Occupation army: how much?

Hello all. I didn't find a thread dedicated to this topic in the archives, though I'm sure it should be somewhere. Sorry for posting if a simple link to older posts can enlighten me.

I realize that my military conquests in Civ IV are rather slow and unefficient, moreover when I compare to Sirian or Sullla games description: after taking a city, I tend to heal/fortify all my military units until the anarchy in the city ends. And then, I'm not quite sure how many units are necessary in the city if I don't want to get a new revolt. But doing that, I lose too much time.

How do you proceed? How can you guess how much military occupation is necessary, before and after the revolt ends? And how much units can continue the invasion? Thanks.

I usually leave an archer or two and any hurt units then carry on to the next city with everybody else. Early on, the AI is to busy defending it's small amounts of cities to send a serious re-capture stack out.

Thank you CCRunner7. I had bad experience in the past with captured cities who then gained back their independance just because I didn't leave enough occupation troops. With only two units, I shall not face the risk of further uprisings then?

When I invade, I definitely try to have some dominant defenders of the era in my stack to say behind in captured cities. It does depend though on where this city is in regards to your opponents forces. A frontier city with little troops doesn't really require as much defense as a city that is in the heart of enemy territory. A city deep in enemy territory requires more than just defensive units, since your opponent will probably try and attack to get it back.

As for healing your units, you should try earlier in the game to get a unit promoted down the medic tree. Then when you get your first Great General, attach him to that unit and promote it with March as many Medic promos as you can. That way after you take a city and leave some defenders in it, your stack and keep moving to the next target. This greatly decreases how long you have to be at war.

Have a huge force with a super-medic and lots of siege, conquer fast, no need to worry about culture because they're dead.

Thanks a lot. So no risk of a revolt in the population (I'm not talking of ennemy armies trying to take back the city), once the initial anarchy has ended. I figured it was a main threat when seizing cities in. Maybe a (bad) Civ III habit...

You need to have enough to get the job done, then bring the boys home.

HmJ said:

Thanks a lot. So no risk of a revolt in the population (I'm not talking of ennemy armies trying to take back the city), once the initial anarchy has ended. I figured it was a main threat when seizing cities in. Maybe a (bad) Civ III habit...

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Without a custom setting cities won't flip back to someone you took them directly from. Ever. The only way you'll lose a city is if you garrison it weakly AND the AI comes and attacks it to take it back .

Leave behind as little as possible without carrying the risk of having the city recaptured by his military. If it's positioned such that it will come out of revolt quickly and there's only 1 road to it, this is often one unit (or just your wounded units). If it's in the middle of his empire, reachable by 2 cities via engineering or just mounted, then you'd better leave a lot more unless your units are technologically an era or so in front.

The faster you win wars, the better.

TheMeInTeam said:

Without a custom setting cities won't flip back to someone you took them directly from. Ever. The only way you'll lose a city is if you garrison it weakly AND the AI comes and attacks it to take it back .

Leave behind as little as possible without carrying the risk of having the city recaptured by his military. If it's positioned such that it will come out of revolt quickly and there's only 1 road to it, this is often one unit (or just your wounded units). If it's in the middle of his empire, reachable by 2 cities via engineering or just mounted, then you'd better leave a lot more unless your units are technologically an era or so in front.

The faster you win wars, the better.

Click to expand...

Thank you all, this is exactly what I didn't know. A bad habit led me to think that a captured city could flip back easily. Wow, great news, I know now how to conquest all the world