Attacking directly from a transport

I am going to make a naval assault on the americans. Are all units able to attack directly from the transport unit? Can I still inflict collateral damage with my artillery when attacking directly from a transport? What is the strenght-penalty associated with this?
Thanks.

Depends

All units ( that are normally able to attack OFC ) are able to attack from a ship, in spite of suffering a penalty if they don't have the amphibious promotion, in all versions of Civ IV, except BtS 3.17 . In BtS 3.17 siege units can't attack from ships.

-50% for attacking from a chip unless you have the amphibious promotion (viking Berserkers and Marines get it for free)

Artillery cant attack from ships, but frigates and better ships can reduce the cultural defense of a city. If you want to weaken the defenders, you need a carrier with fighters for this task.

A tactic that I use quite often is amphibious infantry/rifles off galleons with frigate support to bombard down defenses and establish a landing, and then march on the landlocked cities with cannons + artillery in support.

This tactic tends to work best with aggressive leaders (only 5 xp needed for amphibious promotion)

I would probably not attack off a transport without amphibious promotion unless it was tank v. longbow


However the large majority of the time I do not use amphibious attacks until marines, what I do then is I will land a decent sized stack on a hill somewhere along the coast and use frigates to harass enemies/take down defenses of coastal cities.

CRIII seems to be a decent alternative to Amphibious. It's unlikely that a unit that doesn't start with Amphibious would have both that and all 3 CR promos...

Let's not forget about the amphibious war elephants!

6K Man said:

CRIII seems to be a decent alternative to Amphibious. It's unlikely that a unit that doesn't start with Amphibious would have both that and all 3 CR promos...

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Most units simply can't have Amphibious AND CR, so I wouldn't call it alternative (only Melee can).

That said, in games with a CHA or AGG leader where I upgrade a large group of CR-III / CR-III,C1 maces to rifles, clearing my own continent frequently leads to a bunch of units that get over the 28 / 26 XP thresholds.
A bunch of CR-III/C2,amphibious rifles/infantry is a nice spearhead when invading the other continent.

Gliese 581 said:

Let's not forget about the amphibious war elephants!

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As if we could! I was just watching an old documentary on D-Day and thinking, "Man! Some amphibious war elephants would have come in handy!"

This sounds like a job for a spy or two and Ragnar's Berserkers turned amphibious Grenadiers. Gotta love them when they are yours.

JonathanStrange said:

As if we could! I was just watching an old documentary on D-Day and thinking, "Man! Some amphibious war elephants would have come in handy!"

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Gawd, I think that would've made it a disaster! Elephants are like bullet magnets, and an MG's bullet ain't gonna bounce off its hide. Those things go through trucks just fine, I don't think an elephant would've survived more than a handful of them. ARMORED, though....... Hmmmmm.... I'll have to get my minions to try that out and see if it could work.