Aerial Combat
Some suggestions on improving the air-war for Civ2.
by Alexandre Ostrowiecki (June 1999)
Vulnerable Bomber Fleets |
Have you ever played the standard WWII scenario, which comes with Civ2? That is a good example of how the airplane system is badly created. Let's imagine you have the British and the computer got the Axis. The Germans bomb England with five costly bombers. Each aircraft destroys, of course, one riflemen unit in the British islands. On the next turn what will happen? You'll get two or three fighters, safely from their base far away from the battle zone, and butcher every single enemy bomber. Since the Bomber's defense statistics are weak, you will probably get all your pilots back for dinner. Result: You have lost 40 shields riflemen and the computer, 120 shields bombers. So what?
The problem is that, in the regular game, bombers are defenseless, just waiting, after they attack, for the next fighter to shoot it down. Real wars are far different than that. In reality, bomber fleets are well protected by fighters.
A Solution |
In one of my scenarios (Exodus-1947) I've tried something different. I made my fighters be able to stay in the air for two turns, just like bombers. Besides that, I gave them a significant defense factor. Whoa!
Now I could park fighters on the same square as bombers and provide defense against other fighters. It improved gameplay a lot - the duel was between two evenly matched units. These changes are ideal for scenarios that use lots of air power. You can design very powerful fighters, but with little fuel, so they can't escort all bombing missions, or long range aircraft, with little protective power.
There are many other creative uses for the changes, but these are up to you.
