how are paratroopers useful

yeah i don't see it

Often fun to drop a couple behind the lines, so pillage a little bit and hopefully distract some enemy forces.
The range is a bit of a problem - you need a base within reach.
They can also take cities sweeped free by Nukes and Gunships.
Otherwise - if you don't like them, don't use them.

They come so late for their strength, and their range bothers me a little (though they're less a sitting duck due to lower time in flatlands, they're nevertheless vurnerable in most cases after capturing a city, due to culture still surrounding it making it difficult to reinforce).

I try to end or at least functionally control games before they turn up. Not too big on them regardless, but maybe someone who uses them alot will offer some better insight.

They can't attack in the same turn they land (can they) but you say they can take cities already empty (from gunships). Maybe that could be worked out in some kind of a strategy.

Yes they can move after they land

I usually finds some use for them. In the era of tanks, pre Mech inf, my tank city assaultforce usually rolls away from the defending inf. In those cases a squad of Paratroopers that drops in can hold the captured city until the inf arrives while the tankforce rolls on to the next city.

I have used them for invading islands if the distant is short enough. Can be handy if you lack transportcapacity to get that beachhead so your airports can start shipping in troops.

You could in some cases use them paradrop in to pillage some strategic resource that's hard to get with other means, but in this case I find Spies, Bombers/fighters better options.

So, with the right circumstances and strategy, there's some use to the paratrooper.

Yes, there is some use for them, when they finally appear. Beachheads, like dubrown said. They're also good for reinforcements behind the culture lines or a rush with a tech lead: Bombers and paratroopers can take cities within 2 turns while making use of defensive bonuses.

I've used them in my thermo-nuclear wars, because land units can not move through irradiated squares and keep their movement points still, but the paras can drop over them fine.

Paratroopers are great for aggressive/protective leaders. Think of them as tanks, but faster. They can heal up for a couple of turns while the tanks drive to the next city, then parachute next to the city while the bombers suppress it and join the tanks on the next turns attack.

The only problem is that they are very vulnerable to SAM infantry - but if you have a tech edge then you can slaughter the AI faster with paratroopers and bombers than anything else.

My modern era warfare strategy is simple. Bombers/Jet Fighters to bombard city defense and do collateral damage, Marines to capture coastal cities, Gunships to finish off inland city defenders, Paratroopers to paradrop next to city and capture city, quick domination/conquest victory!

In my last game as Sitting Bull, I went to war with Montezuma to keep him from running over Caesar (he had already run over Gandhi and had military tech parity -- eww . . .). I dropped about 6 drill-promoted Paratroopers on to a hill beside one of his main cities. I averaged about 8-10 kills/turn simply from defending, and forced him to attack them by using air support to keep the city threatened. I could readily resupply this stack from my military town.

Then my tanks came in after he had blown all of his counterattacking units on trying to dislodge my paratroopers.

The inability to attack or pillage on the turn they're used largely nerfs them before they even get off the ground IMO. If you can land them on forested hills, they've nuisance value. They're good as rapid garrison troops to land and secure newly conquered cities.

Dropping them into (double-) nuked cities could work but its not really the paratrooper doing the work.

Gunships (With heavy bomber support) would be expensive I think if the enemy has SAM units. Without bombers, the attrition would be prohibitive.

TheRealCzar said:

The inability to attack or pillage on the turn they're used largely nerfs them before they even get off the ground IMO.

Click to expand...

They can pillage the same turn. They can not attack.
And I love them in occassions when my water units are still building up and I can drop them over the sea in 1 turn after strong bomber/fighter attacks beforehand.

edit:
And how about Medic III Paratrooper?

They would be good to spearhead invasions of islands off your continent when you don't fancy building a navy to take on your enemy's.

That's at least how they were used historically (Crete).

Otherwise, they're the rich man's combined infantry + transport, just as in Civ. They don't do what you can't accomplish by other means.

In other words, they're a specialist unit that shouldn't be too generally useful...!

Hmm I just had a look at them. The price/power is not that bad (160 / 24 versus 140/20 for an infantery), and if priorisiing flight should be available pretty quickly after assembly line.

What makes them a lot less useful is that they can (afaict) only be launched from cities and fortresses, ie not from carriers or other ships, so you can't really use it until you're pretty close to the enemy.

I guess mass building them and then deploying them accross the lines can be useful, especially against humans (as computers tend not to think in terms of strong border / weak belly that much). I can see the point above in using them together with tanks, using the dropping to make up for the movement. I do think that they should have enabled landing on an enemy unit (with -50% paradrop attack or something) to make them a bit more useful...

Here's a link to the last paratrooper discussion:
paratroopers

They seem to me to be especially powerful in multiplayer.

The AI tends to keep its rear areas well garrisoned, diminishing the impact of paratroopers (and commandos).

But human players often economize force by concentrating their defenses near the front. Paratroopers can punish them for that.

I find they are really good at supporting a mass cavalry attack. If you have built up a big stack of highly promoted cavalry and cuirassiers in earlier wars they can conquer territory of a vassal or a weak AI very quickly.

But if the enemy has cannons and infantry they can counterattack the mounted troops (since they don't get terrain bonusses) when they are on their own in enemy culture. So I use paratroops to hold strongpoints for the cavalry stack to move through the enemy culture. Just use pre positioned spies or fighters or bombers to reduce defences and then bombers to soften up the defenders or even some Flanking2 cavalry (60% withdraw chance) and the target cities can be taken twice as fast as normal. No need to research and wait for tanks to be built if you have a fast moving attack column with air support.

The paratroops can be dropped at 2 tile intervals and if given either guerilla or woodsman promotions for instant terrain bonusses, few enemy want to attack. Sometimes a captured city is entirely surrouned by culture and paratroops can be dropped directly into it or one tile short and move into it. Other paratroops get the CG promotions if I expect them to hold a city until the main infantry force can get there.

They move faster than ordinary ground troops in friendly or neutral territory with no railroads. Their paradrop is range 5 (IIRC) and they can move another tile as well. As long as they end up in a city or fort they can do that again next turn so basically they move twice as fast as ground troops and can keep up with the cavalry stack when you have to re-deploy from one side of a big continent to the other.

They are amazing support troops for a lightning attack. I stop building ordinary infantry as soon as paratroops are available although obviously a lot of older troops still get upgraded to infantry.

How about:

• Get a bunch of 6 XP paratroopers
• Give them asorted promos ( guerrilla II , drill II,... )
• Drop in a hill
• Watch AI trying to dislodge them
• Reinforce as necessary
• When the Ai depletes their attacking troops, advance

Too bad that we can't do forts in enemy territory, or else these dudes would be OP

Do they always land where you aim them? I remember their randomness in I think it was civ3, or civ2? xD