[Freeciv-Dev] Re: (PR#15736) airlift behaviour change proposal for 2.1

["Jaroslav Libák" <jarol1@xxxxxxxxx>]

<URL: http://bugs.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=15736 >


>  ------------ Pôvodná správa ------------
>  Od: Per I. Mathisen <per@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>  Predmet: Re: [Freeciv-Dev] Re: (PR#15736) airlift behaviour change proposal 
> for
>  2.1
>  Dátum: 02.3.2006 13:54:30
>  ----------------------------------------
>  
>  <URL: http://bugs.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=15736 >
>  
>  On Thu, 2 Mar 2006, [UTF-8] Jaroslav Libák wrote:
>  > Limiting incoming airlifts to a city renders airlifting a useless feature,
>  which
>  > cannot be used during attack due to the limit
>  
>  That is good. Airlift & attack would be completely broken.
Do any developers play the game actually? People do airlift & attack because it 
is nearly impossible to conquer a good player with battleships as they get 
nuked or sank by submarines, and it is very difficult to capture a city with 
stealth bombers if the city has SAM + couple of AEGIS, because AEGIS are too 
powerful (4x defence bonus, instead of 2x like in civ2, without taking into 
effect SAM + hills underneath the city). Airlifting doesn't make a difference 
in war against a weak player, as they would get killed eventually anyway. But 
it does make a big difference in a war against good players. Whats the point in 
playing the game if you can only conquer weak players and strong ones can't be 
touched?

>  
>  > Quick mass movement makes the game fast, which is appreciated by many 
> players
>  
>  True, but within limits. It would be quite implausible and very
>  frustrating if by losing a single city on your carefully protected
>  continent, suddenly this city contained every military unit the enemy had,
>  airlifted in the same turn. Combined with railroad, the game would be over
>  with the loss of a single city.
What if players like to play this way? Why not let them decide whether to limit 
airlifts in the initial server settings? Freeciv is just a game, it doesn't 
need to be 100% realistic, the main point is for it to be enjoyable.

>  
>  > Changing road and railroad behaviour would be disasterous for defender
>  > before flight era
>  
>  Road and rail are more beneficial for attackers than defenders, IMHO.
>  
That is not true. If the whole island is in your hands, railroads + musketeers 
and a few cannons + coastals make impenetrable cities. A lagepoxer with 
coastals + musketeers/riflemen can defend very well against smallpoxers, that's 
why smallpoxers died out in 2.0.

>  > and for the attacker aftewards (howitzers would be killed by fighters).
>  
>  Instead of unprotected Howitzers taking over city by city while outrunning
>  the range of any aircraft in the game.
>  
>  I think the limitation should be in one end of the airlift only, not both,
>  and the best place is the destination. So you can airlift as many units as
>  you want from a city, but only to one city each turn. That makes for easy
>  mass transportation without the possibility of teleporting an army into
>  enemy territory.
>  
>    - Per
>  
I cannot think of any use case when this feature would be useful. You would 
have to stack units in a single city, which would leave other cities vulnerable 
and would bring no advantage over 1 airlift between 2 cities rule in a classic 
island game.

Jaroslav Libak