What's up with..machineguns

[robbie04]

New player here. Playing fine..get machineguns and am going to go to war and oops..machineguns won't attack the enemy in cities or outside. What gives? defensive unit only these machineguns? Help

[johnmcd]

Yes, tremendous in defence, nothing anywhere else.

They take no collateral damage too which makes them super useful.

[Theben]

More like machine gun fortifications, which is why they don't attack.

[Boracks]

And they have a chance to intercept air units. As noted, very useful.

[joncnunn]

I also agree that Machine Guns are very useful. But you need to stack them with units that can attack and/or place them inside border cities (inculding the newly taken ones)

[Willem]

Originally posted by robbie04
What gives? defensive unit only these machineguns?

Exactly, they can't attack anything.

[Boracks]

Originally posted by joncnunn
But you need to stack them with units that can attack and/or place them inside border cities (inculding the newly taken ones)

What I like to do is have a machine gun with a medic promotion go with an attack force. First city I take it becomes garrison and healer. Also handy if the stack gets hit by siege weapons before taking a city out.

[Stewie0416]

Is it really that good? I rarely build them at all.

[joncnunn]

It's really good when it first becomes adviable.

Which brings us to the one downside not mentioned, it has a bit of a limited life span. That is they simply won't get the job done if attacked by Tanks or Marines.

Unless I'm planning a war at the time I'm underlikely to actually build any, but I will have promoted a few pre Gunpowder units into Machine Guns.

[Supr49er]

Originally posted by Stewie0416
Is it really that good? I rarely build them at all.

They make terrific defenders for your coastal cities. The AI will now launch amphibious attacks, and MGs can break them.

Welcome to Apolyton.

and Welcome to Apolyton robbie04.

[johnmcd]

Originally posted by joncnunn
It's really good when it first becomes adviable.

Which brings us to the one downside not mentioned, it has a bit of a limited life span. That is they simply won't get the job done if attacked by Tanks or Marines.

Unless I'm planning a war at the time I'm underlikely to actually build any, but I will have promoted a few pre Gunpowder units into Machine Guns.

It depends on your research order tendencies, you get rifling and railways in really sharply if you're so minded. I usually have machine guns taking out everything from grenadiers onwards and when you do find one of your opponents is knocking out fighters or infantry early then machine guns are really a great place to start your defence.

They'll never be your most built unit, but it's a strange game that they aren't useful in.

[rah]

I used to never build them since I don't really play defense.

But since they gave them air defense capabilities and the AI goes for physics while i'm focusing on assembly and railroad, there is a window where they have some value so I'll build a few now.

[Blaupanzer]

Useful to defend the borders exposed by attacking in another direction. Also useful, as noted, as medic/CG units to protect stack and newly taken city. To get those promos, give them to archery line units you intend to upgrade to MGs. MGs are great cavalry killers, but can be affected by flanking when not in a city.

[Garth Vader]

You can also build Grenadiers for the combat and CG promos and upgrade them to MG right away.

[wodan11]

Originally posted by Garth Vader
You can also build Grenadiers for the combat and CG promos and upgrade them to MG right away.

I love MGs with CG promos. They rule.