On the Utility and Use of Marines

[asleepathewheel]

wow, awesome

[Cort Haus]

:applause:

[vmxa1]

It is an fun read, but I have to wonder why any subterfuge like that would go unnoticed? With your landmass completely covered, would you not have calvs moving around to shadow the transports?

I can see where you could land your units, but a massive couterattack should follow before they can do all that much damage, should it not?

[Catt]

Originally posted by vmxa1
I can see where you could land your units, but a massive couterattack should follow before they can do all that much damage, should it not?

Marines, vmxa1, marines (in this marine-centric thread).

The marines take a coastal city. In the same turn, transports full of cav move into the coastal city and unload without loss of movement point. Cavs then use the native captured rails and city cultural radius to take one undefended "behind-the-lines" city after another.

Catt

[vmxa1]

I know that, but either you have to bring a lot of marines or you fail to take the city. If you have mostly marines, there are not that many calv to cover much land.

[vmxa1]

BTW I am not attempting to point to any failures, only to see if I am following it and can learn something. So please point out all the holes in my question.

I was first wondering how many transports are we talking about?
If I saw a single transport, I eye ball it, but don't panic. If I see a second batch, I get very worried. If any of these have more than one transport I am going to get proactive.

In the example, the invaded party had a great ally and the invader was an outcast of sorts. So once I see a stack of transports with 4 in it, I would annouce that if it comes in range of my bombers, it gets hit.

IOW a stack of 4 is a threat, if a few singles can land at the same turn that is a threat.

[asleepathewheel]

So really the problem was that Tibi failed to recognize the +1 move? thus not defending the insertion city as well as he should have? Shuffling defenders primarily to the cities he thought would be attacked, not realizing another was susceptible? Thus there was only a token defense in place, not enough to counter a transport of marines?

How many units were defending this city verses the northern cities? A substantial difference?

[Tiberius]

IIRC 2 infantries, as opposed to 4 or 5 in the other, N-E cities. I obviously didn't realize that this particular city could be attacked in only one turn.

Not only that, but the other cities were also protected by radar towers.

[MattPilot]

... and thats exactly why i avoid building cities on the coast

[Hot_Enamel]

vxma1:
I had, for a long time, always had ships along (and in) Tibi's border.
When transports became available, I moved empty stacks of them along his border. At one stage, there was a stack of 7-8 transports.

I was intentionally doing this so that Tibi would get "used to" seeing harmless stacks of transports sailing around his border.

As soon as I had amphibious warfare and enough marines, I loaded them on transports and moved them into position. Then I attacked the very next turn.

Only Tibi can say if he was worried or not.
I dont think anyone in this PBEM has built a bomber yet.
I had 4 transports that could attack Asyut.
I also had a stack of 3 empty transports further North near our border. I was hoping this would also convince Tibi that if I was to attack, the invasion point would be further North.

asleepathewheel:
I did not investigate Asyut before I attacked.
Perhaps if I did, maybe I would of waited for more marines.

I would of thought 2 infantrymen is a pretty good defense. I was expecting only 1 of course. Tibi had a wall of units along his entire coast to stop an invasion for a long time. I was hoping that wall was still there, and his cities were left with only minimal defenses.

For the record:
My first marine killed his first infantryman outright.
It only took 5 more marines to kill the second infantryman.
Tibi did get bad RNG results on the marine invasion.
But then I lost a lot of cav trying to take New Thebes.

Did Tibi not take into account the +1 move for Magellans?
He will have to answer that. I suspect he did not.
And it was the only reason why I was able to pull this off and reach Asyut.

And a question from me:
Tibi, I thought Asyut was covered by a radar tower ?
Radar towers dont have to be right next to the city right?
They can be 2 tiles away ?
RxC

Regs.

[vmxa1]

Hot_Enamel thanks for the info. If no bombers, then I would expect to have lots of ships to tag along to force at least beating a few to attack.

Since C3C I have switched to get Flight to stop marines by bombing them before they reach shores. so I figured that anyone having Marines would have flight, sorry.

Of course prior to C3C bombers were not as effective, but could at least make it hard to defeat any ships blockading the city.

So do you think it will be a long time before he allows people to park transports in plain view?

[Tiberius]

The turn before the attack:

[Tiberius]

The PowerGraph now:

[Hot_Enamel]

Lucky I had Magellans



And Asyut did have a radar tower right ?

[Hot_Enamel]

I think that drop in the powergraph was caused by your SOD being assimilated into the glorious Arabian Empire 2 turns later.

I did not kill enough units with the marine invasion.


Note the "Sleeping Giant" Imtoops has had the biggest jump.
Perhaps we should align against him Tibi ???