protective machine gun, invincible?

[Tecibbar]

In my last game, I play as Qin and going for culture. Hat(yes, Hat!) declared on me completely unannounced. I lost 2 cities in 5 turns, and my capital is about to fall. In a desperate move, I upgrade 4 longbow to machine gun. They have drill IV and City garrison I. Those guys killed 50 rilfeman + cannons. and I didn't even lose 1.

If Hat have horse, it will be a different story. But promoted protective machine gun is near invincible for a very long time if your enemy doesn't have calavry.

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

Just attack using marines, Calvary are good v's 'siege' weapons, but Marines have a bonus V's machine guns.

Great play to upgrade the 4 longbows, but if they had marines and used them properly, you'd be defeated.

*insert long rant about A.I. amphibious attacks*

 

[Lenowill]

Rofl, that's hilarious.

Sadly newly made MGs don't get the protective benefit since they're classified as "siege units" but ... yeah, back-promoted ones are pretty nasty to try to beat.

 

[Grashopa]

Thanks for the tip Thats good to know.

 

[naterator]

Archers promote to Machine guns but longbows do not. So that's a reason to save your city garrison archers instead of upgrading to longbows or deleting them. And ya, they're invincible until marines.

 

[PieceOfMind]

See, normally when you attack a city with siege weapons most of the defenders will get damaged irrespective of what their promotions they have, how many first strikes, defensive bonuses etc. they have. This is why collateral damage is such a powerful tool in warfare.

Machine guns however have that all important property of being "immune to collateral damage". In fact, attacking 4 machines guns would mean using siege is completely pointless and actually a huge waste. The best approach for attacking those MGs would have been to use drill promoted units at first to at least try and get a hit or two in to damage them. After the MGs were weakened enough, using stronger units with city raider or combat promos would work well.

Because the immunity to collateral damage is so strong for a city garrison unit, it's no surprise that the developers decided to ban CG promotions for them. Acquiring them through upgrades is a loophole and it would even be possible to argue it's borderline exploit. Making them siege units was probably the easiest way to justify their permitted promotions.

Anyway, basically MGs are the best defensive unit in the game. Their immunity to collateral damage includes that from bombing runs, and so far I haven't even mentioned their ability to intercept air units!

 

[Elkad]

Xbows upgrade to MGs as well.

So do grenadiers, and they can get Pinch.

I'll often attach a GG to an xbow or gren with the express purpose of making a super-defender once railroad is in. Run up the combat line until Pinch is available. Save the Drill promotions for after you upgrade it to MG.

With Pinch and some Combat, they even will hold off the first few Marines.

 

[Lenowill]

I remember on my first (sort-of) Monarch win, it was a Big and Small game in which Churchill was attacking my desert/gold/FP/cottage-heaven Wall Street/Holy City. He had lots and lots of redcoats. I lost the town, got mad, reloaded, and made machine guns via upgrading old garrison Archers from other cities. Lots and lots of machine guns. Then I sent them in via the railroad. Toasty coats.

 

[Bei1052]

It's best to upgrade grenadiers to machine guns. It's better to do so if you're protective. It's even better to do so if you're Churchill, as you can easily create a city which is able to pump out 13 exp grenadiers every turn, which nets you six promotions right out of the proverbial gate.

A city on a hill guarded by Drill I, CG III and Guerilla II machine gun will take a ton of units to kill. In the field, a machine gun with Combat II, Pinch and Formation will protect you from just about everything until marines start showing up, plus they make decent city garrisons.

 

[obsolete]

Acquiring them through upgrades is a loophole and it would even be possible to argue it's borderline exploit.

Now that you let the big secret out, this will be the first thing banned in any future patch, just to prevent the Human player from getting a strategic edge.

 

[mirthadir]

Machine guns however have that all important property of being "immune to collateral damage". In fact, attacking 4 machines guns would mean using siege is completely pointless and actually a huge waste. The best approach for attacking those MGs would have been to use drill promoted units at first to at least try and get a hit or two in to damage them. After the MGs were weakened enough, using stronger units with city raider or combat promos would work well.

The best approach is would have been to wait for arty, marines, tanks or air. The next best option is to use flankers. After that I think CRIII cannon are better than DIII rifles in a damage per tradeoff.

While I grant promoted MGs are extremely cost efficient, the real problem is not CG on the MGs for the AI. It is that the AI has no clue how to deal with masses of any strong defender. DIII MGs still cut apart rifle stacks with ease.

 

[troytheface]

" I upgrade 4 longbow to machine gun."

"Archers promote to Machine guns but longbows do not."

In essence- i lied about this and instead of killing 50 rifle and cannon! it is more like "i watched harry potter and now i can do magic upgrades".

Remembering when "I Teenage Psychic for the FBI " it reminds me of getting wasted and partying and like talking to friend while at the same time knowing/watching him get his head ripped off in an auto accident in 4 months. It became depressing and i started playing Civ4 all the time because i can't see the AI's future.

 

[TheLazyHase]

" I upgrade 4 longbow to machine gun."

"Archers promote to Machine guns but longbows do not."

Still, that's true. You can upgrade archer->xbow->grenadier->MG, but longbow cannot. Not that it change the story a lot, except for modder that want to get rid of upgraded MG (or put it in something that make more sense).

Anyway, because of this bizarre upgrade grenadier->MG, you can build Xbow to make future MG. SInce xbow tend to be easier to level than archer and grenadier are not the more useful unit I can think of, it seem the easiest way.

 

[obsolete]

Their immunity to collateral damage includes that from bombing runs, and so far I haven't even mentioned their ability to intercept air units!

It has been a while, and I can not remember exactly how the CHANCE-to-intercept mechanics work.

 

[r_rolo1]

See, normally when you attack a city with siege weapons most of the defenders will get damaged irrespective of what their promotions they have, how many first strikes, defensive bonuses etc. they have. This is why collateral damage is such a powerful tool in warfare.

Machine guns however have that all important property of being "immune to collateral damage". In fact, attacking 4 machines guns would mean using siege is completely pointless and actually a huge waste. The best approach for attacking those MGs would have been to use drill promoted units at first to at least try and get a hit or two in to damage them. After the MGs were weakened enough, using stronger units with city raider or combat promos would work well.

Because the immunity to collateral damage is so strong for a city garrison unit, it's no surprise that the developers decided to ban CG promotions for them. Acquiring them through upgrades is a loophole and it would even be possible to argue it's borderline exploit. Making them siege units was probably the easiest way to justify their permitted promotions.

Anyway, basically MGs are the best defensive unit in the game. Their immunity to collateral damage includes that from bombing runs, and so far I haven't even mentioned their ability to intercept air units!

Watering your enthusiasm .....

The civilopedia states ( and I just tested it again, just to make sure it was still like that in 3.19 ) : MGs are , as every other siege weapon, immune to collateral damage from siege units. They are not immune to collateral damage from other sources ... they take collateral damage from planes and even from the Chinese UU

 

[Silu]

Watering your enthusiasm .....

The civilopedia states ( and I just tested it again, just to make sure it was still like that in 3.19 ) : MGs are , as every other siege weapon, immune to collateral damage from siege units. They are not immune to collateral damage from other sources ... they take collateral damage from planes and even from the Chinese UU

Damn! I have a game going where I was planning on choking Mao with mass MCGs. I didn't realize that he can demolish my MCG stacks with his ChuKoNus

 

[bestsss]

PieceOfMind,
Baring some interception, Machnegunners die very well to bombers. I usually handle them by all fav. cavalry.

 

[r_rolo1]

Damn! I have a game going where I was planning on choking Mao with mass MCGs. I didn't realize that he can demolish my MCG stacks with his ChuKoNus

Well, I know that this was sarcasm, but in fact the chinese UU is a very cost effective way of dealing with MG stacks, in the condition that you have something else to finish them for good ( cuiraseers for a example ) Far better than throwing cannons on them, that is for sure

 

[NihilZero]

Machineguns are the best reason why you might ever build grenadiers. They are pretty cheap to promote too.

Massed MGs are your friend when going for culture wins as you often get dogpiled near the end of the game. They are very cost effective defenders.

My own MGs are currently serving me quite well in my MS^ Napoleon game, where everybody is always trying to kill me.

 

[naterator]

Wow, grenadiers to machine guns saves a ton of money over archers. I guess since they get an offensive bonus only, i never thought to give them a defensive promotion, but that's probably goning to change for me now.

I always assumed the archer upgrade to MG was some kind of error simply because their natural upgrade (Lbows) can't. But now i realize that it's just because an archer can upgrade to Xbow to Grenadier to MG, whereas Lbows upgrades to rifle only.

Still feels like a bit of an exploit, because as PieceOfMind said, they're probably only classified as siege to prevent them from getting the CG promos. But i'd say it's only as cheap as massing CR macemen to upgrade to rifles. (which i don't consider cheap, but it sure does give that stack some juice)