most effective use of paratroopers

[Instant_Cereal]

I find myself paratrooping into my own cities regularly. Other than the range limitation, there's no limit-one limitation as there is with airlift. Thus I can shift forces rapidly.

Flight has gone from a so-so tech to an absolute killer. Once you can build paratroopers, you'll never build another infantry.

That's a bit overpowered, albeit nice.

I personally wouldn't mind if they enhanced the jump range to 6 - 8 tiles. 5 does seem a little.... meh. But it does breathe new life into forts, giving them more value than they ever did. In fact, I love forts in BTS, I'm always building them on small islands in archipelago maps, along my borders, etc..

The carrier issue: well, just imagine an invasion force of transports loaded with marines, carriers loaded with aircraft and paratroopers, and a fleet of destroyers and battleships to protect the fleet and bombard city defenses. Para drop behind the cities to act as a buffer to counter-attacks, then amphibiously assault the cities.

 

[Trubinator]

That's a bit overpowered, albeit nice.

I personally wouldn't mind if they enhanced the jump range to 6 - 8 tiles. 5 does seem a little.... meh. But it does breathe new life into forts, giving them more value than they ever did. In fact, I love forts in BTS, I'm always building them on small islands in archipelago maps, along my borders, etc..

The carrier issue: well, just imagine an invasion force of transports loaded with marines, carriers loaded with aircraft and paratroopers, and a fleet of destroyers and battleships to protect the fleet and bombard city defenses. Para drop behind the cities to act as a buffer to counter-attacks, then amphibiously assault the cities.

I agree about the range issue. At the very least, you should be able to stick them on bombers or aircraft carriers. I hope this gets patched ASAP.

 

[Quagga]

I think the range is good as-is. Any larger and I wouldn't build anything else (other than fighters for cover).

I find myself dropping them at maximum range, then immediately taking one more step. They can't attack on the same turn that they jump. Thus, the range is one more than advertised -- even more if dropping onto a road/railroad in friendly territory.

It's odd that they can jump then move, but not move then jump.

 

[18D]

I used them a lot in my last couple of games. I found the most effective uses to be- (some already discussed above).

1. Drop behind an enemy city to cut the railways- they can jump and destroy the rail/ road in one turn. Once you cut the rails, you won't have 20 new units suddenly appear in the border city you will be attacking.

2. Drop them on hills as far back as you can to make the enemy divert their units away from your frontal assault (after making a couple of forts right on your border to increase their range behind the lines). An added bonus in being able to pillage a mine or something. I die a little inside every time I drop them on a forest or Jungle hill because it seems like a exploit to get the extra defense- every time I do it my mind imagines 700 guys stuck in trees. But, hey, it's a game.

3. I also used an amphibious assault on the opposite end of the enemy country to immediately (well, next turn) secure a city as far away from the front lines as possible. Then I started shuttling paratroopers to that city in order to start jumping/ pillaging/ attacking from at least two directions. That was both effective and fun (for me, not for the Chinese).

4. Paratroopers are great fun but, as I mentioned before, I would like see their range increase to 8 or 10 as soon as you start producing jets. Just as the range of the jet fighter is greater than that of the airplane, C-141's (or whatever you want to envision) is far greater than that of the old prop planes the paras used to use. They can still be intercepted (the enemy is more likely to at least have flight by the time you have jets) so it doesn't seem too overpowered to increase paratrooper range in the late game.

 

[Kissamies]

I find the paratroopers' range of 5-6 good enough. Initially they launch deep into enemy territory from forts built right on the border to disrupt their movement and surround cities. Take bomber weakened cities too if the terrain slows my tanks down too badly. After initial phase they'll keep airdropping from newly captured cities to even deeper into enemy territory. I like to build them in my Red Cross city so they can have the march promotion easily. That way they don't need to stop to rest that much.