River Attack bonuses

[Gwil]

Whilst playing as Mali today, I attacked an Aztec city from across a river. Naturally, they achieved +25% against me for the penalty of crossing, aside from Marines.

I was a little puzzled (and annoyed, as I lost the unit) as to why my Gunship incurred the same +25% to the enemy (a cavalry) for crossing. If I see it again i'll take a screenshot - I presume this is a bug, as a helicopter would not be impeded by a river.

[Bushface]

The game handles Gunships oddly. Most notably. they can't fly across water - that is, lakes and seas - so presumably they have to be carried across rivers and thus become liable to the attack penalty.

[Crighton]

A simple solution would be to give the gunship the Amphib promotion (since a heli launched from a transport on the Ocean wouldn't logically be any different than flying over a river).

[Psyringe]

In game terms, helicopters are simply ground units with very misleading graphics. They can't fly over anything.

[gettingfat]

I also don't see how units can get defense bonus from hill tiles against gunships. IMO somebody standing at the top of a hill makes an easy target for an attacker in the air.

In fact, there are too many weird rules about fighting in Civ4:

• Units don't get "attack bonus": I believe a knight charging down from a hill should be way more dangerous, well.. maybe theory of gravity has no place in a game.
• Mounted units can't withdraw when attacked by slow moving units: once again, for the sake of game balance. OK, I accept it. Just find bunches of Keshiks standing like morxns in grassland getting slaughtered by my "charging" pikemen very amusing (until my knights later get slowly killed by those primitive spears).
• Archery units and seige/artillery units don't attack from distance. They can't stay in the tiles they originally occupied after their attack (which result in the famous "suicidal catapults"). In fact, a melee attack and a supposedly ranged attack makes no difference in the game.
• Naval units, even as powerful as battleships, can't hurt any land units laughing at them standing at the coastline.
• No ZOC. Enemies' chariots can run around my forts in circle like merry-go-around.
• The famous "gunships will get drowned so don't touch the water" rule.
• Finally, I still don't understand how those Indians guys can outrun modern armours.

[BomberEscort]

Originally Posted by gettingfat

Finally, I still don't understand how those Indians guys can outrun modern armours.

This is the funniest bit of Civ humor I've seen... What was even funnier was when my wife said "I don't get it!"

[ollj]

Civ4 gunships are land units.
They lack the fuel to battle on the other side of a river or to fly around hills to hide from enemy archer fire for a long time... unlike all the other tank units who have more fuel.

[gettingfat]

Originally Posted by ollj

Civ4 gunships are land units. [CENTER]

Since gunships can be promoted from the mounted units I think you're quite close, although it's hard for me to mentally visualize a gunship moving on the ground at the speed of 8 tiles per turn.

I also find the rule of giving bonus to the defenders in naval battles unreasonable. In sea battles, especially in pre-radar era, the attackers usually had a clear edge from attacking following the direction of currents and winds, getting better momentum (in addition to the superior manueverability from the speed, collisions are also a legitimate tactic in early naval battles), ambushing (go watch the Master and Commander). It's fairly retarded to me right now when two galleys see each other, both parties just get fortified and stare at each other and hope the enemy silly enough to be the aggressor.