get a civ city

Ok , I had some issues winning and taking a civ city so I want some ideas

1. in the early game, I usaly take few ground troops lets say 3 of them + 2 archers ( or later on better units )
2. I advance to the city , put 3 ground units next to it and the rest in bombing distance
3. until i can bomb the city to red, should I use the warriers ( or better upgrades ) , if I do , they are becoming red and next turn they are dead, if I do not use them , until the city is week , my archers or ground bombers are dead ..... so I loose to much units for a city
4. should i annex / raze / puppit ?
5. should i take few civ cities or just one and peace ... ( lets say he has 3-4 cities )

please advice

Eyal

You should use more ranged units and in particular, siege weapons. Catapults, trebuchets etc are specialized in taking cities and will do a lot more damage than archers.

Bear in mind the options you have when laying waste on an enemy city. The city can only attack one unit per turn (except when defending against melee attacks). By rotating your units, you can reduce casualties effectively. Also take advantage of pillaging if you need to - it heals 25HP instantly. (EDIT: also remember that units heal at a double rate inside your own territory, so withdraw those troops to your own lands for healing if they're close)

As for questions 4 and 5, they depend on your situation and you should experiment with the options yourself to get a good picture on how they work.

You are going to lose units when you do an early war with Warriors and Archers. Just the way it is.

Anex, raze or Puppet. That depends on you and your goals. I always Anex capitols and Raze any city that does not allow a full 3 ring growth. But that is me, I love large borders.

Again, peace or destroy? Up to you, once you take a few of his cities, he is done for. It is a great mercy to just finish them off. But, you could use them for trade.

Each map should dictate what you need to do. And no 2 maps are the same.

Randall_Flagg said:

You are going to lose units when you do an early war with Warriors and Archers. Just the way it is.

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It's more complicated than that, as early cities are very weak. You can probably manage to keep them all alive with some rotation.

You should raze useless cities (e.g. no resources and bad placement). In general if it has a resource you don't have much of (oil, aluminium, uranium, luxuries) you shouldn't raze it. Likewise if it offers no resources but has high production/good tiles you shouldn't raze it. If it is in the middle of your territory (e.g. between two of your cities), you shouldn't raze it. As a basic rule of thumb if you wouldn't ever settle a city in that spot, it's probably a good idea to raze the city.

You should puppet everything else.

You can annex a puppet when you need it. Until then there is no reason to annex straight away, especially because all newly obtained cities are in resistance for a set number of turns so there is no reason to add any extra unhappiness to your total until they are at least out of resistance.

VainoValkea said:

It's more complicated than that, as early cities are very weak. You can probably manage to keep them all alive with some rotation.

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Well to be more clear than. I myself have never had an early war with warriors and archers where I did not lose at least one unit. I guess some people could keep them all alive. I am not the greatest with war.

The point is still, take more than you think you need.