Paras and Marines - Are they worth the building now?

[=DrJambo=]

These two units were always the dungheaps of Civ3 and PTW, overrated and overexpensive!

Are they worth it in C3C? I notice there's also a modern age paratrooper now....

Thoughts?

[Fried-Psitalon]

The marine and the para/modern para are both better than they were, IMO, but both are very situational in use, at best.

Modern paratrooper: 6/11 requiring rubber and oil, available at synthetic fiber. Sounds like a pretty effective "drop in and camp an important mountain" kinda guy...

Except that the ToW infantry is a 12/14, requiring no resources, available at rocketry.... and all you need is oil to build the helicopters that will drop them off instead.... by threes.

Score 1 for the ToW, 0 for the Modern Para.

The marine is now a toothy 12 attack unit, but has suffered a bit to 6 defense. The idea was that with 12 attack he might be able to make a serious dent in a prepared infantry position in the late industrial era, and *for that brief time* it probably IS worth it to build them.

Unfortunately, in the "long-term usage" category, these guys fall very flat. Know what else is 120 shields? Modern armor. While marines vs prepared infantry positions (usually radar tower and town or city) is still pretty ugly, it's possible, especially if you catch your enemy by surprise - hit him with 4, dump some infantry off the boat to hold the town afterwards, then hang on for the wild ride.

As soon as ToW or Mechanized Infantry come around, though, things get much worse for the Marine - 14 or 16 defense in a prepared position means you can pretty much forget about it - and modern armor is a much bigger offensive card to play for the same cost.

Are they better? Yes. Are they occasionally usable? Sometimes. Are they always worth building? Not really.

[CerberusIV]

Marines are fine IF you have an army to put them in. Otherwise it depends on the map and whether there are backwards AI's with lots of coastal towns you want to take. Single marines can be useful to take isolated cities on small islands with air support but that is really the only use I have ever made of them whilst my main forces are busy elsewhere.

Paras? I still don't see the point. As Fried says, dropping off TOW infantry by helicopter is a much better option.

I notice that transports only have a capacity of 6 units now IIRC so rebasing helicopters carrying TOW is one way to send in quick reinforcements pending completing an airport or airfield.

[=DrJambo=]

wasn't there something mentioned about the Marines having x2 attack for amphibious assaults?

Or was that a hoax.

[steven8r]

A Transport full o' Marines can take a coastal city fortified w/ MechInf. (Expect at least 2 Marines per MI--based on experience). Once you take the city, follow w/ a Transport of defensive units and you now have a hold in foreign lands that is much easier to defend than just dropping-off units than can get quickly attacked via your enemy's RR's.

Recomended reading: Catt's thread: On the Utility and Use of Marines
Thanks, Catt.

I have to agree w/ Freid, even w/ their added assault bonuses, they are only useful in fairly specific situations. However, after reading Catt's discertation, I seem to find that 'specific situation' more frequently now.

Edit: fixed link

Edit: I still haven't found much use for Paratroopers or their new upgrades. Perhaps that, too, will change.

[Senator]

One thing about helicopters is that you need to rebase them when they're out of range and then wait a turn to drop in the tow. You can just move paratroopers from the other side of your empire by train and then drop them, saving you a valuable turn. (of course you need an airport but the worker-constructed ones can be built very, very fast if needed)
Marines have enough offense to use from transports. To capture the occasional important coastal city in a quick strike. When you have to land with armor they have to be in the open for one turn.
So imo they definatly have their use, albeit only in specific situations. There are allmost allways better options but marines/paras can just be that little crucial one turn faster.

[pauli]

marines vs mech inf fortified in a city may not be easy, but it's a lot easier if you've done your job right and bombarded the living hell out of the city first...

i used marines for the first time in roughly four years yesterday. had an island i knew i'd have to take, and due to the lay of the land and borders, i wouldn't be able to get modern armor to both cities on the island in one turn (without moving an army over, and i wasn't particularly interested in having an army stuck on the dinky island south of pangaea). a transport full of marines took both cities, one turn, no losses.

of course, the cities were defended by a mix of riflemen, pikemen, and impi

[Dis]

they do work well in the WW2 Pacific scenario