Machine Guns collateral damage immunity

[Woodreaux]

I've always appreciated Machine Guns, for their awesome defense against Rifleman and Infantry. I favor them for this reason. The only thing they really need to worry about are Marines and Tanks and Arty. Then I noticed, MGs are immune to Artillery's collateral damage. AWESOME! Costing 20% less than Arty and nullifying Arty's main benefit seems too good to be true.

Now I tried to do my homework, I used the search to learn now about Collateral Damage. I read this article: http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/combat_explained.php and it provides a wealth of great information. Yet, there's one detail I'm not clear on.

If Artillery is attacking a stack which consists primarily of Machine Guns, during the collateral damage target selection phase, will the Machine Guns be omitted from the list of possible targets? (Thus concentrating all splash damage on units which are not immune to it.) e.g.: if a six pack of howitzers rolls up on a stack of 18 Machine Guns and 2 Infantry, will all 36 rounds of collateral damage hit the Infantry? or will on average 90% of the attempted collateral damage attempts be wasted on the Machine Guns?

I know this doesn't apply to bombers, but in the pre-radio days this seems important.

 

[nanomage]

no, they are not ommited. they take place in list of collateral damage targets, but do not take the damage .

 

[TheMeInTeam]

MG's are not omitted.

If the human has upgraded them from grenadiers, they can be a very useful garrison troop. The AI does not do that.

The result is that even though arty don't inflict collateral damage on them, CR II arty just beat them outright at high odds instead. No big deal, right? It is though, because the arty will proceed to hit EVERYTHING ELSE with collateral, so after 1-2 hits the MG's will be the defenders often, and will tend to lose to direct attacks.

The bigger annoyance for me is that the AI likes to mass mounted if it goes on the offensive (which is the only time you'll be using MG's other than stack d), and cavalry are annoyingly decent against MG's, especially in the field.

 

[AlienSexFilth]

Grenadiers can be upgraded to Machine Guns.
I routinely spam grenadiers with CG3/ Woodsman3 & Guerilla 3 for stack or city protection, and it is the BEST stack protection (with a mix of Infantry & Anti-tank post Industsrialism) untill you get to MechInfantry.

I remember once my 10 CG3 Machine guns OBLITERATING an attacker in a 3:1 ration. Attacker had Infantry, Artillery + Cavalry. Not a signle MG dead..

Machine guns are great, but only if they are upgraded from Grenadiers. Else, they are mediocre..

 

[oyzar]

Throw a healthy dose of machine guns into any stack. It really helps against getting obliterated. If half your stack is machine guns / cannons / artilery you can effectivly reduce the amount of units that recive colleteral damage by 50%. As mentioned they aren't great against artilery but they are very very good against infantery + cannons. It should be mentioned that once planes come around they'll be damaged by those, though of course they got a chance to intercept..

 

[royal62184]

What line of promotions does the MG lose out on that it is better to promote from Grenadiers?

 

[Dirk1302]

Garrison/Guerilla/combat/pinch are the first that come to mind.

 

[Woodreaux]

That's the trick with MG's. They can access the Drill line, but none of the specialty series like Wood, Hills, City Garrison. However, they can one off promo's like Medic, Formation (the Anti-Cav). This alone is reason to load up on Grenadiers and stockpile in order to give them the CG promo's then upgrade them.