On the Utility and Use of Marines

[Snotty]

Yes, if you havent played around with amphib before then open up the middle age conquest. Play as a viking tribe, and pillage your heart out.

[Uber Warrior]

Ok lets point something out that has been overlooked.


In D-Day there was a absoloutely massive bombardment before the marines went ashore, no if you do a Amphibious Invasion on Civ3 then use the freaking bombers and Battleships.


Now my experience with marines has always been good, and I have Always done the Marine invasion then land defenders and attackers.


I play world Maps, and thats all I play, I am usually USA with the starting position so I must absoloutely have marines. I use Bombers and Carriers and Battleships and such continuously when I land in cities and it works, so dont count Leathernecks out. They ARE valuable.

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by Uber Warrior
Ok lets point something out that has been overlooked.


In D-Day there was a absoloutely massive bombardment before the marines went ashore, no if you do a Amphibious Invasion on Civ3 then use the freaking bombers and Battleships.


Now my experience with marines has always been good, and I have Always done the Marine invasion then land defenders and attackers.


I play world Maps, and thats all I play, I am usually USA with the starting position so I must absoloutely have marines. I use Bombers and Carriers and Battleships and such continuously when I land in cities and it works, so dont count Leathernecks out. They ARE valuable.

They are valuable, but the marines were not there on D-DAY (although they did have some campaigns in the pacific where they distinguished themselves) Also D-day was a beach invasion; they did not directly attack a heavily defended target such as Cherbourg, Calais, Le Havre, or Dieppe.

[geniemalin]

A couple of points:

(1) the order of error for 2500 tests on a 25% binomial distirbution is about 3/8 of a % {from p(1-p)/sqrt(n)}

(2) It's interesting to me that nobody has really talked much about Marine armies. In my current Viking game I had two Berserk armies loaded into Galleons and a couple of 'extra' Berserks with Pikemen/Musketeers in the third: I would attack straight off with the armies before bombardment. Then if they had more than two defenders we'd have some Frigate/Ironclad bombardment on the remaining (often weaker) defender - only then would the 'single' Berserk/s go in. I never failed to take a coastal city that way.

Especially with four-unit armies courtesy of the Pentagon I can't see why the same sort of tactic wouldn't work with Marine armies (although I haven't yet got to the Modern era in a C3C game, and never really thought much about amphibious assault until I tried the Vikings.)

Unless it loses, an army is not subject to casualties, and it also doesn't allow upgrades in the middle of the assault (so an army can sometimes win where three or four separate attacks wouldn't, because of the defender's extra hp/s) Against a fortified Infantry in a metropolis a three-Marine army has a better than even chance of winning; a four-marine army is almost sure to - even without any bombardment.

Of course, this is all theory extrapolating from my Berserk armies - has anyone used Marine armies extensively in the modern era? (And why the earlier comment 'don't try to put a Marine in a Berserk army'...?)

[MrWhereItsAt]

I thought there was a problem where Berzerk or Marine or maybe mixed Berzerk/Marine armies didn;t have the Marine attacking ability.

Can someone clear this up? What problem exist(s)(ed) for PtW and is it still there for C3C?

[vmxa1]

Mix do not have it. Someone from BreakAway confirmed it was not allowed.

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by geniemalin
A couple of points:
....
(2) It's interesting to me that nobody has really talked much about Marine armies. In my current Viking game I had two Berserk armies loaded into Galleons and a couple of 'extra' Berserks with Pikemen/Musketeers in the third: I would attack straight off with the armies before bombardment. Then if they had more than two defenders we'd have some Frigate/Ironclad bombardment on the remaining (often weaker) defender - only then would the 'single' Berserk/s go in. I never failed to take a coastal city that way.

Especially with four-unit armies courtesy of the Pentagon I can't see why the same sort of tactic wouldn't work with Marine armies (although I haven't yet got to the Modern era in a C3C game, and never really thought much about amphibious assault until I tried the Vikings.)

Unless it loses, an army is not subject to casualties, and it also doesn't allow upgrades in the middle of the assault (so an army can sometimes win where three or four separate attacks wouldn't, because of the defender's extra hp/s) Against a fortified Infantry in a metropolis a three-Marine army has a better than even chance of winning; a four-marine army is almost sure to - even without any bombardment.

Actually, an army can take casulties even if victorious. (just try a triple attack with 3 cav's vs. infantry fortified in a metro) However they can now heal in one turn in a city w/ barracks.

Of course, this is all theory extrapolating from my Berserk armies - has anyone used Marine armies extensively in the modern era? (And why the earlier comment 'don't try to put a Marine in a Berserk army'...?)

As mentioned; mixed armies lose the special abilities, but 4 berserk or 4 marine armies work fine.

[CerberusIV]

I just finished a game where I needed a few small islands to secure a domination win. To try something different I used 4x marine armies with preliminary bomber attacks. The opposition wasn't much, just two infantry or riflemen in each target city, so it is hard to judge how this would work against a better defended target.

Marine armies are very strong with the combat bonuses. I would go as far as to say I would not bother with marines that aren't in a army. They were happily flattening regular infantry and losing maybe 1HP in the process.

Bombers having LLB is a big difference. Even with a single carrier load a good RNG would damage one defending unit and kill the other. Out of 7 cities taken bombers killed one of the two defenders in 3 cases.

To follow up I chose to helicopter in TOW infantry to garrison rather than drag transports full of MI across the map.

[Hot_Enamel]

Thought I might share this one....

Firstly though, I would like to say that I am in two PBEM's with Tibi. In both games, we have been at war, flamed each other, argued, traded, and also become good friends. I have the utmost respect for him, and he has proven to me on more than one occasion, to be an exceptional Civ player whom I greatly respect.

Tibi has graciously agreed to allow me to post these pics. As this PBEM is still ongoing, military numbers will not be provided. But pics as you know, are worth a thousand words.

DON PBEM.
Flandrien : China (Long since destroyed and absorbed into the Arabian Empire)
Hot_Enamel : Arabia
Tiberius : Egypt (Tibi took over from jshelr in March 03)
Imtroops : Carthage.

End of the industrial age
The PBEM has been going for over 12 months. (Since December 2002)

All three remaining players have/had a chance of winning the game.
A minor WW1 erupted when Tibi & Imtoops trade embargoed me in the middle ages.
Militarily, it was a non-event, with just a lot of chest thumping and a few minor units being destroyed.
We agreed to peace and an end to the trade embargo, when I sneaked in a Great Library build and got the following techs for free:
Education
Printing Press
Music Theory
Banking
Astronomy
Democracy
Economics

That caught me up in tech, and with some helpful final trades, I had tech parity again.

I have a complete map of the world. I believe my territory is still unknown, so the pics have been modified to protect the innocent (me).

Given the embargo, the ease of which my opponents trade luxuries & strategic resources, and their ROP, I am increasingly of the belief, that they have a long term alliance which will never give me an opportunity to win the game.
I felt my only chance was to deal both, or at least one of them, a fatal blow.

Investigations of border cities in the middle ages clearly showed that I had no chance of breaking through Tibi's front line defences. Plus he always had a stronger military compared to me. After reading this thread, I decided a surprise marine invasion would be my best chance.

I started moving stacks of empty transports along Tibi's border, so that he would get "used to" seeing my ships as just a non-threatening annoyance.

I quickly studied amphibious warfare and had a number of Marine prebuilds ready.
Although the plan was to get enough marines to attack both of my opponents at the same time, I did not have enough transports in position, and was worried that if I waited too long, I would lose my chance of surprise.


I snuck a stack of marines and cavalry on 4 transports and moved them into position.
I was hoping for two things.
1. Tibi would not be concerned about the stack of transports..they had been up, down and around his coast a few times.
2. He has forgotten that I have the Magellan's Wonder giving my ships get an extra movement. Therefore he would incorrectly believe that Asyut was safe from any invasion.



I had luck with the RNG....and was successful in taking the coastal city of Asyut.
My cav poured in, and wreaked havoc within his undefended core.



Cities taken/destoyed were
Size 9, Asyrut,
Size 13, Heliopolis, The Great Wall, JS Bach's Cathedral
Size 15, Thebes, Palace Capital, Shakespeare's Theatre, Oracle, Copernicus Observatory.
Size 14, Memphis
Size 13, Elephantine, Sistine Chapel
Size 7, Buto
Size 8, Busiris
Size 8, El-Ashmunein
Size 12, Alexandria
Size 14, Byblos
Size13, Hieraconpolis
Size12, Edfu
Size13, New Thebes

As a bonus, he also lost access to two luxuries.


Note however... not everything went as planned.
New Thebes must of produced an infantry unit on the turn I invaded.
I lost a lot of cavalry trying to take that city.
I could of bypassed it , and taken many more cities, but it was a core city, and I wanted it destroyed.

The second thing I really did wrong, was that I miscalculated how many cavalry I had left.
I counted more units sitting in Asyut that I had. They were actually leftover marines, not cavalry.
My last cavalry took New Thebes, and I didnt have any units left to take and destroy Size 16 Pi-Ramesses which also contained the Hoover Wonder.
I was stupid to leave that city and wonder still standing....all I needed was one more cavalry.

The third thing that has since gone wrong... is that (as half expected) Imtoops has allied with Tibi against me, and WWII has errupted.
2 vs 1 in the late industrial/modern age is very scary....bring on the tanks.


And in conclusion.... here is the pic, after I disbanded every city...leaving poor Tibi with a doughnut.



Finally, I would like to point out, that this manoeuvre has only just occurred. This PBEM is still continuing, and I am facing/faced two huge SOD's at the Arabian Border.

Hot_Enamel of the besieged (and very sneaky) Arabia


PS...
When trying to replay my moves for the above pics, I got different results.
The Marine attack against Asyut was identical, but the offensive against New Thebes had different results.
The first time I replayed, I did not take New Thebes
The second time I replayed, (Taking cities in the same order but with different units Cavalry/Ansar) I ended up taking New Thebes and still had units left over.

Anyway...in the real game, my last unit available took New Thebes.
So that I could take the pics, I stopped the 2nd replay at that point.

[geniemalin]

That is .... just beautiful to witness.

From a fan of amphibious warfare, thank you for sharing!

[vulture]

Now that's a fun trick to pull. Love to see a shot of the powergraph the turn following this stunt...

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by vulture
Now that's a fun trick to pull. Love to see a shot of the powergraph the turn following this stunt...

I didn't find it that fun. Actually I almost had a heart attack when I opened the save.

But the move was brilliant.

Btw, this:

and he has proven to me on more than one occasion, to be an exceptional Civ player

is clearly an exxageration.

[Theseus]

Mindbogglingly great move!!

[Catt]

Thanks to Tiberius, Imtroops, and Hot_Enamel for sharing such a great in-game manuver! Fascinating and horrifying at the same time!

Catt

[Arrian]

Holy ****.

That's... evil. Good show, H_E. I feel your pain, Tiberius (hope you pay him back).

-Arrian