New Unit - Balloon

I'm now wondering if anyone else saw what you did with the palette? Shameless Absolutely Shameless I wish I had thought of it...

 

I was wondering how long it would take before someone noticed.... hahahaha

Actually I did that in the freight and moving vans too.

 

I didn't know that, I have never read about any balloon in the books or see them in the movies related with American Civil War. I thought balloons were at first used in WW1. Is there any book that mentions balloons in Civil War?

 

"Although interest in such a craft dates from the 13th cent., the balloon was not actually invented until the late 18th cent., when two French brothers, Joseph and Jacques Étienne Montgolfier, experimented with inverted paper and cloth bags filled with heated air and, in 1783, caused a linen bag about 100 ft (30 m) in diameter to rise in the air. In the same year the Frenchman Pilatre de Rozier made one of the first balloon ascents by man, rising in a hot-air-filled captive balloon (i.e., one made fast by a mooring cable to prevent free flight) to a height of 84 ft (26 m). In 1766 the English scientist Henry Cavendish had shown that hydrogen was seven times lighter than air, and the usefulness of this gas in balloon ascension was demonstrated in Dec., 1783, by J. A. C. Charles of France, who with his associates successfully ascended in a hydrogen-filled balloon and traveled 27 mi (43 km) from the starting point.

The first ascent in England was made by James Tytler, a Scottish writer, in 1784, and in 1793 the French balloonist J. P. Blanchard made an ascent at Philadelphia. Blanchard, with Dr. John Jeffries, an American physician, also made the first sea voyage by balloon, crossing the English Channel in 1784. Among the noted balloon voyages of the 19th cent. was that made by the Swedish engineer S. A. Andree, who, in 1897, attempted unsuccessfully to reach the North Pole by balloon. In the American Civil War and World War I, captive balloons were used to observe troop movements and to direct gunfire. Captive balloons, called barrage balloons, were used as obstacles against low-flying aircraft in World War II."

http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/sci/A0805936.html

 

Thank you for the historical info, Kal. Can I use that as Civilopedia text?

 

By all means, please do. I just grabbed it from infoplease.com, a very handy site for that sort of thing.

 

cool. I think I will cite that site (haha cite the site!!!) just to free me from any plaguarism arguments. Hey, you study law, how does that work? I can just cite it right? I don't need expressed permission do I?

 

that should be good enough

 

Kal-el, that site is a fountain of concise information.

 

I like it. I find it extremely useful.

 

maybe i can find future unit civilopedia information there

 

I'm considering giving this interesting unit a try - I like those green balloons in the first picture (they look like granny smith apples), but I'm not sure the best way to assign stats.

If I make it an air unit it'll whip out and in way too fast for a balloon, and if its a land unit say with 1 or 2 moves all terrain it'll block ground units and be immune to fighter planes which is excessively unrealistic. Can anyone recommend a good comprimise?

What happens if I select air unit, don't flag immobile, flag radar (telescopic sight) and give it 3 moves?

 

You could use it as a early air transport unit; the english were very paranoid that napoleon would use them to land troops across the english chanel, thus canceling out the british naval superiority (this early fear lead to some important developments in early warning systems and a early realization of how important Air superiority would be to England in the future).
However 19th century ballons were not very acurate and a ballon invasion force from france could easily end up in spain or italy if the wind was wrong. Or you could give it the air recon ability, remember each turn is at least a year, so don't worry about the ballon being too zippy- great unit by the way.

 

unscratchedfoot, did you try the unit yet as you suggested? with immobile unflagged? what does this do I wonder. I would be very interested to know the result...

 

The experiment results are in!!!

Balloon

Air unit
NOT immobile
transport capacity: 1
operational range: 8 (see below why this is not good)
moves: 3
flags: airdrop, unload, recon, air transport, radar
carries only foot types (must be with unscratchedfeet to work)
att: 1 def: 1 (need this to be able to shoot it down with fighters)

RESULTS: It works fine! The only thing is I gotta reduce the operational range to 1 because the way it is now you can move 3 spaces a turn over land or sea and still do the superfast 8 space airdrop/recon moves. Once this is corrected it will work perfectly except you can't fly it over enemy units or cities. If you try to fly over an enemy unit it will attack the unit (or your advisor will get antsy about it).

The reason I made it with 3 moves (I'll probably increase this to 5) and immobile is to go beyond the paltry 8 space limit and to be able to watch fights between AI civs "in the fog". I always wondered how much my allies supported me so now I can find out. The radar option (binoculars from on high!) will give me a front row view of the action.

These experiment results can also be applied to the DC-10 if you want to use it as a clandestine special forces transport with 0 def/att and hidden nationality (maybe like 20 moves a turn). The enemy will not be able to shoot it down and you can land your hidden nationality special forces in your unofficial enemie's back yard. A great way to support your allies and hurt AI's (or get hurt) without declaring war!

Thanks for the transport idea Smoking mirror

 

cool. now we need some anti balloon infantry!

 

Thank you for the experiment results, unscratched foot. That is a perfect way to implement this unit.

 

Wooo, an AB Gun..... like a bunch of needle guns??

 

Vuldacon has adjusted some of the FLC files for this unit
Thanks, Vuldacon!

Get the NEW ZIP file here:
balloonv3.zip

 

Hello pesoloco, sorry for bumping this old old thread, but, perhaps it's just me, but the run sound is very annoying. So, I take the liberty to edit it, now all the run is in the same volume ( I don't know the specific name for this, if there's one).

Anyway, here you have, I hope this helps...