What is the point of Marines?

[Dakka]

So we have marines now, but they seem pretty useless in their current state. You lose their bonuses if they are intermixed with standard units, but there isn't really a way to have enough to run them on their own? They take extra shock damage, suggesting that they are implied to be used in the late game, but at that point, the armies are so massive compared to the piddly amounts of marines you can have that you have to intermix them with normal troops so they don't immediately die. However, as said, this negates their bonuses.

I really think the amount you can have needs to be relooked at, perhaps doubling the ideas and policies that give you marine limit.. It's a neat concept and I like that we are finally getting some more unit variety aside from just a few tags, but they just don't seem worthwhile in anyway to me.

 

[szmik]

they are flavour..... not everyone is min-maxing the way of vocal minority

 

[Bandua_of_Gallaecia]

So we have marines now, but they seem pretty useless in their current state. You lose their bonuses if they are intermixed with standard units, but there isn't really a way to have enough to run them on their own? They take extra shock damage, suggesting that they are implied to be used in the late game, but at that point, the armies are so massive compared to the piddly amounts of marines you can have that you have to intermix them with normal troops so they don't immediately die. However, as said, this negates their bonuses.

I really think the amount you can have needs to be relooked at, perhaps doubling the ideas and policies that give you marine limit.. It's a neat concept and I like that we are finally getting some more unit variety aside from just a few tags, but they just don't seem worthwhile in anyway to me.

Not to mention that if you use them as regular units they burn through your sailor pool in seconds.

They are too few and too weak to be used alone, and loose all their usefulness if not used alone. They have literally no purpose whatsoever.

I understand elite units having a small cap, but imagine weaker than normal units having a small cap as well... Literally makes no sense to even train them.

If only their maintainance was paid by the naval budget, they could have a niche purpose to defend colonies from natives without going bankrupt from sustaining the maintainance of your entire army.

 

[Battlex]

Not to mention that if you use them as regular units they burn through your sailor pool in seconds.

They are too few and too weak to be used alone, and loose all their usefulness if not used alone. They have literally no purpose whatsoever.

If only their maintainance was paid by the naval budget, they could have a niche purpose to defend colonies from natives without going bankrupt from sustaining the maintainance of your entire army.

I would love this, remember when I first started eu4 and having to figure out at what tech level you could leave your colonies alone with 1 infantry on 0 maintenance

So we have marines now, but they seem pretty useless in their current state. You lose their bonuses if they are intermixed with standard units, but there isn't really a way to have enough to run them on their own? They take extra shock damage, suggesting that they are implied to be used in the late game, but at that point, the armies are so massive compared to the piddly amounts of marines you can have that you have to intermix them with normal troops so they don't immediately die. However, as said, this negates their bonuses.

I really think the amount you can have needs to be relooked at, perhaps doubling the ideas and policies that give you marine limit.. It's a neat concept and I like that we are finally getting some more unit variety aside from just a few tags, but they just don't seem worthwhile in anyway to me.

Because soldiers in transport ships now take far more attrition at sea, and so diversities manpower pools

 

[Bandua_of_Gallaecia]

Because soldiers in transport ships now take far more attrition at sea, and so diversities manpower pools

Yes, but where does this concern marines?

I'll still need to ship down my regular army overseas to fight any sort of overseas war, your average 7 marines forcelimit is not enough to beat even a central american native nation.

 

[tobias.mb]

I think the main use of marines is to create beachheads. Land them on an undefended (no fort) province and siege it down. Then you can bring in your regular army by docking transports.
Also, they use sailors instead of manpower to reinforce, which is generally an advantage. Especially if you kept your home territory small and invested into overseas trade companies and colonies instead.

 

[EarlKonrad]

they are flavour..... not everyone is min-maxing the way of vocal minority

No they aren't. A unit pack is flavour. It simply exists and doesn't change anything. Marines are an alternative type of regiment and they should be treated accordingly.

 

[EarlKonrad]

I think the main use of marines is to create beachheads. Land them on an undefended (no fort) province and siege it down. Then you can bring in your regular army by docking transports.
Also, they use sailors instead of manpower to reinforce, which is generally an advantage. Especially if you kept your home territory small and invested into overseas trade companies and colonies instead.

But that raises all kinds of problems. The more unit types you have, the bigger the hassle of sorting out different units when you want to attach/dettach units to a regiment. Their cap only meaningfully increases once you start spamming TC improvements, meaning that you need to be big in order to have any meaningful amount of them, and then you need to sacrifice build slots that could be used for more ducats or manpower for buildings that increase your sailors.

And still, still the most efficient way of making a naval invasion is to transport regiments into a province before declaring war. Sure there are some niche scenarios where marines can be useful (naval invading England comes to mind), but that only makes them even more situational.

 

[Bandua_of_Gallaecia]

I think the main use of marines is to create beachheads. Land them on an undefended (no fort) province and siege it down. Then you can bring in your regular army by docking transports.
Also, they use sailors instead of manpower to reinforce, which is generally an advantage. Especially if you kept your home territory small and invested into overseas trade companies and colonies instead.

I keep hearing this beachhead argument, but it truly holds no water (pun intended).

If the problem is landing on an enemy stack, then a marine army will still absolutely get wiped on landing, they are too few and too weak to be more efficient than landing a normal stack.

Now lets analyse the niche situation where the enemy isn't garrisoning the coastal province, but is moving an army there, so you need to land fast before they are able to garrison it.
Then maybe, in this situation, a Marine army can land faster to avoid falling into the enemy stack whereas a regular army would get intercepted... However, the marine army will NOT be able to hold the beachhead long enough for the main army to land, so they will still get wiped once the enemy force gets there and the regular army will still get intercepted after. So this was all for nothing.

The only situation where a Marine army can be useful would be in a scenario where you are like the Netherlands fighting a war in Japan, so your ships are taking attrition while in the coasts of Japan and you need an army to quickly occupy one province so your ships stop taking naval attrition. Still, adding an entire new unit type so you can take one fewer month of naval attrition in a naval transport seems beyond niche.


As for "costing sailors being benefitial to low manpower nations with a trade company based empire" is a trap idea.

I too belived this as well during the dev diaries, and i assumed Marines would serve as minor manpower boost for nations like Portugal and the Netherlands. Then i actually played the game and realised that manpower is always much more easily available than sailors, and using sailors as an alternative manpower source is a quick to get 0 sailors almost immediately and then you'll be unable to afford more ships, which is extremely crippling for a global trade based empire.
One marine regiment is as sailor costly as 5 heavy ships. 5 heavy ships can be the decisive difference between completely dominating or utterly losing the naval war in a conflict. Whereas +1 marine regiment won't make the slightest of difference even in a HRE OPM 1v1 war.

 

[Pale Blue]

I think the main use of marines is to create beachheads. Land them on an undefended (no fort) province and siege it down. Then you can bring in your regular army by docking transports.
Also, they use sailors instead of manpower to reinforce, which is generally an advantage. Especially if you kept your home territory small and invested into overseas trade companies and colonies instead.

Has being in port an impact on embark/disembark time?

 

[fr-rein]

If only their maintainance was paid by the naval budget

I can't stress how much important this bit is.

Edit: in case it is unclear - very important.

 

[Forderz]

Now lets analyse the niche situation where the enemy isn't garrisoning the coastal province, but is moving an army there, so you need to land fast before they are able to garrison it.
Then maybe, in this situation, a Marine army can land faster to avoid falling into the enemy stack whereas a regular army would get intercepted... However, the marine army will NOT be able to hold the beachhead long enough for the main army to land, so they will still get wiped once the enemy force gets there and the regular army will still get intercepted after. So this was all for nothing.

The marines dont need to hold the beachhead at all. once they actually occupy a province your boats can land the rest of your troops in 2 days, tops.

marines are especially useful if the coast is coated in naval batteries, since they can make troop disembarking take 6 months while marines get the job done in 1.5 months.

 

[Nassau]

If marines could increase the plunder/blockade efficiency of a fleet and have a chance of taking provinces without a fort. Or have the ability to capture enemy fleets in a port, then yes, they would have a purpose. Now they do not.

 

[EarlKonrad]

The marines dont need to hold the beachhead at all. once they actually occupy a province your boats can land the rest of your troops in 2 days, tops.

marines are especially useful if the coast is coated in naval batteries, since they can make troop disembarking take 6 months while marines get the job done in 1.5 months.

That presupposes three things: A) You have a full stack army sitting at sea just waiting for the Marines to occupy a province; B) that the time saved with disembark, occupying a province and landing your regular army there is faster and more efficient than simply disembarking your entire army and C) that you can occupy the province uncontested instead of having to fight an army after disembarking.

 

[deathbypie]

I can't see marines being useful unless naval combat is somehow made more important. It's pretty rare that the marine bonuses would be very useful, even if you had more of them.

 

[makaramus]

But that raises all kinds of problems. The more unit types you have, the bigger the hassle of sorting out different units when you want to attach/dettach units to a regiment. Their cap only meaningfully increases once you start spamming TC improvements, meaning that you need to be big in order to have any meaningful amount of them, and then you need to sacrifice build slots that could be used for more ducats or manpower for buildings that increase your sailors.

And still, still the most efficient way of making a naval invasion is to transport regiments into a province before declaring war. Sure there are some niche scenarios where marines can be useful (naval invading England comes to mind), but that only makes them even more situational.

actually there is a button that detaching all the sailors you got from army. I am not saying they are good but there is a button to seperate them from army . Its replaced old merc seperating button I think
I think its for games you play as portugal or netherlands and go ham on colonizing. You can carry your marines quickly and rapidly
it can also be usable if you are at baltic sea too... being able to move your troops between scandinavia and eastern europe is a good manuver strategy and making it faster sure helps.
also they kinda help you by reducing crossing penalties... considering shock penalty they have its not huge but I think it can be used to advantage by being assisted by cannons.
I am planning to do a denmark or netherlands game where I go crazy on marines to see if they can be usable.

 

[Pale Blue]

actually there is a button that detaching all the sailors you got from army. I am not saying they are good but there is a button to seperate them from army . Its replaced old merc seperating button I think
I think its for games you play as portugal or netherlands and go ham on colonizing. You can carry your marines quickly and rapidly
it can also be usable if you are at baltic sea too... being able to move your troops between scandinavia and eastern europe is a good manuver strategy and making it faster sure helps.
also they kinda help you by reducing crossing penalties... considering shock penalty they have its not huge but I think it can be used to advantage by being assisted by cannons.
I am planning to do a denmark or netherlands game where I go crazy on marines to see if they can be usable.

Increased disembark speed and no crossing penalty is theoretically good in regions like Indonesia or the Mediterranean, but the marines limit is still way too low to benefit from it. Even if there were no marines force limit at all, they would still be useless because they kill your sailor pool.
If marines use sailors they would need a sailor count more than a regular manpower unit. eg a full regiment cost 100 sailors

 

[Less2]

"Theoretically good" is the most charitable appraisal you can give to both marines and Flagships' ability to boost landing speed. Its a joke modifier that someone at Paradox seems to think is relevant.

The counter to someone building naval batteries is to just go f**king kill them because they are an idiot who built naval batteries and clearly sucks at EU4.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

"Theoretically good" is the most charitable appraisal you can give to both marines and Flagships' ability to boost landing speed. Its a joke modifier that someone at Paradox seems to think is relevant.

The counter to someone building naval batteries is to just go f**king kill them because they are an idiot who built naval batteries and clearly sucks at EU4.

I can envision landing speed bonuses large enough to be attractive, if special forces pool was large enough to make it viable. It would have to be much stronger/allow very rapid naval attacks. It's at joke levels of availability/strength now, but at least it's possible to picture enough buffs to it where people would use it.

 

[Fiestinian]

They take more damage and have limited numbers from a limited sailor pool so you don't want them in combat or in large stacks.

They don't take sea based attrition and they have faster disembark speed so they want to travel long distance and jump on provinces from the sea.


So they want to d-day a province for friendlies (who will have taken less attrition themselves) and do it faster than a regular stack. Alternately, they can cross oceans to take islands with no manpower loss. Hell, they could spend years roaming a coast line as a threat - forcing the enemy to devote an army and attention to their threat or ignore a potential landing away from the frontline.