Fortified Sorcerors in cities fly up and attack enemy fliers; how does this work?

[tobyr]

In the fantasy game, my sorceror (a flying creature) will automaticaly attack any flying creature that comes next to its city, even a (much stronger) dragon. I have a few questions:

(1) Is this ability a carryover from civ 2? Is there a civ 2 unit in the original game that automatically shots down nearby planes?

(2) Sometimes I'd rather my sorceror did not impale itself on a dragon. Can I turn this autodefense off some way?

(3) Is there anything in the rules.txt file that controls this ability? Is it slot-based?

(4) it hasn't come up yet, but if a flyer I'm at peace with flies next to my city, is the sorceror going to break the peace? Or break a cease fire?


- toby robison

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toby robison
criticalpaths@mindspring.com

[John Possidente]

Mick should correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the Sorcerer functions like the original Fighter in this respect. When the city is attacked by an enemy flying unit, any Fighters in the city "scramble" to defend it.

So the Sorcerers are defending the city against Dragon attacks, not just jumping out at any passing air unit. You don't need to worry about them mugging nearby allied units.

[Mick Uhl]

John is correct. The game thinks of the sorcerer as a fighter unit.

[ghosh9]

Yes, I have observed that *any* unit, land, sea, or air given the "can attack air units" attribute will "fly" in defense of a city. I made a AA Gun Battery unit once to send along with columns to help defend against bombers. Well, when in a city and any aircraft attacks, the AA Gun will go into action with a message "AA Gun Unit scrambles in defence of..." Not all that unaccurate since AA Guns should engage enemy planes, but somewhat strange nonetheless. Still, if you modify the message, even this shouldn't bug you much.

[John Possidente]

Nice.

If you wanted an "active" city defense facility (like the Force Shields in the Alien Invasion scenario), you could make the unit immobile (Move=0).