Marines

[Dark Sheer]

Marine is useless? Not if you use them right. I have been using marine to launch sneak attack around my enemy behind the frontline. When you have a main frontline the AI (or any player for that matter) will commit most of their units to the frontline which make those cities far away from the frontline pretty weak in defence. And if the city has an airport, you can then use the newly captured city as a beachhead to launch another attack from the enemy’s rear. Not to mention if those cities have resources with them. You can really cripple your enemy with a amphibious attack! After all, I have been defeating Mech Inf with Marines, as long as you are willing to take losses. I doubt that there is anything 2 boat load of Marines can’t do. Just think of the losses the American sustain during D-Day landing. You gotta plan to accept losses when you do a amphibious assault, that’s all.

Marine is useless? I don’t think so.

 

[chrome_gnome]

How is having a city with an airport helpful to stage another assault? Can you move troops from city w/ airport to another city with an airport or something? That would be neat if you could and something I never thought of tryng. If you can move troops from sirport to airport I'm gonna feel stupid that I have spent about 40 turns using transport ships to ferry troops to another continent where I have a small beachhead of 4 towns, one of which has an airport.

 

[Dralix]

The order is "airlift" the keyboard key is "t" (I think) and you will see an icon for it if the unit is in a city with an airport. It functions like the rebase order for air units.

 

[Odin442]

I dunno.... until the tanks come along, I usually use hordes and hordes of cavalry, to the near exclusion of all else. I add bombers as needed, but they usually aren't, not until I start losing cities myself.

And if cavalry isn't available, I like to buy off the enemy until I can build tanks.

 

[Shabbaman]

Instead of researching a dead end like amphibious warfare you can research motorized transportation and build panzer (and research advanced flight). I think panzers (or just tanks, whatever) are better than marines, but marines have their uses, that's true. Besides able to capture those pesky one-tile island cities (which I've yet to encounter in civ3, although I've seen 'em a lot in civ2 and ctp2) it saves you the 'landing turn', so you might not get bombarded by enemy artillery.

Nevertheless, I wouldn't use any resources researching amphibious warfare.

 

[Mavfin]

all a question of your playstyle. Marines and paras have their uses. I don't use them all the time, but, then again, they're neat toys to play with, too.

 

[Dr HacknSlash]

This has been interesting reading. I've never found any use for marines, nor feared them from my enemies. I can see now how they could be useful in some cases.

But I'd rather build tanks.

Originally posted by Shabbaman
Yeah.

I still can't find out how those longbowmen defeated my panzer...

Haven't you guys ever seen Rambo? Panzers don't have a chance.

 

[Shabbaman]

Yeah, but that's Rambo...

 

[Dark Sheer]

Originally posted by Shabbaman
Yeah, but that's Rambo...

Yeah, but Rambo ties one hand behind his back to make things fair.

 

[notyoueither]

It depends on your style. On Pangea you might do as the fellow suggested and out flank your oppo from the sea.

If you are playing Continents or Archipeligo, they are worth their weight in gold. Listen to the fellow who mentioned they ignore many defensive bonuses when invading a city. Heh. Mech Infantry. Heh. We eat them for breakfast don't we?

Give them a Fleet with CVs to back them up and 2 boat loads of Jar Heads will get you any city you want. Their capitol you ask? Just tell us where to go Mr. President.

 

[Tassadar]

Marines can be usefull when you wage war into democraty, because you dont need to keep marine into ennemy territory( war weariness). so a few transport full of marines supported by bomber and or battlship can crush many ennemy city without even putting a foot into there cultural border. this work for continent map and archipelago.