26-05-2003 00:23									#1
	How to Control Planes Suffering from ads?

I've been perplexed as to how to control all my planes in the late game, so I just spent some time playing with it and learned some good techniques and some things not to do. The best way I found to order all your planes to go to a particular spot is to select the airbase which is home to the planes, then press R (for rally point) and left click the location on the map. All planes from that base will head to that point, regardless of if they are currently in the air, on the ground and ready, or on the ground and refueling. Newly constructed planes from the base will also go to that point. Unfortunately this approach does not let you differentiate between fighters and bombers if both happen to be at the same base, so I suggest you keep your fighter airbases and bomber airbases separate, or target a general area instead of a specific building (see below on targetting).

There are several things I learned not to do. Alt-F and Alt-B, despite what the popup help says, do not select all fighters or bombers from the base. Instead, they select all planes sitting at the base ready. If your planes are already in the air, or refueling, Alt-F and Alt-B don't select them. Another thing not to do is to select one of the planes in the air and press Home. This will normally select all units anywhere of that type, but in this case it only selects planes currently in the air, not ones sitting at a base ready or refueling. Plus Home will select planes from multiple bases, which makes it hard to stay organized. Finally, selecting the airbase and right-clicking is not good. For most other buildings, right-clicking is the same as setting the rally point. But with airbases, right clicking will only order planes currently on the ground ready to go to the point. If no planes are ready, it seems to order the last plane or planes directed by a right click. Bottom line - pressing R and left clicking is the way to go if you want to make sure you order all planes at a base to go somewhere.

Regarding targets, bombers will attack all buildings near the rally point spot until they run out of fuel at which point they return to the base. If there are no buildings they will circle the spot until they run out of fuel. However in my tests they never attacked ground units on their own, even if ground units were right there. If you specifically selected a bomber and ordered it to attack a ground unit, it would. But these attacks were extremely ineffective. So bottom line, don't use bombers on ground units.

Fighters, on the other hand, will attack ground units and are pretty good at it. Fighters will attack whatever you target them on, and then search for additional targets. So they will attack buildings if that is the target, but they are not good at it so you shouldn't do this. Fighters will not attack buildings on their own unless you specifically tell them to, so even if there are no other targets in the area they will not attack buildings.

So the bottom line on targetting: if you have an airbase with all bombers, use the rally point to target the specific building you want. After the bombers destroy that building they will continue on to nearby buildings. If you have an airbase with all fighters, use the rally point to target a general area where enemy ground troops are. The fighters will come to the area and attack any ground troops they see. If you want your fighters to protect your bombers, don't target the same building as the bombers. Instead, set the rally point on a general spot near where the bombers are going. This is also the best bet if you have an airbase with mixed fighters and bombers. Set the rally point on a general spot. The bombers will go after nearby buildings, while the fighters attack nearby planes and ground units.

Last edited by albiedamned on 26-05-2003 at 00:29

	26-05-2003 00:56									#2
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Thank you, this information is extremely helpful. You mention that bombers are not effective against ground units and they are not because they are strategic bombers. I wish the game had a good tactical bomber and maybe later on it will. The tactical bomber would provoke the need for some good counter, though.

	26-05-2003 01:37									#3
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

quote: Originally posted by wilebill Thank you, this information is extremely helpful. You mention that bombers are not effective against ground units and they are not because they are strategic bombers. I wish the game had a good tactical bomber and maybe later on it will. The tactical bomber would provoke the need for some good counter, though.

Carriers have fighter bombers which are effective at attacking anything.

	26-05-2003 01:40									#4
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True about the fighter bombers. I didn't test them, but they are supposed to be good at both buildings and units (including other fighters). I did all these tests using the Battle of Britain scenario in the Learn to Play section. I just went through the scenario stuff up to the last step where you have to blow up the German airbase, then I ignored that and played with the planes for about 45 minutes. I guess there was nothing stopping me from building a carrier - I think I'll go back and do that just to play with them.

	26-05-2003 02:23									#5
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Ok, I tested carriers. Unfortunately they are not as easy to control as airbases. There is no rally point like you can use with airbases. The best way to send your planes on an attack is to right click. A regular right click will send out a single plane, while shift right click will send out all planes. However, once your planes are in the air there is no easy way to direct them to a new target. The only effective tactic I found was to Recall them (hotkey Y), wait for them all to land, then shift right click on a new target. Luckily you don't have to wait for them to refuel to do this, just wait for them to land. However if Repeat Orders is on (which is the default) the planes will go back to the original target as soon as they refuel unless you set a new target first. So you should turn Repeat Orders off. Otherwise you have to try to time your click on the new target to be when all planes are in the base refueling but none have taken off again yet.

Regarding targets, the Fighter-Bombers behave like Fighters. They will attack any units near the target site, but not buildings. If the target is a building, they will attack it but not other nearby buildings. However they are pretty good at hitting buildings, so unlike regular fighters you shouldn't hesitate to send them against a building if necessary.

	26-05-2003 05:39									#6
	Increase the size of your Attachments

I like to target things individually, so i useually select the airbase and right click the spots multiple times for multiple aircraft. If i decide i want them on a different mission i recall them and send them elsewhere, i almost never need to change them mid-mission.

I'll usually leave 2 planes at the airbase that i can instantly call up whenever i need them to a new mission.

	26-05-2003 08:42									#7
	Inflate your Upload Space

I take it that you turn Repeat Orders off then? Otherwise the planes will keep flying forever to the same target, even if there is nothing left to hit. So when you right click on a new target there will be no available planes to respond. Does Recalling the planes cancel Repeat Orders?

	26-05-2003 10:08									#8
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Well as soon as there's nothign left for them to hit i will recall them. Usually i have them continually running right over the enemy building area, almost always something to hit there.

	13-06-2003 21:06									#9
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Slightly OT? Are carriers worth building? I haven't been using them as I was afraid of them being easily sunk with the loss of all aircraft. Naval forces have an unusually high casualty rate.

	15-06-2003 08:54									#10
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Fighter Bombers are extremely powerful. They are 90% as good as Bombers and 90% as good as Fighters. Some Carriers in a strategically placed lake can be devastating.

	15-06-2003 13:16									#11
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Carriers: I've found them to be EXTREMELY effective, but you need to give them some support.

The planes on the carriers have very good range, and they autorepair on the carrier. (The carrier autorepairs also - you can't send it into a dock for repair - but it repairs very slowly.)

	16-06-2003 08:22									#12
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Carrier can take three sub at a time, and it can endurance three or more hits from sub as well.

But make sure you keep a few destorys and BB around your carrier for protection.

	16-06-2003 10:14									#13
	Suffering from ads?

Good info, thanks.