Lord AJ
The Quartermaster
Does having non combat units inside enemy territory at the time of declaring damage your reputation?
Correct use of ...
- Thread starter walletta
- Start date
Kirejara
King
It does.
I once declared war with a forgotten worker in enemy territory and everyone else blamed me for cheating this enemy.
The crazy thing is that the KI blamed the human player for having units in their territory during the declaration of war or breaking trade treaties, while they allways start a war by a sneak attack (and often abuse of right of passage and break trade treaties).
To Airports: If I remember correctly they create also trade and thereby cash. So I do not see them as useless.
They donnot. They can create trade routes, but those can be done by harbours over sea or by simply roads, so airports are really not needed in most cases.
they are awesome for unit transport however
timerover51
Deity
They are also the only way to build veteran air units. As Air Transportation is effectively instantaneous, they are far superior to roads and harbors if you are playing on a continents or archipelago map. I much prefer them to having to railroad everything in sight, besides always playing on maps with plenty of land masses. Railroads do not do very well on water.
Well, as I said: an airfield, which costs only a worker (10s and 10f), gives you the same effect as an airport (160s and 2gpt and pollution) as far as unit transport is concerned. So why bother building airports? Veteran air units are not needed in most cases, and a trade connection to another continent can much cheaper be established with a harbor.
walletta
King
I would like to repeat one point that justanick mentioned above, but which I fear has fallen through the cracks and has not gotten the attention it should have:
Instead of building/rushing an expensive airport (and hoping that your town survives this turn so you can start using the airport next turn), you can simply use a cheap worker to build an airfield (and already use it in the same turn!).
This little tactic could revolutionize your modern warfare...E.g. huge invasions of foreign continents become possible without even building a fleet:
- Send a ship with a settler and a worker to the continent you want to invade.
- Unload the worker on a mountain tile and and the settler next to it and wait one turn. (Settlers/workers will not get a boot order interturn, provided you have no other combat units inside that nations borders. So make sure the ship that brought the worker, does not contain combat units, if it remains inside enemy borders after dropping of the worker.)
- Next turn declare war, found a town, turn the worker next to the town into an airfield and drop your entire army on that mountain... (This assumes that you have enough airports and/or airfields at home. Actually, building airports is a waste of shields, unless you want to build veteran air units (which I don't think is necessary): why spend 160s plus 2gpt maintenance plus a pollution malus, if you can get the same functionality for just 10s? )
Gosh, this is sneaky.
walletta
King
Stupid question (but I have no shame, as I have proved many times before here) but how do you transport things by air?
put a unit on an airport (city with airport, or an airport built by a worker), click the transport button, then select the other airport to where it should go.
walletta
King
Ay ay ay. When I am I going to finish learning this game? I've been ferrying everyone in transports the whole time!
Thanks guys.
timerover51
Deity
I am thinking of rapidly moving combat units, and if a city is inland, you have the time involved in building roads to the nearest harbor, which can take a while. Veteran air units have an advantage when it comes to surviving combat. It all depends on how you play the game.
Which kind of combat would that be?
Unless both Adam Smith(no maintenance) and the recycling center(no additional pollution) apply airports seem to be a lousy investment.
ZergMazter
Prince
A cool way of transporting infantry that I use all the time is to load them in a helicopter, then re-base that helicopter to a new city taking all the infantry with it. This is useful when you get helicopters and still have a huge amount of infantry, no tanks, and few airports.
timerover51
Deity
Hmm, I have not tried that, as I did not think that the game would allow you to move units that way. I will need to try that the next time I have helicopters, which should come up pretty soon in one of the games that I am playing.
Kirejara
King
I do this too (as my attempted description in post #4 of this thread shows
). And while you can also airdrop directly into a friendly city, the transfer of the helicopter has the advantage, that the transported unit can be used in the very same round.
walletta
King
Two questions:
How many infantry units can a helicopter carry?
Are airports needed? (presumably not)
I quite like the idea of a game in which one uses 'unusual' or specialised units and tactics. So helicopters, marines, parachutes, cruise missiles, subs etc. I wonder whether that's possible.
tjs282
Stone \ Cold / Fish
3 foot-units per Heli in Conquests (was only 1 in Vanilla)
No. You use the 'Load' command to put units aboard a Heli, like you would for putting units onto a Transport in a coastal town (which doesn't need to have a Harbour to do that). Unlike Transports though (but like other air-units), Helis are 'Immobile', so you can only load units onto them in a town. No dust-offs from hot LZs in Civ3!
Once the units are aboard the Heli, you can then either rebase it like any other air unit (using up its MP for the turn, but leaving the foot-units' MP intact), or you can Airdrop the units onto any land-tile in Heli-range that's not already occupied by hostiles (which -- I'm pretty sure -- uses up your foot-units' MP for that turn, as well as the Heli's). Rebasing the Heli therefore means you can wake+move the foot-units onwards from their destination during the same turn -- and logically I guess you should also be able to load them directly onto another Heli, and then send them further, like ship-chaining.
If so, you could use a 'Heli-chain' to dump a small stack of Infs on top of your stack of Tanks already advancing into enemy territory, rather than slogging the Infs cross-country.
Sure, if you're playing some 'unusual' maps (Large 80% Archi?). A lot of the very specialised units in Civ3 are really only needed for Special Circumstances -- like using Marines to take a town on a 1-tile-island (only amphibious units can do that).
Just out of interest, have you tried playing the WWII Pacific scenario? Subs and Marines might be useful on that one, and possibly Paratroops too -- although I'd guess not Helis or CruiseMissiles, assuming they were trying for historical accuracy! (Wouldn't know for sure though -- having seen how big the map is, I never tried playing it on my laptop!)...
Re: the earlier discussion about the utility (or not!) of Airports -- Paratroopers can Airdrop without a Heli. But can they do so from any town, or only from one which has an Airport? And if the latter, can they also Airdrop directly from Worker-built Airfields?
In a city, they need an airport. But, yes, they can also use worker built airfields. Also, paratroopers can airdrop-parachute, although not transport, in unlimited numbers from the same airfield in the same turn. For transporting to another airfield or airport, the usual one unit per turn applies.
Often during the interturn they'll be attacked so you'll lose or take damage on a few. So, I like to drop larger numbers, say between 20-30 or so to take a decently defended metropolis. I wouldn't even try it with less than 10 paratroopers. (I use the same principle for marines, often 30 - five transports full. I send enough to make sure the job gets done.)
