Marines and Paratroopers what are they??!!

PapaLenin · February 18, 2002, 14:30

Could an experiensed player tell me what are Marines and Paratroopers for? Yes they have their special abilities but aren't they pretty useless for having so low def and attack value and being so expensive to build? I mean is there only one way to make them useful - edit???

lockstep · February 18, 2002, 14:39

IMO, yes. Marines and paratroopers are about as useful currently as the privateers of Civ3 v1.07.

Kc7mxo · February 18, 2002, 15:01

Marines have the advantage of being able to kill ground units from the ocean. Take a few along witha fleet of ships, and whenever you bombard a city, finish off the units with the marines. Because they're attacking from sea against a stack, only the marine who kills the last unit will actually hit the beach.

I like this because you can assault enemy cities and only place a single unit of yours in danger. I consider the razing of an enemy port a reasonable trade off for the relative cheapness of a marine.

Optimizer · February 18, 2002, 15:30

I am going to remove the Marine (or make it an upgrade from the Infantry unit) and give all gun units the Marine ability and the Offensive role. Does that make sense to you?

steelehc · February 18, 2002, 15:55

Marines should be different then regular infantry, their aility is useful, and if their attack/defence values were higher...

What I did was give the marine and paradrop abilities to both marines and paratroopers, rename them to "Light Infantry" and seriously up their numbers. I don't think its necessary to have two special-ops type infantry units.

Steele

Jaybe · February 18, 2002, 16:31

Marines:
I was invading Persia, and they had a well-OILED town connected with the main body of their country by a narrow isthmus. This would be a great place to cut them off with, especially on a mountain on the isthmus. Unfortunately, they had the isthmus tiles occupied by a single spearman and worker, preventing my landing directly on those tiles.

My inability to take the mountain isthmus tile directly led to the complete failure of the invasion, as over time Persia overwhelmed my 2-3 stacks of infantry, tanks & artillery with cavalry, knights & immortals.

Morale to the story: (1) take a few Marines along for the ride; (2) wait to invade until everyone's ready and you have massive local superiority.

PapaLenin · February 18, 2002, 18:33

Quote:

Marines have the advantage of being able to kill ground units from the ocean. Take a few along witha fleet of ships, and whenever you bombard a city, finish off the units with the marines. Because they're attacking from sea against a stack, only the marine who kills the last unit will actually hit the beach.

Do marines retreat like mounted units? Cause if they don't then u endanger them all because they have very bad attack against infantry.

Have anyone made use of paratroopers?

dr.charm · February 18, 2002, 18:42

*IF* there was some limit placed on railroads, so that there wasn't one on every square, I can see how paratroopers would be useful. As it stands though, just about wherever you drop them, the enemy can instantaneously move the attacking units into place, making them more or less utterly useless.

Cheers,

Dr. Charm

korn469 · February 18, 2002, 19:20

PapaLenin

what Kc7mxo is that if you have a number of marines on a ship and they attack a number of units on the ground, then the only marine that will advance after combat is the marine that killed the last defender on the ground, the rest of your marines will remain (in relative safety from ground counter attacks) on the ship

otherwise marines as is do not retreat

MikeV · February 18, 2002, 19:45

Quote:

Originally posted by PapaLenin
Have anyone made use of paratroopers?

I find para-dropped (and helicopter-borne) units useful in special circumstances. As with Marines, these are usually secondary targets that I can't reach easily with other units
They're also great on/near a strategic resource the enemy civ is counting on (like Oil).

Marines are great for getting onto an island, and/or taking an otherwise inaccessible harbor city.

Paratroops are great for getting to a city that is surrounded by mountains and hills, or any other terrain that Tanks/MI/Armor can't reach in a single bound. (See the picture below: New Nottingham isn't reachable across the surrounding terrain.)

In both cases, it's important to bombard the target a lot

beforehand. And, since paratroops have to endure at least one counter-attack, it's important to place them on the best defensive terrain.

Jaybe · February 18, 2002, 19:49

Quote:

Originally posted by dr.charm
*IF* there was some limit placed on railroads, so that there wasn't one on every square, I can see how paratroopers would be useful. As it stands though, just about wherever you drop them, the enemy can instantaneously move the attacking units into place, making them more or less utterly useless.

Cheers,

Dr. Charm

No, No, No! You got it all wrong...

The idea, just as in 'reality' is: the Marines assault the beach after you've bombarded all the defenders to 1 HP, then you load the tile up with infantry for defense.

TinCow · February 18, 2002, 20:13

I have used paratroopers a couple times effectively. Both times were in games in which I took over a continent, but the civs that I defeated still had a few small cities on other nearby islands. I usually try to avoid overseas campaigns, especially in ancient and medieval. Thus I'll often make peace once I have the main landmass secured. In two games, I built up a whole bunch of paratroopers and dropped them on the various islands to take them out in a two-turn period later in the game, to get rid of those puny hostile civs. The reason they were successful was because I kicked the snot out of these guys early on and crippled them. Each time I did this I was facing mainly medieval level units, with a small scattering of riflemen and cavalry. As such, my paratroopers mopped the floor with the opposition and wiped their pathetic island 'strongholds' off the map.

As such though, the paratroopers were little more than convenience units for me. I used them to take out a weak enemy that I wouldve had no problems killing by normal means... it just saved me loading up transports and sending them out there to do the dirty work.

korn469 · February 18, 2002, 20:17

MikeV

looking at that picture still doesn't make me think that paratroopers are worth much with their current stats

moving diagonally starting with the gold square you can get your modern armor setting on a moutain beside of their New Nottingham in one turn, now maybe if the attack was coming from another direction (to the right hand side of the screen or from the top of the screen possibily) then it would possibly make the paratroopers more useful, but with only a six attack, the defender would have to be really really weak befor you could do that

just a little food for thought

a veteran paratrooper against a fortified 1hp infantry in a town gives you a 77% chance of winning with the paratrooper

a vet marine against the same infantry gives you an 84.5% chance of winning

however if the infantry is in a city and has 2 hps then you have the following odds

paratrooper 35.7% chance of victory
marine 47.5% chance of victory

i really think that both could use some inmprovement

TinCow · February 18, 2002, 20:25

In response to korn:

The problem is not their attack/defense power. I think the problem with paratroopers is that they are a unit from Civ 2 that was kept in the game despite the fact that what made them useful in Civ 2 was eliminated. In Civ 2 you could bomb the living hell out of enemy cities, then drop in paratroopers to take the empty city. Now, since planes cannot kill units, this aspect has been removed. There are currently only two ways to clear a city via ranged attack. 1) Drop the defenders down to 1hp and bombard them with cruise missles. 2) Nuke the living hell out of the city.

Number 1 is pointless because of the pathetic range of the cruise missle (2??? Really, please explain this to me Firaxis? What the hell is the point of this unit?). If you can get several cruise missles within bombard range of an enemy city, you might as well just drive your damn army into the city and take it that way. As for option number 2... well, I don't think I need to explain the problems with that.

If Firaxis allows planes to kill units (please, please, please bring this back), then paratroopers would instantly be useful once again with no alteration in their stats (more so if airbases were brought back too).

korn469 · February 18, 2002, 20:40

Tin Cow

firaxis could make paratroopers half way useful right now if a paradrop didn't use the paratroopers move up, that means they could attack a weak unit after they landed beside of them, but i still think that since they are an offensive unit that they need to have their attack stat upped some, same thing goes for marines, mainly because marines don't have a chance of blasting into a city with regular infantry, so this means that you need to bring a huge naval taskforce to weaken the city, especially since naval units are so slow that it is quite possible for defenders to arrive before the transport does

i really like the fact that air units can't completely kill things, while firaxis does need to make air units stronger, being able to kill things qith air units alone just breaks the game

i would rather firaxis alter a few units instead of change the entire dynamic of the game

as for cruise missiles i agree with you completely, especially since you can't load them onto subs or anything

TinCow · February 18, 2002, 20:49

How about altering the paratrooper and another useless unit (helicopter) to make them both useful when used together? I'm sure that people can come up with better ideas, but maybe helicopters can act as 'mini' armies that can only be used by paratroopers. Two paratroopers (max) could be loaded into an Airborne Army, and their paradrop range would be increased by 4. This would make them a decent offensive force, IMHO.

korn469 · February 18, 2002, 21:25

the number one thing the helicopter need is more movement points, also it would be cool if helicopters could pick up units in the field and bring them back to the city where the helicopter was located at

so in everyone's opinion what are the underpowered units?

to me here is the list

all naval is fairly weak
all air is fairly weak
then the especially helpless units

in my opinion these are the 6 most useless ground units in the game

Army
Paratrooper
Helicopter
Marine
Radar Artillary
Musketman

Ironikinit · February 19, 2002, 01:20

korn,

By default, I agree with much of your list. By that I mean, I've never bothered to build helicopters, marines, paratroopers or radar artillery. RadArt I suppose could be useful but by then bombardment has been taken over by bombers for me.

Armies, OK, I use them, but I know their value is debatable. Some find them worthless, I don't, esp. when the tech is comparible.

I don't get the inclusion of musketmen, though. They're just another defensive unit, one stronger than pikes, one weaker than rifles and as useful as any in their time.

MikeV · February 19, 2002, 02:09

Quote:

Originally posted by korn469
moving diagonally starting with the gold square you can get your modern armor setting on a moutain beside of their New Nottingham in one turn

Agreed. Good analysis, thanks.

But I'd rather use the MI & Armor to blitz through several other cities this turn, rather than doing nothing other than moving through the hills for next turn. Especially for a little pop. 2 town.

Captain · February 19, 2002, 02:42

I realize it's just a game and NOT a historical sim,
but that said, it does reality. Paratroopers have never been effective against the land counterparts unless they had huge numerical superiority, surprise, AND support.

In reality:
1. They can take out only lightly defended stuff.
2. They're extremely vulnerable.
3. They are expensive to train.
4. They can reach ordinarily inaccessible spots much faster than regular units and thus could catch an enemy unprepared.

In the game:
1. true, but maybe a bit too weak
2. true
3. true
4. useless, RR's make this pointless

In reality, they're MOSTLY useless in large scale conflict. They're good in small scale stuff. BUT in the game, they're useless ALL AROUND! They're just cannon fodder. Really expensive fodder!

If the paradrop didn't use up their move, that would be less realistic, but more useful and thus, IMHO, more fun to use.

Cossack · February 19, 2002, 04:46

I think that marines are slightly underpowered, I think some of that is due to the combat system, but in general I find them only useful for specialised landings against specific targets and of course you need a good size navy in order to bombard the opposition forces down.

I agree with some of the previous posts that Paratroopers on the other hand are completely useless now, in CIV II they were useful for capturing cities because you could destroy ground units with bombers. However, with the new bombardment rules of CIV III and the fact that you cannot destroy ground units (a point which I agree with, ships are a different matter) the main problem is that they haven't changed the rules for railways.

I think this could be corrected by two simple things, firstly, there could be a limit to the number and possibly distance you can move units along railways determined by the amount of money you allocate to your railway system (exchange of loss in economic production for military deployment).

Secondly, railways increasing production in every square is ridiculous and Firaxis should have been more imaginative by allowing different terrain enhancements throughout the ages to produce the same effects as railroad and reducing rail to almost purely connectional role as in SMAC.

As a result you do not build railroads everywhere as you are still trying to build all the future enhancements that provide the benefits of the old railroad, for example irrigation to farmland from CIV II, and for hills and mountains a modern mining complex and for grassland a quarry (limited to only so many per city or by ecological effects and population unhappiness).

Once railroad is in a purely connectional role and paratroopers are allowed a number of additional abilities such as:

1. Increased pillage abilities.

2. Enhanced combat factors abilities for example such as tanks/armour in mountainous regions get negative attack factors against infantry-type units such as paratroopers.

3. A terrain enhancement - bridge which could be captured/pillaged

Then paratroopers may be useful for disrupting the enemy's movement by being able to effectly destroy critical points in the enemy's transportation network and other terrain enhancements inaccessible by other units as there would be no reason to put railroads everywhere anymore.

Just some thoughts.

The English Cossack

PapaLenin · February 19, 2002, 05:32

Thx for answering.
My conlcusion is that paratroopers and marines stats should be 10/10 and their cost 11 or 12. Maybe then they will become useful???

Just tried to edit the railroadmovement but how couldn't I guess. U can't edit it. YIIHAAA FIRAXIS keep up the good work cause I actually love the game where is editor with there is nothing to edit.

korn469 · February 19, 2002, 06:27

with a few simple changes (all of them but once can be done in the editor) firaxis could fix the problems with marines and paratroopers, there isn't any reason to do anything drastic because in both cases their main problem is they aren't as cost effective as other offensive units

marines need to be either 12/6 or 10/6 and cost 100 +resources, they are not fundamentally flawed, just a little weak

paratroopers need to be like 10/8 cost 100 +respurces, have an airdrop range of 8 and then most importantly when they airdrop it must NOT use up their turn

those simple little changes would make both of them worthwhile, because the unit that is the measuring stick for them is the tank, and they should provide about the same amount of bang for the buck as tanks do

=DrJambo= · February 19, 2002, 09:10

WHat i did to increase the use of marines, paradroppers and helicopters:

Marine:
Made them 10/6.

Paradroppers:
Made them 8/8.
Gave them a range of 8.
Gave them a movement of 2.

Helicopters:
Can carry 2 units.
Range of 8.
Radar.

THis helps increase the worth of these units!

TinCow · February 19, 2002, 10:47

Here's an idea... what is paratroopers were able to 'secure' the tiles they landed on (making them the equivalent of friendly territory)? By dropping a large number of paratroopers before an invasion, you could do two things:

1) Secure the enemies' roads/rails. A long line of paratroopers could hold a supply route through enemy territory, allowing normal travel along the roads (not full on RRs, maybe treat RRs like roads).

2) If Battlefield Medicine isn't present, this would enable friendly units to rest in squares held by paratroopers.

This is a stretch, the most useful thing would definitely be to give them their movement after drop (and fix army movement as well) and give them a couple extra points in attack.

DrFell · February 19, 2002, 10:56

Marines were useless in civ2 as well. Again due to the low attack value... they need to be a lot cheaper or more powerful, perhaps with a special retreat ability. Paratroopers in civ2 were highly specialised units, best for the nuke+paradrop in tactic, and the paradrop+pillage (best used in the ww2 scenario who's name i forget right now). Never used them in civ3 but from the sounds of it they're pretty crappy.

DrFell · February 19, 2002, 11:00

In fact you sometimes wonder how game designers manage to create these useless units. I mean, extensive testing would surely prove them useless, in some cases even one look at the stats. Yet they show up in a lot of games.

PapaLenin · February 19, 2002, 15:56

Quote:

In fact you sometimes wonder how game designers manage to create these useless units. I mean, extensive testing would surely prove them useless, in some cases even one look at the stats. Yet they show up in a lot of games.

Yep. And not only that, I was just playing a game and got so pissed!!! I attacked the undeveloped Rome with 3 cavalry and one rifleman - didn't expect much but their goddam legion killed my rifleman with first attack. A ****ing legion!!! 3vs6 stupid ****... After English attacked my Cavalry with swordsman and killed it. 3vs3 it ok. But then I attack their swordguy with cavalry and the cavalry loses!!! IT 6v2 for ****'s sake!!! Firaxis should do something to combat system or change attack and def values and A.S.A.P!!!!!!!!

I like civ game but hate this one cause it's so undone really... Combat system useless units suckass diplomacy... makes me feel bad and mad

Willem · February 19, 2002, 16:01

Quote:

Originally posted by PapaLenin
A ****ing legion!!! 3vs6 stupid ****... After English attacked my Cavalry with swordsman and killed it. 3vs3 it ok. But then I attack their swordguy with cavalry and the cavalry loses!!!

If you were attacked with a sword, would you not bleed? I guess your sentries pulling guard duty weren't doing their job.

bahoo · February 19, 2002, 16:12

Quote:

Originally posted by Captain
If the paradrop didn't use up their move, that would be less realistic, but more useful and thus, IMHO, more fun to use.

I don't see what's so unrealistic about paradropping AND moving in the span of say, umm, a year. Especially considering other units can ride a train the entire way across a continent.