Can anyone explain airports for me? They make no sense, one turn I am able to airlift a unit, the next I can't.

Sorry if this has already been asked...

Im probably wrong, but i thought it happened like this

You can airlift from one airport to ANY of your cities, but that city can only recieve one unit per turn. Its either that or the airlift city can only airlift once per turn - possibly both.

I dont use it a great deal unless im reinforcing islands or new continental beachheads.

An airport can send one unit by airlift each turn. The unit must not have already moved that turn - I suspect this may be your problem. There is one other possibility - automated workers/misionaries/etc. will use airlifting automatically to get around. It is possible that this is using up your airlift option in the city some turns without you noticing.

A city with no airport can receive one unit by airlift per turn. A city with an airport can receive an unlimited number of units by airlift (you're only limited by how many other airports you have).

Ahhh, I automated my units to build a road network, they probably went on the airport. Even so, I often move the unit then put them on the airport.

On the other, thanks, these suggestions solves my problem.

There are trade benefits for cities with an airport--extra trade route.

You can also house four add'l aircraft (total of eight) in a city. This can be helpful in a war push into a distant continent. You can put bombers here, whereas they can't get on an aircraft carrier.

Is the extra trade route in BtS? Because I only have Warlords (mac user)...

What the real problem with airports is...

You can move a T-Nuke from one city to another, even on the other side of the world, even into a city you just captured that turn.... even if that new city doesn't have an airport...

Hell, you can even take an airship and move it to ANY open border AI you want, and park it there, airport or not..

Hell you can even do it with planes, airports or not...

But... the one thing you CAN'T DO....

Absolutely never ever do......

Is transport a spy from one airport to another.
No no no!!!

Note: Modern day airports have enough trouble trying to catch a well known (but dumb) criminal from flying out of a country.... so how do they stop a professional spy?!!

BtS does give a Trade Route to Airports, but I thought that was true in all editions. In BtS, Airports give Air units some experience (3 or 4, can't remember which). That's pretty much the only way you're going to get XP for Air units.

But... the one thing you CAN'T DO....

Absolutely never ever do......

Is transport a spy from one airport to another.
No no no!!!


:eek: :rolleyes:

That really sucks. Never knew that.

:eek: :rolleyes:

That really sucks. Never knew that.

It's not true. Not sure what he's doing wrong, or what he really meant, but I just tested it and spies can hop from one of my airports to another just like any other unit.

Try hoping to an airport that ISN'T your airport.

I generally try not to run spy missions on my OWN cities.

Can you be specific? I can't see what point you are making about using airports to transfer spies. They are treated exactly the same as any other unit. You can only use an airport to send a unit (including a spy) to either one of your own cities or the city of a vassal. It doesn't matter if that city has an airport or not (as long as only one unit is sent that turn)

I have just tested sending a spy to a vassal's city with an airport and it worked just fine.

In the modern day & age of airports, it is rediculous that one must have to put a spy into a submarine, and then spend many turns sneaking around the globe, just to place it into another civ's territory.

Also it should be possible to send a corporation executive to open borders-civ by airline instead of carrying him on a military transport. I understand that sending military units is not possible, but for spies and executives, airports don't work like they should.

In the modern day & age of airports, it is rediculous that one must have to put a spy into a submarine, and then spend many turns sneaking around the globe, just to place it into another civ's territory.

It wasn't clear from your first post that you were only complaining about the way the game actually plays. You seemed to be saying that spies can't be sent between airports as though that was something exceptional. They are treated just like any other land units.

This is the Strategy and Tips forum; so if you want make suggestions, complaints, wishful thinking or whatever it would good if you did it in the correct forum or at least made it clear that your comments are not about actual gameplay.

Funny thing I've noticed is that if i have four cities each with an airport I can air lift one unit from each city into a vassals city making for a total of four units in the vassals city very usefull for cross continental warfare

I think thats an exploit and it was corrected in a update.

I suspect the vassals city had an airport in which case that is exactly what you would expect.

In my game I tested sending units to vassal cities. If the city had an airport I could send any number. If they did not have an airport only one unit could be sent per turn.

@Matthew5117

I'm patched up to 3.17 currently

@ UncleJJ

Thanks for doing the tests, I'm not going to get to play again until Monday night so I could test anything myself, it's good to know.

@Matthew5117
I'm patched up to 3.17 currently


Oh, sorry then. It must have been a unofficial patch.

@unclejj

I think you are being too harsh on obsolete. Although he often expresses himself a bit strongly and his post was confusing, this forum is used very often to discuss things that don't work the way they should, be they bugs, exploits, or missing obvious features.

I agree with him and the other poster that "peace units", ie missionaries, executives, spies, and great merchants, should be able to use an airport into and out of open border cities. And if OB allows military maneuvres inside rival territory, I could even make a case for airlifting units to protect a city or stage an attack, eg US airlifting into Kuwait and Saudi Arabia before Desert Storm.

I'm inclined to go the other route, and say obsolete got off easy. I probably wouldn't have been nearly so diplomatic about his pissing all over the thread.

It might be handy to airlift into territory owned by someone you have OB with, but OB doesn't make them your buddy, and if you want to move Spies wholesale, then use a chain of Transports. If the AI used Spies effectively, you'd be crying about how they can airlift into your territory and had no way to block them.

It would be nicer still if a) I didn't have to worry about spies dying in my vassal's territory, and b) my vassal was forced to offer its techs to me, especially after I've gifted them 20-30 techs and delayed my own advancement down a line so they could complete the tech and be useful ONE TIME in the game. But since the buggers can break away if they want, it makes more sense the way it is.

I would think that there shouldn't be a prohibition against moving most Great People & Missionaries via Airports to other civ cities that have airports. Admitedly I'm not sure why one might move non-Great Merchants around but whatever.

Airlifting spies into open bordered cities (and Great Spies too) might be a bad idea as far as a game mechanism goes, way too much potential for exploitation.

I suppose though that if the AI was programmed for it and it managed that aspect well enough then the idea could be put into play using a tiered system depending on the difficulty level (settler level next to no AI use, deity level - uses it often, etc). Something like that could be workable (personally I'd like to see that idea).

Anyways, thats my thoughts.

PS - @ TheDS
It is possible for the master to conduct espionage against his vassal (I probably poisoned several million of Ghandi's citizens over the course of one game) so I don't think it unreasonable for the vassal to defend itself (so to speak) from the masters spies (in all probability the vassal isn't thrilled about being a vassal and wouldn't want to simply extradite the spy back to the master.

I agree it would be nice if the vassal was required to pass the tech upwards to the master, which would make logical sense imo.

Ummm... the internet allows the technology to be passed up to his master.

Yeah, but who's games are lasting that long? :D Really, though, if I get Internet (usually beeline for it), I might get 2 techs the turn I finish it, and that's it. All those Modern techs give so many useful abilities, I can hardly stand to not get there first.

@ Crighton
Yeah, I know. They're not forced-permallies, they're vassals. People forget that, myself included.