questionable move by the AI

[shadowX]

so im playing as axis. the usa just declared war on germany and italy and in the same turn 3 us aircraft suddenly appeared in england near london and in a position to attack! i just finished a play through as the allies and when the us entered the war i did not have the ability to suddenly move aircraft across the ocean to england. i had to ship them by transport and it took 2 to 3 turns to get them there and have them ready to battle. i know that SC had the operate ability which allowed you to move aircraft anywhere on the map but i didnt think this game had that ability so how did those units suddenly appear out of nowhere???

[AlbertN]

Well, depending on the techs, some planes have a very long range!
Like '44 '45 Escort Fighters have 24 range, double it for a full rebase. 48 hexes!
Strategic bombers can even go further away once teched adequately!

[shadowX]

ah well i know 1 is a fighter 1 a ground attack and another is a tac bomber now there is a 4th plane in england and its only jan '42 so the planes shouldnt have had time to advance that much, at least i wouldnt think so anyway.

[tyronec]

They can move across ocean before DOW, could be an explanation.

[shadowX]

shouldnt i have seen the unit icon tho? all i know is the fighter is making my bombing of uk's units costly =(
the uk fighters didnt hit back but the us fighter is.

[AlvaroSousa]

The A.I. has a very hard time move airplanes more than any other unit. So I allowed them to do a special redeploy with air units at a very high cost to effectiveness.

This mimics the time for them to get on a ship and travel over. Any human player would probably have their transports loaded and ready in one move to enter england and unload.

SC has this ability as part of the game. I don't. You need to transport or fly airplanes. SC doesn't have transporting airplanes (last time I checked).
So this helps make the A.I. play more challenging. But like I said there is a much higher cost to them than a normal move.

[shadowX]

ah thanks for the explanation. i thought it was odd that so many planes started showing up in england but now that i think about it i noticed the AI did the same thing as the axis when it moved planes from north africa when i played as the allies. one turn an italy plane was present the next it was gone.

[AlbertN]

USA troops / navies should not leave the USA until USA is active.

[AlvaroSousa]

They do not leave the USA until active for the A.I. But this post gave me some ideas about moving units and entry for the USA to prevent it. I will need something like this for global anyways.