Air Superiority

CrazyG

I've been trying to make a map that represents air superiority well. My goal was if two conditions were met

I have an air unit
The other player does not
I would get some kind of bonus in this combat, a specific example being a surveyor plane making artillery do more damage.

I tried doing this with support attachments, however it feels really clunky to me. I wanted to ask the community if there other options to create this effect. Thanks in advance for any help

Cernel

@CrazyG This doesn't answer your question, but I would get rid of condition number 2, going for "air presence", instead of "air superiority". You don't actually need superiority to perform a good recoinassance, and the one who is inferior is probably already going to suffer higher casualties for keeping its presence in the air. Moreover, as long as it is support attachment, while air vs air is either by air battle or targeted attacks, you already need to have that single air unit surviving past those.

Also, side note, what you are describing (only one side having air units operating in the territory) is air supremacy, not air superiority.

Since air superiority is already rewarding enough in terms of making relatively more casualties in air vs air confrontations, I guess the aim here, from the description, is inducing the defender to have at least a few air units, to try to deny air supremacy, despite the unfavourable attrition, due to exposing oneself to air battles in condition of numerical inferiority.

Though I think it would be better to make the defender stronger in air battles, then giving an air presence bonus to incentive the attacker to still use air, while exposing itself to higher air attrition.

Anyways, I believe there is not a clean and proper way to do what you want, at least from a coding standpoint, so this is probably rather a feature request (to have support denial if an enemy unit is present).

CrazyG

@Cernel
There is a feature where AA style attacks are unable to fire if a unit is present. Any ideas on making that work?

I really don't care all that much about the nuances of the word choice here.

redrum

@CrazyG I don't believe there is a current way to achieve what you described. The best alternatives are using either air attacks, AA attacks, support attachments, or a combination of them. You could do something like have air units have AA attacks against other air units (simulating them attacking each other for superiority) and have them support land/naval units to represent whoever has more air units giving more support to their land/naval armies.

Hepps

If you use the air combat first... this should resolve itself. Since only surviving air (which would be one or the other) ever see ground combat.

CrazyG

Thanks for your responses

@Hepps
I had limited rounds of air combat, specifically because Zeppelins are in the game and need to participate in air combat so that fighters can target them. However, you can get a situation with zeppelins shooting for 20 rounds at each other.

Hepps

@CrazyG You could always make Zepplins not have intercept ability. This way you'd never have them in air combat together. Thus forcing players to have fighters available to defend against attacking Zeppelins. You could theoretically make (attacking) Zeppelins a target landed Zeppelins (defending) if the air superiority battle is won by the attacker with surviving Zeppelin(s). This would be along the same lines as how I have set up Air Transports in TWW... where they can be bombed.

CrazyG

@Hepps
I wanted two fighters to be able to attack a territory with a zeppelin and get a shot at the zeppelin. Or, if you attack using a zeppelin but no escorts, defending fighters can get the zeppelin. Wouldn't this prevent that?

Hepps

@CrazyG Yes.

I was just saying if you leave Zeppelins as not being able to intercept... or scramble... then you should never have a situation where 2 Zeppelins are duking it out for an eternity.

Cernel

@CrazyG I'm not sure what you mean here. You cannot force air-only battles in any territories. For attacking fighters to air battle with a defending zeppelin, without generally engaging all the units in the territory, as well, you would need those fighters to bombing raid that territory and, in this case, the zeppelin cannot be obliged to join the air battle (it wouldn't). If you mean those fighters would attack the territory normally, I cannot see how would they want to do it, as, in this case, you can force the zeppelin to air battle, but, then, the fighters are forced into the regular (land) battle.

Just being curious what exactly you have in mind, as I cannot quite visualize it.

If, instead, you just mean that those two fighters would attack the territory with a bunch of other units, that would be doing the regular (land) battle with them, and you want the two fighters to be able to get the zeppelin in the territory during the preliminary air battle, then, yes, you are correct, but this seems a rather minor matter, as the zeppelins are probably not going to stay on the frontlines, or at least it would not be realistic for the defending player to be wanting that (or maybe the whole point of your reasoning is making that possible so it will not happen?).

Side note, I personally don't like giving units specific names; in this case someone's surname. Instead of "zeppelin", I would go for "dirigible_balloon".

Hepps

@Cernel said in Air Superiority:

@CrazyG I'm not sure what you mean here. You cannot force air-only battles in any territories.

@Cernel Yes you can. The code has existed for quite some time.

CrazyG

The defender isn't intercepting or scrambling, this is related to normal combat, not bombing runs. Air battles can precede normal combat. You can limited the number of rounds, which is what I did to avoid zeppelins shooting forever.

I could take zeppelins out of air combat, but that would mean a zeppelin could attack a territory with 10 fighters and be okay.

Thanks for the replies, I'll keep thinking about to do here.

Cernel

@Hepps What I believe to have made clear is that I meant that air battles are always going to be followed by the regular (land) battle. That is you cannot do air battles only, without the following standard battle. So, if those two fighters are attacking alone a territory with a zeppelin and a bunch of land units, that is not going to end well for them.