With unlimited airlifts, you may deploy a whole defending army in just two turns! This, with no tactical necessity like the control of your line of communication. True: you *have* your airport to establish this line! But the airport must not make all these other interesting tactics obsolete.
I've explained this earlier, but I'll reiterate it to clarify my position that a city with an Airport should only be able to
receive unlimited airlifts per turn, but should only be able to
send one unit per turn to another city, just like in previous Civ games. For example, if the Player only has one city on their home continent with an Airport, it can only airlift one unit per to any other city, regardless if the destination city has an airport or not. If the Player has five cities with Airports, one unit can be airlifted from each city per turn. If the destination city doesn't have an Airport, it can only receive one unit per turn; if it has an Airport, it should be allowed to receive one unit from each of those five cities.
If Airports abided by your restrictions, there'd never be a reason to build more than one Airport per continent, because a city on another continent could only ever receive one unit per turn -- and only if it had an Airport. That doesn't make sense and is too restrictive; in undermines the usefulness of airports.
When playing against the AI, a smart Player will garrison their cities and defend their borders to deter an attack. It would be crazy to deploy all of your units elsewhere and leave your borders undefended, and rely on airports to airlift units back there if and when the AI attacked. Regardless, if a Player decided to build airports to facilitate rapid strategic re-deployment, I don't consider that unbalanced at all. Building airports in multiple cities is a significant investment in time and resources; it should provide significant benefits, such as ability to airlift units to conflicts anywhere in the world.
This is true for oversea invasions even more: Why bother with ships to defend your line of communication at all? As long as you managed to establish a beachhead, it will need a blink of an eye to have your whole army ready to invade. Secure your sea routes? Build ships to achieve this? Pha!
The usefulness of Naval units in Civ5 is an entirely different discussion. I love having a powerful navy, even though it's usually unnecessary. I rarely ever lose embarked units to enemy ships because I always have naval superiority, and I usually sink all of their ships prior to invading their land. Airlifting isn't about avoiding the dangers of transporting units across the ocean, it's about reducing the amount of time it takes.
As I explained, a city without an Airport can only receive one unit per turn. That means that if the Player conquers a city and establishes a beachhead, that city can only receive one unit per turn. So NO, your whole army will
not be ready to invade "in the blink of an eye" because the beachhead can only receive one airlifted unit per turn. The Player will have to hold that city until resistance ends, and then the Player can annex it and either construct an Airport or purchase one immediately. When that city has an Airport, the number of units it can receive per turn is determined by how many of the Player's cities have Airports. A captured city will probably be in resistance for 6-10 turns; it'll probably be faster to send the second wave of units by sea anyway, while airlifting one unit per turn in the meantime. Airports and airlifting wouldn't be an immediate decisive advantage; in fact, airlifting only one unit per turn would be much slower than embarking a second wave of reinforcements and having them arrive a few turns after you've captured the beachhead. However, about 10 turns later when you can purchase an Airport in the captured city, you can receive unlimited airlifts per turn, which becomes a decisive advantage. But IMO if the enemy civ hasn't counter-attacked, destroyed your beachhead, and re-captured its city during that time, it's never going to, so it's better if the Player is able to steamroll the enemy with airlifted reinforcements, instead of having to wait for them to cross the sea. The end result will be the same.
Your idea of hastily prepared airstrips allowing landing operations is valid for sure - but unfortunately only for light troops. I'm pretty sure: a C-5 Galaxy loaded with tanks is *not* able to land on them!
The following is a pic of a CC-117 (Canadian Armed Forces re-designation of the Boeing C-17 Globemaster) on an airstrip in Inuvik, Northwest Territories, Canada.
I've already proven that the C-17 can and does airlift M-2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles (Mech Infantry) and the M1 Abrams main battle tank. That airstrip is normally used by small prop-planes, as you can see in the foreground; but apparently a C-17 can also use it. A mile-long stretch of paved runway is
not the equivalent of an international airport. A modern, organized military force is capable of paving an airstrip virtually anywhere in the world in less than a month. Also, many countries have designed their highways to function as makeshift airstrips, if necessary (i.e. the Autobahn). Therefore, hastily prepared airstrips absolutely can handle military transport aircraft loaded with tanks.
This made me laugh (no offense intended): Quote: "That's not how it worked in previous Civ games, and it's not how it works now." - spoken by a person who offended other people of being to conservative and "denying" progress !
You're deliberately twisting my words and using quotes out of context. My criticisms of others who are being stubbornly dogmatic and adhering to the feeble-minded philosophy that "it is the way it is, and should never be changed, ever" were valid, because they were deliberately impeding progress and improvements. My ideas for Airports and airlifting would certainly improve Civ5; whereas your restrictions would impede their usefulness.
Remember (and this is my main point!): armies are *much* smaller in CiV than they have been in Civ4! A game mechanism that worked well in former games (with multiple units per tile and stacks of doom) may not work with 1upt!
Since Airports are not included in Civ5, we cannot be certain how they will effect gameplay and game balance. However, we do know how great Airports were in previous Civ games, which is why I believe that they should function the same way in Civ5. After the Airport has been implemented into Civ5 and has been used by Players, then its effect on game balance can be evaluated, and if it's deemed too un-balanced, it can be modified accordingly. I'd prefer to risk that the Airport being too powerful, like the Giant Death Robot, as opposed to being too weak or useless, like the Ironclad. If the Airport is too powerful, everyone will use it, and Firaxis will need to balance it. But if it's useless, no one will build Airports and therefore Firaxis will never bother to fix it, just like they've never bothered to improve the Ironclad.
Any player that did that would be incredibly stupid, and would realize immediately it was a terrible mistake.
if used to connect a city to the capital.
to upgrade it to a Battleship. Considering that a Battleship now costs exactly the same as a Destroyer (WTF!?), it's much smarter and cheaper to wait until researching Telegraph and then produce Battleships.
) and perhaps make you chose between oil units and oil transport. I personally think it would be interesting anyways.
