airships

[dennisg]

Ok, sitting at work thinking about my last frustrating game of BTS (i.e.: I lost as usual)

Anyway, I know there's been a lot of discussion about airships, so forgive me if this has been brought up before:


1) Airships appear with Physics. Fine. But when does the first counter-unit for an airship appear? Is it with fighters and flight?

2) An airship can or can't attack another airship? (Yes, I know I could try it and find out but I'm sitting at work right now


3) All this pissed me off because I had built up a nice SOD and was marching toward Charlamagne when all of a sudden umpteen million airships appear out of nowhere and reduce my stack of brave soldiers to a pile of blubbering walking-wounded....and there's no way to counter?!

ack.

Thanks for hearing me out.

 

[S.ilver]

The latest patch gave Machine Guns intercept. Yes, very weird, but this was probably done due to airships. As far as I know, airships can't intercept each other either, as there is no intercept mode for them.

In short, bring Machine Guns with your stack. (Rocketry unlocks Anti-Tanks I think, and those also have some intercept, but I believe in most cases, Railroad comes earlier ).

 

[Handel]

The airships basicly are bombers although they do upgrade in fighters.

 

[neckface]

I modded the xml to make them require combustion as well as physics... now they are much less significant/threatening (as they should be!).

 

[dennisg]

I modded the xml to make them require combustion as well as physics... now they are much less significant/threatening (as they should be!).

Can you please explain how you did that? Thanks!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I modded the xml to make them require combustion as well as physics... now they are much less significant/threatening (as they should be!).

I understand the reasoning for realism, but they're night useless as anything but scouts even without that tweak...why would anyone want to make them EVEN WEAKER?! They're just ONE tech from getting utterly owned by fighters then, as if machine guns or SAMS weren't doing it already.

 

[neckface]

...why would anyone want to make them EVEN WEAKER?!

in a word: AI Spam
they just annoy me to no end.

Anyway, OP, I dug up the post where i asked the same question here.

 

[GooglyBoogly]

You can also counter airship strikes by having a good medic in the stack and waiting a turn before you attack (medic I+woodsman III = +25% heal = 30% healing in enemy lands), while the airship damage cap is only 20%

 

[theKurgen]

Mod them so that they require flight. This means the stupid unit is no longer ever in the game. Much better that way!

 

[dennisg]

Well, I wouldn't want to mod them entirely out of the game, it just seemed ridiculous, what with every other unit having some sort of counter-balance, that airships could roam the skies unmolested for so long. Thanks to the person for telling me about machine-gun intercept...that should do the trick for me

 

[TheMeInTeam]

In BTS 3.17 machine guns intercept air. Physics isn't THAT far in front of railroad.

But the point is, this unit sucks utterly because it does NEXT TO NOTHING outside of recon. You can only put 4 in each city, and they do very little damage to anything. GG medics or hell even regular medics make them seem like flies. I often forget the AI even has them.

They were a little worse when they wrecked ships so badly. Destroyers ruin their day though.

The real counter to airships is to take the city they're in.......they have very little impact on a real army, even at high difficulties.

Edit: seeing them makes me nervous though, because it means the AI is closing in on arty...

 

[dennisg]

Edit: seeing them makes me nervous though, because it means the AI is closing in on arty...

I'm always nervous of the AI because I'm still not very good at Civ

 

[Calder]

In my current game with Churchill I'm finding Airships are useful in numbers, and combined with seige that are given a higher survival rate by way of the 20% damage already suffered per enemy unit. They are good for mounting experience for your troops. I now have on top of my measly 8 CRIII Infantry and lesser experienced cavalry around 20 CombatIV/Blitz Cavalry, 12 BarrageIII/Accuracy and 9 CRIII Artillery attacking and winning on average 3 cities per turn with the help of 16 Airships in 4 border cities. They're up against German machine guns in every city and do suffer heavy damage, but so far in the 38 years of war with Germany and his Vassals I have only lost 2 Airships. Germany has lost 3 vassals (2 conquered), the Great Wall in Berlin about to topple and is on the cusp of complete annhilation after being once a huge and almighty powerful empire throughout the game.

 

[boogaboo]

My flying experience and strategy :

Airships are useless to me.
When I get to flight I already intend to go to advanced flight, and build some airports (watchout, pollution!), but then always start ruling the skies with jet fighters.
Enough Jet fghters will knock the whole defence of your enemy, and very easily masacre any airships.

Note : If they have SAM of any kind, but only 1, you can take the risk on your first fighter, and then send 2 more who will not encounter any resistance (if I understand the mechanics correctly).

When you have destroyed their aircraft defences, you can finally start patrying with bombers... of any kind!
The big advantage of bombers is that they do big collateral damage where your best artillery would try suicide, and you can mobilize them to any city you have near enough.... no bomber carrier I understand

My 2 cents to ya all..
Hey.. you smell??
It's almost winter... I mean....
WWWWWWWAAAAAAARRRRRRR
Obama, I don't trust you, but please strike Iran b4 we do...
We'll get the missiles on our cities anyway..
Please? O Bamba? Can you reach out and touch reason?

Regards,
Booga.

 

[UncleJJ]

Airships are no problem if you anticipate the AI's use of them. The damage they do is limited to 20% IIRC. That means that a super medic heals the damage in one turn, as long as your troops are stationary. So move up to an enemy city and stand for a turn while your seige reduces the defences. Next turn the medic heals all your main attack troops at the beginning of your turn. Now if you have your own airships they can attack and damage the top defenders while your troops are fuly healed. Airships are an advantage to you in this case and a waste of resources for the enemy.

Their damage can be diluted by having a really big stack, so take more troops than you would normally. The real threat is a counter attack on your SoD by collateral damage and mounted (with flanking damage on your siege) and airship damage makes that more likely to be effective. A large stack reduces the chance of an attack on your SoD by enemy by seige (cannons are particularly painful in this era) and these troops will be held back in their cities where you can destroy them. You need to intimidate the enemy into being passive and defensive. Drafting is a way of raising a lot of troops quickly, muskets or rifles are excellent stack fillers. They really are not a problem if you handle them correctly.

 

[ThorRex]

I don't see the AI use Airships much at all. However, as the human I find them very useful. A lot of small reductions with Airship bombardment can make a large difference over the campaign. I have found Airships somewhat of a cheat against the AI but I'll take it since I need the help.

 

[Joshua368]

Curious here... if you have a 3.17 intercepting machine gun in your stack, will the AI be too scared to throw airships at it, even though most would get through? I think I recall hearing about this problem in earlier versions of the game with later aircraft; is it still here?

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

They really shouldn't have an attack value. I really hate all the anti-air capabilities given to units that shouldn't have it when the real problem is that air ships can attack. They would still be usefull even if they could just scout.

Airships, I despise thee.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

They really shouldn't have an attack value. I really hate all the anti-air capabilities given to units that shouldn't have it when the real problem is that air ships can attack. They would still be usefull even if they could just scout.

Airships, I despise thee.

Lol chemistry + physics = airships that can gas defending units for 1/2 health .

I bet you'd have seen some really interesting stuff if the real life "tech path" had been a little different. I actually think these are a little weak in civ terms, but also deserve a true counter. IN their era.

 

[Woody1]

Airships aren't completely useless. 20% damage is enough to take the edge off of cavalry and other units. Still, their main benefit is the huge recon range, especially if they are promoted to +2 range.