Why are the airships available before flight?

[Horizons]

I mean the giant balloons unlocked by physics. Very strange new unit.

And why is it only possible to load guided missiles into missile cruisers when the missile cruiser is inside a city? I.e. not possible to rebase a guided missile straight into a sea-borne cruiser?

Why is it not possible to airlift units from a vassal's cities into one's own cities?

Does anyone else think that the cuirassers are completely superfluous?

Is it just me or do epic games now suffer from extensive technology-lag? Is this primarily because of espionage spending by the AIs?

The Dutch are awesome. I love playing them on archipelago, islands games. With corporations and dikes, economy and production in the late game are awesome.

PS since defensive pacts and vassal states are only unlocked by military tradition and feudalism respectively, why is it that I can create colonies in the BCs which start out with defensive pacts with me and are my vassals?

 

[asboethius]

Blanchard crossed the English Channel in a hand-powered Hot Air balloon in 1785, over a hundred years before Philips and the Wright brothers were working on manned flight.

 

[Spearthrower]

I guess Flight in that sense means an object achieving movement through the air thanks to its own power rather than by being lighter than air.

 

[Horizons]

Great, thanks. I was a little ignorant of the history/science! Seemed weird to have airborne units available so early!

 

[Solver]

And you can only load missiles in ports because missiles aren't designed to land. You can't launch a missile into the middle of the ocean and have it land on your cruiser in real life.

 

[LlamaCat]

Does anyone else think that the cuirassers are completely superfluous?

Yes I agree... I don't quite understand why these units were introduced since they are around basically at the same time as Cavalry. The same tech allows them, but one of them gets gunpowder and the other doesn't or something like that, but they are still overlapping in the time spam too much. If anyone has thoughts on the reasons I would be interested to know.

PS airships are great to have, but if the AI has them too I've noticed they know how to use them. It's important to take out cities where they are basing airships because those babies will really weaken your advancing troops. It's a fun unit to have so long before flight comes around. I think their range is a bit too much though.

 

[Pomp]

I mean the giant balloons unlocked by physics. Very strange new unit.

I think Flight is supposed to represent an understanding of aerodynamics sufficient to lift a vehicle off the ground using a wing. A big balloon is something different altogether.

And why is it only possible to load guided missiles into missile cruisers when the missile cruiser is inside a city? I.e. not possible to rebase a guided missile straight into a sea-borne cruiser?

Only if the cruiser puts out a big net and catches the missiles as they fly by.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Aerodynamics and bouyancy are different principles.

 

[hoffman44]

They technology of "flight" in civ IV is the discovery of heaver then air flying machines.
An airship is obviously lighter then air.

 

[Rusty Edge]

Maybe your vassals haven't built airports

 

[Slaughter]

I mean the giant balloons unlocked by physics. Very strange new unit.

And why is it only possible to load guided missiles into missile cruisers when the missile cruiser is inside a city? I.e. not possible to rebase a guided missile straight into a sea-borne cruiser?

Why is it not possible to airlift units from a vassal's cities into one's own cities?

Does anyone else think that the cuirassers are completely superfluous?

Is it just me or do epic games now suffer from extensive technology-lag? Is this primarily because of espionage spending by the AIs?

The Dutch are awesome. I love playing them on archipelago, islands games. With corporations and dikes, economy and production in the late game are awesome.

PS since defensive pacts and vassal states are only unlocked by military tradition and feudalism respectively, why is it that I can create colonies in the BCs which start out with defensive pacts with me and are my vassals?

Blanchard crossed the English Channel in a hand-powered Hot Air balloon in 1785, over a hundred years before Philips and the Wright brothers were working on manned flight.

You mean Santos Dumont, right?

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Actually, do airships/physics require chemistry? I don't know how you would get that quantity of Hydrogen w/o knowledge of chemistry.

 

[LegionSteve]

And why is it only possible to load guided missiles into missile cruisers when the missile cruiser is inside a city? I.e. not possible to rebase a guided missile straight into a sea-borne cruiser?

This confused me when I first tried to load them. It makes sense though when you think about it because in real life guided missiles only actually fly under their own power when you shoot them at someone. But it should tell you in the civilopedia entry for the cruiser that it can only load up in a city, for the benefit of people like me who didn't think of it straight away.

Does anyone else think that the cuirassers are completely superfluous?

I thought that at first. But in my current game I have 2 very hostile neighbours, and the only unit I have which they don't is the cuirassier. I am already at war with one and will probably be at war with the other before I get to rifling. So I am building a big army of cuirassier to crush my enemies. I will have to wait and see how it works...

 

[winddbourne]

I've also enjoyed the cuirassier. They were nice on normal speed and I'm betting the really shine on marathon.

Back on topic . . .

Lighter than Air flight was invented way before airplanes. I'd actually like to see a pre-physics technology to give us basic hot air balloons before we get the zepplins. Hot air balloons were used as late as the American Civil War for the equivalent of fog busting.

Of course a balloon shouldn't have any attack, or move very fast, but they should be able to SEE a long ways off. The value of this, of course, would depend on your game. If there is still a lot of barbarian territory in the late game (perhaps on a terra map) then I can see them being useful, or if your trying to see what's coming at you in MP for better strategic moving of troops.

 

[hgthechinese]

Cruirassier is made to avoid the rush towards calvery, which used to be a very powerful stretegy. pikeman and jumbo (the only 2 units that can match calvery) only have a SLIGHT adv on it, and can be easily countered by a nice mixture of units. Cruirassier, on the other hand, is stronger than knight so it is worth building, but not as strong as calvery so its build up does not mean an easy war.

as for airships, i really hope the AI doesn't use them that much. and i totally agree that its range is too long. 3 or 4 is more like it.

 

[LegionSteve]

as for airships, i really hope the AI doesn't use them that much. and i totally agree that its range is too long. 3 or 4 is more like it.

From what I've seen so far the AI loves them. In peace time they constantly fly recon missions over your territory which for me seems to make the game slow down. In war time I have to sit through dozens of 'your whatever has been attacked by an enemy airship' messages.

 

[bonafide11]

As for game balance purposes, doesn't it seem that the airship arrives too early? The airship seems rather powerful and effective in war, but there isn't any counter to it until rocketry, which seems a bit too late. Every other air unit has a counter to it pretty much immediately.

 

[Pomp]

I don't know if it's powerful, so much as it's annoying. given that bombing everything in sight with an airship has no risk, there's no reason not to do it, and the AI does it en masse, so you have to do it too to stay even. In essence, the counter to the AI's airship spam is airship spam of your own.

 

[winddbourne]

Thus far I haven't had a problem with them. They are more an annoyance factor than a real threat, and I enjoy using them myself. Though that may change if I upgrade my game to marathon and thus have to deal with them for a longer period than in the "normal" game.

I've been avoiding long games due to the scaling issues I heard about in the begining.

 

[eric_]

I guess Flight in that sense means an object achieving movement through the air thanks to its own power rather than by being lighter than air.

Probably specifically thanks to the principles of lift employed when designing an airplane wing or helicopter blade