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Mountaineers vs marines?

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Let's see, Mauntaneers hog army XP. And army XP is needed for: changing of templates, doctrines, changing when MIO got updated - in other words,things on which you entire survival depends. You can ignore air docntrine and plane design costs are negligable compared to a single division. You can design 10-20 planes for a cost of a single infantry devision and you usually design one or two planes youse for th entire game.
There are zero reasons to waste army XP on a MTN for...+5% soft attack? Doctrine can give ALL your divisions +10 ORG in comparison.
This thing never was balance-tested or tried in-game. It exists just to be there.
 
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For “light” investment, ie just one point in the doctrine, I generally prefer mountaineers. Rangers (support company unlocked on first tier of the doctrine) give really nice terrain bonuses and dont use up your engineer slot unlike Pioneers, and you can toss them guilt free on most your divisions, not just your special forces divisions. So in my opinion theyre more overall useful, particularly if your special forces cap is being used up on paratroopers anyway so youre just looking at the support company. Rangers+the mountain upgrade can make a huge difference on those tough mountain tiles, and later on they can give a +20% soft attack bonus to line art, which is really a pretty big deal.

One kind of silly niche as a landlocked country is to get a chief of navy anyway, and just use all your naval xp to upgrade marines. Even if youre not ever using them for naval invasions, their higher stats and the river crossing bonuses are no joke. The bonus they get to marshes also is quite nice in areas like Russia.

As others have said, upgrading mountaineers is really painful because of the high demand on army xp relative to other xp types, and thats the main and very significant drawback. I really think they need to rebalance template creation costs in particular, it just soaks up valuable xp and discourages division diversity.
 
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PorkchopSandwiches247 said:
For “light” investment, ie just one point in the doctrine, I generally prefer mountaineers. Rangers (support company unlocked on first tier of the doctrine) give really nice terrain bonuses and dont use up your engineer slot unlike Pioneers, and you can toss them guilt free on most your divisions, not just your special forces divisions. So in my opinion theyre more overall useful, particularly if your special forces cap is being used up on paratroopers anyway so youre just looking at the support company. Rangers+the mountain upgrade can make a huge difference on those tough mountain tiles, and later on they can give a +20% soft attack bonus to line art, which is really a pretty big deal.

One kind of silly niche as a landlocked country is to get a chief of navy anyway, and just use all your naval xp to upgrade marines. Even if youre not ever using them for naval invasions, their higher stats and the river crossing bonuses are no joke. The bonus they get to marshes also is quite nice in areas like Russia.

As others have said, upgrading mountaineers is really painful because of the high demand on army xp relative to other xp types, and thats the main and very significant drawback. I really think they need to rebalance template creation costs in particular, it just soaks up valuable xp and discourages division diversity.
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You realize it is a multiplication exploit right now and expected to be fixed? (starts at 5:00)
 
If you have a spare 500 armyxp to throw around I'd definately go with the mountaineers. They're pretty much just uber-infantry and killed everything I put in front of them with fully maxed out mountaineer doctrine and regular doctrine.

If you don't though i'd definately go for marines, even just to use as some better line infantry that attacks better on rivers. If you're playing historical germany you don't need your naval xp after you get every sub boosting doctrine from trade interdiction.
 
Secret Master said:
3) Marines have the Mechanized Marine Corps doctrine that is incredibly powerful. And while regular MAR and Marine Commandos aren't super useful for Germany outside of Sea Lion, Mechanized Marines provides a ton of bonuses to Amtracs including a price reduction, ORG bonus, and soft attack bonuses. These bonuses make it almost mandatory to slap at least some Amtracs in panzer formations or to create mechanized river crossing specialists if you push Marines this far.
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I appreciate that the Amtrac bonuses are good but typically you don't need the extra breakthrough or org which makes the +10% special forces attack from shared instructors (plus backbone of the armed forces from paras) look more attractive as they are across the board (or am I missing something). I usually end up with Amtrac based divisions rather than any Marines and the rest of the marine tree then starts looking rather useless. Mind you, the shortage of army XP kind of means the game is won before getting anywhere near completion of the special forces trees.
 
I was about to say that the generic special forces attack +10% buff should in theory apply to amphibious tanks since they count as special forces, but then I tested it and the modifier actually doesn't apply to them. Weird. I don't know if it's a bug or intended, as tanks getting potentially an extra 20% attack would be very powerful. Amtanks count against your special forces capacity but don't seem to be treated as special forces battalions otherwise.
 
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Kanitatlan said:
Mind you, the shortage of army XP kind of means the game is won before getting anywhere near completion of the special forces trees.
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This is why I'm skeptical of getting all the way down to Shared Instructors. But...

blahmaster6k said:
I was about to say that the generic special forces attack +10% buff should in theory apply to amphibious tanks since they count as special forces, but then I tested it and the modifier actually doesn't apply to them. Weird. I don't know if it's a bug or intended, as tanks getting potentially an extra 20% attack would be very powerful. Amtanks count against your special forces capacity but don't seem to be treated as special forces battalions otherwise.
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Might be worth a bug report. I can see it both ways. You could make overpowered amphibious tanks, but they are counting against the special forces cap, so...
 
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Secret Master said:
Might be worth a bug report. I can see it both ways. You could make overpowered amphibious tanks, but they are counting against the special forces cap, so...
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Code: 
amphibious_armor = {
        abbreviation = "ATK"
        sprite = amphibious_armor
        map_icon_category = armored
        priority = 2501
        ai_priority = 2000
        active = yes
        special_forces = yes
        marines = yes
        type = {
            armor
        }

        group = armor

        categories = {
            category_tanks
            category_front_line
            category_all_armor
            category_army
            category_amphibious_tanks
        }

Yeah, I looked at the game files and the battalions are treated as special forces for the cap, but aren't actually in the special forces unit category.
 
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Secret Master said:
Might be worth a bug report. I can see it both ways. You could make overpowered amphibious tanks, but they are counting against the special forces cap, so...
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give devs benefit of doubt, it's a bug. the only question is whether the ui description of what the unlock does is wrong, or whether the mechanic isn't working properly.

saying something applies to "special forces" generally and then not applying the modifier to something the game clearly considers a special forces unit, if "wad", is deception/lying.
 
TheMeInTeam said:
give devs benefit of doubt, it's a bug. the only question is whether the ui description of what the unlock does is wrong, or whether the mechanic isn't working properly.

saying something applies to "special forces" generally and then not applying the modifier to something the game clearly considers a special forces unit, if "wad", is deception/lying.
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I think it is now as it should be. IRL amphibious tanks did not have any "attack bonus" or other magic in land combat. Their speciality was being amphibious, but when on shore, floating devices did not give any extra firepower.

So I am against adding attack bonuses (or other land combat bonuses) to amphibious tanks.
 
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Ossiv said:
I think it is now as it should be. IRL amphibious tanks did not have any "attack bonus" or other magic in land combat. Their speciality was being amphibious, but when on shore, floating devices did not give any extra firepower.

So I am against adding attack bonuses (or other land combat bonuses) to amphibious tanks.
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can't agree with that because the game still says it's doing something it shouldn't. if it's intended to work this way, the text should be changed
 
Ossiv said:
I think it is now as it should be. IRL amphibious tanks did not have any "attack bonus" or other magic in land combat. Their speciality was being amphibious, but when on shore, floating devices did not give any extra firepower.

So I am against adding attack bonuses (or other land combat bonuses) to amphibious tanks.
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If we look, why in the game do tank troops attack across the river and do it better than infantry? tanks do not float, they cannot be loaded onto makeshift rafts, tanks need a bridge and for this the infantry will first cross the river and establish a bridgehead and then build a bridge across the river. Or build a fast panton bridge, under artillery fire, where this construction will be vulnerable and the tanks will be vulnerable, because the enemy is still on the opposite bank, sees all this and adjusts the artillery.
 
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Crecer13 said:
If we look, why in the game do tank troops attack across the river and do it better than infantry? tanks do not float, they cannot be loaded onto makeshift rafts, tanks need a bridge and for this the infantry will first cross the river and establish a bridgehead and then build a bridge across the river. Or build a fast panton bridge, under artillery fire, where this construction will be vulnerable and the tanks will be vulnerable, because the enemy is still on the opposite bank, sees all this and adjusts the artillery.
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The point of amphibious tanks is that they do not need a bridge.
 
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GrandVezir said:
The point of amphibious tanks is that they do not need a bridge.
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Yes, amphibious tanks. They are ordinary. Ordinary tanks easily and well attack across the river and do it better than infantry, which cannot be the case. If conventional tanks could not attack across rivers, this would be a huge incentive for the design of amphibious tanks.

Or the tank commander should have a new feature: - river crossing kit. This kit may include equipment for floating the tank or a pipe to overcome the tank underwater. And when this ability is turned on, tanks begin to temporarily attack across the river.
 
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Crecer13 said:
Ordinary tanks easily and well attack across the river and do it better than infantry, which cannot be the case.
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Ordinary tank divisions frequently attacked across rivers, quite often successfully.
 
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