Paratrooper Ingame Example

This example shows how paratroppers are loaded in airlift units and transported across the river to land behind the enemy. Every transport plane (airlift) has space for 2 SOFT units, the number of loaded units is shown on the underneath of the planes and you can tell from the outside appearence, if there is 1 or 2 paratroopers loaded. After the planes crossed the river (move range affected by enemy air Zone of Control) blue player is skipped in this example. Then red player unloads the troopers and uses 1 for attacking the artillery. The paratroopers can be dropped/parachute in the hex tile next to the plane, that is either plain, sand or swamp. Other tiles are not suitable for parachuting and as you can see from the example near the other plane to the upper right, it needs to drop the third paratrooper next to the neutral base, before red can capture it a turn later.

empty

Paratrooper     by TYPE: (SOFT) BUILT IN: (BASE)	features	specifications	look
	can parachute from airlift (leave transport plane on other terrain then airfield) parachute unavailable on water, structures, forest, mountain can capture	attack: 8 soft 3 hard 0 air 3 speedboat 3 amphibic 0 sub 3 boat defense: 6 move: 3 range: 1 price: 175
what for: Tactical landing behind enemy lines (counterstrikes), air move reinforces /seizes distant areas (speeds up gameplay on big maps) and is usefull to cross water. Paratroopers consist of veterans and fight slighlty better against other infantry (SOFT). Paratrooper can be built in regular bases and needs an airlift unit to be able to use parachute ability.

This example shows an earlier animation that I created with a different concept for the paratrooper, in which the paratrooper and its transport plane would be just 1 unit and the paratrooper would switch from 1 state (ground based unit without the little green parachute icon next to it) to air mode (+ green parachute icon) on the airfield. In that case the paratrooper should be more expensive and able to travel by air itself (Air ZOC applied), if standing on turn start upon an airfield tile (like shown in the animation). The example also shows the idea of increasing its mobility by air to transfer from any neutral airfield (or AF owned by you) to another AF on the map.

Now I like the dispartment of paratrooper and transport plane (like shown in the upper animation) much better, it makes the paratrooper more versatile since it could "stay in the air" for several turns when loaded and increases it's range of use and also make it behave more realistic.