How many of x units do I need to take a city with y defense?

How do I determine if my army is big enough to take a city? I was recently trying to take a city with 110 defense with some artillery, not smart. They did 5% damage.

Keep bombarding it, bring in more artillery. Get some airplanes in etc.

It's possible to take down cities with 3 melees and 3 ranged units.

I use to go against AI with 4-6 ranged units and 1 or 2 mounted units. With Flight, I just spam bombers and use some cavalries.
Also, killing all its units helps to have time to bombard cities.

Is it true that more damage is done when the city is losing its health?

wydon said:

Is it true that more damage is done when the city is losing its health?

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Someone test it in my "bombardment order" thread and the answer was no.

Get Rocket Artillery. They will obliterate any city. Or just nuke it.

I think the real answer is that only experience will tell you how many and what type of units will be required, as there are too many variables to offer simple number rules. Best advice I can offer is play domination for a few games.

I took a hole city with just two battleships (both with range and logistics) and an infantry, the more you play the better you get at judging combat

Generally, I've found that cities of about 20 Strength are the strongest you can take with Composite Bowmen (you'll need like 4 or 5), about 40 Strength with Xbows (again, 4 or 5). Walls and Castles make a pretty big difference and will often necessitate contemporary siege engines. With Keshiks and Camel Archers you can take almost any city provided you can move enough units in to fire to cause net damage per turn. I took a 50 strength city with Walls with 3 Camel Archers, over the course of several turns.

The biggest factor to consider is that after each turn, a city will heal itself, so it is important that you have enough units to not just do damage, but to do more damage than it can heal in a turn. If you want it to go down in a reasonable amount of time, let's say at most 5 turns, then you need to be able to do 30% of its health in a single turn if he can heal 10% per turn.

One good measuring stick is, when can a city+the garrisoning ranged unit kill you in one turn. If I had the time I would do a table and propose it for war academy.

I do not attack a city if its defenders can kill one of my units in a single round. If they can do that, I either sue for peace until I am stronger, or I sit on the outskirts sniping off their defenders until I have enough units with enough promotions to take them out. If it takes 100 turns that's OK so long as my units aren't dying -- they are leveling up with good promotions that will eventually get the job done (i.e., by getting range promotion say).

I might be willing to sacrifice 1-2 units in the last round of combat when the city goes down, if it is a capital. In that case I try and offer a sacrifice, some low promoted unit to soak up damage.

I cringe if a high promoted unit dies, I figure that should never happen. Whenever it does, I try and think about what was the mistake I made.

I have throwaway units for the purpose of cannon fodder. A lot of the cities that really matter, if I'm not willing to lose units, I won't be taking it.