How do you stop airships?

[pxpdoo]

In real life (circa WWI-ish), didn't some zeppelins have biplanes attached to the bottom? Like, biplanes that could drop bombs (artillery shells) and later machine guns (through the propellors, via the "interruptor gear")?
Sounds like the first fighters to me... Kind of contemporaries.....

 

[Wolfshanze]

In real life (circa WWI-ish), didn't some zeppelins have biplanes attached to the bottom? Like, biplanes that could drop bombs (artillery shells) and later machine guns (through the propellors, via the "interruptor gear")?
Sounds like the first fighters to me... Kind of contemporaries.....

That was experimental... I don't think it was ever operationally used (but I could be wrong). In any case, there's plenty of mods (my own included) that have WWI fighters and bombers in the game as-well as the WWII fighters and modern jets.

 

[Wolfshanze]

To change the code of Airships from "just" Physics to Physics AND Combustion... do the following.

Use a Civ4UnitInfos.xml in your custom assets or mod folder (Assets/XML/Units) and change the following:

Change these two lines:
<PrereqTech>TECH_PHYSICS</PrereqTech>
<TechTypes/>


To This:
<PrereqTech>TECH_PHYSICS</PrereqTech>
<TechTypes>
<PrereqTech>TECH_COMBUSTION</PrereqTech>
<PrereqTech>NONE</PrereqTech>
<PrereqTech>NONE</PrereqTech>
</TechTypes>

 

[SLM]

Thing is, unless your army is just flat out better than the airship guy, I can't see this winning. While your marching towards that area you are getting bombarded by airships nonestop, your forces just won't be strong enough to fight opposing enemies.

You just have to bring a big enough stack. Besides there can only be 4 airships in each city and there's a max damage to units. Don't forget to take a medic with you in that stack and make sure you only need 1 or 2 turns at the most for city bombardment. If you're playing against AI then you might want to post one or two decoys (dispensable units or preferably ships) in the vicinity to spare your main attack stack.

 

[Stylesrj]

When someone sends a 20+ unit SOD, 4 units or 8 units losing 20% of their strength is pathetic.
Seriously, if your stack loses because it lost 20% of it's total power, then your stack wasn't advanced enough. Get away from the Maceman and go get some rifles. That'll solve the problem

 

[Stalker0]

I've seen the airships cause -30% damage on several nonnaval units.

 

[Red Viking]

even if they do more than 20% damage (haven't checked) an SOD with rifles/cannon/grenadiers of at least 15 to 20 (this is a small number to, really should be looking at 25 to 30 units, whatever) won't even be "seriously" affected unless they have like 10 to 15 frickin airships, and if you try to capture the cities, most likely you'll see 5 defenders which you can blow to bits with the half-affected SOD.

airships are a defencive weapon (unless you capture some cities and move you airships there) and as good old George Patton said, "There is no defence, you must attack, attack, and attack some more". And with enough reinforcements and some smart unit management you should take care of them.

My 2 cents

 

[theKurgen]

I've fixed airships. Completely deleted from game and man I've had some great rifle/cav/infantry wars since then with none of that stupid airship distraction. Much better game!

 

[Stylesrj]

Airships are good for Recon. But seriously, there's nothing wrong with them. I haven't had problems with them due to playing on Settler, but 20% damage is not a gamebreaking thing

 

[stachnie]

1 MedicIII unit prevents airships damaging your stack enough to cause problems.

Woodsman III/Medic I would also do If I move a SOD and I want to attack with full strength units, I park it just outside the target city (preferably on a hill/forest) for a turn or two, only bombing cultural defences. Enemy siege weapons may be much more dangerous but AI's tend to lose most of them at the beginning of the war...


S.

 

[Sinapus]

Would giving Machine Guns an air intercept ability help blunt airship attacks?

 

[Stylesrj]

There is no problem with airships. Why bother intercepting those weak things? When Bombers come around, yes you need to intercept them, but Airships are weak, so they don't need to be intercepted so early

How about one of those Lookout Towers in Rise of Nations? They're the ones that provide a lot of sight and also shoot arrows at passing planes.

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

Airships are the most ridiculous unit in the game, hands down.

 

[countrygrl]

i hate enemy airships more than anything. but i love them when i'm attacking too! i typically prioritize getting physics just so i can load up every city with four 1 turn produced air ships!

 

[Vizzini]

I consider airships a nuisance but not a game-breaker... seriously though, folks should consider making Airships require Physics and Combustion engines... it's just as silly to have Airships without combustion engines as it would be having tanks without them.

This will cut-down on the "immunity" time-frame for Airships... it's both a simple and logical fix as-well.

Not logical at all, and not historically accurate either.

Warning: Air Warrior history nut

The techs are milestones - not necessarily the actual invention of a given technology but the application of existing technology in a new and revolutionary way.

You can certainly know how to make Airships without combustion engines of sufficient power to drive things like fighters, bombers and especially tanks.

Airships are nothing more than balloons with little rinky-dink engines attached - and they predated real fighters and bombers by a good 10-15 years precisely because the engines of the time weren't powerful enough to make fighters or bombers practical.

Moreover, fighters require other advances besides just engine power - primarily figuring out how to arm a fighter so that it was capable of reliably attacking other airborne targets while not destroying itself when the guns were fired.

The first passenger and military airships came along as early as 1900 where-as the first real fighters didn't come out until 1915 - and it took the invention of the synchronized propeller+machine-gun to pull it off.