Airships

ahcos

King
Joined
Mar 19, 2010
Messages
919
Title says it all, and as the search function didn't bring up any good results regarding this topic i decided to start a new one.

Do you build them? How to use them? When? Is it worth beelining them? And everything else that comes up in your mind on this topic.

Personally, i found them to be pretty solid, even though i've never used them before. They prolongue the usefulness of Cavalery a bit further (yeah, i know, some people have done Cavalery+Bombers before...), vs. non-protective leaders it's perfectly fine to fight Rifles with Cavs as long as you bring enough Airships along. They have a good range and aren't countered (except machine guns to some extend) in their era. Have done some worldbuilder testing, like:

6 Cavs, 5 XP (not even Pinch as i forgot about that)

vs.

4 Rifleman, AGG Leader, +3 XP, 80% Culture, on a hill


With Airships i usually won the "second" fight (5th Cav vs. first Rifle for example) or had winning odds, without them it was a slaughterfest.

Same Setup without Hillcity and non-AGG Leader, the odds were even better. With only 40% Culture, they became decent. All these setups are not representative, but they got me thinking. So, what you guys think?
 
Airships are very good, you should surely build them if you are at war or are planning a war around the time physics comes around.
 
The recon ability alone makes getting some worth it. Not only can they survey your area to great effect, but they can teleport to any city of a civ you have OB with to have a look at their area.
The attacking ability is also nice for softening up heavy defenders and incoming stacks and one use is to support Cavalry.

I find Physics worth beelining much of the time anyway as it opens up a lot ofuseful techs and the GS is a nice bonus.
 
There is a recent az let's play where he uses them effectively with cavs
 
Airships are good, what's more they're cheap and don't have anything to counter them for a long time.

I'm not going to tech scimeth and physics for just airships though, so unless you have need of SP AL is more attractive. There's bio as well of course, but that's never a real priority at that stage in the game, I need something to smack AI with, not better farms.
 
Airships are nice but i wouldn't beeline physics just because the Ai usually goes for it and GS is useless at that point unless you still can burn it for a GA. in most cases I go with bio and trade it for physics only if I'm facing rifles. i can pretty much manage without the airships any industrial war on immortal but on deity it might be a different story. recon mission can give a nice strategic plus though.
 
Not exactly on topic, but airship recon is my least favorite bit of MM in the game. Having to control them to do the same action turn after turn is bad enough, but far worse is the way the screen shifts away from the unit since you're done moving it. I know there's the option to mqnually sift through your units instead, but it's kind of annoying that you only have to do it with this one unit.

Airships are powerful and useful in lots of places, but they're so annoying.
 
One thing worth mentioning about airships is they are probably the best submarine spotters in the game. If you're worried about late-game intercontinental warfare, consider getting at least a couple airships before Flight then just leaving them un-upgraded so they can recon for subs for you. I imagine this would be doubly true in MP if a game lasted that long (or went advanced start).
 
--but far worse is the way the screen shifts away from the unit since you're done moving it.

A tangent issue is that when your airship returns, any units that you revealed in that turn disappear rather than at least staying visible for the remainder of the turn; an annoying flaw. An elegant solution is found in the galactic strategy game, Sins of a Solar Empire, where previously explored systems remain visible including any units in that area, and a timer denotes how recently explored the system is. It's up to you to determine whether your last recon sweep is still relevant.
 
The best thing about airships is their long range. A few of them instantly boost the power of your army and provide recon, and the enemy will need fighters or SAMs to reliably shoot them down; although machine guns can hinder them quite a bit.
 
Recon ability alone is worth getting them. Also the ability to launch 4 unstoppable attacks per turn per city is not something that should be downplayed at that point in the game where you need to have a lot of seige to suicide.
 
cbucks said:
There is a recent az let's play where he uses them effectively with cavs

Which game was it? I'd like to see that.

I have trouble getting them organized. Do I build forts to station them?
 
Top Bottom