Make your planes move like Civ II

[pesoloco]

One thing that first surprised me when playing Civ III is the changed interface of planes. Recon missions, bombing runs, etc.
The planes must stay in a city (or carrier) at all times. Unlike in civ I and II where the planes could move (but had to reach a city within a certain number of turns)

I was working on creating an airplane unit, the E-3 Sentry (check it out in the Unit Graphics forum), and I needed a way to make the planes move over land.

This is how to do it:
use the civedit or hacked civedit
goto edit menu
goto edit Units
select a plane unit
change it to land
take off the "immobile" ability
give it a move factor of like 4-8, depending on type of unit
make sure the re-base checkbox is still checked

this will not let you fly over water squares, but thanks to the rebase option you will still be able to move your planes across oceans.

The cool thing is, if your plane doesn't have to return to a city.

Have fun!

[pesoloco]

correction:
you do not need to make your units "land"
leave them as "air"

then they CAN fly over water


it seems that the only thing you really need to change is:
take out "immobile" flag
change the Move factor

Enjoy!

[pesoloco]

neat thing is
if your plane is off in the middle of nowhere, you can still use re-base to bring it back to a city in one turn.

[sgrig]

I thought people tried removing the immobile flag and giving movement points to air units, but with no success! How did you get it to work?

How does that work with bombing, etc? How is defense against ground units handled? Can such 'infinite range' air units be shot down? Does rebase to a city really work, even if you are flying across an ocean? Do enemy fighters shoot you down if you get within their operational range?

Sorry this is a lot of questions, but I hope you can investigate some of these issues. Thanks a lot.

[pesoloco]

I have tried this and it works pretty well, except for one thing - even the weakest ground units can totally demolish a stealth bomber (not likely to happen in real life)
the solution i have found to this is to set the units as land units.
again, this will prevent you from flying over water, but at least warriors wont bring your planes down. Ground units will be able to attack but if you raise the defense a few degrees it wont be much of a problem.

Bombing and Recon and Re-Base work the same, just make sure the checkboxes for them are checked in the editor.

[pesoloco]

A better solution:
Set the unit as an AIR unit
Take off the immobile flag.
Give it "submarine" ability.
This will hide it from the enemy land units, unless an enemy ship that can see submarines is nearby. There are no default land units that CAN see submarines so this will work pretty well.

Give the plane a good defense factor.

[stainz]

How does the AI adapt to these changes?

But I still like to set them to automate so they bomb the hell out of everything.

[pesoloco]

As far as I know the AI uses them the same way, but I can't really tell since their units are "submarines" too.

[Kentonio]

And then you can add the 'see submarines' ability to your E-3 sentry and really get a realistic feel for air defense.

Kentonio

[Raven1er]

Totally......
Pesoloco is my idol for cracking/moding
thanks loco, great moding. but intercept can be annoying
thanks to you, i can now make bermuda triangle maps lol and send a stealth bomber across the world, and gets lost near Florida

[pesoloco]

Originally posted by Raven1er
Totally......
Pesoloco is my idol for cracking/moding
thanks loco, great moding. but intercept can be annoying
thanks to you, i can now make bermuda triangle maps lol and send a stealth bomber across the world, and gets lost near Florida

thanks. maybe that's what happened to amelia earhart?

[Raven1er]

good..inspirations

[hzm]

Originally posted by pesoloco
I have tried this and it works pretty well, except for one thing - even the weakest ground units can totally demolish a stealth bomber (not likely to happen in real life)
the solution i have found to this is to set the units as land units.
again, this will prevent you from flying over water, but at least warriors wont bring your planes down. Ground units will be able to attack but if you raise the defense a few degrees it wont be much of a problem.

Bombing and Recon and Re-Base work the same, just make sure the checkboxes for them are checked in the editor.

You can't just add a higher defence?

[pesoloco]

Originally posted by hzm


You can't just add a higher defence?

It doesn't matter how high the defense is for a plane. Ground units will always take it down. Just like when you take over a city that has air units, those air units are destroyed - they dont fight back, not against land units that is.

[Boulboulgadol]

I think about another thing using those tricks:

We could make the B-1B a Strategic Nuclear Bomber. It could be the American special unit(insted of the useless F-15).

So, as I see it :
It is a AIR unit
Radar, Submarine, Stealth, Can carry tactical missiles
You can use it as a classic stealth bomber (same bomb str)
or a Nuke carrier waiting over ennemy territory for its unwanted order to drop the nuke. USA did that a lot during cold war, when at least 1 stealth bomber were around soviet cities all the time.
So you have check the Unload flag too.
Also think about checking Bomber, Precision bombing & rebase flags.

Another solution would be not to carry anithing in it, but setting it as a nuke weapon itself. With checking Tactical missile & Nuke weapon flags and maybe upgrade to ICBM. The fact is I think the bomber will then be condidered as a missile and would get destroyed in the attack.

Tell me about that...

[Gringo]

NOTE: If you make the unit Air...and remove the Immobile attribute, the plane will be subject to Roads and Rail Roads.

I Personally removed the Rail Roads from my Mod Game (I don't like the Free Move cost they provide), so that way you can give your plane the "All Terrain As Road" and give it a conservative Move cost, becuse when over Water it moves normally, but over Terrain it will move as if on roads ie: 3 land squares.

Also give the plane some HP bonus (v 1.29f) in the Editor, because planes are destroyed INSTANTLY when attacked, so HP bonus should help make them take damage normally.

Making it "Invisible" is a great Idea that I just read in these posts, THAT way you only have to worry about units with the "Detect Invisible" or "Radar" ability.

[black_rose]

Originally posted by Gringo


Also give the plane some HP bonus (v 1.29f) in the Editor, because planes are destroyed INSTANTLY when attacked, so HP bonus should help make them take damage normally.

This still doesn't work does it? Or has something changed with PTW. I would like to use air units as in civ2 without them being invisible or destroyed by any attack, but I think it is still not possible is it? I could live with the fact that they would be slower over water (although it makes no sense) but they should at least be able to fly over it.

[Gringo]

I was mistaken, the HP bonus does nothing, the Air Units must have Invisible flag, and in some cases they still get attacked and destroyed in one shot... maybe it's just a bug that I have, but it happens to me, a patch to give us the option to use as CIV-II (not just for the player but have the AI use it as well) that would be nice.

[redhulkz]

how to increase planes operational range beyond 8 ?

[Hygro]

redhulkz, get PTW. Without PTW you can't. With PTW you can do a lot.