Marines: kidnap workers

[Fanny Brice]

Here's a way to take a shot at an enemy short of an invasion.

Take two Marines out in a transport supported by a battleship or two. Bombard improvements on the enemy coast. As workers move into repair the damage, land your Marines to grab them. You can immediately move the captured workers to your transport.

Works best to pick mountain or other beneficial defensive terrain to see what sort of counterattack you'll receive.

This is an economic attack. Working with the battleships or carrier/bombers, you are destroying shield, food, and commerce production. You can eventually isolate coastal cities by destroying land links and harbors. That city will most likely go into civil disorder, of the AI will need to move workers to be entertainers, again limiting its production.

Also, simply landing near enemy workers causes them to scatter and the work they did to improve that square is lost.

If you have a couple of these Marine "snatch and grab" units in action, you will deplete the enemies stock of workers.

 

[eyrei]

Originally posted by Fanny Brice
Here's a way to take a shot at an enemy short of an invasion.

Take two Marines out in a transport supported by a battleship or two. Bombard improvements on the enemy coast. As workers move into repair the damage, land your Marines to grab them. You can immediately move the captured workers to your transport.

Works best to pick mountain or other beneficial defensive terrain to see what sort of counterattack you'll receive.

This is an economic attack. Working with the battleships or carrier/bombers, you are destroying shield, food, and commerce production. You can eventually isolate coastal cities by destroying land links and harbors. That city will most likely go into civil disorder, of the AI will need to move workers to be entertainers, again limiting its production.

Also, simply landing near enemy workers causes them to scatter and the work they did to improve that square is lost.

If you have a couple of these Marine "snatch and grab" units in action, you will deplete the enemies stock of workers.

Rock on! That will be the first thing I try tonight as soon as I get marines. Not only effective, but funny at the same time.

 

[Windwalker]

I'm just curious, why won't this strategy work with Tanks or Modern Armor? Why do you have to use marines?

 

[eyrei]

You actually have to use an attack to capture workers, and the only units that can attack from a boat are marines.

 

[Vandelay]

I like it alot. I was trying to isolate an enemy capitol like ou said, only using bombers. Most every attack would destroy an improvement until I got to the last road (or railroad?). I bombed it about eight times and could not destroy it.

Does the last link have to be broken from the ground? Or did I just have horrible luck?

 

[graeme]

You just had horrible luck. It's harder to destroy more "basic" improvements, like roads.