Finally, Marines are useful!

[Evincar]

I still feel Marines are not good. You need zounds of bombs to knock down mechs down to 1HP (def= 42 aprx) and that generally ruins the city. I prefer disembarking in a mountain, let enemies crush in my mechs, then take as many cities as I like

 

[TheDS]

Marines are better on offense than regular infantry, but they are no good on defense. That's why we send in marines to take a place, and then send in the army to hold it; marines attack, they don't guard.

 

[calle-76]

When ever i take an enemy city i allways have a few marines with me. When the AI counterstrikes and tries to retake the city i have my marines scattered around the city, but not blocking it entierly. That way the marines fire upon advancing enemy troops. The Ai seems to prefer to go for the city rather then the marines so i get in a lot of free shots on the enemy units.

 

[meldor]

Don't forget, once the marines have taken the city, the units you unload in the city can unload and attack on the same turn, or fortify and defend. If you drop units off on a mountain, they are stuck unfortified for one turn. The AI can attack before you even make the first move. Better to bomb the city defnders to 1hp take ti with marines and have fortified defenders.

 

[Evincar]

bombing everyone down to 1HP is really terrible. Plus, even with mechs at 1 HP you are going to lose half the battles, and believe me, there are few things worse than seeing a conscript promote to elite in 1 turn, especially because he regains HP

 

[hbdragon88]

Marines are good if you are up against a really far-behind civ. I used them against the English - huge success. Plus the animation is cool. They saved me. I seriously thought that calvary fortified on a mountain would kill horsemen - wrong! I lost more calvary than expected. Marines saved the day that time.

 

[Evincar]

but is a civ is really far behind in tech you don't need marines!! :rolleye: you just take your MA SoD and begin trampling infantry and riflemen!! plus, you get dozens of elites and probably some GL!

 

[Gen]

I agree with Evincar, unmodded Marines are horrible and building them is a waste of shields. Even ELITE Marine attacking REGULAR Mech. Infantry in the open field, without fortification (not across the river of course) has only 32.6% chance to win. If Mech. Infantry is veteran one fortified in metropolis, i's only 2.7%. I have changed Marine stats in editor to 10/9/1 and now thinking about increasing their attack to 12.

 

[Evincar]

Gen! don't do it!!

You see, I modded them to 10/6/1...or at least that's what I thought! they were 11/6/1 me and my stupid mistakes.

Well, with attack 11 they are already very good, even as land troops, until Mechs come out. Actually, Cathy and me are using lots of them as a very effective attacking troop and I can finally perform Amphibious assaults (I mean, perform them and sometimes win instead of having mi marines killed like rats!). So if you mod them up to At 12, they will surely be WAY too powerful. IMO 10/6/1 is OK

 

[Gen]

Well, I like to experiment with unit stats, so maybe I'll take the risk for a game or two... increasing cost too.
However, as royfurr mentioned there is serious problem with marines, they are supposed to ignore enemy fortifications but they don't. If Firaxis will ever patch this, even attack 8 would be great!

 

[Yzman]

Actually marines are very useful when tanks are not discovered, In my last game tanks were not discovered and wouldn't be becuase no one had money to research tech*too much war* Marines were easily taking out infantry and the only real way to effectively attack.

 

[Crow T Robot]

The usefulness of marines depends a lot on tactics. If you try to use them as shock troops, plunging head on into a border city defended by Mech Inf, tanks oreven Infantry, you are going to lose a lot of marines and battles.

On the other hand, if you utilize their unique ability, they can be very useful: Fill a transport with them and another with mech, inf, a worker and some tanks. Swoop in on a city AWAY from the border or main conflict. Often that city will be defended with spearmen or pikemen and the marines will triumph. (use a sub, explorer or spy to find out which).

Attack directly from the sea with the marines and hold the city with the other troops.

This tactic is *very* useful to capture a city strategically important because of geography, to secure or deny a resource, to establish a foothold or beachhead on a continent or to create a second front and cause the AI to respond to a threat away from your real objective.

They can lose some of their usefulness later when tanks etc are more common. But even, then the AI likes to 'parade' units like tanks around as opposed to fortifying them in a city for good. Often you can take the city even though there are tanks nearby (holding them is harder though).

You can also or subject the city to heavy bombardment first, then send in the marines; but the element of suprise is sort of lost that a squad of armour would work just as well with less support requirements (like air support) for the invasion.

 

[bbaws]

I've often built a few transprts full of marines offshore for a good while then used them for "punishment attacks". Marines suffer huge casualty rates in real life. I don't think that modding them is such a good idea, just use them in combination with other unirs. Three transports full has always been enough to take 2 cities for me but obviously I have them loitering as far form the land border as possible. Heavy bombing obliterates most og what you are trying to gain though, no? It's not hard to get your cities up to 50 shields production per turn, losing a few marines is a small price to pay if you are gaining a city with good infrastructure.

 

[bbaws]

Oh and a good way to back them up is a squad of infantry in helicopters. A lot more flexible than another transport of support troops.

 

[Evincar]

Originally posted by Yzman
Actually marines are very useful when tanks are not discovered, In my last game tanks were not discovered and wouldn't be becuase no one had money to research tech*too much war* Marines were easily taking out infantry and the only real way to effectively attack.

Marines easily taking out infantry??

Come on, stop kidding!

 

[Hades]

Not sure about infantry, but they took out my MAs in large number in my last game.

 

[bbaws]

Blood and guts in some folks games. It can be harrowing watching so many marines die but sometimes you need them and they will do the job even over the dismembered corpses of their buddies.

 

[Evincar]

Hades:
Do you beat Samurai with archers? surely not. In the same way, you don't beat MA with Marines, you lost dozens of marines to kill a few MA.

 

[bbaws]

I've used longbowmen to kill samurai, but they needed tenderizing with catapults before they were edible.

 

[Hades]

About 2 to 1 but this is still too much. They won't touch my MA armies though.