gains xp?
Is this even possible?

 

[pochesun]

Considering your nickname its fair that you are concerned about ships being able to carry better cargo
On serious note, it might be a good solution, especially for units that provide very supportive task. Honestly, i dont know if 1 xp is enough, but its worth trying.

 

[Hieronimous Bosch]

Considering your nickname its fair that you are concerned about ships being able to carry better cargo
On serious note, it might be a good solution, especially for units that provide very supportive task. Honestly, i dont know if 1 xp is enough, but its worth trying.

Eh eh I know what you did there

In my knowledge max carry capacity for supercarrier with perks is 8 units, so it will be max 8xp per turn, maybe you could argue 2xp per unit, but I don't think there is someone who doesn't choose +1 carry capacity every time its carrier level up

 

[azum4roll]

That's because there are next to no choices.

Some promotions that give a boost to the planes on board would be useful.

 

[FinMc]

They're already incredibly strong, and they get XP when you build them, which at that point in the game will be enough for a few promotions.

I see where you're coming from though

 

[L. Vern]

Carrier promos are an interesting topic of discussion, and something I've been thinking about myself for a couple years now, as I love the info+ age of gameplay and build them pretty much every game. I wouldn't mind carriers getting 0.5-1 XP every time one of their aircraft takes an action - its otherwise extremely limiting in which cities you can build carriers, as it's basically a waste to build them anywhere you don't have a +3 level worth of XP on construction and missing out on the aircraft capacity.

Regarding the paucity of carrier promos in general:

On one hand, historically speaking carrier crew experience was vital, and an extremely potent force multiplier in the context of naval-based air operations. On the other hand, I'm not sure there's really a good way of making these work in a game like civ, particularly when compared to city-based airbases. There's a number of ways carrier crew experience was valuable irl, here's my thoughts on those and how they might be applied to VP:

• Efficient launch and recovery cycles that ultimately allowed handling of a larger number of aircraft on the same flight deck. This is particularly evident in the USN which rapidly adopted deck-parking doctrinally in order to maximize the number of aircraft available in their carrier groups. This is basically the flight deck line of promotions.
• Increased safety and decreased chances of accidents. Obviously this is a huge one irl, but how would this manifest ingame? Adding a %chance of an aircraft unit to take damage when operating from a carrier that gets reduced with a carrier promo line? Sounds extremely unfun and scarcely worth consideration.
• Aircraft arming/spotting speed and response time. Doubtless, reaction time to something like an incoming enemy strike is invaluable irl, and a 15-30 minute difference in throwing up your CAP could mean the difference between life and death. This could easily be modeled with a promotion that granted increased intercept chance or damage for its aircraft with intercept missions (Yes I'm aware carrier already has an intercept% promotion line but this is for the carrier unit itself, not its fighters). But ultimately, the assymetry with cities as airbases and potentially making carriers just strictly superior to ground based airfields feels very out of place.
• Efficiency in maintenance and repairs: "ground" crews in general, whether carrier or airfield based, will have higher average availability and allow for more sorties given the same aircraft and supply situation. But this is already in the game via the air logistics and air repair promos, not to mention again the problematic assymetry with city airbases.

Ultimately, I think most of the potential promos you could add to carriers are either already encapsulated by aircraft line promos, or would cause assymetry with city based airfields that don't really make sense. Though carrier promos are, imo, in a very lackluster state atm (not that this is explicitly a problem, as FinMc mentioned the unit is already incredibly strong) and would be curious to hear peoples thoughts on the matter.

 

[azum4roll]

Aircraft arming/spotting speed and response time. Doubtless, reaction time to something like an incoming enemy strike is invaluable irl, and a 15-30 minute difference in throwing up your CAP could mean the difference between life and death. This could easily be modeled with a promotion that granted increased intercept chance or damage for its aircraft with intercept missions (Yes I'm aware carrier already has an intercept% promotion line but this is for the carrier unit itself, not its fighters). But ultimately, the assymetry with cities as airbases and potentially making carriers just strictly superior to ground based airfields feels very out of place.

This is very doable as soon as interception gets reworked into something more granular instead of relying on chance. Carrier promotions can increase this stat for all fighters on board, while anti-air units and/or improvements increase this stat for the area.

Efficiency in maintenance and repairs: "ground" crews in general, whether carrier or airfield based, will have higher average availability and allow for more sorties given the same aircraft and supply situation. But this is already in the game via the air logistics and air repair promos, not to mention again the problematic assymetry with city airbases.

Planes heal faster in cities. Increasing heal for planes on the carrier isn't problematic.

 

[hokath]

Yes as I was reading even the second bullet point in Vern's post I thought something that increases healing. I.e. a Medic promotion. The ability to heal units on the same time for more already exists, I think? But not sure if it works that way yet if those units are cargo.