[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Zeppelin, was: Re: SU planes

[Felix Ring <e9925202@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 7 Jun 2001, Grzegorz Borowiak wrote:

> On Thu, 7 Jun 2001, Felix Ring wrote:
> 
> > 
> > 
> > On Thu, 7 Jun 2001, Reinier Post wrote:
> > 
> > > > Grzegorz Borowiak dijo/said:
> > > 
> > > > >I have another idea. Zeppelin. It would have move 6, defense 3 and 
> > > > >attack
> > > > >0 and would have unlimited fuel. Purpose: scout, causing no 
> > > > >unhappiness.
> > > 
> > > How can a zeppelin have defense > 0 ?  And how can it move so fast?
> >
> > If attack is zero, and it should be, there can't be a defense! Have you
> > ever seen a Zeppelin flying? Compared to an Armor it moves like a snail.
> > You'd need an spy drone to reach that speed (which of course could be a
> > follow up)
> 
> Zeppelin moves faster than armor. Mainly because it flies straight and
> armor must follow the road which is rarely straight.

That is true, considering that Armors on roads actually can go faster than
6 it would be just, but I have an other objection to this speed, see
below. 

> 
> > btw, have you ever seen "Around the world in 80 days"? There you can see
> > that Zeppelins don't have unlimited fuel :-) 
> 
> I have not only seen it, I also read it. Unlimited fuel for zeppelins is a
> simplification, but there are many simplifications in the game. There is
> much worse simplification - unlimited movement along railroads. It's even
> more ridiculous that when you move ground unit from Lisboa to
> Vladivostock, you do it in one turn (if these cities are connected by
> railroad) while air unit moves much longer. And also bad idea is that
> helicopters have comparable speed to destroyers. I would decrease speed of
> all naval units and introduce non-zero movement cost on railroads (I think
> 1/6 point would be good).

True too. Although I am strongly for sticking to the original Civ2
rules, 1/6 point per Railroad would be a really good idea to introduce
here. It would encourage more strategical planning on where you build
which units, and hence even more interesting game situations.
But back to speed. Zeppelins are definitely an easy target for fighters,
so they shouldn't be able to escape fighters, e. g. in coastal areas, 
where the fighter has to return to the base it started from. Using speed
5, a fighter could get it in one turn, at least when both units start at
the same height.     

>  
> Zeppelin can be used for blocking the road if no unit can move under it.
> Units like caravan therefore cannot cope with it, because they can't
> attack zeppelin.

Got a point there. So maybe two units on the same square should be
allowed, but only if they have attack 0? 

> 
> 
> 
>                                          _____________
> Grzes                  \_______________________|_______________________/
> grzes@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx                         (_)
> http://gnu.univ.gda.pl/~grzes/
> 'Dialogi niedobre... bardzo niedobre dialogi sa...'
> 

Felix