Airships - any good?

[Patricko]

I rarely build airships becaase I assume there not any great use. But I notice a few threads where people mention airships being good.

Do you use them and what for? Scouting? Supporting attacks?

 

[pigswill]

Some of the clever players go for airships to support a cavalry rush to weaken the top defenders to give cavalry better odds. I myself ain't clever enough to use advanced tactics like that.

 

[rah]

I was never a big fan of airships, but after reading the threads here, I'm a little bit of of convert.
I used to only build a couple for scouting but have learned that a handful can be actually supportive in a Cav rush.

 

[Pisskop]

Airships= Air support.

Not only for defense, but also for attack, and keeping a few around for naval support and 'spying' on the waters and neighboring civs is fun. The best use for them is to take them with an invading force to a freshly dominated city. Use this base to smite the dickens out of anything in field and weaken the abilities of defenders... great for rousing a muskets or stubborn units from a defended hll or a stupid longbowman from a city. Use in numbers over a few turns for maximum effect. It helps me reduce casualties and stay on the move, like the above was saying about calvary... MMM if only horse/tanks could stay on top of the world... The Germans had it right with their military tactic, and (unlike them) in Civ I typically have tech superiority(and no deficit) by the time I use them.

Fun fact: tanks were the first truely successful attempt to turn the advantage to the attacker.

 

[jordiflor]

I use them a lot, to weaken garrisoned units before attack, with both cavs ands rifles.
They don't cause so much damage as siege units (damage is in fact capped), but their range is very wide, so you can often attack several cities from same base. Up to 4 airships can be based in a city (of yours or of an AI you have open borders with).
Usually, when going to total conquest of an AI, I have 2-4 groups of 4 airships in border cities. After AI city is taken, in the turn cavs move to next city, rebase airships to newly conquered city, in order to be near to next targets.... and so on.
On each attack, airship reveals a great deal of fog, so it's very useful with cavs to attack units and steal workers two tiles away.

 

[elmurcis]

Actually pretty strong unit that can be useful even in late game (can see submarines). But for attack its also nice - getting down 20% from best defenders health give much higher chance for siege weapons to survive starting fights and stacks can move forward faster.

 

[lindsay40k]

I love 'em, very handy for protecting stacks from marauding Cavalry by kicking the trotters' teeth out before they can charge and having a good look around for incoming counter-stacks. And of course you can upgrade them to Fighters when you tech up and pound even harder - or sting enemy Airships trying to soften your occupiers up to retake a city.

 

[freedomna]

On my game (please note I am using the Realism Inviticus mod) the airships are very useful since I don't own the fuel resource for planes. I managed to secure a city with a garrison that outnumbered me 3:1 just because the Airships gave me air superiority. I feel they are useful, however on Vanilla I don't know (haven't played it in ages.)

 

[Seraiel]

Airships are very useful for, as already said, scratching the top-defenders. Usually they're used together with Cavs, sometimes also Cuirrs. In my games I usually build Airships 1:3 to Cavs and conquer the complete map with those. If you get 20% health of the top-defender, chances for a Cav can go from 50 to 80% survival rate. Airships are also awesome for scouting and they can attack defenders that are immune to siege damage (i. e. siege, MGs) . Yes, MGs can be brought down with reasonable losses if one has Airship support.

 

[Archon_Wing]

There's no real counter to airships at the time they come out. Until your enemy develops a reliable way to shoot them down which can be a while, they're a pretty risk free way to open the fight with a good amount of damage and scout with unparalleled range for that era. That would be until SAM infantry and fighters; anti-tanks and machine guns can intercept airships, but they usually just scratch them and just a short period of healing will put them back in commission. That's a long while-- and it's not like forcing the enemy to build anti-air units is a bad thing either.

 

[Darth Fred]

At the very least, I try to keep a few of them around for the reasons already named. Even after I get fighters, I'll leave one in service for long range scouting.
F

 

[RakeWorm]

This thread just made me realize that I don't think I've ever built a single airship. Will mess around with them on my next game.

 

[Junuxx]

Airships may be rather silly, but they're very useful.

 

[reddishrecue]

airships are useful for scouting sometimes. THey're upgradable to the fighter with flight.

 

[rah]

And they're not expensive to upgrade so you can have some waiting to upgrade quickly

 

[Pisskop]

You know what I never buildmuch of? Stupid Privateers. Slow my game down for the chance to steal a median of 3gp a turn per. Although the chance to screw with slow-techers and mass faster ones is fun it seriously lags my turns...

 

[Antilogic]

You know what I never buildmuch of? Stupid Privateers. Slow my game down for the chance to steal a median of 3gp a turn per. Although the chance to screw with slow-techers and mass faster ones is fun it seriously lags my turns...

Don't use them for raiding, use them for sinking enemy galleys and caravels. If the AIs don't have the technology for frigates yet, they will continue to spam obsolete ships that are easy prey. Wastes tons of their production.

In some games, I have upwards of 100 galley/caravel/galleon kills. That's thousands of wasted hammers on their part in exchange for a handful of privateers on mine.



On the topic: I think airships are far too strong for their place in the tech tree, so I definitely use them to soften up city defenses/scout out enemy lands when preparing an invasion (in short, Archon_Wing has it right). What should come at Physics is some kind of observation-only balloon that lets you scout, and then you can build zeppelins for bombardment later on.

 

[Junuxx]

Don't use them for raiding, use them for sinking enemy galleys and caravels. If the AIs don't have the technology for frigates yet, they will continue to spam obsolete ships that are easy prey. Wastes tons of their production.

In some games, I have upwards of 100 galley/caravel/galleon kills. That's thousands of wasted hammers on their part in exchange for a handful of privateers on mine.

I do this as well. Don't forget to mention the heaps of xp (and thus, great generals) you get this way.

If building a handful of privateers gives all your future rifles/infantry an additional 6 xp, I'd say they're definitely worthwhile.

 

[rah]

And if you can get them home safely after frigates show up, they upgrade to SWEET destroyers. (obviously after they've racked up tons of experience)
A tad expensive but what the hey.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

airships are useful for scouting sometimes. THey're upgradable to the [TIE] fighter with flight.

Edited for clarity by Darth Vader, the other Wright brother.