Helicopters and paratrooping

Course that tactic doesn't work if you don't get advanced flight until you get the superconductor

Paratroopers and marines require specific situations but there are so many ways to avoid those situations that they aren't useful.

1) You have to have no railroads between you and your target to use paras or airdrop infantry. Otherwise use tanks and MA. Helicopters would be extremely useful for setting up defenses in undeveloped areas, but there are few undeveloped areas by the time you get advanced flight.
2) You have to have to have a coastal city or unit you want to attack to use marines, otherwise just drop your units next to their city and wait a turn and listen to the AI gripe about them being there but not be able to do much about it. Also that coast city should not have MIs, or its basically suicide.
3) Neither paras nor marines are of much use fighting against MI, so they are only useful at the very very end of the industrial age or the very very beginning of the modern. Which is sort of realistically accurate, since the widespread use of the abilities of these units was only common in WW2 and Korea. Yes there are still airborn units and the marines in the US army, but they perform much different roles than before and aren't strictly ment for storming Normandy any more.
4) You have to be playing on plenty of water to make marines useful and civs have to be divided by water. Its more efficient to attack from land than from sea, so pangeas obsolete marines before they are even available.
5) Once you take a city and build an airport, you have instant land access to all the civs on that continent, so marines are good for a one shot invasion.

Frankly, marines weren't useful in in Civ1 or 2 either. I used tanks, MI and artillery then, and I still do now (though I'm more likely to use CM than any artillery now).

I loved helicopters and paratroopers in Civ2. They were great point defense units. Got a unit too close to you but not in your borders. Hit it with a helicopter. Killed all the units in a city, drop a paratrooper in to save your tanks. Maybe they were too powerful

 

Another thing I like to do grab a large mass off paras (20-30) and city hop. I take a city with paras (softened with bombers) and hold for a turn. move all my bombers there and it gives me a second area to mess around with. Spreading their troops out so I can quickly pilage their luxuries an resources

 

Perfection,

I tried that once. But after taking the first city I didn't have enough paratroopers to take another one (about 15 died).

One more question (actually more than one):

Can you park a loaded helicopter on a carrier?
Can you load infantry from a transport to a helicopter on a carrier?
Can you paratroop from a transport if there is a carrier on the same square?

 

Neither I nor the AI has ever researched the techs needed for these units. They don't look all that useful to me. I've beefed them up a little, but I'm still not going to research them, because other stuff is so much more useful. If the AI gets those techs, well, I guess I'll get to see if they're any good.

 

For the first time I've seen the AI build Paratroopers. It had one and after a couple of turns has five. Also has 8 marines (FIY total AI army is about 120 MI, about 40 tanks and 30 arty.)

I think AI is coded to build such units only afer building "optimal" no of defense, attack units. I'm curious if they'll ever use them

 

I was under the impression that when a marine attacked from the sea the unit was denied any defensive bonuses it would have recieved had it been attacked from land. This means that while tanks have a better attack value, a marine can be just as usefull when coming from a ship.

This might be wrong, but I have noticed that in the game I am playing (my second to reach this age) that my marines attacking from ships do much better than my marines attacking from land. Maybe I am just imagining this though(or stupid for using marines in the first place).

Anyone else have any idea if this is true or not?

 

Frankly, I have no idea. But I started the thread and felt the need to give you an answer.

 

There is a study in another thread where they say they found no evidence that Marines get a landing bonus.

In an effort to make these two techs worth something, I am considering making the Transport become available at the same time as Marines, and making Carriers become available at the same time as helicopters. After all, these transports were not needed until these Marines were introduced, and likewise, carriers weren't developed until after aircraft had been around for some time.

Neither of these units (Transports and Carriers) is critical, but they are awful useful, and will probably ensure that even I will research these techs.

On another note, I am looking for a way to make the MI and MA come a little later in the game. As it is, MI comes almost immediately after the Tank, and MA isn't that far behind it. I would like to keep the tech tree as intact as possible, and would prefer to move the unit to some other location. I don't think MI depend that much on computers anyway.

The problem is, where do I put them? I am considering making The Laser a prereq to Synthetic Fibres, or the other way around, and then MA can be produced by the later of the two techs. Without laser targeting devices, our M-1's would not hit things as well as they do. As for MI, I was thinking Robotics for their tech, but that seems too far back.

What thinkest y'all?

 

The worst unit thread has plenty of tips on using helos.
I've seen the AI use paradrops but it was weird, the French paras kept ploppong down in my territory to get to another AI enemy. I had an ROP with the French though so the AI should have been just using my railroads.

 

Actually, in the WW2 European Front scenerio, I'm experimenting with a para/helicopter invasion of England. This is purely experimental, and I doubt it will work. My plan is to drop paratroopers on a hill on the other side of England, then helicopter infantry for the main assault. This will be backed with intensive bombing of the English tanks.

I'm going to play now and report back to say whether this works. If it does, it could actually be a new combined arms strategy: paratrooper decoy, infantry/bomber main assault.

 

I'm back. My invasion isn't full scale yet, as I don't have enough helicopters built to send infantry over to England. However, I found that dropping paras on a hill is quite effective. My Civulator tells me they have 40% chance of suriving first tank assault, then around 50% when fortified.

However, I think this will only really be effective to distract the AI and kill some of their offensive units---paratroopers don't have the attack ability to take a city. Marines or tanks will be needed for that.

So, I think dropping a good number (10-15) paratroopers can be effective.