What's the best strategy for attacking cities?

The question I would ask is, how do you attack cities two eras ahead. :). My longswordsmen are doing mighty fine holding the line against riflemen. Ranged xbows doing 35 damage on the city, but they keep having to take out units. I'm stalemated, the AI keeps teching, and I'm too far away from home to upgrade. The AI I bribed to DoW him just made peace and then DoFed him the very next turn. :)


Using Longswordsmen against Riflemen and still lasting?

Props to you. :goodjob:
 
Promoted swords with medic promotion backed by a bunch of promoted xbows.
 
I never attack capital first. I begin attacking units on the front, then go for closest non-capital city. After taking the first city, the enemy army is almost destroyed and wipping the rest is a matter of time.

When attacking a city, I put strong meele units to have city's atention and bombardments, 3 or 4 range or siege units on position to attack, 2 or 3 meele units on the back to replace any with too much damage and 2 mounted unit with Medic I on the flanks to attack any incoming units that appear and running through the units to heal them.

But if the enemy is too ahead in tech, I usually don't dare and wait for the appropriate time.
 
The key is to eliminate enemy units before closing in within the city attack range. And if the city can one shot your units you need to have enough that you take it in 2 or 3 turns. More likely in that case sue for peace, get gold from the AI, and come back with better units later.

If they can't one shot you then keep rotating units in, building up promotions, and building new units to send in, until you finally take it. I have sieged a city for 40 plus turns doing that, so long as my units keep promoting up instead of dying I'm happy to do that indefinitely.

For cities surrounded by mountains or forest, bring workers and build roads so you can rotate units in quickly and range can fire on the same turn.
 
The key is to eliminate enemy units before closing in within the city attack range. And if the city can one shot your units you need to have enough that you take it in 2 or 3 turns. More likely in that case sue for peace, get gold from the AI, and come back with better units later.

If they can't one shot you then keep rotating units in, building up promotions, and building new units to send in, until you finally take it. I have sieged a city for 40 plus turns doing that, so long as my units keep promoting up instead of dying I'm happy to do that indefinitely.

For cities surrounded by mountains or forest, bring workers and build roads so you can rotate units in quickly and range can fire on the same turn.

Very nice information. ;)
 
Be careful when attacking enrico dandolo though particularly when starting next to him because he usually has 1 city and is easy to kill. When other civilizations find out that you killed someone they will automatically not be willing to trade with you and try to rip you off more often.
 
For Tetley; for starters, overwhelming force (lots of units) usually works for me; and bring along some workers to fast-build roads to resupply and reinforce!!
When I'm about to go on Warpath, I stock up on units to cover any losses, 'tis the cost of doing business; while keeping my Home defenses intact .
Once you've cleared space around target city (3+ tiles), hit it with everything(!!) within range.
If you need to pillage for healing, or wrecking Bozo's economy; do it . As workers come up to target city, they can/should repair tiles for unit healing ... and the extra cash won't hurt, either .
 
For Tetley; for starters, overwhelming force (lots of units) usually works for me; and bring along some workers to fast-build roads to resupply and reinforce!!
When I'm about to go on Warpath, I stock up on units to cover any losses, 'tis the cost of doing business; while keeping my Home defenses intact .
Once you've cleared space around target city (3+ tiles), hit it with everything(!!) within range.
If you need to pillage for healing, or wrecking Bozo's economy; do it . As workers come up to target city, they can/should repair tiles for unit healing ... and the extra cash won't hurt, either .

So workers can come repair tiles while war is still going and the city has not been captured? Hmmm. Yep, I was way understaffed with ranged units...all units really. That would make a big difference, but where do I put them all while I'm waiting to use them? Will they stack on tiles.....cuz u only get so many tiles..... Thanks for ur post.
 
Be careful when attacking enrico dandolo though particularly when starting next to him because he usually has 1 city and is easy to kill. When other civilizations find out that you killed someone they will automatically not be willing to trade with you and try to rip you off more often.
Genocide, whether of a city-state or another civ, is heavily penalized in Brave New World.

Before going to war with someone, I try to get count of his or her cities. Using the trading screen is helpful. Chances are you won't be able to buy a city, however you will see how many cities there are in addition to the capital. If no cities are available for trade, then the capital is the only city that poor civ has.
 
Or you could just block their lonely settler from moving.

top lel
 
Has anyone experienced cities and units shooting undanaged siege weapons rather than available damaged melee units?
 
I'm certain with bombers, I could get the job done, but it's turn 460 and I don't see coming even close...

Are you playing standard pace? Game ends at t500, but you are prolly ahead in score, so no problem.

But I learn something new and useful everytime I play the game.

It is all great fun. Why not just try and move things faster next game?

Has anyone experienced cities and units shooting undamaged siege weapons rather than available damaged melee units?

Yes, often, I am sad to say. The AI prioritizes killing units more than shooting at wounded melee units.
 
^^If your melee units are strong enough, why not have them attack the city? The AI will see the damaged melee unit and will prioritize attacking the melee instead of your seige since the AI will think that the melee unit will be an easier kill.. If the melee dies, then it dies.. as long as you have your seige units gaining experience for range. Also, make sure you have several melee units around the city so that new units will have a hard time coming out the city also.
 
In my experience the AI goes by the following algorithm:

Scan available targets, for unit A:
-If unit A can be killed in one turn by a specific amount of focus fire then focus fire and kill unit.
Else
-If unit A has more life than B, then target B.
else
Target a unit (not sure how exactly, maybe weakest)

So usually, using a damaged melee as a decoy works only if your units cannot be one-turn killed.
 
We of the Traveling Hoard have found this usefull : to follow up on my #16 this thread;
1)HAVE YOUR ROADNET(S) UP BEFORE YOU GO HUNTING !!,
2) Build up a force to do what you need to do,
3) More cities = more units in quicker time-frame, thus, you will re-inforce faster; there WILL be a cost of doing business,
4) Be ready to consolidate your gains; garrison, puppet, repurpose tiles, finish roads, and get ready for next bite-sized city(s) to digest .
To take a city 2 tech's ahead, clear the area around target (4-5 tile radius), surround city with : 6 melee in 1st ring, 6-12 archers in 2nd ring, artillery (SET-UP!!) in 3rd ring. Pound city as you surround, keep pounding, take city . Fortify melee to attract city fire; pound the bejesus out of city; 2-3 turns, occupy .
 
^^If your melee units are strong enough, why not have them attack the city? The AI will see the damaged melee unit and will prioritize attacking the melee instead of your seige since the AI will think that the melee unit will be an easier kill.. If the melee dies, then it dies.. as long as you have your seige units gaining experience for range. Also, make sure you have several melee units around the city so that new units will have a hard time coming out the city also.

I suppose the point is efficiency if you can got to war with 12 units plus 3-4 workers would you rather have one army of 8 melee units and 4 ranged units, two armies of 6 melee/6 ranged or three armies with 3 melee units that can pillage heal most of their life back plus 9 ranged units which would you prefer?
 
One thing that I've actually found is that it can be a little easier to take a city when you DOW when before you have actually started your attack, rather than toeing the line and then rushing in at the optimal time (which is impossible anyway because they'll see you coming a mile away and force you to tip your hand anyway). If you get your guys in position, but maybe 4-5 tiles out where they can't see you and DOW, you get to see how they react to the attack, you get to pick off their melee units, and you can see if your attack with valuable ranged units is even worth it. It also gives you a little bit of defense in case they have defensive pacts or other Civs try to war with you, so that your own base isn't completely defenseless.

Even in the late game, where the conventional wisdom might be to launch surprise attacks with bombers and battleships, I still like to send out a fleet of subs to wipe out their navy before anything else.
 
Well if the game is truly late enough, you can just surround and surprise attack the city; and if he says anything, lie. Diplomacy is of little consequence if you're mopping up a Domination. That's also true of small maps. Just lie. There are only 3 AI's in the game, and you're wiping out one.
 
Well if the game is truly late enough, you can just surround and surprise attack the city; and if he says anything, lie. Diplomacy is of little consequence if you're mopping up a Domination. That's also true of small maps. Just lie. There are only 3 AI's in the game, and you're wiping out one.
Yeah, that's a good point too. I do the same thing. But usually if it's down to two or three Civs and you haven't rage quit yet, victory isn't really in question.
 
If you're rich in urainium and gold with the mind of erasing citys, here is a tip:

Step 1: Make sure you have 4 urainium free to yourself, also have lots of gold (1,300 is recommended).
Step 2: Buy two nuclear missile, NOT atom bombs!
Step 3: After that turn, they should be active. Simply put them both in the same city.
Step 4: Now watch the fun happen! Nuke the city itself then the second one 1-2 tiles away.

If you are rich in gold and urainuim then this is the thing for you! Clearly don't do this if you get less than +800 gold.
Note: This won't capture the city, it will just turn a tile into a city ruins tile. The capital can't be put into ruins, even with 3 or 4 nukes, it'll just lower it's heath really fast and killing all units around it.
Last thing to note is the fact this can backfire very badly, you may lose units or hit a unit of a city state/empire causing instant war, or even waste everywhere if you want to settle there.
In this case move all units 3-5 tiles away from the city and scan the area for any other units you may be friendly with.
Have some workers around (alot) to clean the fallout, sadly they put cleaning to last: using anything else first.
 
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