Germany Citadel Spamming

This is a first for me. Germany Citadel Spammed me all the way to the front doors of my City. I'm assuming I can use my Worker to redo the tile? Have you guys had an AI do this right up to your City?

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Note: This is from a saved game. I had to start the game from a previous save because I couldn't see what I was taking damage from. I'm guessing it was a bug? I've never been in a war where I couldn't see what was damaging me. I do have animations on.

Ha! Clever AI (though too expensive a move for a human to do more than one a game). You're taking damage because any unit that ends a turn adjacent to an enemy citadel loses 30HP a turn. There is a citadel adjacent to your city, so the unit is taking damage from the citadel even though it's garrisoned in your city. To stop this from happening, you can pillage the citadel, then it won't do the damage. You could also capture the german city behind it (I forget, but thing this will reclaim the land, as citadels can only be founded by attaching to pre-existing territory, which is implicitly assigned to a city I think).

The above poster has said it all, more or less. I've used this maneuver to break a couple particularly stubborn cities pre-artillery. It's pretty hard to deal with, as the unit defending said citadel has a 100% defensive bonus, and if a unit can survive a couple hits like that they can fortify and heal at 20 hp/turn minimum.

Your best option for dealing with that now is to loop around and take the German city associated with that citadel (or gain it in your peace deal)

Thanks guys. I had forgotten about the damage modifier the citadel's get. The general you see in the image was also used to plant a citadel. I've tried a few saved game scenarios and the easiest one was building a squadron of bombers and putting my troops in the city state of Tyre.

The only problem is that Germany has about 15 Cities and in two different saved games they've retaken their cities. I did manage to Raze a city, but I never removed the citadel's. I'll try to pillage them in this next try. I'm currently going down the achievement list so I needed to play France and I decided to try a Cultural Victory. I've never seen an AI spam citadel's, man was I livid. Thanks for the advice.

This has happened to me in my current game. I saw the extra GG moving in and I was able to DoW / kill them after the first Citadel.

Very annoying, because its exactly what I would do to them if I had more than one GG to use.

I had to use my own GG to get some of the territory back, ending up with two citadels in my territory. I am going to keep them for now, as I know Assur will come back for another fight in the future. Later I will need to burn down the nearest city, but I can afford that sort of thing at the moment.

I have never seen the AI be quite that aggressive, but I try to keep a spare GG for re-claiming land (and the citadels the AI has planted). I have even used my one-and-only GG for such purposes a few times. OP, in the screen shot, you can capture two of the AI citadels with one of your own GG (if you have one).

I'm assuming I can use my Worker to redo the tile?

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I am not completely clear what you are asking, but yes, your worker can redo the tile — after you capture the territory. As other have written, unless its a lux or non-strategic resource, there is no real harm leaving it as a citadel (once its in your territory).

Crafty Bison said:

You're taking damage because any unit that ends a turn adjacent to an enemy citadel loses 30HP a turn.

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I once (and only once) planted a citadel next to an AI city, and was very disappointed that it didn’t seem to be hurting the garrisoned unit. Was I not watching carefully enough? This was a CS and the other annoying effect was that after the city flipped back (which happened a few times), the six hexes surrounding the city all went to the city, including my citadel. Since then, I keep my citadels once hex back from the city I am targeting.

beetle said:

I once (and only once) planted a citadel next to an AI city, and was very disappointed that it didn’t seem to be hurting the garrisoned unit. Was I not watching carefully enough? This was a CS and the other annoying effect was that after the city flipped back (which happened a few times), the six hexes surrounding the city all went to the city, including my citadel. Since then, I keep my citadels once hex back from the city I am targeting.

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I am pretty sure a citadel does hurt units inside a city, including air units (awesome).
Maybe the garrison was "fortified until healed" and thus able to heal faster than the citadel was causing damage?

Your units land or air will take damage from the citadels even when they are in your city. I was able to push Germany out and I raised the city. I was also able to use my Worker to do an improvement of the tile there by eliminating the citadel.

I think that was well done by the German AI. I wish we see more of such aggressiveness from other AI civs not named Greece or Zulus/Huns.

JeSuisNapoleon said:

I am pretty sure a citadel does hurt units inside a city, including air units (awesome). Maybe the garrison was "fortified until healed" and thus able to heal faster than the citadel was causing damage?

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Thanks, with your encouragement I had a chance to try this again where it would be useful. Worked like a charm! The first time I tried, I must have been disappointed about the city strength not falling, and not paid enough attention to units inside the city.

I've just had this happen to me. The civ, while aggressive generally (Dido), was friendly to me the whole game so I saw it as a way to gain access to my city (and uranium) without backstabbing. I allowed the first two citadels as they weren't within the workable borders of my city but then I saw 3 more GGs lined up and I must admit I was rather shocked too. I've never seen an AI do this. Other players sure, but not AI.

In any case after I killed one of the GGs, she tried to sue for peace but I was too weary of her dropping more citadels. Thanks for the info, this thread helped. I ended up using workers to replace the citadels with improvements because though i razed her closest city, the citadels did not bounce back into my borders, presumably because it was very late in the game and so it wasn't within the workable tiles of the city (though it was within my borders before she placed down the citadel). Eventually though borders did spring back around the tiles, just not immediately.

thats awesome. i never see that kind of trickery in my games. are you using any mods for AI behavior?

If you are playing peacefully and you have a neighbor next to you who is warring, he will build up many generals and usually will use them against you like this.

Its annoying when it gets this far, but its really your fault. Best thing to do is recognize it before it gets this far. Post a few troops on the border and be ready to DoW if necessary to kill the general. Otherwise be ready to lose key tiles and get annoyed.