Airship: the moost ridiculous unit in the game?

[LaTuFu]

I don't feel like I have enough experience with this game to offer any opinion on their use. But from a historical perspective, if they are to be used accurately in the game, they should have good recon capabilities. If they are given any attack ability it should be weak or have a probability factor similar to the espionage missions, with low probablities of success or low damage. And they should be vulnerable to infantry intercept.

I'm speaking "should" from a "how would I modify them" standpoint.

 

[Atwork]

Amazingly hot air balloons and zeppelins really were viable military tools at one time. But, my opinion is that people get a bit too hung up on realism. So far as game strategy is concerned, the airship unit, even though it comes a little too early and is a bit overpowered, is still a nice complement to have in your military repertoire. It certainly adds to a player's strategical options.

 

[HiroHito]

IT IS overpowered, but silly ? I dont think so.

 

[Quagga]

What is so overpowered about them? They can't kill units or destroy improvements. They don't create collateral damage. And after Physics, go Artillery then Rocketry and shoot them all down. Or Combustion to Flight and do the same. Or at Combustion, send your destroyers out to get bombed; they won't sink, they'll gain plenty of XP and they'll shoot down some blimps.

 

[Bhruic]

I don't find it overpowered. I just find the lack of a counter-unit to be inconsistent with the basic game mechanics. The whole idea of the game (barring the odd UU) is that you don't have a unit that can't be countered roughly at the same tech level. That's certainly not true for Airships.

Adding some sort of early AA unit/gun would really help balance things off.

Bh

 

[Quagga]

Destroyers can be available before airships, so it's not strictly true that there is no counter.

 

[Bhruic]

Well, yes, but Macemen "can be" available before Longbows too, so I'm not sure that's the point. You're talking about a water-only unit that is one farther along the tech tree compared to Physics. I'm not sure that really qualifies as a proper "counter" unit.

Bh

 

[Ben E Gas]

I've only used them as reconnasance. I don't really like them.

 

[Dida]

Destroyers can be available before airships, so it's not strictly true that there is no counter.

Totally wrong. Destroyers are so ineffective at interception that an AI with destroyer + airship will render your navy completely useless, at least within 8 tiles of his coast. After blasting your navy with airships, his destroyers can easily finish yours off without breaking a sweat.

I made airship recon only, and have played a few games with it. It is still a very useful recon unit, especially when you are fighting a tight defensive war with a strongly cutured enemy, because otherwise you cannot see the movement of his troops within his border, which runs right up to your border cities.

 

[Ormur]

Plus the AI always beelines to Physics stealing my great scientist and getting those pesky airships before me even though I'm generally ahead in tech.

 

[Quagga]

Totally wrong. Destroyers are so ineffective at interception that an AI with destroyer + airship will render your navy completely useless, at least within 8 tiles of his coast. After blasting your navy with airships, his destroyers can easily finish yours off without breaking a sweat.

Admittedly it can go that way. But not always. I've seen the AI waste turns bombing my destroyers instead of my attacking stacks. The destroyers don't sink and they keep getting a bunch of XPs.

 

[Omegon3]

To get my "two cents" worth in... While the airship is probably completely unbelievable for its time period and its attack strenth, I LOVE bombing the heck out of the AI when I finally get tired of their freakin' spies poisoning my cities (only takes two or three poisonings to get my ire up! My problem is when I'm disliked by more than one civ and they all have access to my cities). Playing at the lowly level of chieftain, I am inevitably so far ahead of the AI in terms of technology that they have no answer for my attacks and are easy marks. Or, alternatively, someone like Montezuma (he is suicidal, you all know) decides that he's had enough of me and decides to attack. I love bombing the heck out of his stacks as he approaches one of my cities... Then hitting back with my own troops unmercifully!!

As you might guess, I'm one of the "peaceniks" who only attacks when the need arises...

My vote is NOT to take away my airships -- no matter how unrealistic they may be (I probably would change my mind if I played at a higher level and the AI actually got ahead of me in techology!).

 

[HiroHito]

they are overpowered vs ships, thats a fact I think.

 

[lutzj]

it stunk in real life, and it stinks in-game. but in both, it is extremely effective when the enemy can't respond in kind. my only gripe is their short range: airships could easily out range fighters and that's why airship was the main type of commercial air transport (pre-Hindenburg of course).

 

[LemonJello]

I've only built airships a few times, as they do make for good recon assets. I guess I never really looked at their stats, but after reading these posts, they could make for some good early defense against AI fleets in combination with frigates/ships-of-the-line/destroyers. I'd like to see an auto-recon mission for them, though.

 

[Stylesrj]

The airship should at least have a damage cap. Perhaps the max damage they can take off a unit is 10-20% of their strength. Represents lowered morale and scattered or killed troops.
Then the people will be happy their stacks of doom are not decimated by an air unit.

Couldn't you just place machine gunners in the stack? Machine guns are not damaged by airships... right?

 

[kazapp]

The issue isn't whether the Airship is "fun" or "effective".

The issue is: is the Airship completely ridiculous or not?

I say yes - it feels very ill concieved, with bad and nonsensical gameplay.

 

[Cytral]

or they should at least add some Fokker tri-planes

How can they forget the red baron.

 

[TheDS]

Airship does have a damage cap, like 30%.

I agree that it's an improper unit; in my games so far, I've used them extensively to beat the crap out of enemy cities and stacks, or blunt enemy offensives. The unit needs to be changed.

Making them available with combustion would seem to be a good idea, since motors are what allow them to be more than simply battlefield recon posts, but that would probably get them obsoleted pretty fast and remove the point of even having them.

Instead, more units need to be capable of defending against the airship when it's used in its bombing role. Any unit making use of rifles (riflemen and up) or rockets should have SOME anti-air capability, and as airships make fat, juicy, slow targets, those values should be doubled against it. Note that even a frigate would have rifles on board to allow it nominal anti-air capability.

 

[Stylesrj]

A bullet into a thin copper or metal covering is not going to destroy the airship. Not even a whole barrage. You'll only poke small holes in the cover, but the damned thing will still fly. You put some incendiary ammunition in your bullets though, you'll cause the fuel to ignite and BOOM!!!

Or you could fly a plane higher than the ship and drop a bomb, like some pilots did during wars.
A frigate fleet can't really defend against an airship fleet because there are not enough rifles onboard to damage them enough and the cannons cannot be aimed at the sky.

Also note that the fleet would fly higher than the ship before dropping their bombs

Although I think there should be an AA gun, like in the WWII mod