The wave of Off Topic about planes let me stunned for a while, but now I must try to help someone (usually I try to help people that don't want help about their knowledge, ending in bad mood, but it's a hard job and someone must do it
).
If you aren't interested, please skip to --- end of OT part of message.
Start of OT ------------------------------------------------
Lot of people mention MiG as it is a single model aircraft. Do you call a car only as "Ford"?
Are you speaking about "Model T" or "Mondeo"? I bet there are difference!
So,
MiG 15 did lot of succesful dogfight during Korean war: last time I red about that conflict on a Italian military aircraft magazine, reproducing recently uncovered USSR documents (declassified), they where driven mostly by Korean pilot, but also from Russian "trainer" under false identity and Chinese.
They fought very well and only the Sabre and more extensive training let the USA pilot to shift back the balance.
The Vietnam war was more a fight between USA planes and Vietnam (but made in USSR) and SAM / Flak.
MiG 17 and 19 played a role, and once more proven that the "all missiles doctrine", developed by USA to privilege long range missile against cannon dogfight was not a full success. The very good F4 Phantom II started without a cannon, but successive version added a 20mm Vulcan.
From that experience the USAF decided to develop a light/middle plane very good in doghfighting: the winner was the F16 Fighting Falcon (also nicknamed Viper), while a modified model of the looser YF17 become the F18 Hornet for the Navy.
The F14 Tomcat was developed to replace the F4 Phantom as a long range defensive arm of the fleet, with its special long range Phoenix missiles. It was specialized to intercept USSR bombers out of the range of their Air to Surface missiles (also nuclear), developed to attack USA Aircraft carriers. Let's them alone, for now.
USSR MiG 25 Foxbat, now renamed as MiG 31 Foxhound, was developed as a Mach 3 interceptor to counteract the USA project of Mach 3 bomber B70 Walkyrie. When the bomber project was cancelled the fighter MiG 25 was used for high speed/high altitude reconnaince, as USA did with SR71 Blackbird, a derivate from a former A12 - CIA reconnaince model and prototype YF 12 fighter model.
F15 Eagle, with its great excess of power, was developed to jump as high and fast as possible to intercept incoming supersonic USSR bombers. Great plane, BTW. The only one that has been tested as a platform for launching a missile able to kill a low orbiting satellite!
MiG 29 is a good plane, with a good plane-weapons integration: it use the first standard pilot helmet able to let the pilot aim short range missiles by looking at enemy.
BTW, it's not a copy of F16, by no way. USA has not the exclusive of good plane project
The Military Air force of former East Germany used MiG 29, with lot of older MiG21 (probably the must succesful fighter of the world, as a best seller).
It has some defect (high maintenance costs, short life of engines, etc.) but Air force of unified Germany keep them in use because of good performance and lot of request from others NATO ally for dissimilar training missions (they use them as enemy in simulate dogfight).
Shukoi SU27 Flanker and its derivate versions is currently more considered for its greater fly envelope (greater performance) but it's much more expensive. It's selled in China and India, to name just two.
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We don't know anything about unique units, so it's hard to chose one best. It's Firaxis job to do a good balancing, or any game will be played with (stronger) same Civ again and again.
I only agree with someone who said on others thread that any early advantage is a greater advantage in usual Civ game model.
If Rise and Fall aren't implemented, or similar limits to Big (empire) Always Better, I'll prefer any early unique unit, where units will be few and a better units can really make the difference.
Once my empire is large enough mine production of common tanks should be able to cope with any special tank AI player will throw at me
