Airships in middle ages???

[Mik1984]

With airships upgrading to bombers you would give them some life after the combustion and you could introduce them late enough to grant the age of sail some time to live. Airships bruttaly end it, sometimes even before it starts.

 

[Walkabout]

Actually, has it ever been shown that Airships were ever that good historically?

I spent some time looking at this a while back. Their effective use against military targets as anything more than a recon platform was almost nil.

In the first world war they were used primarily as a primitive form of strategic bomber. They attacked cities, not military targets per se; and even then they were minimally successful in terms of the number of casualties inflicted (something like 600 killed in the entire war). They did, however, provoke a good deal of consternation among the civilian population.

In the early days of the second world war, the US used them as recon platforms off the eastern seaboard to discourage u-boat attacks. While some of them were armed, I've yet to find a single documented instance of a successful attack by an airship against a naval unit of any kind (as opposed to operating as a recon platform that vectored in attacks from surface units or fixed wing aircraft).

In my opinion, giving them the ability to damage military units at all is entirely unfounded; and the bonus against naval units is downright silly. It just never happened.

 

[pi-r8]

I think he wanted to use manpower. The only trouble is that converting any physical motion to generate enough energy for reasonable flight is...difficult.

Nah it's easy. You just gotta eat a lot of protein, and peddle reaaaally fast.

 

[Mik1984]

I spent some time looking at this a while back. Their effective use against military targets as anything more than a recon platform was almost nil.

In the first world war they were used primarily as a primitive form of strategic bomber. They attacked cities, not military targets per se; and even then they were minimally successful in terms of the number of casualties inflicted (something like 600 killed in the entire war). They did, however, provoke a good deal of consternation among the civilian population.

In the early days of the second world war, the US used them as recon platforms off the eastern seaboard to discourage u-boat attacks. While some of them were armed, I've yet to find a single documented instance of a successful attack by an airship against a naval unit of any kind (as opposed to operating as a recon platform that vectored in attacks from surface units or fixed wing aircraft).

In my opinion, giving them the ability to damage military units at all is entirely unfounded; and the bonus against naval units is downright silly. It just never happened.

I agree with that this is a science fiction with those airships. They should be either replaced with balloons that have no attacking power, or they should become available with combustion and be upgradeable to bombers, not fighters. Or they could be thrown out of the game.

Next science fiction unit is the "stealth destroyer". Stealth is mostly a useless technology of surface ships, since it doesn't help much anyway and where you need stealth, you don't need surface ships. Subs can deliver missiles, nukes, torpedoes, commando squads and have huge recon capabilities and they are incomparably more stealthy than any warship designed to minimize its RCS.

 

[Schlomoe99]

Stealth is NOT useless for ships, even if the enemy already knows where you are. Their advantages in combat come when they are attacked by radar-guided weaponry. Since their radar cross section would be so low, incoming warhead guidance systems would be significantly more susceptible to spoofing countermeasures. Perhaps CIV IV could better simulate this by giving them better bombardment resistance versus cruise missiles.

Also I completely agree with the fact that airships have been badly implemented in the game. Perhaps the designers thought that if they couldn't do any attacking then no one would bother to build them. They make great recon platforms, though!

 

[GIO888]

I like airships.

They only come "early" if you bee-line for Physics. I normally get them around 1750 AD (Prince, Epic). The Montgolfiers were around then.

Gods my come and go, but the Empire of Civ is eternal.

 

[Mik1984]

Stealth is NOT useless for ships, even if the enemy already knows where you are. Their advantages in combat come when they are attacked by radar-guided weaponry. Since their radar cross section would be so low, incoming warhead guidance systems would be significantly more susceptible to spoofing countermeasures. Perhaps CIV IV could better simulate this by giving them better bombardment resistance versus cruise missiles.

Also I completely agree with the fact that airships have been badly implemented in the game. Perhaps the designers thought that if they couldn't do any attacking then no one would bother to build them. They make great recon platforms, though!

The ECM benefits of stealth are not so impressive after the target is already well above the minimum threshold of detection. Up to date radar guided weapons don't fly after the stronger signal, they use advanced software interpretation of the radar image to weed out the countermeasures. You don't feel the difference when you are talking on a cell phone with a 5/5 signal and a 2/5 signal. As long as the target is well visible for the radar system, the guidance system will reject all other stuff that doesn't fit in. You must fool the computer that something else is the right signal and that the right signal is fake.

Furthermore modern Russian rockets use also ECM source detection guidance as a back up to the software enhanced radar guidance and are claimed to be the most ECM resistant weapons in the world. They didn't have an occasion to be tested in real battle yet.

Stealth aircraft had their peak of deadly effectiveness in the 90's when they were confronted with a completely unprepared enemy. A B-2 might have an RCS of a flock of goose, but its reflected radar signal, even though of the same power, is clearly different and a modern radar will no longer reject the signal of a B-2 as easily. This doesn't change the fact that most armies still use outdated equipment.

The first stealth warship was prototyped in 1980 in US, but up till now they don't look as to provoke enthusiasm in the navy's of the world. The development is rather in adding versatility to the completely radar invisible warship type: the subs. Of course, if the RCS of a ship can be decreased without significant downsteps to his other qualities, then why not? But IMHO this is not going to be a new "Wunderwaffe". Especially when the ship is so big, it is almost out of chances if it is supposed to fool the rocket and his only reliable defense is to destroy the rocket before it hits him.

 

[Mik1984]

I like airships.

They only come "early" if you bee-line for Physics. I normally get them around 1750 AD (Prince, Epic). The Montgolfiers were around then.

Gods my come and go, but the Empire of Civ is eternal.

I grabbed them around 1100AD(Immortal,Marathon) and I didn't bee-line for physics. AI did and I was only spymongering at the moment since I had castes in all major cities as well as nationhood. With bee-lining for it I could have got it much earlier.

 

[FuRRie]

Airships are Overpowered when you get them early, but in a Normal game speed game, they life-span short.

On Epic/Marathon, they can decimate the enemy though.

 

[Mik1984]

Airships are very worth to get early. They easily disable any warships before combustion making you the king of the seas.

 

[Dida]

Airships are just simply stupid. You have an late middle age air unit that can damage other units over long distance, free of any counter until fighters. This is not fun in gameplay terms.

I removed airships and global warming (GW render nukes useless), the game is much better now.

 

[killmeplease]

i use airships as support to cavalry horde that rides across continent and devastes all on its way

 

[Rusty Edge]

Pretty much impossible.....

Not exactly impossible. http://home.teleport.com/~reedg/whitedwarf.html

IRL lighter-than-air-craft were effective recon units, and effective psychological weapons- sort of like Sadam's SCUDs in Desert Storm- most of the time they didn't do much damage unless they started a fire, but they terrorized the public & diverted a lot of resources trying to neutralize them .


I enjoy airships in the game because they look cool, and I build them for recon purposes. I'd be happy if they were just an upgrade for explorers, with no offensive capabillities. I could see them giving siege & ships a first strike chance in the yellow recon zone to account for early enemy detection and accurate artillery spotting.

Airships & physics are kind of like machineguns and railroads- The graphics represent a later stage of development in a long lifespan, so they look out of place when they first appear . Somebody has probably modded in gattling guns and hot air balloons, but for standard speed players, there wouldn't be much of a window to use the earlier versions.

 

[Mik1984]

I'd be happy if they were just an upgrade for explorers, with no offensive capabillities. I could see them giving siege & ships a first strike chance in the yellow recon zone to account for early enemy detection and accurate artillery spotting.

That's an excellent idea. Because it solves the problem of explorers you have to disband. Anyway they should be upgradeable to bombers afterwards. And 1 FS chance, that's almost no difference, I would go for 1-2 FS.

 

[Rusty Edge]

That's an excellent idea. Because it solves the problem of explorers you have to disband. Anyway they should be upgradeable to bombers afterwards. And 1 FS chance, that's almost no difference, I would go for 1-2 FS.

True, but if it were applied to all of the siege in the yellow recon zone it would be quite a force multiplier. One airship might cover the entire scope of the war. I'm not sure about how many chances and strikes or how large of an area it could command. Maybe it should only affect land arty in the fat cross or the city itself. This is the kind of game balance issue that others, such as Krikkitone, are better able to answer than I am.

If such a change were to be implemented, the city airship limit should be changed to 1 to prevent the A.I. from waisting it's production on useless redundency.

 

[Mik1984]

OK 1 FS is enough, but not cumulative of course, multiple airships still give 1 FS bonus and nothing more. For all siege&ships. It would be a big nerf from what they do now if you get them just as early as I.

 

[ICNP]

I don't think they really come too early... I haven't yet found a time where I needed to bomb the h*** out of ships. But thats just me. I'm the type who plays Warlord Diff and winds up hitting XBows with Bombers...

 

[Astat]

In my opinion, giving them the ability to damage military units at all is entirely unfounded; and the bonus against naval units is downright silly. It just never happened.

that's not your opinion, that's a fact.

in my first BTS game, i lost a _destroyer_ fleet after preliminary airship raids.
the mere thought of defenseless destroyer vessels getting sniped by evil high-precision airships is baloney.
as has been stated, the things were good enough to hit a metropolis when the wind was right, but they never bombed any ships.

when i face them in land combat, i ignore the airship graphics and simply regard them as some kind of attrition modifier in enemy terrain.

 

[Mik1984]

that's not your opinion, that's a fact.

in my first BTS game, i lost a _destroyer_ fleet after preliminary airship raids.
the mere thought of defenseless destroyer vessels getting sniped by evil high-precision airships is baloney.
as has been stated, the things were good enough to hit a metropolis when the wind was right, but they never bombed any ships.

Agreed. I think I'm gonna remove them completely until something is thought out to implement them properly into the game.

 

[Wolfshanze]

Agreed. I think I'm gonna remove them completely until something is thought out to implement them properly into the game.

Ummm... you impliment them properly into the game by changing the pre-req from Physics alone (which you can get in the middle ages) to Physics + Combustion which makes them come in the late industrial age, and only ONE TECH away from FLIGHT (which provides the obvious counter, the fighter)... if you want to further make it realistic, add OIL as a pre-req too. You'll never see airships in the middle ages again (well, unless the AI is waaaay ahead of you in research, but then you have bigger problems then airships).

How many of you know of an Airship that flies around with a combustion engine? This is the obvious solution that should have been done by Firaxis in the first place.

It's the simple answer that eludes most people.