Air Combat for COW1.5v- Guide for dealing some (in)decent damage
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Air Combat for COW1.5v- Guide for dealing some (in)decent damage
This is the 1.5 update from the original guide written by @Paramunac posted Nov 3rd 2016. Also, a big shout out to @General Nightman who wrote the guide to planes and @MadMike69 his explination about advanced air mechanics.
Different kinds of planes:
Interceptor: scouting unit, anti-aircraft unit used against all types of bombers, reveals stealth units such as militia, anti-tank and commando’s, also effective against artillery and armoured cars in the first few days of the game.
Tactical bomber: used against unarmoured units (Infantry branch mostly)
Attack bomber: used against armoured units (Armour branch mostly)
Naval bomber: specialize in destroying ships and submarines. Naval Bombers are the only unit that can spot submarines lurking around your coasts, and they are exceptionally good at destroying transports.
Strategical bomber: anti building, useful to take out fortifications, airstrips, … Also good for scouting due to its long range.
Rocket fighter: The fastest air unit (excluding rockets) rocket fighter. The rocket fighter is an extremely powerful fighter, with incredible speed. However, its range is very poor, and it can only be upgraded to level 2
Nuclear bomber: powerful against all types of ground units and buildings. Nuclear bombers cannot be escorted and can easily be shot down if the enemy has a good AA value.
Ways of dealing damage:
Different types of planes are good against different targets. Interceptors are good against all other planes, tactical bombers are good against land units and convoys (both land and sea convoys), strategic bombers are good for destroying buildings, naval bombers are good for scouting and destroying subs and sea convoys and have some potential against warships. However, it is almost always good idea to combine more types of units into single group to increase survivability and effectiveness. If you don't already know this, check unit stats and read them carefully. I will assume that all who read rest of the text are familiar with strength of planes again other units.
Two most common ways to deal damage using planes are using attack function to directly attack some enemy group for 100% damage and patrol function to deal 50% damage to all enemy groups inside patrol area every 15 minutes, but there is a lot more ways to do it.
Direct attack is pretty simple. Order group of your planes to attack enemy group of any type in its range, it will do 100% damage to it and receive 100% damage from it, but, there are some situations where calculation changes a little. First, if enemy has one or more air groups patrolling in a way that their patrol area covers the location where enemy group (the one which is being attacked by your air group) is positioned, that air groups will do 100% damage to your air group while receiving 0% damage from it. Second, air groups have area of effect (AoE) damage. It is very small area, but still worth the mention because if more than one enemy group (excluding air groups currently in air) is very close to each other, they will defend against planes together (your air group attack to any of those groups will be considered like an attack to all of them at once, meaning that it will be spread over them, while their defensive damage is sum of all defending groups). This means that enemy can't just split some group few moments before it gets attacked in order focus all attacking damage to just one of the groups.
Patrolling groups (except in special case which was mentioned above) do 50% damage every 15 minutes. Tricky question here is to who will be the target and in which cases will the patrolling groups receive damage. Damage will be dealt to two different categories of enemy groups, first includes enemy patrol groups, with condition that your and enemy patrol areas overlap and second includes all other groups (including air groups which are not patrolling), with condition that your patrol area covers the location where those enemy groups are currently positioned. If only first category is present, your patrol groups will do 50% damage to them and recieve 0% damage every 15 minutes. However, enemy will do the same (15 minutes timers will usually not all start at the same time). If only second category is present, your every patrol group will do 50% damage to them and receive 50% damage from them every 15 minutes. This also means that even plane groups (excluding patrols) who are just standing on land (their current airbase) or flying around will do 50% defensive damage every time some enemy patrol group finishes patrol cycle (when it finishes one iteration of its 15 minute timer) over the position where they are currently located. If both categories are present, your damage is spread among them.
When to use attack mode or patrol mode:
Important to know is that when refuelling, planes have only 25% and they do no defensive no damage. In other words when refuelling your planes are vulnerable as they take four times more damage. Just be careful if enemy uses some patrol groups to protect them or had some groups ready to counterattack when your groups return for refuelling.
For close targets attack mode is the most effective because you can deal more damage in the same amount of time. However, it’s as stated above risky business.
"Direct attack v.s. Patrolling: They are used in different situations, direct attacks is recommended where your stacks have great alpha damage but low continuous damage (AKA a lot of planes but operating from far/low level airfields) or if you calculate that the stack can be one-shotted. Patrolling is used for when you are far away from your base and since it does not need to refuel, can continuously dish out damage." @TomtheBuilder
The patrol cycle should always be favoured:
- You can attack multiple targets within the “red triangle” without refuelling and thus saving a lot of time and not taking the risk of refuelling.
- Planes in patrol mode will take less returning damage from the units they attack than compared with attack mode.
Transporting Planes:
There are two ways to transport planes: truck convoys and air transfer.
Truck Convoys:
Truck Convoys are a slow, low health unit (25 km/h and 5HP each) that transports your planes across the ground to the next airport or city. These transports are vulnerable, they are easily bombed from the air, or attacked by ground troops. Sometimes you have no choice, as in rockets (they can only be transported via the ground) or if your airports are simply out of range. But the safest method is the next one...
Air Transfer:
Air transfer is when your planes fly from airport to airport to get to their next target. When building planes, it is best to create a linked system so your planes can fly safely to their target. To build one, click on your plane with the lowest range. Then, build airports so it can fly from base to base. If you do that, your planes will always be in range.
I will have to disagree with this a good player with good economy and with large stack is nearly unbeatable. and very hard to defeat since he's economy is so big and he will able cover large fronts. for the speed you can use planes anyone that's gets behide your lines you destroy them with planes.
AMG Morgan wrote:
I did not include aa because if someone is using this stackthey most likely have air superiority
Air superiority is pretty unstable as planes are very fast and unexpected strikes can turn the tables very quickly. I admit not to use AA much either, but if I was in real competitive play I would. It depends on what games you play.
It's the same about large stacks. At a lower skill level, it's far easier to play with large stacks, as the damage absorption always happens. This meaning, it's a viable strategy that's simple and not time-consuming to execute. However, if you're up against good players who commit to the math and tactics and have a lot of time, the large stacks may not always win.
If you are combining many unit types, it makes you fall behind in levels and die to a more focused enemy. If you aren't, your enemy can counter you with even just 1-2 unit types and wipe you out. There would be a resource unbalance if he were to invest into a single unit, but I am just assuming he'll use one type in that part of the conflict, as it saves resources for research and makes your army stronger. I'd expect the conflict to be separated into different unit matchups, like airforce and naval power, which will not intervene much in case they are balanced on both sides, so I am not saying he will use 1-2 units overall, I mean he will use 1-2 against your 2-5 (?) in that branch of the conflict. If you invest into just 1-2 unit types for the war (again, other branches of the conflict not included), it makes little sense to stack into large groups, unless your enemy is bad, lacks time or you use gold for healing.
It's true that 100 tanks against 10 (all equal strength) results in the 100 tanks winning with 94% health left. But, before we start celebrating, the power of an army is its damage output against the enemy times its health (approximately, differences in max hp of your units can change battles, but we're talking of just one unit type in this case). So, the strength of a 94% health army is 94% (health) * 95.2% (damage efficiency) = 89.5% the strength of the same army at full health. This means that the 10 times smaller stack reduced your strength to less than 9/10, making itself pay off. This could still be offset by the healing at daychange, however, players with smaller stacks tend to strike quickly and you may not have time for that.
If you have above 10k manpower, you're not investing properly. A good player never has many resources. Larger armies destroy enemies faster without taking damage from them. Build only: 1 military building in each city, airstrips, and recruiting stations to boost manpower. Minimize research, 2 unit types early, 6 types in late game. Upgrade old units, but: artillery lv1 to lv2 is a waste, only lv1 to lv4 is worth it. Enjoy Hornetkeeper
24 Aug 2021, 15:35
Something that i still can't understand about sir vs air when patrolling is:
When you have, for example, 2 stacks of 10 planes patrolling in the same place and they get attacked the mechanics are:
- Your 2 stacks defend with 50%
- Enemy attacks with 50%
- Enemy defends with 50%
- Your 2 stacks attack with 50%
Or simply
- Your 2 stacks defend with 50%
- Enemy attacks with 50%
24 Aug 2021, 18:00
Julianc97 wrote:
Something that i still can't understand about sir vs air when patrolling is:
When you have, for example, 2 stacks of 10 planes patrolling in the same place and they get attacked the mechanics are:
- Your 2 stacks defend with 50%
- Enemy attacks with 50%
- Enemy defends with 50%
- Your 2 stacks attack with 50%
Or simply
- Your 2 stacks defend with 50%
- Enemy attacks with 50%
When you have two stacks of planes in the same patrol circle and and 1 enemy stack comes in the same patrol circle then when your patrol clock ticks 0 your two stacks will attack the one enemy stack at 50%. However before your planes get to shoot the enemy stack will defend first and deal twice 50% damage, one to each stack. When the enemy patrol ticks zero the same will happen however as he only has one stack and you have two, his damage will be split over your two stacks. Before the enemy gets to attack however your two stacks get to defend first and will deal twice 50% defensive damage.
On direct attack it's more simple. The enemy will attack you at 100% and his damage will be spread over your two stacks. However before he gets to attack your two stacks will defend both at 100%. On his way flying in or out your patrol will tick 0 and patrol mechanics will apply.
Damage always gets spread over all units in the patrol circle both in patrol or direct attack. So if there are land units, or naval units, or other planes flying in. All those will get attacked too and the damage is spread over all those different units but each unit will get to defend however, so you will take a ton of return damage.
so it is good to have stacks of planes like 10 10 10 or 20 20 20 fighters attack bombers and tacs for over all air power or how you guys view it?
14 Sept 2021, 21:07
My rule of thumb, you CAN go over ten total stack size, but not for any individual unit type. As the calculations above show, two 10-10 stacks are WAY more effective than one 20-20 stack. This is not true for either four 5-5 stacks, or two 0-10 and two 10-0 stacks.
When the enemy is driven back, we have failed. When he is cut off, encircled and dispersed, we have succeeded. - Alexander Suvorov.
3 Apr 2022, 11:09
K.Rokossovski wrote:
My rule of thumb, you CAN go over ten total stack size, but not for any individual unit type. As the calculations above show, two 10-10 stacks are WAY more effective than one 20-20 stack. This is not true for either four 5-5 stacks, or two 0-10 and two 10-0 stacks.
Can someone explain this more easier way?
I have now read 1 week all the day, when I'm playing about air combat, but it feels that I just don't get it.
How It can be so hard to obtain, offcourse english ain't my first language, but still. I'm pretty smart/fast learner(subjectivully), but it feel's still, that, when I thought that I understand and get it 100%, then I read something elsewhere and I get confused.
So can someone please explain it simply, in which cases, either attacker or defender is better in which stack sizes and what there should be in those stacks etc..
3 Apr 2022, 12:53
8ujane wrote:
Can someone explain this more easier way?
I have now read 1 week all the day, when I'm playing about air combat, but it feels that I just don't get it.
How It can be so hard to obtain, offcourse english ain't my first language, but still. I'm pretty smart/fast learner(subjectivully), but it feel's still, that, when I thought that I understand and get it 100%, then I read something elsewhere and I get confused.
So can someone please explain it simply, in which cases, either attacker or defender is better in which stack sizes and what there should be in those stacks etc..
I have now read 1 week all the day, when I'm playing about air combat, but it feels that I just don't get it.
How It can be so hard to obtain, offcourse english ain't my first language, but still. I'm pretty smart/fast learner(subjectivully), but it feel's still, that, when I thought that I understand and get it 100%, then I read something elsewhere and I get confused.
So can someone please explain it simply, in which cases, either attacker or defender is better in which stack sizes and what there should be in those stacks etc..
