droberts97470
Warlord
Ships can capture cities?
I didn't until I saw the AI do it with a cruiser when the city had no defenses left.
I didn't until I saw the AI do it with a cruiser when the city had no defenses left.
Did you know?
- Thread starter droberts97470
- Start date
Any melee ship can do it (e.g., triremes, caravels, privateers, ironclads, destroyers). I'm pretty sure that ranged ships (galleasses, frigates, battleships, subs, missile cruisers, etc.) cannot, so I suspect you saw a destroyer take the city, not a missile cruiser. Haven't tried it, but I doubt carriers can do it either.
Sherlock
Just one more turn...
Oh dear Lord yes.
I captured London, a level 20 city in four turns without loosing a single unit.
I have post-it notes on my desk listing which ships 'range' fire and which 'attack'.
You get three battleships knocking down a cities defense and one destroyer to 'capture' and that city is toast.
I just had a late game war with Washington. 3/4's of his cities were on the coast. I took every single one of them and quick, too.
Attacking and capturing cities from ships is incredibly powerful in this game.
Ships that can capture cities:
Trireme
Caravel
Ironclad
Destroyer
Maybe there's some UU's I've left off the list.
I captured London, a level 20 city in four turns without loosing a single unit.
I have post-it notes on my desk listing which ships 'range' fire and which 'attack'.
You get three battleships knocking down a cities defense and one destroyer to 'capture' and that city is toast.
I just had a late game war with Washington. 3/4's of his cities were on the coast. I took every single one of them and quick, too.
Attacking and capturing cities from ships is incredibly powerful in this game.
Ships that can capture cities:
Trireme
Caravel
Ironclad
Destroyer
Maybe there's some UU's I've left off the list.
poopfeast420
Chieftain
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2012
- Messages
- 20
Played archipelago and got a lot of cities just by surrounding it with ironclad and using their melee attack. That's why it's a good idea to build your coastal cities on hexes where it's harder to be surrounded by melee units, like building it next to only one or two ocean tiles with the rest being land.
Smokeybear
Emperor
This feature can be incredibly annoying, too. Like when you capture London (seacoast city), and Lizzie has a dozen ships of the line and a bunch of caravels, and as soon as your land unit captures the city and while the city is still very weak, she bombards it with SotL's and then captures it back with a caravel. Lost some good units this way before I was finally able to get enough cannons and crossbowmen to the shore to thin them out. God that p***** me off. I will hate that wench forever and 20 years. Worst of all, by the time we got done trading possession of that stupid city, it's population had plumetted from 25 to 1. Took forever for it to get productive again.
PhilBowles
Deity
- Joined
- Nov 20, 2011
- Messages
- 5,333
Most importantly, Turtle Ship. Taking cities is what it does. If you start next to AI Korea and have coastal cities, unless you take him out early in the game try not to annoy him until you get past the danger zone that is the medieval era. In one game I managed to nullify the Turtles by holding the war off until the just before the Industrial era, when they were just a nuisance.
You see the AI do this all the time in the late game, take city, hold for a turn, withdraw fleet from city, gets recaptured, fleet returns and recaptures city, rinse and repeat. I've done it a few times to render a capital unproductive (my ongoing Ethiopian game against the Celts). Of course when the AI does it it gets caught in an endless loop and keeps taking/retaking the city even when it's down to 1 pop and it would be better off attacking a new target.
droberts97470
Warlord
Thanks for the tips Sherlock, and the rest of you.
I wonder how long this has been an option. I've been playing this game for years and didn't know about it.
The secret is to use mounted units to capture the city because they can then move out of the city after you take it. That way you don't lose any units but you will kill one of their units each time you take the city.
Where did you get a cruiser?
Yzman
Deity
You forgot the privateer, one of the best at doing it!
Nah, if he is on your (small) continent, just bring an extra bunch of mounted units and meatshields (with appropriate siege engines).
Spoiler :
droberts97470
Warlord
Good. I'm glad I haven't been missing this
since Civ 2.
About the Cruiser, I must have been wrong and it was a destroyer.
droberts97470
Warlord
Gatling guns can sink Destroyers!
Now that is just wrong.
Now that is just wrong.
Smokeybear
Emperor
No more than destroyers being able to capture a city. I've yet to see in naval history where a destroyer, or even a group of them lowered their lifeboats and sent sailors with rifles into a well-defended city to try to defeat them and take the place over. Don't work too well. But, whatever. I'm not a big fan of the 'ships capturing cities without actual melee units involved' capability. At least not in modern times.
Yzman
Deity
I don't think of it as capturing so much as attacking the city until it gives up. There have been many such cases in history.
I think it would be quite nice if there was a requirement to take cities with a land unit, so that you have to at least have something on land. Taking cities with your navy and drawing the opposition land forces in, to be bombarded by your ranged naval units, without any risk of loss, is too viable at the moment.
Not really. I mean, yeah, if terrain is entirely flat and you have +1 range frigates, you can pretty much wipe the beachheads in and around target city squeaky clean. But then there are also plenty of moments (Hemispheres, Small Continents... even Continents) where you have to land actual ground forces to continue pushing inland and then you can't just rely on the navy to keep taking cities.
The situations I'm thinking of generally involve Destroyers and Battleships, but the diversionary effect can be quite significant. You don't have to keep pushing from that position if it's acting as a great honeypot.
Sherlock
Just one more turn...
You take that first city on the coast, buy a courthouse, then start buying your land units there. All the while your navy is off beating up their other coastal cities.
Oh yes, indeedy.
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