Anti aircraft

Can someone explain to me how to use it properly?

They cost 180 its really expensive and how to use them? (since they only have 1 attack and bonus against planes)
I never saw someone to use them? are they so bad? they should make Strategy for Anti aircraft you have upgrades but strategy would be better

They are only usable when you have the range upgrade, and if you are playing a relatively cheap strat and you don't have much reinforcements and have enough money. And this is against people using planes as a main/secoundary attack of course.

Rightly or wrongly I invested in this upgrade and the +1 stronger air defence upgrade. I wouldn't agree that they are totally useless, but I will say they do have limited and a very specific defensive use. A player has to be thoughtful when buying them and placing them. Their biggest drawback is there cost per round, they can be a real drain on your income, so you want to be selective. If I calculate right they have a very high defense against air units, a poor defense against any thing else. They are useless to attack with even with the added range upgrade - you might as well attack with transports - you don't because they are specialized units. Use anti-air only when you are up against someone using SM or DS with helicopters and you are using Imp or PD. As helicopters will eat your infantry defense. Limit the cities you place them in. Stick to capitals as players love to hit caps with lots of planes. It is worth it to see the "wtf?!?" from the opponent come up when their planes fail. Last drawback most players if they spy your anti-air will switch to tanks. If they are SM this is a good thing, but if not you are SOL. If you think of them as something specialized like transport it will help. You don't buy s***loads of transports, but only as many as you need to do a job.

They're too expensive compared to infs, don't use them .

Anti aircraft can be seriously good but it would need some new strategy for these units since they have +8 bonus for defence against airplanes

They're good but they're too expensive that's why infantries are far better.

Escrito por Guest, 28.10.2013 at 17:56

They're good but they're too expensive that's why infantries are far better.

Exactly my point, they are only good when you have limited troops but enough money.

It's just a unit which doesn't get used very often, but if you know when to build them, they can be extremely helpful. Guess what, I mostly just build them when I see bombers coming at me (but only if I am really sure, which cities or also units will get attacked by them), or when I'm quite sure there will come some bombers soon and I have enough money left to spend on defence (only spending on attack isn't really good, imo).

It is also good to put them in transporters often. If you have huge stacks in transporters, and try to attack with them, it's very often almost certain, that someone will try to stave them off with bombers, because else they would be too slow for the transporters, or couldn't get over sea. In such situations it's definitely good to build some of them, because it eats the same amount of reinforcements and capacity as Infantry, but has a much better defence. You just need good income to be able to use them, of course.

However, I still think they really could get some bonus in PD. But that's just me though. An own strategy for them would be a waste, imo.

If used correctly they are great for late game because they are the bane of sky menace's existence.

Escrito por LordEdwardthe5th, 06.11.2013 at 21:40

If used correctly they are great for late game because they are the bane of sky menace's existence.

Late game = TOO MUCH Reinf = Spam infs.
Infs are cheaper than AAs. Making AAs = Wasting your reinfs.
:3

Yea even AAs with Imp are too much expensive and don't give much support they should lower it to 130 cost so that turkey IMP could use them against sm Ukraine

Please stop posting here.

No.

I'm seriously with cost of 130 and if you use imp than it could cost 100 so it would be great against sm Ukraine

130 is too high, I say something like 180-190.

Stop posting here. Anti air craft is worthless just stop. There are plenty more relevant topics out there.

Aa can be made effective you sm lover

SM isn't even in the top 5 strategies I use.

Well with some extra boost anti aircraft would be good.

Antiaricraft do need another +4 or +6 defense against planes. after all they are suppose to own all flying things right?

Escrito por DURRHUNTER, 14.11.2013 at 21:33

Antiaricraft do need another +4 or +6 defense against planes. after all they are suppose to own all flying things right?

Isn't that too much? I don't know why did you lose too much AAs, maybe because those 250 bombers were a big stack, dunno. But AAs are good defending already, make some tests.

Escrito por Guest, 15.11.2013 at 06:23

Escrito por DURRHUNTER, 14.11.2013 at 21:33

Antiaricraft do need another +4 or +6 defense against planes. after all they are suppose to own all flying things right?

Isn't that too much? I don't know why did you lose too much AAs, maybe because those 250 bombers were a big stack, dunno. But AAs are good defending already, make some tests.

Working on the max defense per 10 cost ratio (very useful for calculating cost effectiveness)
I have rounded to 2 decimal places.

AA = [3(defense) + 8(bonus) + 1(upgrade)] / 18
= 0.67

Infantry = [6(defense) + 1(city bonus)] / 7
= 1
This increases to 1.17 with the inf cost upgrade, and if you are using PD including the inf cost in a city the defense it is a whopping 1.8 defense.
Anyone who thinks PD is not OP after that last calculation does not have an understanding of basic maths, or has a vested interest in keeping it strong

Or in other words infantry are considerably more cost effective at defending (1.49 times more effective without any boosts except city bonus).
They win on range as well, and so AA are certainly bad in comparison to using infantry.

Everyone knows PD is OP at everything.

Escrito por Xenosapien, 15.11.2013 at 13:19

Everyone knows PD is OP at everything.

Yet a nerf proposed by tophats was shouted down by a multitude of other players.
I am preparing a thread explaining with unequivocal proof of the OP'dness of PD, but due to it's length I doubt I will publish it before December.

But this is off topic, so I would recommend posts after this to deal with the topic of AA.

'or has a vested interest in keeping it strong' <That's why.

Escrito por EndsOfInvention, 15.11.2013 at 12:30

Escrito por Guest, 15.11.2013 at 06:23

Escrito por DURRHUNTER, 14.11.2013 at 21:33

Antiaricraft do need another +4 or +6 defense against planes. after all they are suppose to own all flying things right?

Isn't that too much? I don't know why did you lose too much AAs, maybe because those 250 bombers were a big stack, dunno. But AAs are good defending already, make some tests.

Working on the max defense per 10 cost ratio (very useful for calculating cost effectiveness)
I have rounded to 2 decimal places.

AA = [3(defense) + 8(bonus) + 1(upgrade)] / 18
= 0.67

Infantry = [6(defense) + 1(city bonus)] / 7
= 1
This increases to 1.17 with the inf cost upgrade, and if you are using PD including the inf cost in a city the defense it is a whopping 1.8 defense.
Anyone who thinks PD is not OP after that last calculation does not have an understanding of basic maths, or has a vested interest in keeping it strong

Or in other words infantry are considerably more cost effective at defending (1.49 times more effective without any boosts except city bonus).
They win on range as well, and so AA are certainly bad in comparison to using infantry.

Yes we all know that infantries will always be the best defending everything. But AAs are good defending already, better than infantries, just more expensive. This is just like militias and infs, militias are even better than infs when stacked, just like infantries are better stacked than AAs. Keep in mind no one has infinite reinfs to make that much infs.
With that +6 defence, omg, it would be like a 1:3 ratio against SM lol.

Escrito por Guest, 15.11.2013 at 21:33

Escrito por EndsOfInvention, 15.11.2013 at 12:30

Working on the max defense per 10 cost ratio (very useful for calculating cost effectiveness)
I have rounded to 2 decimal places.

AA = [3(defense) + 8(bonus) + 1(upgrade)] / 18
= 0.67

Infantry = [6(defense) + 1(city bonus)] / 7
= 1
This increases to 1.17 with the inf cost upgrade, and if you are using PD including the inf cost in a city the defense it is a whopping 1.8 defense.
Anyone who thinks PD is not OP after that last calculation does not have an understanding of basic maths, or has a vested interest in keeping it strong

Or in other words infantry are considerably more cost effective at defending (1.49 times more effective without any boosts except city bonus).
They win on range as well, and so AA are certainly bad in comparison to using infantry.

Yes we all know that infantries will always be the best defending everything. But AAs are good defending already, better than infantries, just more expensive. This is just like militias and infs, militias are even better than infs when stacked, just like infantries are better stacked than AAs. Keep in mind no one has infinite reinfs to make that much infs.
With that +6 defence, omg, it would be like a 1:3 ratio against SM lol.

SM bomber attack = 8
AA defense including boost = 11

The ratio is therefore bombers 11:8 AA, or 1.375 bombers die per 1 AA.
The ratio is not even close to 2:1.

However what is interesting is that the equivalent expended cost of buying 1.375 bombers is 178.75, or almost exactly the same as the 180 cost per AA that would counter that abstract number of bombers.

As AA's are only really supposed to be used in games with high money to stop SM overrunning everything, they work in this respect based on the statistics.
However their much reduced range means it appears to be unlikely there will ever be enough AA as SM can get bombers.

Escrito por EndsOfInvention, 16.11.2013 at 05:38

Escrito por Guest, 15.11.2013 at 21:33

Escrito por EndsOfInvention, 15.11.2013 at 12:30

Working on the max defense per 10 cost ratio (very useful for calculating cost effectiveness)
I have rounded to 2 decimal places.

AA = [3(defense) + 8(bonus) + 1(upgrade)] / 18
= 0.67

Infantry = [6(defense) + 1(city bonus)] / 7
= 1
This increases to 1.17 with the inf cost upgrade, and if you are using PD including the inf cost in a city the defense it is a whopping 1.8 defense.
Anyone who thinks PD is not OP after that last calculation does not have an understanding of basic maths, or has a vested interest in keeping it strong

Or in other words infantry are considerably more cost effective at defending (1.49 times more effective without any boosts except city bonus).
They win on range as well, and so AA are certainly bad in comparison to using infantry.

Yes we all know that infantries will always be the best defending everything. But AAs are good defending already, better than infantries, just more expensive. This is just like militias and infs, militias are even better than infs when stacked, just like infantries are better stacked than AAs. Keep in mind no one has infinite reinfs to make that much infs.
With that +6 defence, omg, it would be like a 1:3 ratio against SM lol.

SM bomber attack = 8
AA defense including boost = 11

The ratio is therefore bombers 11:8 AA, or 1.375 bombers die per 1 AA.
The ratio is not even close to 2:1.

However what is interesting is that the equivalent expended cost of buying 1.375 bombers is 178.75, or almost exactly the same as the 180 cost per AA that would counter that abstract number of bombers.

As AA's are only really supposed to be used in games with high money to stop SM overrunning everything, they work in this respect based on the statistics.
However their much reduced range means it appears to be unlikely there will ever be enough AA as SM can get bombers.

Nope, not a 8:11 ratio. Attack doesn't mean ratio. Go make tests, it's almost a 1:2 ratio, while AAs (with imp) cost 150, just a little bit more than 130.

Escrito por Guest, 16.11.2013 at 10:32

Nope, not a 8:11 ratio. Attack doesn't mean ratio. Go make tests, it's almost a 1:2 ratio, while AAs (with imp) cost 150, just a little bit more than 130.

Give me mathematical proof why.
If you want to look deeper, the average attack (not max attack) for SM bombers is 4.5, and the average defense for AA is 6. This would give a 3:4 ratio, or even less than previously. I cannot make tests, since not possessing AA, and am merely commenting on the mathematical probabilities. There needs to be a reason besides luck why the difference is so great between the mathematical predictions and the observable results.

Escrito por EndsOfInvention, 16.11.2013 at 10:36

Escrito por Guest, 16.11.2013 at 10:32

Nope, not a 8:11 ratio. Attack doesn't mean ratio. Go make tests, it's almost a 1:2 ratio, while AAs (with imp) cost 150, just a little bit more than 130.

Give me mathematical proof why.
If you want to look deeper, the average attack (not max attack) for SM bombers is 4.5, and the average defense for AA is 6. This would give a 3:4 ratio, or even less than previously. I cannot make tests, since not possessing AA, and am merely commenting on the mathematical probabilities. There needs to be a reason besides luck why the difference is so great between the mathematical predictions and the observable results.

I can't give you a probability or a mathematical explanation, but attack doesn't mean ratio. Imma make some tests soon and post them here.