So why can't you intercept Gunships?

[ingolfson2]

I have recently been invaded by a bunch of Russians (damn, my German submarines were SO close to cutting them off!), and now a few Gunships are running amok in my improvements (they don't dare actually attack my units it seems).

They even destroyed my oil ressource improvement, thus disabing the building of more fighters or tanks.

Still, thats not why I am asking. I am asking why the six fighters in the nearby cities NEVER intercept them!!!

Since attacking them works only until 50%, and I don't have any SAM or mobile infantry techs, I am totally defenseless. Which makes no SENSE!!! Fighters should be able to kill a Gunship, both for reality AND game balance reasons.

Any ideas?

[johnmcd]

Yep, helicopters should be sitting ducks for fighters.

I think though that if one of your fighters goes to intercept then my fighter in a carrier off your coast should intercept your fighter and so on.

[Quillan]

The game doesn't treat gunships as an air unit. Interception is only possible against an air unit. You can kill them with other things; believe me, I've been on the other end often enough. Just hit it with several units in succession. I've lost gunships to riflemen and cavalry before.

[OssomTossom]

Excactly. I was a bit surprised when some rifles slaughtered my (admittedly unnecessary) gunships in an otherwise successful invasion. I guess it makes sense to stack them with other units and send them out on attack, but making sure they can always get back?

[Arrian]

It's a bit odd, I'll grant you, that fighters don't engage gunships. From a realism standpoint, it kinda sticks out. :shrug:

Hit it with an infantry or two.

-Arrian

[xxFlukexx]

Yup, air strike them to 50% then pretty much anything can kill them.

I dunno about the realism part, a chopper attacking in a city/town, it's not too hard to hide between the buildings and other natural cover and be pretty safe from fighters. I see it all the time in BF2. Although that's not 100% realistic, it makes sense to me.

[Arrian]

Are choppers technically flagged as mounted units (air cav, after all!)? If so, if you have any old pikemen with formation lying around, upgrading those to infantry ought to kick the holy hell out of the choppers.

-Arrian

[WoodenTaco]

No, gunships are flagged, appropriately enough, as Helicopter units.

[sovietwaffle]

They'd have to change how gunships work if they made them interceptable. LIke... if they were moved and could be attacked just for moving it'd be terrible.

You'd have to make them like planes, or else they'd be too weak. I enjoy the way are now, and they're still destroyable (Getting SAM isn't too tough, if not you can just counter with your own gunships :P)

[Dis]

I'd like to know how the pikeman was doing damage to my gunship last game.

luckily it didn't knock my gunship out of the sky, or I would have been really pissed.

[johnmcd]

If you consider a tile is several hundred square kilometers on most readings of map scale it’s not just the helicopters that are present but ground crew and support vehicles too. Perhaps they managed to pike the spare parts tent to ribbons?

[ingolfson2]

Okay, from your comments I gather that I can actually ATTACK Gunships with ground units myself. Didn't know that.

In the game I mentioned, I was mostly fielding Machine Gunners in the attacked area, so that would not have helped me much, but it at least makes it seem a lot fairer - if that works.

As for the Pikemen vs. Gunships? Dunno, what are the chances? 1% or less?

As you said, probably would have to catch them on the ground. Since, unlike civ 2, they have infinite range over multiple rounds, it seems logical that they go with support (being in the air for several years would be pretty unrealistic anyway, lol!).

[CiverDan]

Hey the guy threw the pike in the air and it hit the rotors. :P

[scooch74]

I've lost Tanks to Longbowmen, so anything is possible.

They really should tone down how often outdated units can whack the modern ones.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by scooch74
I've lost Tanks to Longbowmen, so anything is possible.

They really should tone down how often outdated units can whack the modern ones.

From a realism perspective, having early units be less effective against later ones would be more realistic. But from a perspective of game balance, it's a lot better if a player with more modern units can't steamroll a civ with earlier units without having to do at least a tiny bit of work. One way of looking at it is that the obsolete units have somehow managed to acquire a few more modern weapons somewhere along the line but don't have either enough of them or enough training in their use to be nearly as effective as the more modern units.