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What, if any, strategic use do Helicopters and Paratroopers have? I really want to use them - because I want there to be a wider range of strategies than the simple "build your most powerful unit and hit people with it" - but I have never been able to bring myself to build any of them. They simply seem too weak.
Take the Modern Paratrooper. You get this fellow at the same time as Modern Armor, and he costs almost as much. Yet, apart from the parachuting ability, he's identical to an Infantry - indeed, a shade weaker. Why on earth would I want to build him when I could have a Modern Armor, or at least a Mechanised Infantry?
I simply cannot see the point of a unit that can land deep in enemy territory. It seems obvious to me that when you are invading the enemy, you need to build on what you already have - so you attack units or cities that are next to your borders, or, if invading a continent, you establish a beachhead and then seek to expand outwards from that. This technique means that your attacking units have hostile territory on at most three sides. But those Paratroopers, dropped into the heart of the enemy territory, are completely surrounded. What are they going to achieve that you couldn't do by conventional means, by continuing a land-based expansion from the territory you have already conquered? They're not powerful enough to attack anything, and they probably can't do any pillaging because they move only one space per turn and the enemy will have Infantry guarding any pillage-worthy tiles as it is. They can only sit there and, possibly, divert some of the enemy's forces into attacking them rather than going for your main invasion force. That doesn't seem to me to be a very good strategy, and I suspect the Paratroopers themselves would agree. Why have a Paratrooper somewhere being attacked by the enemy when you could have a Modern Armor in with your main force doing the attacking?
The same with Helicopters. They can only carry infantry units. That means that the most powerful unit you can ferry with them is the TOW Infantry. But why go to all the trouble of building a helicopter to drop these guys off in order - at best - to sit on a mountain and fortify somewhere when you could be building more conventional attacking units?
Has anyone worked out a good strategy for using these things, or are they essentially a nice idea with no practical purpose at all?
Take the Modern Paratrooper. You get this fellow at the same time as Modern Armor, and he costs almost as much. Yet, apart from the parachuting ability, he's identical to an Infantry - indeed, a shade weaker. Why on earth would I want to build him when I could have a Modern Armor, or at least a Mechanised Infantry?
I simply cannot see the point of a unit that can land deep in enemy territory. It seems obvious to me that when you are invading the enemy, you need to build on what you already have - so you attack units or cities that are next to your borders, or, if invading a continent, you establish a beachhead and then seek to expand outwards from that. This technique means that your attacking units have hostile territory on at most three sides. But those Paratroopers, dropped into the heart of the enemy territory, are completely surrounded. What are they going to achieve that you couldn't do by conventional means, by continuing a land-based expansion from the territory you have already conquered? They're not powerful enough to attack anything, and they probably can't do any pillaging because they move only one space per turn and the enemy will have Infantry guarding any pillage-worthy tiles as it is. They can only sit there and, possibly, divert some of the enemy's forces into attacking them rather than going for your main invasion force. That doesn't seem to me to be a very good strategy, and I suspect the Paratroopers themselves would agree. Why have a Paratrooper somewhere being attacked by the enemy when you could have a Modern Armor in with your main force doing the attacking?
The same with Helicopters. They can only carry infantry units. That means that the most powerful unit you can ferry with them is the TOW Infantry. But why go to all the trouble of building a helicopter to drop these guys off in order - at best - to sit on a mountain and fortify somewhere when you could be building more conventional attacking units?
Has anyone worked out a good strategy for using these things, or are they essentially a nice idea with no practical purpose at all?
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