:crazyeye:

argh!

the AI baffles me....I send my silly old Airship on a recon mission and it gets shot down (I think by a rifleman)

several decades later, I set down a machine gun on a deer camp to stop Willem fricken van Orange's fighter planes from wiping out all my goodies...result being that on the very next turn the machine gun failed to stop the plane from wiping out the camp PLUS!! it took alot damage

what's going on here?

what land units ( besides SAM infantry :) ) can stop planes from pillaging

and how is an airship destroyed by a land unit?

Once they have the tech I think any gunpowder unit can get the AA promo. However, I can't imagine the AI would have rifles while that promo becomes available.

Airships can be damaged by land units and if the damage is sufficient they'll get shot down. Usually the only early industrial land units that can shoot aircraft down are SAMS...not other things. The other big AA units are of course fighters, but also destroyers. I didn't think airships could destroy improvements however, at least to my knowledge. They can't bombard defenses either which would be the only reason I'd make them typically. As it stands I largely ignore AI airships as they can barely scratch a large stack, even if the stack is composed entirely of old units.

Thanks for the info and I apologize for putting up a confusing post.....let me clarify..my airship was shot down

then many years later his FIGHTERS are destroying my tile improvements, weaking units in my cities, and reducing city defenses...the case I described with the machine gun is the one example when i tried to stop him

does that agree with your experience?

BTW this is BTS/HOF 3.13

many thanks

It all makes sense other than your airship being shot down. It requires either a special promo or SAMS, or stuff like fighters/destroyers.

Machine guns (even infantry!) do nothing to fighters. Early flight is an incredible advantage if you get it before the AI gets it or SAMs. You can basically force everything to fight you at 1/2 strength, and they can do all the bombarding too. Fast wars...