25-07-2004 14:55									#1
	AU Mod: The Carrier Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

The Problem:

In the real world, aircraft carriers are by far the most potent surface ships for projecting naval power. Even in World War II, a navy without carriers had little realistic chance of surviving to get in range to attack a carrier task group, and the advantage has shifted even more in favor of carriers since then.

In contrast, C3C carriers are far less effective in handling enemy naval forces. Their aircraft can't conduct reconnaissance and attack in the same turn, and can't generally know about enemy ships hidden in cities, so an enemy surface fleet has a much better chance of surviving to attack a carrier. Worse, carriers are horribly expensive: a carrier with four bombers costs almost as much as three battleships.

Another consideration to keep in mind is that C3C carriers are actually more effective than their real-world counterparts in attacking targets on land because C3C carriers can carry full-sized bombers whereas real-world carriers are limited in the size of aircraft they can carry. That is something we will need to be careful with if we try to improve carriers, but the fact that we've removed lethal land bombardment from bombers makes the risk of making carriers too good in a land bombardment role at least somewhat smaller.


Proposed Solution:

Reduce the cost of the carrier unit from 180 to 80. By the time they are loaded to even half their capacity, carriers would still be the most expensive naval units in the game by a considerable margin.


The Big Question:

The big question is, are other people finding it as hard to justify building 180-shield carriers as I am, or do most people consider them more worth building than I do? If most people already find carriers worthwhile on a regular basis, making carriers cheaper would be unnecessary and perhaps make them too powerful. But if most players rarely build carriers, reducing their cost could make them an interesting strategic option more of the time.

	25-07-2004 20:00									#2
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

The Second Big Question

And what will the AI do?

	26-07-2004 15:04									#3
	Got spare money?

Building carriers for me is a no brainer, when I am trying to weaken an opponent on another continent.

4 Bombers on a carrier has 2x the bombardment strength of equivalent cost of 3 BBs and obviously the range is vastly superior.

Certainly you have to build escorts to protect the carriers which makes them even more expensive, but really nothing beats carriers for projecting power in real life and also CIV.

Properly escorted they are very durable. I once had a carrier survive the 3 shots by enemy subs. The escorting BB got a defensive fire (not sure if this a bug or not) which knocked the subs down to 2 HPs.

Honestly carriers seem just about right to me. I would definitely build more if they were 80 or 100 shields, but I'd still build them even if they were 240 shields.

	10-09-2004 23:10									#4
	Re: AU Mod: The Carrier Tired of ads?

quote: Originally posted by nbarclay Their aircraft can't conduct reconnaissance and attack in the same turn

If the carrier is loaded with a fighter or two in addition to bombers, it can actually conduct some reconnaissance. It also can have better defense in the form of air superiority. And since naval units are targeted first in bombardment, fighters on a carrier can attack port cities to discover whether there are naval units hiding there before committing the bombers. Just something to think about before automatically loading just bombers into the carrier.

quote: a carrier with four bombers costs almost as much as three battleships

The difference is that Carriers can usually strike from a distance and are therefore safer, hiding behind your other ships. Sure, you lose some bombers, which are cheaper to replace, but you don't lose the Carrier that easily.

So I'm not sure we need a change here. Just like in the real world, Carriers are not for every nation. They are useful in specific situations, and that's good enough for me. However, if we were to make a change, I would support increasing their transport capacity before reducing their cost.

	11-09-2004 00:02									#5
	Got spare money?

I find it hard to justify building carriers in any type of map at any level.

First at the highest levels the civs will field lots shipping and will be able to put my carriers at risk.

Now to prevent that I must make a large number of escorts and that takes production and time.

Second, the capacity is too limited to make a big difference. IOW the fact that I may be able to bomb a few targets is not all that important to me.

Third the speed is too slow.

	11-09-2004 00:17									#6
	Increase the size of your Attachments

Do you build any type of non-transport ships then?

Carriers are much like what ground bombardment units are to land warfare. They are expensive for the damage they inflict, but they make up for it by their high survivability. And with enough of them, you can win battles with minimum losses.

	11-09-2004 01:10									#7
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

If I would make a change, I would give the carrier a troop loading capacity of 1 or 2 - and would use it gladly to carry a few cruise missiles. Of course, cruise missiles would need a amphibious attack capacity.

This is something I really miss in this game.

	11-09-2004 01:22									#8
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

Hmmm... that brings to mind: Perhaps our next AU game can focus a bit on modern warfare? And not just MAs trouncing over the AI, but full theatre land/air/sea battles? Other than in the odd game, I don't remember much of that since Vel and DeepO's ridiculously hard challenge game a few years ago...

	11-09-2004 01:32									#9
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

quote: Originally posted by alexman Do you build any type of non-transport ships then? Carriers are much like what ground bombardment units are to land warfare. They are expensive for the damage they inflict, but they make up for it by their high survivability. And with enough of them, you can win battles with minimum losses.

It depends on the map. If it is a high water, low land mass, I would make some destroyers to escort transporting fleets.

If it was a contients with less than max water, I would only make a couple of destroyers to hold the line until I could get bombers to stop bombardment.

I tend to not make a great many bombardment units either, It is too much work to use scores of them to make a diffrence. I will have 6-10 to go with an invasion force to ping down attackers and make counterattacks for a few rounds.

Mainly, I would rather have more units, than more arties. If the level has only 100 or 200 units to deal with, I do not need scores of arties. If it has many hundreds, I do not want to suffer score of arties being used.

After the first 20 or so arties, any others I have will be captured. I just want 6-8 to ping ships that get in range or landing forces.

I don't mind some loses, once I go on attack. As you know armies are so strong, you do not suffer all that many loses anyway.

I am not saying this is a smart way to go, only that it is my answer to the question of using carriers.

	11-09-2004 01:37									#10
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

quote: Originally posted by Theseus Hmmm... that brings to mind: Perhaps our next AU game can focus a bit on modern warfare? And not just MAs trouncing over the AI, but full theatre land/air/sea battles? Other than in the odd game, I don't remember much of that since Vel and DeepO's ridiculously hard challenge game a few years ago...

I am not sure this speaks to the whole gamit of the AI's play style, but I do not see it using fleet attacks much at all.

Even when they have 20-30 ships, they seem to make fleets of 3 escorts and a transport of some type and do not attack.

They will bombard coast if they are not in a position to launch transports, they will make big use of bombers and they love carriers.