Making Marines an asset, featuring Naval Ideas, Flagship.

[Sete]

@Johan @Groogy
Marines in EU IV currently are a gimmick, but they can easily be turned into an asset the player can use effectively, with just a few changes.

Their current situation is :
"They do not take attrition at sea, thus avoiding the attrition troops take when being transported in the open sea (10%) or along the coast (1%). Marines use sailors instead of manpower, they have +200% Disembarking Speed and ignore crossing penalties. However they do take +10% more shock damage."

So why not just add a couple of Ducats to their price, and remove the 10% shock malus?

For small countries with a small manpower pool, like Portugal or the Dutch, the marines could be a powerfull asset overseas with a few tweaks, and a small change on the Naval Ideas set and Flagship could add to their efficiency.

Changing the 5% Marine force limit to the first Naval Idea and adding a combat bonus to Marines on the flagship modifications, "Integrated Marines", and in Portugal's case "Portuguese Fuziliers", would sort several issues.

First, Marines would be a useful force, second, the Naval Idea set would be more desirable for Naval countries, and third, it would help countries with small manpower pool to have a reliable fighting force overseas, with some local mercenary back up as it was historically.

Any opinions?

 

[Beagá]

My opinion about marines is that they should only take more shock damage from cavalry, but the engine doesn´t allow it.

 

[Pbhuh]

Marines should be more expensive but not have any malices and perhaps have a small increase in drill speed.

They need to represent elite troops costing more money, for small nations and nations with small force limit.

 

[BadOrc]

IMO The marines could have combat uppgrades in ide groups just like Mercs. Atm Marines are a MEME

 

[cumaethor]

How about giving marines some unique rolls making them more useful in some situations, and less useful in others:
- Giving them combat bonus in costal provinces and some malus in inland provinces.

 

[Sete]

IMO The marines could have combat uppgrades in ide groups just like Mercs. Atm Marines are a MEME

It's a fine idea!

How about giving marines some unique rolls making them more useful in some situations, and less useful in others:
- Giving them combat bonus in costal provinces and some malus in inland provinces.

If we are paying extra for them, their efficiency should not decrease. If anything having a bonus in the same coastal tile as the navy could give them a combat bonus as fleet support.

 

[Big Bad France]

I honestly haven't used marines at all. Do they lose morale when you lower the army maintenance slider or the fleet maintenance slider? If I could reduce army funding and still defend colonies or assist my CNs with wars against natives using marines while saving money not maintaining the rest of the army, I'd use marines all the time, even with the shock malus. At least I'd use them all the time if I'm playing a colonizer.

 

[cumaethor]

If we are paying extra for them, their efficiency should not decrease. If anything having a bonus in the same coastal tile as the navy could give them a combat bonus as fleet support.

Hey, extra combat bonus as fleet support is great suggestion, or if you could attach fleet guns as back line of marines would be so cool.
I get what you are saying. But we have different ideas what should marines do\be. You want them to be elite infantry, I want them to be something unique . Imagine this you have lets say 3 stacks one of them are marines, and you are fighting in Italy, and you want to siege fort in Treviso and Milano. You would want to use marines to siege Treviso regular stack to siege Milano, you would want to use fleet to be support to marines, you would want to fight enemy infantry on the cost, and you would want to avoid rushing marines from Treviso to help siege on Milano because you dont want to fight inland. That is 4 tactical decisions more you would have to make with clear benefits and clear counter play so they don't become overpowered. On top of that I bet there are a lot more tactical decisions like on islands, rivers and strait crossings where you want to use marines if possible.

 

[ETAIPOS]

What are the marines? Ah, yes, that special troop type five countries in the game have and others can get if they spend entire idea slot on barely useful idea as navy works well enough without it for majority of countries, even coastal ones. And of those 5, only 2 (UK and Portugal) can have significant number of them.
I rarely play after 1650 as by then the entire realism of the game starts to break down, so I have at most 5 idea slots. To have any use for marines I would need to forego one of the land army idea groups and there are just a handful of countries where it would be advisable...

Besides, even 10% FL - 5 units @ 50 FL is barely noticeable - such force is too small to defend itself after landing and if you attach anything else (artillery and/or cav) you loose one of the main bonuses - disembark speed.

 

[Titanius Puffin]

Changing the 5% Marine force limit to the first Naval Idea and adding a combat bonus to Marines on the flagship modifications, "Integrated Marines", and in Portugal's case "Portuguese Fuziliers", would sort several issues.
............
Any opinions?

I think there's been some miscommunication regarding marines.

Marines are all about speed! Not fighting pitched battles.
Navies are fast. Armies are slow.
Marines are fast getting on and off ships.
Armies are slow doing that too.

Marines exist for raiding, distracting, and harrasment. In this timeframe, that's what marines did. Make sure you have good siege ability, and you can pick off unguarded coastal provinces.

Why? I'm going to indulge and quote myself from wayback....

- to capture the province and seize the port so a larger transport fleet may dock.
- to capture the province to flush out ships anchoring in port (the EU4 equivalent of port raiding).
- to capture a coastal war-goal province (that doesn't have a fort).
- to distract enemy forces away from a main offensive.
- to surprise a (very) small force in a coastal province.
- to (slightly)reinforce a battle occurring in a coastal province.

Marines didn't exist when I posted that, and what I was proposing couldn't be done. But today Marines fulfil all of those use cases.
I'm not sure what the OP wants. What kind of function is being proposed? I don't believe Marines are useless.
They just might be made for a different purpose than some folks thought.

 

[Pbhuh]

I think there's been some miscommunication regarding marines.

Marines are all about speed! Not fighting pitched battles.
Navies are fast. Armies are slow.
Marines are fast getting on and off ships.
Armies are slow doing that too.

Marines exist for raiding, distracting, and harrasment. In this timeframe, that's what marines did. Make sure you have good siege ability, and you can pick off unguarded coastal provinces.

Why? I'm going to indulge and quote myself from wayback....



If you want your navy to help you conquer Berlin.... well you'd better be Winston Churchill, cause building the first 'land ships' is the only way that works.

Nobody is denying that that's the aim.

The problem though is that most historical marines were generally the most professional soldiers. They were trained more than your usual soldier.

So people are just asking them to have no negatives because it just doesn't really feel like marines then.

 

[Titanius Puffin]

Nobody is denying that that's the aim.

The problem though is that most historical marines were generally the most professional soldiers. They were trained more than your usual soldier.

So people are just asking them to have no negatives because it just doesn't really feel like marines then.

Emotionally, I put that down to different tactics. I think of marines as not having as many pikes, not being trained to form squares, and focussing on closer ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore missions. Close-combat is their thing, rather than open-fields.
So maybe they should suffer higher fire damage instead? They are boarders and raiders after all.

 

[Sete]

Emotionally, I put that down to different tactics. I think of marines as not having as many pikes, not being trained to form squares, and focussing on closer ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore missions. Close-combat is their thing, rather than open-fields.
So maybe they should suffer higher fire damage instead? They are boarders and raiders after all.

I find this odd, because the soldiers under Afonso de Albuquerque were trained in pike tactics, heavily armored and still they did ship to shore and ship to ship combat.

While they weren't nominally called marines they basically executed the same function.

Marines are a specialised unit, that's why you have fewer of them. Should they be weaker than your normal soldiers?
No, absolutely not, if anything their specialization should make them better than regular troops.

Marines can still be about speed, you have as smaller sailor pool for them to recruit from, you have a smaller recruitment limit, they dont need to take extra 10% shock damage on top of that.

 

[Titanius Puffin]

I find this odd, because the soldiers under Afonso de Albuquerque were trained in pike tactics, heavily armored and still they did ship to shore and ship to ship combat.

While they weren't nominally called marines they basically executed the same function.

Marines are a specialised unit, that's why you have fewer of them. Should they be weaker than your normal soldiers?
No, absolutely not, if anything their specialization should make them better than regular troops.

Marines can still be about speed, you have as smaller sailor pool for them to recruit from, you have a smaller recruitment limit, they dont need to take extra 10% shock damage on top of that.

Ah, we're operating from different historical times/places.
I'm not familiar with Portuguese marines. British marines from later time periods, I have some concept of.

On a completely different note, perhaps fleets with marines should capture more ships?
A sliding increase in ship capture chances depending of ship-to-marine ratio seems attractive to me. Of course if you've got nothing but marines and transports, a fleet should lose to heavies/galleys (badly).
And since naval warfare still has fire and shock phases (last time I checked it seemed a bit underdeveloped), perhaps marines should play a role in the shock phases of naval combat too?

 

[Katsue]

Marines exist for raiding, distracting, and harrasment. In this timeframe, that's what marines did. Make sure you have good siege ability, and you can pick off unguarded coastal provinces.

I think it's a little sad that you can't use Marines to put down rebellions in colonial regions, because you won't have the Marine Force Limit to actually beat any Separatist Rebels.

 

[Sete]

Ah, we're operating from different historical times/places.
I'm not familiar with Portuguese marines. British marines from later time periods, I have some concept of.

On a completely different note, perhaps fleets with marines should capture more ships?
A sliding increase in ship capture chances depending of ship-to-marine ratio seems attractive to me. Of course if you've got nothing but marines and transports, a fleet should lose to heavies/galleys (badly).
And since naval warfare still has fire and shock phases (last time I checked it seemed a bit underdeveloped), perhaps marines should play a role in the shock phases of naval combat too?

My original idea would be on the flagship bonus to give Marines combat bonus according to the country specialization.
For example Portugal since Morocco used a bit of a shock and awe approach, so shock damage would not be out of place as a bonus for example.

 

[Dalos]

Just a thought, I have not played with them... What if they could be transported without transport ships?

But maybe that's because I do not generally like transport ships...

Thinking about implementation they should probably be weigthless and that would result into one ship transporting them all. They do not come in great numbers but that would be still bad... But who knows...