Marines- are they good in Civ 4?

[garetjaxusmc]

Something that had been kind of in the back of my mind since I heard about the amphibious promotions for units was that amphibious operations were the main reason for existance for the Marines in previous versions of Civ. However, has the usefulness of the jarheads ended?

Just seems like a waste to have a unit that is normally dedicated to amphibious operations when one could simply upgrade a unit to have that capability. Granted, that unit would have to go through a little more than the Marine would in order to gain the capability, but is it really that much of a difference?

(Just to clarify, I don't have CIV yet... Amazon screwed up my order, so I'm not yet able to go into the game and attempt to answer my own questions. )

[Simplicity]

It's not that easy to get the amphibious promotion...
I've still yet to see it in my games. Probably because I don't pick the Combat X promotions all that much (I usually have more specific goals for my units).

[Solver]

It makes a difference. To get the promotion for another unit, you need to have other promotions already. Marines don't need that - you build them and they have the promotion already. It's not that there are that many situations when you need an amphibious assault, but when you do, it really is easier to do it with Marines.

[DeepO]

Erh... on many maps, going for a marine-centered invasion can be devestating. Marines don't need to be for specialty situations only. And you need to have the promotion right out of your barracks for any decent kind of numbers, which means Marines (or Seals, which I've got yet to try), supported by backup troops.

DeepO

[Solver]

Well, it's just that, for me at least, by the time Marines are around no major wars are being fought. Then again, if there is a major war, I can easily see why two Transports full of Marines work well to take a costal city that has been softened up by naval bombardment.

[DeepO]

Who's talking about 2 transports of marines, I was more thinking on 10 transports

The age of marines can mean the outbreak of major wars, and can be a very fun way of trying to prevent someone from getting too far ahead in the space race.

DeepO

[Solver]

Preventing someone from winning the space race = a nuke on each city followed by Tanks to take easy targets and pillage the rest .

[DeepO]

well, yes, but nukes come later and are more of a last-ditch attempt. Marines serve a similar purpose a bit earlier on in the game.

Plus, I like them because they are fast too: from war declaration to gaining half someone's territory can be done within one turn... any land war will take many turns even with RR-crews.

DeepO

[garetjaxusmc]

Excellent! I figured there was a good reason for them to be in there, then.

In previous Civ games, I'd load up transports to the brim with Marines and use them as the 'kick in the door' units, send a few infantry with them to serve as their defense/ground holding units, and then just leapfrog the cities.

From looking at the stats for the units, Marines seem to be excellent offensive units in CIV.

[DeepO]

They are nice, yes, but they do need lots of support. You need defenders as they are otherwise just tank-cannonfodder, you need large navies for bombardment, and lepfrogging like in Civ3 doesn't happen anymore: upon landing, there is a 1-turn delay before you can attack something else. Together with the borders not expanding immediately, this means you will be counter attacked without any doubt.

DeepO

[Cabbagemeister]

How about this? IIRC, Marines are the most powerful unit that can be airlifted with an airport. Someone surprise-attacking your outlying colonies? Ship over a bunch of marines!

[DeepO]

Only one reinforcement per airport, I'm afraid. Don't rely to heavily on it.

DeepO

[Cabbagemeister]

I thought you could only SEND one unit per airport, per turn. If you've got airports in all your core cities, can't they each send a marine to a single city? Or am I misremembering how this works?

I know you can airlift units to cities that don't have airports...

[DeepO]

That's civ3. In CIV, only one shipment to and from airports. And I thought you could ship tanks etc as well, but this might have changed.

DeepO

[Quillan]

You can airlift tanks. I did it over the weekend, but you definitely can only ship one unit per turn into each city. The origin city must have an airport, while the receiving city doesn't have to have one.