Machine gun question

N

Nelsonius

Chieftain
Joined
May 8, 2012
Messages
59
I switched to civ4 back from civ5 yet again so bare with me. Is the machine gun's "Immune to collateral damage from Siege Weapons" incredibly powerful for defense? I'm never defending much late game but it seems like if you wanted to hold a newly conquered, strategic city several of these would seal the deal. Or for holding back a powerful enemy. Seems like if cannons or arty can't wreak havoc on a stack of garrisoned machine guns then you're safe.

Does anyone build them? I've been giving them medic promos and sending a few with armies to defend wounded units. Seems nice because when you attack through a whole stack they're always healthy for defense (since they can't attack).
 
Machine guns are useful. Almost unkillable unless you bring bukos power and knock into them. Luckily for me I rarely see the ai use too many in one city.

They are great, and even better if upgraded into one with city defender promos. But by future era they obsolete.
 
Marines get a bonus against machine guns. They seem to be most effective in a mixed stack of infantry. By themselves a big stack of siege will kill them off pretty fast.
 
The cavalry units also gets a bonus against them. And the devs took a special efforts not to make them super-duper town defenders by removing the city defender promotions.
BUT you can make xbowmen, give them city defender promotions and upgrade them to machine guns. As the cavalry don't get city raider promotions and very few cavalry units are upgraded for anti-siege this way the machine guns are effectively even against them (the game has some weird way for calculating the odds - it seems the opposite promotions cancel each other so the weaker units have advantage).
 
Normally I use machine guns as a way of preventing border towns from being capped by a stack of trebs. Some AIs (Monty especially) are fond of declaring war and then spamming you into oblivion with obsolete units. But even if you have infantry those trebs can be a real pain whereas a few machine guns will eat them for breakfast. However by the time you reach artillery I wouldn't bother with them.
 
Handel said:
The cavalry units also gets a bonus against them. And the devs took a special efforts not to make them super-duper town defenders by removing the city defender promotions.
BUT you can make xbowmen, give them city defender promotions and upgrade them to machine guns. As the cavalry don't get city raider promotions and very few cavalry units are upgraded for anti-siege this way the machine guns are effectively even against them (the game has some weird way for calculating the odds - it seems the opposite promotions cancel each other so the weaker units have advantage).
Click to expand...

Are you sure cavalry has a bonus vs. machine guns? I just checked the listings and did not see it.
 
They don't. But, they do not get the penalty for gunpowder units. They do much better than other units of the era against them. While I am here I want to say marines, imo, don't do so so well againt MGs. They arent hard counter because the MG still gets its gunpowder bonus against them. A marine loses much more than other counter units.
 
Ringo Kid said:
Are you sure cavalry has a bonus vs. machine guns? I just checked the listings and did not see it.
Click to expand...

Ah, yes. It is vs cannons only. I mistakenly thought the bonus is vs all the siege units from the same era. But actually the cavalry not being gunpowder unit actually gives the bonus +50%.

Edit: Something which is not well explained in the game there is a difference between "gunpowder" units and "gunpowder-era" units; this often leads to confusion.

BTW - funny but it appears the cavalry has no attack bonuses vs catapults and such - there is no logic in this.
 
There is not much logic for most of the "counter"-bonuses. (Except maybe spears/pikes vs. mounted and archers on hills) As catapults are much weaker than cavalry (as opposed to cannons) there is no bonus needed.
It is just to avoid über-powerful units without counters. Historically, cavalry should get a malus against machine guns and knights against longbows etc.
 
Machine guns are insanely powerful if you get them early enough. Anything prior to infantry is chanceless against them, and even against infantry they do well. Not being able to collateral them means that a small stack of them can hold a given tile more or less uncontested. Great for blocking the enemy's uranium on island maps in multiplayer. ;)

They are also mandatory if you attack an enemy who has a large stack and lots of collateral. When entering his land, he could decimate your stack if it weren't for the couple of machine guns holding the stack together.

Their power is balanced by not being able to attack or receive city defender promotions and their uselessness by the time tanks arrive.
 
I like the CR-xbow-upgraded-to-MG trick for defending sensitive coastal cities. Surprise, sneak naval attacks are rendered pretty much ineffective until the enemy has marines, and by the time the AI has the wherewithal to put them on boats, you should have mech infantry guarding those cities anyways.

I've seriously watched a pair of CG2 MGs chew through dozens off-the-boat cavalry as well as rifles and other industrial-era attackers. Often it forces the AI to land its force before being able to mount an effective attack, which give you time to move in defenders if the MGs aren't enough to cope.

But yeah, once the AI has post-cannon artillery and marines, MGs are pretty useless.

Offhand, does anyone know if Izzy's citidels give XP to MGs..? I don't think I've ever tried that...
 
Grens, with City Garrison promotions, also upgrade to Machine Guns. You can purpose build them just for that, it is a reasonable affordable upgrade, like Rifles to Infantry.
 
capnvonbaron said:
Offhand, does anyone know if Izzy's citidels give XP to MGs..? I don't think I've ever tried that...
Click to expand...

No. Citadel XP bonus only applies to Siege units. The MG is a Gunpowder unit. There is a entry on the Civ Wikia that says the MG is Siege but that is incorrect.
 
The Civopedia has it as Siege, so I think we should trust that. Same with this very site.
 
I just checked the XML and the Machine Gun is indeed listed as UNITCOMBAT_SIEGE. This seems like an obvious mistake by Firaxis; a unit marked "Only Defensive" is useless as a siege unit. Also the upgrade path goes Grenadier - Machine Gun - SAM Infantry, which is Gunpowder - Siege - Gunpowder.

But that's the way the game has it. I just tried it with World Builder to verify, and you can use the Citadel for XP for Machine Guns.

It does not seem like a very useful strategy. You don't get all the promos, just Drill, Medic and (eventually) Ambush; definitely no Siege promos. That's nice but Machine Guns are already tough to crack. Also, you will have to avoid Economics or you'll lose the XP benefit of the Citadel. This will also block you from Free Market, Corporation, Assembly Line and Mining Inc.
 
simishag said:
I just checked the XML and the Machine Gun is indeed listed as UNITCOMBAT_SIEGE. This seems like an obvious mistake by Firaxis; a unit marked "Only Defensive" is useless as a siege unit. Also the upgrade path goes Grenadier - Machine Gun - SAM Infantry, which is Gunpowder - Siege - Gunpowder.
Click to expand...

I guess they just have to find a place to put them in. Like the gunships which kinda fly... but not quite.
 
Handel said:
I guess they just have to find a place to put them in. Like the gunships which kinda fly... but not quite.
Click to expand...

They probably did it instead of giving it its own unit class; all siege is immune to ground-based collateral damage, and MG are therefore no exception.

They are very very strong against previous/same era especially with high drill + fortification on a hill city. You can easily use a dozen to mow down 50+ shaka renaissance troops.

The real "counter" to them is not marines, however, but rather Artillery and/or Tanks. They're heavily out-classed by tanks where they receive no bonuses against them. Vs artillery, while they do not take the collateral they are rather miserable against cr II and especially III attacks directly from the arty...but then again so is pretty much every unit in the game until later modern/future era.
 
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