[Freeciv-Dev] Re: (PR#2329) Portattacks 7

["Per I. Mathisen via RT" <rt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 15 Nov 2002, Thomas Strub via RT wrote:
> > Ah. Let us visualise the situation. A fighter squadron attacks the 
> > city(London)
> > or a stack of units. Can the riflemen on the ground possibly stop the 
> > fighters
> > from attacking and destroying air units? No. It makes obvious sense that air
> > units/AA units are picked first as defenders against air attack.
...
> > I refer you to WWII and the Germans and the Japanese. They destroyed many
> > airforces on the ground. Aka Pearl Harbour, Poland, etc etc. Hell, the Gulf 
> > War
> > is a great example of Iraqi planes being destroyed on the ground by air 
> > attack.
>
> The examples are all some where the defender wasn't aware of the danger.
> You forgot the six-day-war.
>
> But what was in longer wars?
> Afghanistan? WWII? Vietnam? Korea?

My original rationale for making air units work in this way was simply
that otherwise there is no way for fighters to gun down enemy planes. As
aircraft works currently, only careless players will lose aircraft to
enemy fighters: Fighters must land after their mission, bombers should
move out of range of enemy fighters, and stealth planes can now hide
really well anyway. So fighter aircraft as air-vs-air right now are a real
joke.

So my idea is that bombers present in a city will be flying missions, not
just sitting duck, and are hence targettable by fighter (F_FIGHTER)
planes. Often you can see where the bomber was headed after having blown
some of your units away, and you can send your fighters in that direction
to exact revenge...

I must admit, though, that this rationale is not as good as the one for
port attacks. So if someone have a better idea - for example somehow
implementing civ3's fighter system - I'm open to that.

For those who didn't play civ3, aircraft can enter some kind of patrol
mode (don't remember name) where they protect a given area of map against
enemy aircraft. Any hostile air units entering the area are automatically
attacked.

> Make it as a seperate patch. It are 2 different things. One where all
> people say its a good idea and one, which is a really big change in
> freeciv.

I agree.

Also, Raahul, did you remember to add that land units can attack air units
on airfields? See can_unit_attack_unit_at_tile() for all these
special cases.

  - Per