On the Utility and Use of Marines

[Catt]

On the Utility and Use of Marines

The marine is a much-maligned unit. The game designers admittedly didn’t exactly make it a “go to” unit – the marine’s detractors will point out that: (1) marines become available only with an optional tech; (2) marines are expensive, costing as much as a tank; (3) speaking of tanks, marines become available around the same time as tanks (which means after tanks, since almost no one will research Amphibious Assault before Motorized Transportation), but the A/D/M is, in each instance, less than that of a tank; (4) the amphibious assault ability is rarely (if ever) actually needed, and only infrequently useful.

I contend that the marine is maligned unfairly, and that its true utility, especially after v1.21, is underutilized by most players.

When planning an invasion across the seas in the late industrial ages or later, the marine can often unleash tremendous, instantaneous pain on one’s enemy – given the proper circumstances, “marine pain” may actually reduce a strong AI into a simpering, permanently disabled vassal state as the result of a well-executed, one-turn blow. My suggested approach to more effective intercontinental invasion is:

1. Identify 2 or 3 attractive coastal cities -- attractive because they control luxury or strategic resources (ideally in the city tile itself), or contain a non-obsolete wonder.

2. For each identified target, load one transport full of marines, one transport full of infantry, and one transport with a mix of artillery and tanks / cavalry. This is my minimum, as a general rule of thumb – obviously employ more or less depending on the circumstances. Two battleships or a battleship and a destroyer should be a sufficient escort for each grouping of three transports (assuming you are not already at war against a strong naval power). If you have aircraft carriers and bombers, so much the better, but they are usually not required.

3. Position your attack parties outside the enemy's borders, but within 5 tiles of the target cities. Declare war. Bombard cities with battleships / destroyer (bomb city if air support available). Attack the cities directly from your transports with marines. When the marines take the cities (they will ), move your other transports into the city and unload. I have honestly never seen a transport full of marines fail to take a city guarded by no more than 3 infantry. If the enemy is defending with mechanized infantry, however, you will want to throw substantial bombardment at the defenders before you launch your marines at the city defenses.

There are several significant advantages to the amphibious assault as compared to a traditional beachhead invasion involving landing your forces in enemy territory:

You never have to unload units into enemy territory. Landing parties forced to come ashore at a beachhead will be subject to repeated attacks by huge stacks of AI units (especially now under v1.21) before they have a chance to fortify, let alone attack their primary objective. The first AI counterattack against your amphibious invasion will be against your fortified units, units which may be fortified in a city or metropolis, both of which factors mean substantially increased defensive power (i.e., that infantry defense of "10" goes up to "22" when fortified in a metropolis).

Your landing parties will effectively control 9 tiles, instead of just 1 tile. Because you have captured a city (instead of landed on a tile), you also control one tile around the city in all directions. Counterattacking AI infantry and other one-move units can enter "your" territory, but cannot attack in the same turn; AI tanks and other 2+ move attackers can enter and attack, but cannot attack twice in the same turn (except modern armor or panzers, of course). This represents a truly significant advantage over the traditional beachhead landing because the AI will furiously counterattack with its 2-move attackers, losing many in the process and leaving many others wounded, while its 1-move attackers slowly advance toward their objective. Should you have gotten lucky and taken the city with its barracks intact, you won’t even face the second-half of the AI attack (next turn) with any wounded units, and will probably face it with some newly promoted elite units. Furthermore, regardless of the presence of a barracks, your reserve artillery and 2-move invasion units (after having auto-bombarded the 2-move attackers in the case of artillery), together with your naval power offshore, will have an opportunity to damage and destroy more of the AI counter-attackers before many of them are even able to attack at all, and all from the safety of your city. Effectively forcing the break-up of the AI counter-attack stack into two different attacking forces that must attack over the course of two turns (and which are therefore subject to intervening pre-emptive strikes by you) greatly weakens the AI counter-attack potency. In a traditional beachhead landing by contrast, the AI will have the opportunity (and will generally take it) to throw everything at you in one turn, meaning lots of 2-attack tank battles followed by a bunch of 1-attack infantry / rifleman battles. Note that the amphibious strategy therefore allows the invading units to hold off the same counter-attack force with much smaller numbers of actual troops than does a traditional beachhead landing.

Because all of your units except the marines who actually attacked the city are unloaded within the city, they have preserved all of their movement points. Your invasion forces are therefore able to: (a) attack other AI units during the same turn, (b) pillage / bombard nearby improvements on the same turn (such as roads to a luxury / strategic resource just outside your new territory), or (c) take up a series of defensive positions on hills and mountains and fortify, creating effective kill zones, all as is appropriate to the given situation.

You have inflicted severe morale / resource damage on your enemy before he even has a chance to prepare. Assuming you have planned your invasion strike well, you have taken cities with luxury and/or strategic resources. Given the right circumstances, you may have deprived the AI of its sole type of the particular luxury and/or disrupted its trade of an excess luxury, causing much greater (and immediate) unhappiness in the AI population. If you have managed to take the AI’s only source of oil / rubber, then the AI’s furious conscription of units during its turn will produce underpowered units, and further add to its happiness woes. The combination of luxury denial and AI drafting results in an immediate and significant blow not only to morale (happiness) but also to production abilities as AI citizens are converted into entertainers.

In the age of railroads and therefore instant AI counter-attack mobility, and with the advent of v1.21’s proclivity to produce AI counter-attacking stacks of 50+ units, the ability to land one’s invasion force safely in one’s “own” city with the instant protection of one’s own cultural borders should give the marine a decisive role in all your intercontinental invasions.

You may begin the vociferous denunciation of marines now. Until NYE comes to the defense, that is.

Catt

[Catt]

Didn't want to include this in the first post above, because it is unverified, but there are those who have stated that marines, when attacking amphibiously, deprive the defenders of the advantages of various city defense bonuses (city/metropolis defense bonus, walls bonus, etc). I have never seen any verification of this proposition, but, if true, would obviously only add to the power of the jarheads.

I will say that, given the marine’s attack value of 8, anecdotally it does seem to have a surprisingly high success rate against defenders in a fortified city or metropolis.

Catt

[Theseus]

I haven't done many amphibious attacks, but like the idea. Thus far, I've done massive invasions onto a good defensive tile. (BTW, Firaxis, please make sure the AI does this going forward).

1. Your arguments are excellent... especially the ability to land artillery and defensive units with their movement intact.

2. It is critical that we understand whether city defense bonuses apply.

3. I AM a Marine, and would love to depend on my bro's. I also like the machine gun noise.

Lastly, thanks for the complement.

[Pythagoras]

Great article! I had always wondered about this myself, but never had time to sit down and think about it.

Some concerns: Their effectiveness in attacking diminishes on the advent of mech. inf.. Take this with the defense boni (which I believe apply) and Im tempted to just land an attack force. Moreover, when you attack and fail the AI often gets its units promoted and next turn you have fully healed, promoted units (which really annoys me). So with mech inf in place, a suicide attack of 8 marines to weaken the city defenses is pretty fruitless since you may only kill 1 or so, while the rest gets promoted, hence negating your advantage or in the worse case actually making taking the city harder for yourself.

Marines make most sense when you are very strong naval wise. They make good all around (defense and attack) soldiers, so if you can horde them with a big navy you can decimate a civs coastal areas and hold the cities fairly well. The key is though is to have them in numbers. But if youre military is navy+marines then it shouldnt be too much of a strain if you are avoiding tanks etc.

[notyoueither]

Marines cut through fortified Infantry like they are butter, not much bombardment needed. MechInf are a bit nastier, but by that time I have a well developed navy and can pummel the Mech to the point that the Jar heads make short work of them too.

I have to agree with the perception that amphibing Marines negate some defensive bonuses. My results are difficult to believe if not.

[Catt]

Originally posted by Theseus
I haven't done many amphibious attacks, but like the idea. Thus far, I've done massive invasions onto a good defensive tile. (BTW, Firaxis, please make sure the AI does this going forward).

How has this worked for you by and large, especially since 1.21? In the mini-tourney game, after finishing as a peaceful builder, I went back and replayed the last 100 years of so, just to have some fun with the intercontinental invasion. I picked on Liz, and took three coastal cities using marines against fortified infantry. Liz sent a stack of 70+ (just about her entire military, I suspect) towards her recently conquered city just east of London. Even if I had landed a force of 50 units on a mountain rather than 20 units in a city, I think I would have taken serious losses, since Liz's rail connection ensured that all those units would be able to counter-attack right away. A few turns later, after Mao decided to take a few pieces of Liz's empire, I watched a stack of 124 Chinese units advance -- I know I couldn't have survived that onslaught if it hit my beachhead positions in a non-amphibious invasion.

I've always like the marines in Civ 3; I like them even more when faced with the huge concentrated force of AI attacks / counter-attacks in 1.21.

2. It is critical that we understand whether city defense bonuses apply.

Agreed. I might try to set up a test bed just to satisfy myself, if I can stand to "test" rather than "play."

Lastly, thanks for the complement.

The title was a no-brainer - imitate the classics.

Originally posted by Pythagoras
Some concerns: Their effectiveness in attacking diminishes on the advent of mech. inf.. Take this with the defense boni (which I believe apply) and Im tempted to just land an attack force. Moreover, when you attack and fail the AI often gets its units promoted and next turn you have fully healed, promoted units (which really annoys me). So with mech inf in place, a suicide attack of 8 marines to weaken the city defenses is pretty fruitless since you may only kill 1 or so, while the rest gets promoted, hence negating your advantage or in the worse case actually making taking the city harder for yourself.

I am very careful when the target has developed mechanized infantry, and will generally only use the marines if I have been able to significantly weaken the defenders with naval and air bombardment. Nothing worse than having a transport of marines fall without taking the city, and having a couple of other transports floating off-shore -- powerful enough to hold a city and counter-attack, but sure to be slaughtered if put ashore in railroaded enemy territory.

Originally posted by notyoueither
Marines cut through fortified Infantry like they are butter, not much bombardment needed. MechInf are a bit nastier, but by that time I have a well developed navy and can pummel the Mech to the point that the Jar heads make short work of them too.

I have to agree with the perception that amphibing Marines negate some defensive bonuses. My results are difficult to believe if not.

I knew I'd get you in here to vouch for the utility of the marines .

I find it so hard to believe that no mention of the defensive bonus advantage would be made in the manual, civilopedia, patch readmes, Firaxis chats, etc. if this were really true. OTOH, my experiences are very similar to yours. Fortified infantry in an metropolis fall easily (should be a 22 defense!), and mech infantry are doable. Game play just doesn't seem to match what the combat calculations say should occur. God just loves the marines .

Catt

[notyoueither]

I was waiting for someone to say that the leather-necks are useless. Then I could have launched an assault.

Yes. I believe Mars has a globe and anchor tatoo.

Let's agree to remember to quiz Firaxis on the defence bonus issue come next chat.

Does it say anything in the strategy guide?

[Harovan]

I haven't used marines yet. Not because I find them useless, but because they are the only excuse to research a dead-end tech, which I consider to be a waste of at least 4 turns in the race for the UN (just for safety) or the Spaceship. Also, if I intended to invade, I almost for sure have done it long before marines showed up, for instance with infantries and cavalries. When I already have a beachhead from a medieval or early industrial assault, or even a whole conquered civ, I don't depend on spectacular landing operations.

However, for the case where a quick response is needed in the late game, or a resource has to be secured or denied in the late game, I will consider to use them, and Catts excellent article will be a valuable strategy guide.

[dexters]

It's interesting that some of the best posters here haven't used much marines. I haven't either (not that I'm any good) But I think one of the problems with Marines is that it fails to differentiate itself from the all dominating Infantry. Same goes with the Paratroopers. In most cases, their specialty (airdrops for paratroops and direct shore to land assault for marines) are either overlooked by players or somehow, made impractical by the game. Tanks are overwhelming behomoths that upgrade to Modern Armor. People want those shitznit badly. Marines is a dead end unit that can assault cities directly from shore. Well, most players can just send in their surplus infantry and not worry about the Marines. Heck, when Infantry upgrade to Mech Infantry, a quick mass upgrade immedately grants players with a massive army of powerful new units. Why bother with Marines? And let me say, I'm as guilty as everyone here.


This is not an argument for historical accuracy, but one that I hope would encourage more creative tactics. Also is makes for good gameplay as it is a lot more challenging to organize an assault with combined arms than it is to have an all purpose unit do everything and simply rush hordes of them at the enemy. Of course, it doesn't hurt that historical accuracy tends to agree with me also, given their smaller numbers compared to your standard Infantry grunt, their superior training and "elite" status. These type of units (Paratroopers as well) needs to be more specialized, scarcer and lastly MORE USEFUL than Firaxis has made them. While I acknowledge that their stats do differ, they don't differ drastically enough. In the early game, a Spearman with 2 defense points makes a pronounced difference and defends more effectively than a warrior with one. In the late game, with Modern Armor weighing in with 24 Attk points, Tanks with 16, Infantry with 10 and Mech Infantry with 12, a difference of 1 or 2 defense points is marginal. With spearman vs swordsman vs archer, you have double digit percentage differences. A Bowman (Archer) has 100% more attack capability than a Warrior or a Spearman, and the Swordsman have 50% increased attack capacity compared to the Bowman.


In Civ IV, I'd like to see Marines arrive at the same time as Infatry, cost twice as much, but with more pronounced complementary capabilities that forces the players to use combined arms --by this stage of the game, people ought to play in that mode.
All my invading forces are combined arms out of habit from playing so many historical "simulations" from KOEI, but some of the strategies that I've seen proposed. All horseman all the time, and stuff like that, while efficient, seems to take a lot of fun out of the strategic aspect of war. Instead, people are playing the mongol horde rushing game. In that case, go pick up Sid Meir's Barbarian

[Solver]

Marines in my mod: Attack 12 (from 8), Defence 10 (from 8), Movement 1 (no changes), two additional HP. Makes it kinda special forces, very good field fighter.

[Blitzer]

After reading your article, I was inspired and for today's game decided to abandon my usual tactic of landing a pair of 4-infantry armies on a mountain and then following up with tanks in favor of an amphibious assault on my opponent.

My spies reported 4 fortified infantry and a single artillery. No costal fortress or walls. A barracks. I brought over 16 marines, 4 infantry, and 4 empty armies (for later tanks through airlift). The results? 9 dead marines. 4 wounded. 1 promoted. 3 full strength. 900 shields is a heavy price to pay for an invasion, that's 10 infantry or 9 tanks. Experience tells me that if I'd instead brought 8 infantry and 8 tanks I would have taken the city with maybe one or two dead.

While marines may have their place, it wasn't in this situation... an expensive lesson, but at least I got to hear the machine guns.

[Catt]

Originally posted by Catt
Didn't want to include this in the first post above, because it is unverified, but there are those who have stated that marines, when attacking amphibiously, deprive the defenders of the advantages of various city defense bonuses (city/metropolis defense bonus, walls bonus, etc). I have never seen any verification of this proposition, but, if true, would obviously only add to the power of the jarheads.

I will say that, given the marine’s attack value of 8, anecdotally it does seem to have a surprisingly high success rate against defenders in a fortified city or metropolis.

Catt

Okay -- I managed to set up and run a test to determine whether defenders lose their city defense bonuses when facing amphibious assaults. The answer (definitive, in my view) is that they do not. In other words, city defense bonuses apply to defenders, even when being attacked amphibiously by marines.

First, the test results:

Situation: marines attacking from a transport. Defender is an infantry, fortified in a metropolis (size 14), built on grassland. Assuming all defensive bonuses apply, the infantry defense should be 23.5 (base of 10, bonuses as follows: 100%+25%+10%, from metropolis, fortification, grassland respectively). With an attack value of 8, we would expect the marine to win 25.40% of the individual combat die rolls (i.e. hit point lost by attacker or defender).

Actual test results:

2501 individual combat die rolls
1867 HPs lost by marines
634 HPs lost by infantry

Empirical marine success rate: 25.35%

Someone who actually took statistics and remembers the experience can comment on whether 2500 trials is sufficient to give comfort -- it certainly is for me.

Catt


*********

In the interest of open "scholarship," here is how I ran the test (ignore the remainder of the post if not interested in testing procedures):

Most important factor: find time in busy schedule that may be used for a crazy test without impinging on Civ 3 game time (this was accomplished by letting my wife captain the minivan on the 2 hour drive to a niece's high school graduation party yesterday ).

And now, seriously:

In the editor, I configured the human player to start with about 15 settlers, several workers, a pair of explorers, 3 or 4 infantry, 8 marines, 100,000 gold, all technologies discovered, and in a Democracy. Each of the AI civs were given all techs through replaceable parts, a settler, a worker, and an infantry. Infantry was modified so that rubber was not a required resource; transport modified so oil was not a required resource. All combat experience (conscript, regular, veteran and elite) given 10 hit points. Difficulty was set at Regent.

Started game. Selected tiny map, archipelago max water, warm, wet, 5 billion.

"Preserve Random Seed" OFF!

During the first few turns, built two coastal cities pretty close together. In my capital rush built a trasnport. In the non-capital city, garrisoned 7 or 8 settlers. Used workers to irrigate all around the non-capital. Had 2 settlers join non-capital city. Rush built aqueduct. Transport and explorers were, meanwhile, looking for contact with a civ, any civ. After aqueduct was completed, added few more settlers, rush built a hospital. By now, I had discovered another civ, and my transport is back in my capital. Established an embassy with the other civ. Loaded 8 marines into transport, positioned transport just outside the territory of my second city. After hospital was completed, added a few more settlers, bringing population up to 14+. Contacted other civ, "gifted" my second city to him. This generated an AI infantry in the "new" AI metropolis. Waited one turn (so the infantry could fortify). Used embassy to investigate city (to make sure something crazy like a coastal fortress or some such thing had been rushed). Declared war, moved my transport to coast, woke 4 or 5 marines. SAVED GAME. Proceeded with attack -- wrote down, at the conclusion of each attack, the number of HPs lost by the fighters. For example, when my first 10 HP marine was destroyed but knocked off 3 HPs from the infantry, and my second 10 HP marine destroyed the 7 HP infantry but lost 8 HPs in the process, I would write down:

M -- I
10...3
8.....7
etc., etc., etc.

After the infantry died and the city was taken, I reloaded the saved game and re-commenced the attack. Continued apace for as long as it took to get to the graduation party .

Did the math. Posted results.

Catt

********

[Catt]

Originally posted by Blitzer
After reading your article, I was inspired and for today's game decided to abandon my usual tactic of landing a pair of 4-infantry armies on a mountain and then following up with tanks in favor of an amphibious assault on my opponent.

My spies reported 4 fortified infantry and a single artillery. No costal fortress or walls. A barracks. I brought over 16 marines, 4 infantry, and 4 empty armies (for later tanks through airlift). The results? 9 dead marines. 4 wounded. 1 promoted. 3 full strength. 900 shields is a heavy price to pay for an invasion, that's 10 infantry or 9 tanks. Experience tells me that if I'd instead brought 8 infantry and 8 tanks I would have taken the city with maybe one or two dead.

While marines may have their place, it wasn't in this situation... an expensive lesson, but at least I got to hear the machine guns.

Yup - marines won't be be right in every situation. However, a couple of points / questions for you on this specific situation:

Under 1.21 are you having success landing 8 infantry and 8 tanks in railroaded enemy territory? My experience has been that the AI will send a huge stack of counter-attackers and destroy such an invasion force -- for me it is certainly still doable as a land invasion, but I must have massively superior numbers and quality of units.

Was the coastal city you attacked also a border city? I have rarely seen the AI leave more than 3 defenders in any city away from the front lines.

Catt

[Blitzer]

Under 1.21 are you having success landing 8 infantry and 8 tanks in railroaded enemy territory? My experience has been that the AI will send a huge stack of counter-attackers and destroy such an invasion force -- for me it is certainly still doable as a land invasion, but I must have massively superior numbers and quality of units.

Not much can deal with a pair of 4-stacks of infantry, in an army, in a mountain. Yes the AI threw a TON of crap at it, but it held firm. Mind you this is before the AI has tanks... mostly cavalry and infantry with the odd swordsman thrown in. Have yet to test with a tank-equipped defender, if the AI gets tanks I generally just build the spaceship, and I don't build many of those .

Was the coastal city you attacked also a border city? I have rarely seen the AI leave more than 3 defenders in any city away from the front lines.

Was just a regular ole city (albiet size 23 and with a luxury and a wonder).

Sorry, marines suck =(. Avoiding the city defense bonus like we thought would pretty well balance them. A Coastal fortress could restore the bonus. Someone feedback it to Firaxis, I can hardly see marines becoming unbalanced through this change.

[dexters]

I think removing any defensive bonus altogether will lead to some lame abuse strategies. I support the idea of say halving defensive bonsues however.

And yes, it will be restored by the coastal fortress.

[Christantine The Great]

Wow, almost a year since I last posted here...

---

Not to offend, but I believe that the marines are intended to clear beaches, not take cities by force. A diagram:

O=ocean
U=random land unit
C=city (heavily fortified)

OOOOOO
OOOOOO
UUUCUUU

The only way to attack this city without major losses is to land armor and artillery, right? Well, the coast is fortified with tons of trash units, like warriors. You can bombard until the end of the world, but you aren't going to kill them. This is where marines come in. They can clear the beaches so you can land troops.

[Catt]

Originally posted by Blitzer
Not much can deal with a pair of 4-stacks of infantry, in an army, in a mountain. Yes the AI threw a TON of crap at it, but it held firm. Mind you this is before the AI has tanks... mostly cavalry and infantry with the odd swordsman thrown in. Have yet to test with a tank-equipped defender, if the AI gets tanks I generally just build the spaceship, and I don't build many of those .

Interesting. I have landed a transport full (8) of infantry on mountains, with my attackers (tanks, cavalry + artillery) "protected" underneath, and not only did my infantry fall, but most of the attackers fell as well! Nothing like loading those artillery back onto a transport to avoid capture! Of course, if you are able to easily out-produce the AI, and you have superior weaponry, then tactics and strategy have a lot less meaning -- just overwhelm them with force of numbers and force of technological superiority.

Was just a regular ole city (albiet size 23 and with a luxury and a wonder).

Sorry, marines suck =(. Avoiding the city defense bonus like we thought would pretty well balance them. A Coastal fortress could restore the bonus. Someone feedback it to Firaxis, I can hardly see marines becoming unbalanced through this change.

Well, I still think marines are a very effective (and woefully underutilized) tool, but to each his own -- we all have our quirks when it comes to gameplay, which is what will make MP fun.

Originally posted by Christantine The Great
Not to offend, but I believe that the marines are intended to clear beaches, not take cities by force [ . . . .] The only way to attack this city without major losses is to land armor and artillery, right? Well, the coast is fortified with tons of trash units, like warriors. You can bombard until the end of the world, but you aren't going to kill them. This is where marines come in. They can clear the beaches so you can land troops.

First, no offense taken . I wouldn't post it if I feared someone might disagree (especially when posting on the utility of marines ). And perhaps you're right -- that the game designers intended marines to be used as beach clearers. However, while I haven't seen the AI assault one of my cities with marines off a transport, others report having seen it, but I haven't heard anyone report AI marines being used to create a landing zone. (I think nearly everyone has seen the AI build marines when it doesn't have oil and therefore can't build tanks).

Second, this usage may be more true in MP -- while I see AI units (seemingly) randomly fortified all over the place, I haven't seen any evidence of a deliberate attempt by the AI to block landing parties. And I am just as likely to see infantry fortified here and there as I am to see, old out-dated units that, under HI, might clearly be there as "beach-blockers." Do you run into a "block landing zone" strategy from the AI with any regularity?

Catt

[Pythagoras]

Originally posted by Christantine The Great
Wow, almost a year since I last posted here...

---

Not to offend, but I believe that the marines are intended to clear beaches, not take cities by force. A diagram:

O=ocean
U=random land unit
C=city (heavily fortified)

OOOOOO
OOOOOO
UUUCUUU

The only way to attack this city without major losses is to land armor and artillery, right? Well, the coast is fortified with tons of trash units, like warriors. You can bombard until the end of the world, but you aren't going to kill them. This is where marines come in. They can clear the beaches so you can land troops.

I dont think Ive ever encountered the AI performing this defensive tactic. Even if you did clear the shoreline and land a force to take the city, your troops would still suffer from the counter attack of every unit the civ could get there. So why not just 'screw' those other units and go straight for the city with its defensive bonus?

[Blitzer]

Interesting. I have landed a transport full (8) of infantry on mountains, with my attackers (tanks, cavalry + artillery) "protected" underneath, and not only did my infantry fall, but most of the attackers fell as well!

Were you being attacked by tanks? For my second continental invasion of the above game, I planted a pair of 3x tank + 1x mech inf on a hill and the AI hit it with roughly 40 some infantry and cavalry. I didn't lose a single unit. I can see where tanks would tilt the odds somewhat, but the key really is the army. The AI does not get lucky 18 hits in a row very often.

I've gone over my invasion strategy in another thread, but maybe it bears repeating. Timeline for invasion is the turn before I discover Motorized Transportation. Invasion force varies, but generally I will bring:

Transport 1: 4 Infantry (Army), 3 Armies (empty)
Transport 2: 4 Cavalry (Army), 3 Artillery
Transport 3: 4 Infantry, 4 Cavalry
2 Battleships

Land said force in a mountain. The AI will hit you with everything he has... Longbowmen, Infantry, Swordsmen, whatever. I've absolutely never had my army die. Sometimes the buffer Infantry will die, but the AI is stupid enough to charge that mountain instead of reinforcing the city as a player would do.

The next turn you bomb 5 times and then hit the city with the cavalry army to wear down the first 1-2 defenders and then the cavalry and infantry. I leave one infantry in the mountain to save the artillery if he can, but the rest move into the city.

The AI has little left to take the city, and on your subsequent turn you should have quelled all the resistance in the city. Now rush an airport. Your core cities are now cranking our tanks, and are airport equipped themselves... land the tanks in the new city and voila... instant invasion force. I've also rushed the airport a turn early with a surplus leader... but it's rare that I have spares lying around . You can rush with a leader while the city is in resistance though... so if need be know it can be done.

Admittedly, if your opponent beats you to tanks, perhaps this isn't the best idea... but generally speaking if you got the TOE and have been having a good game to that point, you should have a 2-3 tech lead anyway. I've had AI civs hit tanks before, but not very often... I tend to take them out before they have a chance to be a burr under my saddle.

[Christantine The Great]

I'm thinking more in the terms of playing against humans when the expansion comes out. I've never encountered intelligence from the AI so I don't ever expect to see that little manuver made by them.

Remember, I said the city was heavily fortified. That could mean lots and lots of mech inf and a coastal battery. Maybe even a ship or two.

[nbarclay]

Marines in the real world DO NOT engage in amphibious assaults directly against well-defended cities. Rather, they go after a relatively undefended stretch of beach to establish a beachhead to bring in heavier forces.

The reason marines are used so rarely in Civ 3 is that there is almost always undefended beach available to land on without having to use them. Thus, their rightful role of securing a beachhead to bring in heavier forces is denied them.

One option for Civ 4 might be to give all beach tiles a certain amount of defense against amphibious invasion in the industrial and modern ages whether they have units on them or not (with the level of defense increasing with various technologies). Mounted and armored units could not attack beaches at all. Non-marine foot units could, but with attack values at 25% of normal. Only marines could storm even "undefended" beaches without expecting significant casualties.

As for the Civ 3 version of marines, I've toyed with the idea of using marines to take a city and then landing heavy forces of panzers or modern armor in the city to blitz neighboring cities the same turn, but I've never had a game situation where it made sense to try it out. I don't like invading foreign continents unless I have an overwhelming advantage, in which case I don't need marines badly enough to "waste" time I could be investing in other technologies. Maybe if an AI researches it for me someday (and if the AIs survive long enough when I'm playing for domination ).

Nathan

[Radiation Zero]

Originally posted by nbarclay
The reason marines are used so rarely in Civ 3 is that there is almost always undefended beach available to land on without having to use them. Thus, their rightful role of securing a beachhead to bring in heavier forces is denied them.

Well, that's true, but I think that's also because if you want a unit to 'secure' a land tile for you, you want a defensive unit. And the defense values of Marines on bare ground just ins't horribly fun. Marines in Civ are meant to take, not hold, and if they take a city, it's much easier to hold it with something else than a bare tile is.

Originally posted by nbarclay
One option for Civ 4 might be to give all beach tiles a certain amount of defense against amphibious invasion in the industrial and modern ages whether they have units on them or not (with the level of defense increasing with various technologies). Mounted and armored units could not attack beaches at all. Non-marine foot units could, but with attack values at 25% of normal. Only marines could storm even "undefended" beaches without expecting significant casualties.

Yes, that would force people to use Marines for a large stretch of the game, but I don't think this way is best.
I think air power should have more effect on defense at this point of the game. Perhaps another unit command called 'Patrol' or something, where a unit could give up it's own defense (it would not be able to defend it's own tile, or at a much reduced value) but would be able to 'defend' the area around itself at a slightly lower number. This would make buil building a large, defensive military , air force and navy attractive, and would make small, dense empires more difficult to invae, forcing weakening tactics, stealth raids, that kind of thing.

Originally posted by nbarclay
As for the Civ 3 version of marines, I've toyed with the idea of using marines to take a city and then landing heavy forces of panzers or modern armor in the city to blitz neighboring cities the same turn, but I've never had a game situation where it made sense to try it out. I don't like invading foreign continents unless I have an overwhelming advantage, in which case I don't need marines badly enough to "waste" time I could be investing in other technologies. Maybe if an AI researches it for me someday (and if the AIs survive long enough when I'm playing for domination ).

Really? It's usually my main tactic.
I just find that capturing cities amphibiously then holding them is, for me, the quickest, and if not easiest, then most predictable way of doing it.

Some good ideas, I just want to see more variety added to Civ.. variety, but not burdening the AI with cray amounts of choices like SMAC.

[Meldor]

I will admit that I rarely use marines......that said however they have their uses.

If you have a map that has one and two square islands, you have to use nukes or marines. No other choice. Most of the time on two square islands the AI will have a unit on the second square. For one square islands the only assualt is with marines.

As has been pointed out before, a well defended city must be softened up before it is assualted. If you attack a size 21 city, better first to bomb it back to size 6 and then assualt. After natioanlism they are mostly useless anyway.

[dunk]

I have moded marines to be cheaper to build. I made all the infantry units from musketmen on to be cheaper. Musketmen 40, riflemen 50, infantry 60, marines and paratroopers 70 with 9-7-1 and 7-9-1 respectively.

[Catt]

Originally posted by Blitzer
Were you being attacked by tanks? [ . . . . ] Admittedly, if your opponent beats you to tanks, perhaps this isn't the best idea... but generally speaking if you got the TOE and have been having a good game to that point, you should have a 2-3 tech lead anyway. I've had AI civs hit tanks before, but not very often... I tend to take them out before they have a chance to be a burr under my saddle.

I like to take them out before they get under the saddle as well , just can't always do so. I've had problems when the AI has tanks, but have also had the AI just throw 70+ infantry, riflemen, etc. at a mountain. My 8 infantry will all be promoted to elite . . . before they die. Granted, this is often a great trade -- my 8 units for about 40 - 50 AI units.

I suspect I should have been clearer in my first post. I believe that the use of marines is a very effective tactic against an AI that is roughly at the the human's tech level / production capability / etc. - maybe a little behind, maybe a little ahead. If I have a 2-3 tech lead and can outproduce the AI, then I don't need (and suspect few would) any particular tactic - just hit 'em with more and better units! Your invasion force sounds almost unstoppable -- but it sounds like you already have the power to crush the AI in any manner you wish -- dropping 5 armies (2000 shields!) into an invasion points to a pretty productive empire!

BTW, I wholeheartedly agree that, when not using marines, plopping a good number of infantry (ideally an army if you have the MA) on a mountain is a great invasion tactic and a tough nut to crack for the AI. And I also love the ability to rush an airport and bring some more units to the dance quickly .

Originally posted by Christantine The Great
I'm thinking more in the terms of playing against humans when the expansion comes out. I've never encountered intelligence from the AI so I don't ever expect to see that little manuver made by them.

Sadly, more true than I would like.

Remember, I said the city was heavily fortified. That could mean lots and lots of mech inf and a coastal battery. Maybe even a ship or two.

Yes - if the city is heavily fortified with lots of mech infantry, then for me there are only two choices: (1) bring sufficient naval and air bombard units to bring every defender down to 1 HP; (2) find another target.

Originally posted by nbarclay
Marines in the real world DO NOT engage in amphibious assaults directly against well-defended cities. Rather, they go after a relatively undefended stretch of beach to establish a beachhead to bring in heavier forces.. [ . . . .] I don't like invading foreign continents unless I have an overwhelming advantage, in which case I don't need marines badly enough to "waste" time I could be investing in other technologies.

nbarclay - I won't try to defend or support any of the gameplay features by comparison to the real world - just not applicable in my mind.

And I understand about not wanting to invade without superiority. But my point to Blitzer in this post (above) is that with overwhelming advantages, who cares about tactics? I like those Civ 3 games where I'm still challenged by the modern age, fretting about the UN, worried about the SS, and wondering if I can somehow cripple the dominant civ while paying an "acceptable" price and/or if can I tackle that one other superpower and get to a domination before the chance of an AI SS is realized. If I'm always in a dominant position by the late industrial . . . well . . . the game gets boring. (So I'm realy hoping Theseus' thesis on producing killer AIs through map settings bears fruit ).

BTW, looked at your downloads from the mini-tourney game . . . fantastic! As thorough a whipping as I've seen in a while.

Catt

Edit: corrected # of shields reference

[Unregistered]

Marines can be pretty handy to have around. The number one rule w/ Marines is to soften up the objective. Bomb the living daylights out of the target. Just like irl. No Marine hits a hot beach without hours of heavy artillery bombardment irl, why should your Civ III Marines be any different? Battleships are good, bombers are better. I've taken large cities defended by mech infantry w/ Marines, all you need is a little bit of prep. Sometimes two or three turns worth. If you've properly lambasted the city, then one transport of Marines will open it up for you. And then you park your three transports worth of modern armor in your new city and proceed to finish off the enemy.

Got to do it again last night. Population of 18, defended by four infantry, two vets, one regular & one conscript. Also one artillery piece. Bombarded the vets down to two hit pts, the other two down to one. Knocked the city population down to 14. Sailed 8 vet Marines over to the city. Killed the first defending vet, lost two hit pts. Lost the next Marine to the next vet, but knocked another point off. Killed the conscript, lost three hit pts. Killed the regular, lost two hit pts. Finally killed the remaining vet, lost one hit pt. So I lost one Marine, four were damaged, three unhurt. Parked them all in the city & fortified them. The next two transports unloaded 10 modern armor, four mech inf and two artillery. The MA & a couple of the mech inf proceed to take and raze two more cities. I should note that this is the back door... I'm knocking on the front door with another 30 modern armor and around 40 mech infantry. I end up taking three cities through the back door and four cities through the front in the first turn of the war. In the second turn I take another nine cities. Now there are only two cities remaining. Thank you, USMC!

I should also note that my 'allies' had been fighting this guy for over thirty turns, and all they had done was raze one city. And trade a couple of others back and forth. But then, they're still playing around w/ tanks & infantry...

Bottom line is that Marines are a bloody good tool if properly used, just like paras. Like all tools, you just have to understand their purpose and limitations.

Gung ho!

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Catt
Someone who actually took statistics and remembers the experience can comment on whether 2500 trials is sufficient to give comfort -- it certainly is for me.

Well, I'm not a statistician, although I use it everyday. And from what I remember 2500 samples should be enough for at least 3 correct digits. Which would mean you have a 99% assurance (or something like that , can't remember real values) that your calculated 25.35% is within 0.1% from the real chance... which should make sense.
I have to say, you have a lot of patience, I'd stop after 200 HP

Just one thing: calculating chances, and trying to observe them is not a true statistical approach, you might miss some factor (assume units always won the first HP when defending in a city, it would screw up your calculations). Better would be if you, instead of doing 2500 HPs worth of tests with marines from a transport, you did 1000 from transport, and 1000 from land. Then you could have a direct comparison whether it differs in chance or not. And if it would, you could calculate what the difference is.

But don't run to start those tests again, they're quite convincing

DeepO

PS: I assume it wasn't possible to make both Marines and Infantry 1000HP units? You'd only had to reload twice

[Gen.Dragolen]

Catt,

I like your ideas on using Marines. I have used them in a very limited role and even then they were always supported by lots of artillery, Modern Armour and a couple of aircraft carriers worth of bombers.

From what I've seen in the editor, shores have a 50% defensive bonus that really makes the Marines weak cannon fodder in the 1.21 game. I've been tinkering with the units and terrain to make it more like the wargames I used to play like Panzer, and Third Reich.

The idea that struck me was that the unit strengths didn't follow a logical progression: a swordsman could take out a Marine or even an infantry unit in open ground. Haven't seen it happen but 3 in 11 is still a 27% chance. Toss in the differences in weapons used and you need to increase the modern units alot.

Test out Marines and Paratroopers with a 16/16/1 versus Infantry 16/20/1 and see how it goes. Not much of a relative change, but add in some attacking Cavalry or Rifleman at 8/8/2 and 8/8/1. I've been using these numbers in some scenarios and it makes keeping up with technology even more important. And if reflects the changes in technology better: Riflemen had a muzzle loader that fired 3 aimed shots a minute out to about 400 yards. Infantry have machine guns that fire 600 rpm out to 1000+ yards. A Lee Enfield could do 10 aimed shots a minute in the hands of a BEF trooper.

Marines are not that differently equipped from a regular infantryman in the US. Common assault rifles, grenades, machine guns, mortars, etc... But the Marines go into harms way in more inventive methods and in a lot more interesting places. (Well Afghanistan was more interesting before most of it got blown up...)

I'll have to finish testing out this scenario and post it for you to try. Better balance amongst the units has made the last 3 test games more interesting: ever seen an AI use loads of Privateers to harrass and enemy before invading ?

[Gen.Dragolen]

Catt,

Try this out and let me know what you think of the modern combat. I haven't gotten far enough to see just how big a change it makes to the CC's game play for the Marines and other specialty units.

D.

[Theseus]

General:

* Shores have a 50% bonus? Where is this in the editor?

* BEF = British Expeditionary Force?

* Although I like your mods, I'm still playing "stock." Can't be done with the editor, but I'd love to see Marines bonused for their primary mission... taking ground. It's a misconception that it's about beaches... First to Fight, period.