Continuing the questions of how useful certain units are, let me ask one. Does anyone use Amphibians frequently in World Wars? Does anyone use them at all on a map like Bizzaria or Antarticus, which don't have much water? I've found lots of usefullness in just about ever other unit, or have seen them put to good use by other players. They are just so week and expensive for a unit with a range of 1.

Well, OF COURSE Amphibians are NOT useful on Antarcticus or Bizzaria Planets, like Carriers or Battlehsips (except for a couple of exceptions).

That's the point about Massive Assault!

Each of the 6 planets (and a couple are already in the production), requires a special strategy and tactics and therefore a special Order Of Batle (unit selection).

Well, if you feel like experiencing the power of Amphibians, then challenge Tiger, Drungary or VT on Planets like New Paradize or Wasserland... then you'll definitely get the spirit of Amphibians.

in production
more specifics plz

One or two amphibians to scare the hell out of the enemy when you send them deep into his territory never hurts, even on plants with a single continent. Other than that, I prefer to rely on the good old naval transport/ground units combo.

Amphibian is frequently underestimated by new players... It's a very expensive land unit or a very short-range-low health naval unit.

BUT!
It can be loaded into transport! A typical transport with 4 amphibians is a Range 9 unit capable of delievering 8 points of damage. A naval transport with 2 amphibians is a good hunter for enemy naval transports that can infiltrate deep into it's territory.

You can also setup and maintain a chain of naval transports to quickly relocate those 4 amphibians whenever needed.

Now that is some good stuff. I always thought about having transport chains for tanks, but all that would do is move it really far. You couldn't infiltrate an enemy because the second move point would be used to climb onto the other transport. With three moves, though, those amphibians could load up onto two transports, and then drop off on either a land or a water space. Cool idea!

Gets me thinking, they could be used with both naval and land transports, right? The chain doesn't have to be limited to just water... You could even load up a land transport on a naval transport. Lets see, that could possibly give two amphibians a range of... 6 + 5 + 1. 12 over sea and land. Now that's a nasty naval assault. Ok, I'm convinced.

You can't put land transport units into naval transport ships can you? Atleast in the demo you can't.

You CAN put Land Transports into Naval Transports.

But before that you have to "empty" the Land Transport. In other words you cannot load Land Transport into a Naval Transport, if this Land Transport has some other troops inside it.

Well oddly enough that isn't possible for me in the demo, doesn't show that symbol which it normally does when you are allowed to load a unit aboard a transport. Atleast not as far as I can remember, both my other PCs are have broken PSUs. And massive assault doesn't work on this crappy PC.

Postmortem:

After the strategic advice we got from this thread, I have been using amphibians a great deal, and have found many ways to put them go good use. Here is a replay of me playing against Mrakobes. In this world war, I happened to have All of my secret allies on the north continent.

Because I didn't need to focus on land units on that continent (except for that sole Medium secret ally belonging to Mrakobes) I got a lot of use out of amphibians and naval transports. Here it is:

with such a extramely sucsessful starting posining you would win that worldwar in any case.amphibians not played such a great role in that - actually since my fleet was much smaller and separated in two parts you had no problem destroying weakest one.(so doesnt matter with which method you destroyed it)
also i admit i made mistake disclosing that lone secret ally at all.

Tis true, I had a huge advantage in this setup. But I wasn't trying to show off my skill or expertise with this replay, since I know you would slaughter me in a fair fight. Just trying to show some amphibians in action.

(back to amphibian subject)
The main problem I had with having all my allies to the north was that it was hard to bring all my forces to the front lines, and amphibians were perfect for that. If I had bought battleships and destroyers, they would still be coming around the sides of the continent. With amphibians being able to load in multiple transports per turn I was able to bring them to bear quickly.

The other nice thing about them was how versatile they are. With three move and the ability to go on both land and water, they could be shuffled around to best take advantage of situations. You might have noticed that I had like 6 transports dancing around each other in the middle right channel at one point. I was shuffling my amphibians around so I could bring them and hit that battleship. I had to undo a ton to get that turn to come out right

Once again, just stating I'm not trying to tout my skills, just adding to this forum topic. I apologize if I didn't come off that way.

lol
i see you all are so excited about your new "amphibian tactis" (though it's new only for you -Great Predator wrote about it long ago)
but actually there are bunch of disadvantage in them
first you should watch your transports very carefully (remember even in my completely disadvantageous position i managed to sink a transport with amphibians)
second they dont fire over obstacles (like battleships).So if enemy properly covered his battleships and carriers with destroyers then the amphibians wont be able to reach them will only be able to sink pair of destroyers.(well i had not proper destroyer cover in that scenario but again i hadn't a much of a fleet at all)
And on the next turn amphuibians usually are slaughtered due to their low durability.
so actualy transport with amphibians is a very powerful but a "one use" weapon.Ideal for delivering crushing blow in point where enemy did some mistake.

Briefly off the topic, but a previous post made it come to mind.

How do the Secret Allies work in a World War? Are they randomly generated or always the same?

secret allies are NOT the same in each battle (actually if they were same that would be stupid and made game much less replayable)
yes they are generated for each battle but not completely randomly - each player receives set allies based on their income - for example on small map you will have three poor and one average country.On large map you will get one rich 2 average and a few poor countries.

Yes, Secret Allies are generated RANDOMLY each time you re-play on one map. Thus, you may play a couple of dozens of games on a single map, and the war will always go in a different way.

i meant that it is not COMPLETE random (if it were totally random it would look like - i am getting four RICH allies while enemy getting four poor)

Actually amphibians travel 3 spaces even over deserts (though they cannot move into forrests at all). This makes them ideal for some places (like beach to desert assault).

Though i do not build them often, this mobility is very useful if you need a fast assault through the desert.

Jelger

Yeah... and we are also making a new map with LOTS of swams - huge marshes, where Amphibians will be still moving 3 points, but all other land units will be slowed down 2 times... It will be a paradize for Amphibian Warfare... (however, there will still be some forests)

Amphibians are without a doubt one of the most UNDERpriced units in the game.

Tiger has written that a double tank/transport combo is essential for eliminating holdout guerrilas, but in terrain with a lot of desert (i.e. on Noble Rust) you really need to use double amphib/transport to get to those far off corners of conquered countries.

Combine them with a naval transport and you have a handy transport killer. A double amphib/transport runs you $6, has an effective range of 9, and a throw weight of 4. To contrast, a Battleship costs $5 has a effective range of 8, and only throws 3.

Not much difference, but that one extra range greatly increases the chance that the amphibs will shoot first in a one-on-one faceoff (and you end up with the absurd situation of a Battleship running from a transport), and as a convoy raider that 1 extra throw weight is enough to put down a loaded transport in one shot. The only other unit with equivalent range and firepower is a fully loaded carrier (cost $18 ), which has the drawback of limited travel distance, it literally takes twice as long for a carrier group to reach a battle as it does the tranport/amphib combo.


Oh, almost forgot - as an added bonus so long as the Amphibs aren't loaded on a transport, it doesn't show up as a threat icon on the Shift view.