What is the point of marines if ships can take cities?

[Kabloosh]

They would've been extremely useful if you want to assault positions that will chop the rest of your fleet/embarked units.

Like this gatling gun here.

Spoiler :

Should of hammered it with some frigates... or battleships.

 

[Atwork]

a destroyer isn't very effective at ranged attacks, even in real life (though they are being upgraded and made relevant again in the last ~ 10 years with various missile and stealth tech). The goal of a destroyer is anti-air, anti-sub, and escort duty. They don't have quite the ability to bombard like a battleship had in the World Wars, and they aren't carriers, so they have no aircraft (for the most part).

That's the same role that destroyers should have in GnK. They should be light bombarders (range 1), but they have more moves, and they should be able to move after attacking. That would make them ideal for scouting and escort duty. They should also be able to spot adjacent submarines (+25% attack against subs). Perhaps later in the game they should be able to carry a missile.

At all eras, there should be a light attack ship--specializing in quick striking and evasion; ideal for scouting and escorting. Sort of like the cavalry of the sea. But, no melee attacking cities/units.

The big bruisers--the battleships and their ancient equivalents--would pack a heavy hit, have a bombardment range of 2, but could not move after attacking and would have less moves to begin with. But again, no melee attacking cities/units.

Melee attacks from the sea against cities/units should be carried out by the marines.

 

[gunnergoz]

I suspect that, when the 2K coding team were looking at tweaking the game AI, they probably concluded that the only way to get the AI to successfully assault cities from the sea was to use melee ships and they settled upon the destroyer as the modern candidate for that task. The AI is pretty hopeless when it tries to embark regular combat units and leaves them unescorted and vulnerable, so it could not be depended upon to take cities in this fashion in a reliable manner.

I would have preferred a "cruiser" ship (since now there is none) that could have specialized in amphibious assault and would have left the destroyers to be antisubmarine and escort specialists.

I have no insider knowledge about the coding issues, only making a WAG here.

 

[Rishara]

I don't really care for this change. In my opinion it made taking over the other continents way too easy.

 

[Peng Qi]

I don't think 1-range would make sense for destroyers, since that would eliminate the counterattack damage they currently suffer and doing a torpedo run as a destroyer was dangerous business.

 

[Esoteric Arcane]

Curious about marines. Stationing them with a ship should allow them also to "try" to capture another ship. That was the original purpose of marines anyways, the attacking from sea to land was a more recent use in a timeline of their use. Also would make a use for a marine unit per ship as for a defence for from other marines and privateers (a marine unit can't be aboard them as that would nationalize the unit defeating its purpose.