vilemerchant
Prince
Well balanced because you say so are they?
Ridiculous unit that has no counter and can have a massive effect on the outcome of a war, for no good reason.
Airships: Why are they even in the game?
- Thread starter Peng Qi
- Start date
Well balanced because you say so are they?
Ridiculous unit that has no counter and can have a massive effect on the outcome of a war, for no good reason.
jdurg
Warlord
I've NEVER had airships play any more of a role than a nussiance in regards to the outcome of a war. If their presence is determining who wins a war, then you relaly need to step back and think about how you're fighting that war. They do a great job of making you re-think your strategies and develop new ways to set up your forces on defense and offense. I think people are getting upset with them because they suddenly have to adapt to a new style of play and face it; people hate change.
Evil Twin
Demented Sociopath
Whine whine whine. "stealth" destroyers and Next War's Dreadnaughts are freakin stupid too. Live with it.
Besides which, zeppelins were intended as bombers at one point, and they're harder to shoot down than you might think, especially if they use helium.
Besides which, zeppelins were intended as bombers at one point, and they're harder to shoot down than you might think, especially if they use helium.
blitzkrieg1980
Octobrist
Well, bi-planes would need flight. Flight is a significant amount of techs past physics. I think, perhaps, the 75% chance of living is a good balance.
Peng Qi
Emperor
Yeah, but if you read the wiki article you'd know that they were massively ineffective and that they could be shot down by a single machine gun.
Then "flight" needs to be separated into two techs, because getting bombers so soon after fighters and having zeppelins come so long before fighters is incredibly, incredibly ahistoric.
blitzkrieg1980
Octobrist
a-historic, yet balanced. To make players wait until a parallel flight tech for bi-planes would be silly. Wouldn't everyone just bee-line to fighters? WOuldn't you? I would just trade later on to get the parallel bi-plane flight tech.
I actually think airships are fine. They may have "no counter" but they really aren't all that effective anyways, as they are only a support unit. They don't cause collateral damage, you can only put 4 of them in a city, and they can't kill an enemy but rather only take away about 20% of it's HP (which is no big deal provided the target is stationary and has a healer).
I do agree that they should crash like 10% of the time, but I disagree that they would have been useless in real life. Musketmen and Archery units should not be able to shoot them down, as they would fly over the effective range of those weapons, but Riflles should just shoot them right out of the air. IF people of the times had realized what "air superiority with no reliable counter" meant on the battlefield earlier on, and come up with a good way of delivering payload, these things would have been used in every military action possible. Granted, it wouldn't work well on any mounted troops... but Infantry would take damage. Even if Infantry being attacked by fleet of zeppelins didnt take heavy damage, the unit would DEFINATELY be disorganized after being bombed by a zeppelin. Fire falling from the sky would undoubtedly frighten the best trained troops into disorganization -- which I have to say would definately weaken that unit by at least 20% of it's strength. It's not like the unit can't "heal" the damage in the subsequent turns (just how does a "military unit" have the ability to "heal" in the first place? - this would incinuate that after not moving for a few turns, people come back to life?)
So, perhaps the -20% max to a full strength unit represents the chaos caused by being bombed by something when you can't do anything about it and not actual casualties caused by said bombing. Since a unit can just "heal" ("heal" MUST represent more than just injured soldiers recovering, it must also represent organization of the ranks and additional supplies/reinforcements being sent in over that turn) in the next few turns, it's not like zeppelins are unbalancing the game that much -- especially cause they are more effective when used defensively.
Also, let me reiterate that any Rifling-based weapon should be able to blast these things out of the air instantly.
I do agree that they should crash like 10% of the time, but I disagree that they would have been useless in real life. Musketmen and Archery units should not be able to shoot them down, as they would fly over the effective range of those weapons, but Riflles should just shoot them right out of the air. IF people of the times had realized what "air superiority with no reliable counter" meant on the battlefield earlier on, and come up with a good way of delivering payload, these things would have been used in every military action possible. Granted, it wouldn't work well on any mounted troops... but Infantry would take damage. Even if Infantry being attacked by fleet of zeppelins didnt take heavy damage, the unit would DEFINATELY be disorganized after being bombed by a zeppelin. Fire falling from the sky would undoubtedly frighten the best trained troops into disorganization -- which I have to say would definately weaken that unit by at least 20% of it's strength. It's not like the unit can't "heal" the damage in the subsequent turns (just how does a "military unit" have the ability to "heal" in the first place? - this would incinuate that after not moving for a few turns, people come back to life?)
So, perhaps the -20% max to a full strength unit represents the chaos caused by being bombed by something when you can't do anything about it and not actual casualties caused by said bombing. Since a unit can just "heal" ("heal" MUST represent more than just injured soldiers recovering, it must also represent organization of the ranks and additional supplies/reinforcements being sent in over that turn) in the next few turns, it's not like zeppelins are unbalancing the game that much -- especially cause they are more effective when used defensively.
Also, let me reiterate that any Rifling-based weapon should be able to blast these things out of the air instantly.
Evil Twin
Demented Sociopath
That's nothing a sparman can't handle!Archers with flaming arrows !!If they're close enough to drop things on people's heads accurately, they're close enough to shoot!
Jedoc
Warlord
I actually don't have much of a problem with airships, including the fact that they have no counter. The Industrial Era is really set up to discourage invasions in the first place (see: machine gun) and the airship's short range and reliance on massed attacks to do any real damage makes it much more of a defensive weapon that an offensive one. If a zeppelin-supported invasion force comes up against a zeppelin-supported defensive army, the machine guns and healing rate are going to tear up the invaders.
To me, the Industrial Era represents an opportunity to turtle up, catch your breath, build some railroads, and prepare your economy and production capabilities for the tank rushes, intercontinental warfare, and Second Great Wonder Chase of the Modern Era. That's the way it's been since Vanilla, and the airship just seems like a little extra incentive not to go starting fights with your neighbors.
I'm looking at you, Ragnar.
To me, the Industrial Era represents an opportunity to turtle up, catch your breath, build some railroads, and prepare your economy and production capabilities for the tank rushes, intercontinental warfare, and Second Great Wonder Chase of the Modern Era. That's the way it's been since Vanilla, and the airship just seems like a little extra incentive not to go starting fights with your neighbors.
I'm looking at you, Ragnar.
MrCynical
Deity
Vilemerchant said:
Insults have no place in civilized discussion Vilemerchant.
The limit on airship damage prevents then from becoming overpowered, since the damage will heal in virtually all cases in a single turn. Their range is also short enough that they are usually vulnerable to a ground attack.
Realistic? No, they're not, but balanced they are.
I don't like the way they move and attack like normal aircraft. Surely a Zeppelin could stay in the air indefinately, at least no less time than, say, a Tank could be away from base. Also, compared to other aircraft, they're dead slow. If they were just normal units that could move over land and sea irrespective of territory they'd be much cooler and more useful (plus you could auto-explore with them, or just leave them hovering to watch the areas you want).
Of course, you'd need some kind of "shoot down airship" mission for planes, or something.
Of course, you'd need some kind of "shoot down airship" mission for planes, or something.
Yeah, that's totally stupid. I think it must be a bug that airships can actually intercept and damage surperior air units -- give me a break. Airships should only be useful against units that couldn't possibly counter them (archery and musket units).
Quagga
Former Dictator
I completely agree with this. They should just be one-unit movers that can move over land and sea, but have huge visibility range. And they should be able to be grouped in stacks with land or sea units. Forget the bombing stuff.
Actually zeppelins would move really fast compared to a land army, but nowhere near as fast as an airplane. German Zeppelins used to fly ~60 MPH in WW2 I believe, but that number could be off by a little bit. I'd also like to reiterate that zeppelins would have been GREAT at bombing pre-rifling troops. Even if the bombs didn't kill a large percentage of the army, the army would be forced to disperse to minimize casualties. This would disrupt the organization of the troops, which would have a huge impact on say, a "musketman" unit (think about how armies used to fight in that time -- standing in an open field).
The whole reason Zeppelins sucked in real life military attacks (actually they were sortof effective except that they ended up being kamikaze thanks to being incredibly easy to shoot down with a rifle/machine gun) is that, unlike proper use in Civ4, were used after the invention of thier respective "counter." Of course 3/4 of the Zepps used in WW1 got destroyed, they were getting shot by rifles!
In conclusion, the only changes neccessary to airships is that they need to be shot down by modern Rifle-based units and have a 10% chance of crashing each mission. If Zeppelins were being used against muskets or archers in real life, they would have been incredibly effective when they didn't crash due to accident -- but who wants a 600 ft. zeppelin crashing on their army anyway?
That's about it, though I wouldn't mind them having no counter if they didn't come so early before flight. They need to require another tech for propulsion. Steam Power or Combustion most likely. That's the only fix they need... and auto-recon for air units in general, of course.
Lurking Liu
Prince
- Joined
- Jul 27, 2007
- Messages
- 344
Some reason? Biplanes couldn't intercept Biplanes
Air fights in WWI were basically accidents--Two combat patrols ran into one another while on duty. Unless the attacker hung around a long time, they'd be gone by the time word reached the opposing airfield, the planes got launched, and reached the front. It wasn't until years later--represented by the Flight tech--that communications and aerial technology caught up to the point that fighters could launch and intercept incoming planes reliably. Radar made this even more likely.
Anyhow, unless used in large quantities, Airships aren't so hot. Their damage cap is only 15%. 30% against naval units. Also consider that 9 times out of 10, but the time the AI has Airships you have Infantry and they've still got Riflemen. It just evens things out a little...
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