Why is it difficult to take a city, even with much better tech?

To the OP. think of it like Rock/Paper/Scissors:

Siege/Ranged Units crush Cities.
Melee units slash Siege/Ranged Units (and they are defenseless against Melee)
Melee units are useless against Cities (eventually Cities will wear Melee down)

or....

Siege/Ranged crushes Cities
Cites cut Melee
Melee covers Siege/Ranged

Really, when you talk a city, you should have a good mix of siege, melee, and ranged units. Make sure that you plan the attack so that all of the units that you want to use enter the appropriate tiles at the same time (because the city has a two tile range and it doesn't seem to get obstructed very often, so you don't want to give them free hits on you). Use your melee and ranged units to take out any units that they have, because you can't win the battle if they eliminate your units, and set your siege units up, and they can start firing against the city whenever they're ready. Once you get rid of all of their units, plant your melee units next to the city and let them dig in (click the shield to give them a defense bonus, and let them heal if necessary), and maybe hang one or two back if you have any extras just to make sure that you have to one to finish the job. Then let your ranged units join in on the siege. Don't forget to pillage when injured, it usually leaves you with enough moves to attack afterwards. In fact, if there's something for my melee units to pillage, I may let them take an early swipe and heal by pillaging.

For an added bonus. If you steal one of their workers, you can have their repair what they've pillaged, and if the battle is protracted, you can pillage and get even more money!

I think the morale of this thread is that the OP is not warring correctly for the game. You either do super early archer/CB/UU (pre-turn 100) rushes, or you beeline artillery and war then. I think everyone knows that prior to artillery the siege units are more or less terrible. I've noticed another popular strategy is to beeline flight which seems like if you have the oil would be better than artillery. Flight upgrades seem much nicer and you can get a good lead before AA shows up.

Rathelm said:

I think the morale of this thread is that the OP is not warring correctly for the game. You either do super early archer/CB/UU (pre-turn 100) rushes, or you beeline artillery and war then. I think everyone knows that prior to artillery the siege units are more or less terrible. I've noticed another popular strategy is to beeline flight which seems like if you have the oil would be better than artillery. Flight upgrades seem much nicer and you can get a good lead before AA shows up.

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The problem with going to Flight is that you have to hard-build all your planes. The great thing about bulbing into Artillery is you can get there super fast, have a force of cannon pre-built, and they're pretty cheap to upgrade. 1000K on standard speed gets you six artillery. 1400 gets you ten.

If you can't decimate an AI with 10 Artillery, you're in the wrong business.

It's funny when you get to Artillery and your military advisor claims the neighbor AI with a huge advantage in units can 'wipe you off the face of the earth.' I channel my inner Vader.

"I find your lack of faith disturbing ...."

Problem #1 You have riflemen before artillery....
Problem #2 you're using melee units to attack cities??
Problem #3 Superior tech does NOT equate to a military advantage unless you actually have military techs. IE: Artillery, Cavalry NOT Rifles Canons.
Problem #4 Longbows are extremely good units

Even so, Rifles eat Muskets and Longbows alive. You have cannons, they can attack cities, use your rifles to clear units. This shouldn't be a problem at all.

CivAddict2013 said:

Okay here's what happened to me. I was in a game with Egypt and I'm trying to take down England.

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Well that's your problem right there.

How dare you, Sir?! Take down the Kingdom of England? I tell you you shall not...we will fight you from the forests, we will fight you from the hills...we will never surrender (our ZOC)

Give it up and go fight Russia!

From a wider perspective, cities function as they do because this is used as a way to reward defensive playstyles. Many other games only reward aggression because bases themselves are weak. This can present certain problems, as you can see in Rome, Total War for example, where you (in general) have one meaningful battle per enemy and then proceed to rampage through his cities. This is not possible in Civ 5.

The difficulty in taking cities, however, is then followed by having an easy time in territory you have conquered. Once you conquer a city (and it is out of resistance), you will never have to bother with their loyalty again. In contrast, in many other games the taking of the city is easier but the managing of it afterwards is harder.

Later on, the penalty diminishes because of increased range, but at that point you are usually under significant pressure to end the game or prevent someone else from winning, as well as having more powerful answers.

Vohbo said:

From a wider perspective, cities function as they do because this is used as a way to reward defensive playstyles. Many other games only reward aggression because bases themselves are weak. This can present certain problems, as you can see in Rome, Total War for example, where you (in general) have one meaningful battle per enemy and then proceed to rampage through his cities. This is not possible in Civ 5.

The difficulty in taking cities, however, is then followed by having an easy time in territory you have conquered. Once you conquer a city (and it is out of resistance), you will never have to bother with their loyalty again. In contrast, in many other games the taking of the city is easier but the managing of it afterwards is harder.

Later on, the penalty diminishes because of increased range, but at that point you are usually under significant pressure to end the game or prevent someone else from winning, as well as having more powerful answers.

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I'm not sure how much you find this in other games, but there's also a third category (in addition to city management and logistically taking the city) which is public perception and "war mongering" penalties. When you wage wars and take cities you have to balance how the other civilizations will perceive it. Which basically means that you when you take a city you risk everybody else ganging up on you and making your life miserable. I've found that early on if you want to take a city, you basically need to wipe them out from the the game altogether to make sure that they have no story to tell. Either that or try to induce them into initiating the war so that your war mongering penalties are lessened.

Bring your own archers to the party, with melee boys; and then close for the kill !!

CivAddict2013 said:

Yes, very unrealistic. Realistically I would think; well I'm ahead in tech so I should have no problem. The main issue was that two Longbowmen and a city did so much damage to my Riflemen.

And I'm not talking a small army. I had to throw like 6-8 Riflemen with Artillery to take a city defended by two Longbowmen.

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Six to eight roflemen supported by one artillery is exactly what I will call a small force.
Your number of riflemen is sufficient, the artillery isn't. However if you surround the city and protect the artillery, the city is yours after 2-4 turns. No amount of damage from two longbowmen will stop that.

You need more artillery. The riflemen surround the city and cut it off from any enemy reinforcements. Set up your artillery on the best terrain possible. Chances are the longbows will attack a melee unit anyway. The AI loves to target melee units attacking cities. One longbow should be taken out by your rifles fairly easily, as he has no place to hide. The other sitting in the city is doomed. Pound the city until it is dust. There is no chance for a city behind in tech protected by longbows to stand against artillery.