Air Units - what is the point in Civ 6?

[neilwilkes]

Okay, I have only played 4 games (3 prince, One King) and it seems the whole air game has been massively deprecated in Civ6.

1 - In all 4 games played so far, no other civ has even bothered building any at all, so no need for jets to counter their bombers. I have never yet even seen an enemy aircraft never mind had to defend against one so what is the point?
2 - Bombers now do very, very little damage in the late game unless you have a whole fleet of the things at very high promotion levels.
3 - Jets no longer seem to be capable of strikes against ground units - the last time I tried this from a carrier (and why only 2 units per carrier?? Feeble is not the word) all I could do was deploy them or hit sea units
4 - Carriers are close to useless. Capacity of 2 units and also allowing bombers??? On a carrier??? Sure this was once done in WW2 on a raid against Japan, but a damned great bomber on a carrier??
5 - The range of the jet bombers is pathetically small.
6 - Stealth gives a jet bomber? Whats that all about - should be in advanced flight, with stealth allowing, er, stealth aircraft that should be able to fly round half the world.
7 - why can we not do strategic bombing?

Suggestions:
Add stealth aircraft for the stealth tech.
Increase their power.
Increase the number that can be based on a carrier
Stop bombers on carriers (that is just plain silly).
Allow Carrier Fleets - why can I not merge carrier units the same way you can military units? 3 carriers, even at only 2 units per carrier, would make a lot more sense.
Add carrier groups - this would allow merging a carrier with a destroyer & a cruiser/battleship, as is done in the real world as one lone carrier is way too vulnerable.
Add smart weaponry. We should be able to target specific buildings in city centres or districts.

As it currently stands, the air game is a total waste of time & effort - much better to build rocket artillery as it does much, much more damage.

What do you guys & gals think? I am clueless when it comes to IT so could not build a mod pack myself but would be happy to collaborate with someone who can do thhis

[Rafein]

There is a mod that "helps". One of the big problems is, to build Air Units, you need Aerodone, and the AI just never builds it, so cannot build air units

https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/improved-aerodrome.25434/

Also pretty sure you can merge Carriers into a Fleet, or at least build a Carrier fleet. However, it DOES NOT increase the Carrier's FLight capacity.

[katzenkrimis]

Originally posted by neilwilkes:

As it currently stands, the air game is a total waste of time & effort.

What do you guys & gals think?

Worst AI of the year. For any game. The AI lead should lose his job.

The AI doesn't understand Districts. So they don't build planes.

They don't even know what the Aerodrome is.

[ambershee]

I've seen the AI build aerodromes and aircraft quite frequently. They never seem to use bombers though.

[Carog the Fat]

The only time i used aircraft was bombers of an aircradt carrier and he damage seemed fine to me. the small number of air craft is bad as the ony way to increase it is to lvl the ship up.... lol. Also I think the bomber fighter thing is a massive simplificaion to make the game work. torpedo and dive bombers were used in WW2 and on modern aircraft carrier the aircraft can deliver massive high precision bombs. So to me Bombers on aircraft carriers is fine.

[Oranthal_J_Simpson]

I was going to post something similar. I agree with some of your findings, and just don't know about others.

The things that really have annoyed me so far are:

1. As far as I can tell, carriers are not 'force projectors' at all, and I can't work out how to use them for anything other than the transport of fighters and bombers. I certainly can't make bombing runs or have a jet set to intercept above it.

2. Air strikes, most notably bombers, do absolutely no damage to units. Perhaps they are supposed to be used for city and district damage mostly. I just finished an Emperor level game where I was comically ahead in science. I sent 'jet bombers' against English redcoats and they did something like 15 damage after a bombing run. Outrageous.

3. Yes, my competitor civilisations had absolutely no air or anti air game at all, but I was stupidly ahead in tech.

This game, basically, is just not up to a challenge in its current state, and if carriers cannot be used for force projection and air strikes do no damage, then I agree that the air game is nerfed beyond Civ V.

[PentaStealz]

Plays on easy and complains game isn't hard enough... logic

[Martin]

Originally posted by ambershee:

I've seen the AI build aerodromes and aircraft quite frequently. They never seem to use bombers though.

Like to see a screeshot of that, never seen them build areodromes or runways or planes.. only ever seen one aa gun made, that was by germany and some barb horsemen killed it.

[neilwilkes]

Originally posted by Rafein:

There is a mod that "helps". One of the big problems is, to build Air Units, you need Aerodone, and the AI just never builds it, so cannot build air units

https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/improved-aerodrome.25434/

Also pretty sure you can merge Carriers into a Fleet, or at least build a Carrier fleet. However, it DOES NOT increase the Carrier's FLight capacity.

I was unable to make a carrier fleet - the option just was not there even with 2 carriers right next to each other the stars did not appear. If it were possible it really should increase capacity too - 2 units is feeble. I would waste one on deploy duties above the carrier (which is easy enough to do - just deploy a fighter above the carrier) but as it stands there is no air game any longer - its just not there.

[neilwilkes]

Originally posted by PentaStealz:

Plays on easy and complains game isn't hard enough... logic

Who is playing on easy? I am using either standard Prince mode or King mode whilst learning it. Never used any of the easy modes (although Prince is easy enough and in all honesty not much of a challenge)

[SakuraKoi]

Originally posted by neilwilkes:

Okay, I have only played 4 games (3 prince, One King) and it seems the whole air game has been massively deprecated in Civ6.

1 - In all 4 games played so far, no other civ has even bothered building any at all, so no need for jets to counter their bombers. I have never yet even seen an enemy aircraft never mind had to defend against one so what is the point?
2 - Bombers now do very, very little damage in the late game unless you have a whole fleet of the things at very high promotion levels.
3 - Jets no longer seem to be capable of strikes against ground units - the last time I tried this from a carrier (and why only 2 units per carrier?? Feeble is not the word) all I could do was deploy them or hit sea units
4 - Carriers are close to useless. Capacity of 2 units and also allowing bombers??? On a carrier??? Sure this was once done in WW2 on a raid against Japan, but a damned great bomber on a carrier??
5 - The range of the jet bombers is pathetically small.
6 - Stealth gives a jet bomber? Whats that all about - should be in advanced flight, with stealth allowing, er, stealth aircraft that should be able to fly round half the world.
7 - why can we not do strategic bombing?

To 1, well, that's one of the many things that is wrong with the AI and technically not with the Air game

To 2, bombers are as mentioned for pillaging, which with the addition of districts, make them quite powerful in sabotaging your enemies. Now imagine actually having a bomber deploy against several units, even if there would be many bombers, you need very many to actually wipe a unit out, meanwhile it is not like they receive any damage from anything that is not AA. For one it is rather authentic and also balanced.

To 3. This simply ain't true, you can use fighters and alike to shoot ground units but again, with limited effect and range

To 4: Not really trying to argue on whether ot not letting a bomber on a carrier lest the load may blow the whole thing up, 2 may be indeed a bit to few but again, with two bombers you can pillage two tiles/buildings per turn.

To 5: Well, alternate history where fuel tanks are/must be smaller to justify balance

To 6: That'd be OP... like Real Life but this is a game, so...

To 7: All you can't do is target buildings within a district which may actually sound reasonable unless you somehow aquired a map but still... that'd rather make them too strong possibly

Regarding the Suggestions:

Originally posted by neilwilkes:

Suggestions:
1 - Add stealth aircraft for the stealth tech.
2 - Increase their power.
3 - Increase the number that can be based on a carrier
4 - Stop bombers on carriers (that is just plain silly).
5 - Allow Carrier Fleets - why can I not merge carrier units the same way you can military 6- units? 3 carriers, even at only 2 units per carrier, would make a lot more sense.
6- Add carrier groups - this would allow merging a carrier with a destroyer & a cruiser/battleship, as is done in the real world as one lone carrier is way too vulnerable.
7- Add smart weaponry. We should be able to target specific buildings in city centres or districts.

1 - That'd just be another tier...
2 - Again, as it should be obvious, their utility value is actually quite balanced (imho)
3- 2
4 - Meh, we don't really need that much detail and extending the bombers range would mean lots and lots of pillaging, see 3
5 - I can agree that a carrier fleet should have increased capacity
6 - technically they are already quite... well, not powerful but still not as easy to kill than support units, I even captured a city with one which may justify why in that alternate history they traded capacity for the ability to defend~
7 - To 7


My thoughts are indeed that, Flight may not be perfect but still have a point and are rather balanced even if kinda specific, they can carry out attacks without getting in harms way. Even WMDs do not for some reason raze a city when they affect 2 tiles around the center.

In the end this is a game, no reality, while authenticity is important, balance is even more so and implementing both is quite difficult and in this case done quite well by giving them a specific role suitable for their RL counterparts.

[MultiFrαpsεr ツ]

So, I'm close to domination victory now in my game, I just conquered every single city from Greece and threw them out of the game. However:

Before capturing their capital, I saw they had one aerodome with 5 or 6 biplanes. I were really impressed but I has fighter jets already... so it appears like the largest civs can build these but it's rare.

I nuked them in the end so doesnt matter they never got to use them anyways.

[end_game_13]

Originally posted by katzenkrimis:

Originally posted by neilwilkes:

As it currently stands, the air game is a total waste of time & effort.

What do you guys & gals think?

Worst AI of the year. For any game. The AI lead should lose his job.

The AI doesn't understand Districts. So they don't build planes.

They don't even know what the Aerodrome is.

Agree, I have never seen another civ attempt to build air planes, even when they are close to winning the space race.

[MultiFrαpsεr ツ]

Originally posted by end_game_13:

Originally posted by katzenkrimis:

Worst AI of the year. For any game. The AI lead should lose his job.

The AI doesn't understand Districts. So they don't build planes.

They don't even know what the Aerodrome is.

Agree, I have never seen another civ attempt to build air planes, even when they are close to winning the space race.

Well, seems like it must be very rare then. Because France actually built in my save-game but well... rip, they never used them.

[neilwilkes]

So I rest my case - the air game is now pointless really.

[mangopurple]

i did see a post where someone said the AI actually built some planes.

i like to build air units. they have good range