Why is it so hard to take cities lategame?

ParadigmPlague

Chieftain
Joined
Jul 24, 2013
Messages
45
If I'm playing a game( currently playing on emperor) and I see an AI running away with the game, gobbling up cs, advancing technologically etc, I am going to try to stop them, either through world congress shenanigans of my own and such, sometimes needing to resort to military action. I find it so freaking hard to take down AI cities lategame, not even capitals just cities. I swear I brought like 4 infantry and 3 cannons into a 90 defense city and i couldnt do anything to it. One infantry/gatling held off all my waves...

How do you guys go about actually "firing up the war machine" lategame? It feels like a gargantuan task to actually deal with some of these harder AI that have beefy cities
 
artillery and cavalry midgame.. bombers, cavalry, and infantry later.. cannons are fine early if you tactically approach a city.. but when they're targeted first it makes it difficult.. with cannons try to enter a city's limits with a slightly wounded melee units at the same time as the cannons so they will focus on the wounded unit and not your cannons..

with artillery its just a matter of getting enough of them and making sure you clear a path for your cavalry to cap the city.. i find once i get artillery its pretty easy to cap cities.. i'm just generally too lazy to go to every corner of the map to get a domination victory so typically opt for science...

with bombers forget it.. thats just easy mode.

but ultimately it all comes down to science.. you need to be researching these techs before the AI does or you'll find them wiping out your force with more advanced forces.
 
Artillery pretty much breaks the defensive game with indirect fire and 3 tile range. Before that, some cities are downright impossible to take because you can't get enough ranged on it and when the defender stacks a ranged naval unit and a ranged ground unit in the city they can 1-round kill pretty much any unit that is getting into range.
 
It's not about early game or late game. The problem is that you were probably far behind the enemy in science. And then it's quite fair, don't you think? You still can beat him, but you'll need huge numbers of units and good thinking.
 
I don't think its hard, its usually harder to take down cities early on. It mostly depends on terrain and time of the game.
If you have 3-4 muskets and 3-4 cannons and open terrain city will fall, it just cant kill muskets fast enough. Similar situation is with trebuchets, but trebs are way weaker then cannons. Now, city in hills with limited access to it is very hard to take down - which is logical anyway. In ancient times there were cities that were regarded as unconquerable (Constantinople..). Now if the city has army around it its logical you can't just storm it before you kill units around.

Artillery breaks this, range and indirect fire helps a lot. Later on bombers pawn everything.
 
I was trying to take France's 170 strength cities in my last game. Even after nuking them, I still didn't have the capability to get in and takem with the units I had available to me.

For 90 strength cities you are going to need artillery or rocket artillery. Cannons will not cut it.
 
It's actually ridiculously easy once you research flight
Just bomb them into the stone age and send a single infantry unit to claim the city
Or nuke them if you don't care about the territory
 
Bombers, bombers, bombers, a few fighters, and a little bit of artillery. Get the fighters to do air sweeps and intercept their air fleet, and you should be able to control the skies fairly easily (computer isn't great with air units). Then, get your bombers in to play, using your fighters/triplanes for vision, and then just bomb all of their units. Get military academies before creating these units if you can, as that will give you faster access to air repair, which is a super op promotion for air units (for upgrades, go ground units 1, ground units 2, air repair). Then, once you've killed all of their units, send your artillery forward and bombard their city. If you have enough artillery, you should be able to eventually send one infantry unit to capture the city.
With this strategy, the only thing you really have to worry about are nukes.
 
I'm assuming he meant artillery and not normal cannons. I can't imagine how someone could have Infantry units but not Artillery.
 
I'm assuming he meant artillery and not normal cannons. I can't imagine how someone could have Infantry units but not Artillery.

Well they are on opposite sides of the tech tree. I think you can get to globalization without researching dynamite. :crazyeye:
 
Still, given how strongly this game favors ranged units over melee, it would seem odd not to beeline for Artillery when your goal is a mid game conquest.

OP must clarify.
 
4 infantry and 3 cannons....That is your answer there. Should have artillery.
By that time i am usually running around with small army groups of 2 inf and 3-4 artillery with logistic and can take almost any city in 2 turns.
 
Late game us where taking cities gets really easy, as everyone mentioned got to have Arty, preferably log ones, range don't hurt either. Start leveling up early (trebs) and don't lose a chance to get those 2exp. Even just shooting civilians. Bombers and cav work wonders until AI gets AAs, then stealth. Once you have rocketry RAs are beastly, move in shoot twice with 3-4 of them and move to next city.
 
90 strength? why are my enemies holding 150-200 strength cities on the borders of their empires
 
I actually prefer taking cities from the industrial era onwards. As long as you have the edge in science it is much easier than early eras.

As others have said, artillery and bombers are your best friend. Back these up with a few fighters and some melee troops and you are away.

Late game I usually have a decent navy up and running (sailing?) with 2-3 aircraft carriers full of bombers/fighters, 3-4 battleships, 2 destroyers and lots of subs; along with a landing party. Battleships can take down the HP of most coastal cities and then destroyers can capture. Once you move inland then those bombers and ground troops come into play.

And if you come across that one city that has a dozen units surrounding it and is full of fighters then a nuke goes down nicely...
 
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