The dangers of airlifting

[drake]

In my current game, for the first time in my civ experience, I encountered a message that says something along the lines of "Enemy fighters are based near our cities. They could intercept our air transport mission".

Now my question is, how close does an enemy fighter need to be from the receiving or sending cities to create such a risk? Will stationing my own fighters anywhere help fix the situation?

And how about odds? In two attempts to airlift from given cities, 1 airlift was shot down and the other was successful. Is 50/50 odds accurate? Obviously if thats the odds the airlifting is useless.

If anyone has some answers let me know. Thanks.

[shade]

the enemy fighters have to be within flightrange(I guess because I got some lifts shot down and the fighters were farther then 7 squares away)
Your fighters don't help a bit,they only can help you shouting down their airlifts

what the chances are I don't know(but 50/50 looks reasonable)
(btw why would airlifts become useless by 50/50 chance??,remember that the AI moves almost all units each turn)

Shade

[Rasputin]

hey does this work in MP too ??? never come across it but it could be very interesting ....

[drake]

What do you think I'm talking about Raz?

An airlift between Africa and South America was shot down in HOTW by aussie planes.

btw why would airlifts become useless by 50/50 chance??

If I'm sending 20 units from one continent to another and 10 of them are shot down, I'd say the function is pretty damn useless. Better to put them all on a transport and have them all arrive safely then have half of them shot down. That would be an incredible waste.

[Rasputin]

Originally posted by drake
What do you think I'm talking about Raz?

An airlift between Africa and South America was shot down in HOTW by aussie planes.

ok that raises big issues, as this is a diplo game, did the aussies have an oppotunity to not fly their planes to attack you? if so this is very aggresive, if not then this is another bug in game due to the fact that the game was not built as a MP game but rather had MP added to a SP game,,, sound familiar folks !!!!

You should have posted re this at HOTW2 Thread ...

[drake]

Well no it wasnt an aggressive move really. Deity has a fighter in one of his SA cities. He didnt even know his planes had shot down my airlift. So it's nothing that couldve been prevented, unless I was at peace with him.

I will have to sign a cease fire with him since we are only technically at war.

[Rasputin]

i posted this problem at civ 3 forum, maybe Firaxis will see it and fix it before civ 3 MP is released , but i doubt it !!!!

[shade]

If I'm sending 20 units from one continent to another and 10 of them are shot down, I'd say the function is pretty damn useless. Better to put them all on a transport and have them all arrive safely then have half of them shot down. That would be an incredible waste.

using a transport they could arrive to late.(transport takes at least 5-6 turns
airlift=> units are usable next turn==>only use airlift when it's needed.
(and try to lure those fighters away)

Shade

[Rasputin]

Originally posted by shade


(and try to lure those fighters away)

Shade

and how the heck do you do that?

[shade]

send troops in from an other direction.
(or,what is easier,send in your own fighters and bombers to get rid of those fighters,stealth bombers can blow away not fortified fighters easilly(if the bomber is AI,not sure if it works for humans))

shade

[drake]

As much as I 'd like to be able to "clean out" the offending aircraft, easier said than done.

The nation I'm up against has 250 units to my 110 shade

[Rasputin]

if the game was designed well it should allow you to portect the airlift by using fighters at the destination city...

in the game in question i guess Tranports might be better...

But i also would ask for recompense for shot down airlift from deity .....

[shade]

Originally posted by drake
As much as I 'd like to be able to "clean out" the offending aircraft, easier said than done.

The nation I'm up against has 250 units to my 110 shade

=>Auwch.Good Luck

I don't know your exact situation(ie on map)so I'll try some scenarios
*You have a significant(part of your) empire close to the enemy.
If this is the case just airlift to the cities most far away from your enemy,but most of all since this is a region that can be selfsustaining I would rather send units in by ship and build/Rush millitary units in those cities so you have enough defence against a possible strike from the AI.
*You only have 1 or 2 cities close to the enemy and they need anything you got to stay alive=>AIRLIFT IS A MUST,any unit that gets through Is one more that can defend,also in the mean time send transports with troops.
*Your entire empire(>90%) is connected and has a boarder with the enemy=>airlifts are of no good use since railroads get your troops there safely(But i thought this wasn't the case in your game)

=>Something you really should do is station some fighters in those cities so you can shoot their airlifts down as well.

Shade
(PS:drake could you post the image of your worldmap(the little map in the corner)here and tell us where the battlezone is,might give us a better view of what you're up against)