On the Utility and Use of Marines

[Panag]

Originally posted by Jaybe
An effective (and FUN) use of marines is to:
1) Bombard coastal tile improvements
2) When workers come to repair tile improvements, take workers with marines, loading captured workers onto transports
3) Support marines (if desired) with MI

After a few times of this, the AI will cease repairing improvements. Whether this is because they have "learned" not to lose more workers or because they HAVE no more workers ....

Of course, your raiding forces will more likely survive if opposing ground forces are being distracted by other ground action.

Note: If your transport(s) were full of marines and supporting troops and you put captured workers on them, you may not have room to extract your troops from the raiding site.

hi ,

indeed Soren made the AI to learn , agreed only up to a certain level ( héy this game has to fit on one disk ) , but indeed this is one of the things the AI learns very fast , ...... if you where to come back 100 turns later to the same spot and try to pull the same stund you shall be in for a big surprise , .......

as for the room on the transports , some of the guys you put on the beaches shall get killed , ..... always send a couple infantry along to protect them , .....

have a nice day

[Sitting Bull]

Hello,

People generally compare marines and tanks for simplistic reasons, and you have broken out of that rut and seen a unique strategic maneuver, and wrote a good article, but a better functional comparison can be made with bombers. The trick when invading a heavily railroaded AI opponent is to bomb out the rail and road net everywhere in the vicinity of the landing point; the use of marines you describe leaves you somewhat less vulnerable to the next-turn counterattack, but use of bombers will make you completely immune to it. You will actually ambush the comp, not the other way around. Bombers are not great at hitting the troops in a city, but quite good at knocking out tile improvements. Two or three carriers loaded with bombers will just shred apart everyting in the vicinity in a few turns, then give you the firepower to blow away the counterattack on open ground.

On the subject of real-world invasions, we have only WW2/Korea for reference, 50+ years ago, and D-Day or Iwo Jima are unlikely to be fought again for many reasons, hence I do not concern myself over modding marines to be competitive with mech inf. [I, too, rarely play the modern age anyway.]

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by Jaybe
An effective (and FUN) use of marines is to:
1) Bombard coastal tile improvements
2) When workers come to repair tile improvements, take workers with marines, loading captured workers onto transports
3) Support marines (if desired) with MI

After a few times of this, the AI will cease repairing improvements. Whether this is because they have "learned" not to lose more workers or because they HAVE no more workers ....

Of course, your raiding forces will more likely survive if opposing ground forces are being distracted by other ground action.

Note: If your transport(s) were full of marines and supporting troops and you put captured workers on them, you may not have room to extract your troops from the raiding site.

Nice tactic to use especially if you are just trying to harrass your opponet. I like to use tactics such as this to cripple an AI that is a leader in tech but on a distant continent

[Gravity Happens]

I personally like to land a bunch of paratroopers and fight a war of attrition with the enemy. Cut off rail lines, capture workers, destroy radar, stuff like that. I make it hard for them to get rid of the paratroopers by fortifying them on mountains and hills and stuff, or maybe running away and diverting their infantry or whatever might be pursuing the paratroopers. Then i come in with marines to land on the shores and attack coastal cities and units, all the while having battleships/destroyers/AEGIS cruisers and bombers from carriers bombarding and bombing away. Finally, after this force succeeds (or is defeated, although it is usually victorious), I come in with tanks/modern armor and clean up. I tried this in a multiplayer game with my uncle and my sister, and it worked great! IT also wastes the AI.

[Jaybe]

... bomb out the rail and road net everywhere in the vicinity of the landing point; the use of marines you describe leaves you somewhat less vulnerable to the next-turn counterattack, but use of bombers will make you completely immune to it. ...

Hard to do when they have F-15s on air superiority and you have only a carrier or two with a mix of bombers and jet fighters....

Perhaps later when I have my stealth aircraft in plentiful supply.

[Panag]

Originally posted by Jaybe

... bomb out the rail and road net everywhere in the vicinity of the landing point; the use of marines you describe leaves you somewhat less vulnerable to the next-turn counterattack, but use of bombers will make you completely immune to it. ...

Hard to do when they have F-15s on air superiority and you have only a carrier or two with a mix of bombers and jet fighters....

Perhaps later when I have my stealth aircraft in plentiful supply.

hi ,

refocus on land improvements then , units outside the cities , ......

them F-15's cant come forever

have a nice day

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by panag


hi ,

refocus on land improvements then , units outside the cities , ......

them F-15's cant come forever

have a nice day

Not even if you have 100 of them?? Targeting improvements only eliminates the SAM threat as the intercept for fighters is three tiles.


Jaybee:

Increase the amount of carriers in the area and send in the jet fighters before the bombers. You will lose some fighters but it will stop the F-15s from attacking your bombers. Stealth Aircraft are nice but unless you are playing a conquest game there really isn't much time to use them.

[Panag]

Originally posted by Mad Bomber


Not even if you have 100 of them?? Targeting improvements only eliminates the SAM threat as the intercept for fighters is three tiles.


Jaybee:

Increase the amount of carriers in the area and send in the jet fighters before the bombers. You will lose some fighters but it will stop the F-15s from attacking your bombers. Stealth Aircraft are nice but unless you are playing a conquest game there really isn't much time to use them.

hi ,

he wrote that he only has a couple carriers , ......

have a nice day

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by panag


hi ,

he wrote that he only has a couple carriers , ......

have a nice day

build more.

[Jaybe]

(And now, a brief distraction into "modern air warfare")

I have only a couple of carriers - in that theatre. Others have higher priorities elsewhere, such as eliminating the last of America's oil.

My basic problem with this air war, is that it IS an air war with somewhat horrific losses. Not catastrophic yet, but somewhat in line with the Allies' early air war against Germany when the losses were NOT sustainable. Almost as many jet fighters as bombers (roughly 30 & 30 overall), some of which are on Air Superiority, because Abe is using (and losing) bombers too, over a roughly 30-tile front. Great fun!
So, I send 1 or 2 jet fighters out on bombing missions, they do (or do not) get intercepted, and they do (or do not) win [see note below]. Even then, sending 2 to 4 bombers out in the same area may lose me a bomber. No spy in communist Washington yet to let me know where F-15s are based.

I have annexed about a 4th of Abes land (just to let you know it's not just an air war). Everyone has MechInf, though I am the only one with MA. I have just become involved in another war back at home (and THAT is what reserves are for)!

Note: Air-related rule changes: 67% (not 50) chance of air interception. Jet Fighters are (A.D/B.R.RoF) 8.7/4.6.1; F-15 is 8.8/6.8.2

[Panag]

hi ,

next time play as the US of A , now you know why they are so great , its traits and its UU , .....

but communism as a gov , , what did you do to those poor guys , .....

can you attach a save

have a nice day

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by panag
...
but communism as a gov , , what did you do to those poor guys , .....

What did I do??!! They did it to themselves. That whole continent had given up representative government due to various wars of conquest.

In fact, I got my foothold on that continent because a former trading partner was going down, and I preferred to own that lux myself (at least one of them).

As for myself, being commercial Rome and the biggest for quite some time now, I never went beyond monarchy.

I'll see what I can do about the save(s)....

[Jaybe]

Okay panag, you asked for it. Hope you enjoy the view...

1.3MB zipped file, containing 3 saves and scenario documentation. Two MS Word documents included: Unit Stats, 030508 mod.doc (changes in bold) deals with changes to the units, while 030509 Mtns Impass.doc covers other rule changes. (It's a large game, so just one save by itself would have been over 0.5MB).

Here are some highlites:
Mountains are impassable, inspired by an old thread ("... Editor Based Changes ...") I can no longer locate at CFC. Can't build cities on tundra, either.
Many changes inspired by Apolyton University (but NO, I couldn't stop there, now could I...)

I have never been happy with horse-based units being virtually the only offensive unit. Based on the concept that if 2 infantry-type units were to meet on a battlefield it would be a tossup, I equalized many offensive/defensive strengths. To compensate, to Fortify is a 50% defense bonus. So are rivers.

Cannons come before Muskets. Forests are impassable to wheeled (so need a road); horse & mech units are wheeled. There is ALWAYS naval warfare available, from the first galley; with early bombardments inspired by the need to have barbarian galleys be a meaningful nuisance (raiding parties represented by bombardment).

Aircraft have enhanced defense strengths to facilitate offensive air superiority missions. Based on "the first to sight the opponent has the advantage" as it applies to individual aircraft, so I could not see making an interceptor having a decided advantage.

http://apolyton.net/upload/files/Jaybe/Jaybes_PTW_game.zip

[CerberusIV]

Coming back to the use of marines and a point from an earlier post of mine, I am definitely getting one tile islands now and didn't before the 1.21f patch.

I always though the earlier versions of the map generator were set to not produce one tile islands. Did they change it or was it just my imagination. It certainly makes marines essential in some circumstances.

[vmxa1]

I am not sure, but I have seen them in PTW. CivIII was too far back for me to be sure.