Best way to take a city?

[LedStone]

So recently I had a game as Frederick the Great on Emperor (wow his bonuses are good lol) and I decided to try to go for a domination victory. Took me a couple weeks off and on to finish but there are so many units in Civ 6 so it was cool.

So my question to you guys is how do you take your cities? I found myself trying all sorts of units and it seemed like once a city had walls you pretty much needed some siege weapons if you didn't want to lose a ton of units. Siege tower was pretty useful and come late game good ol rocket artillery was the needed siege weapon. I also thought I'd tried bombers and I don't know if anybodys tried it but is it me or are bombers so good in civ 6?

Rocket artillery takes 2 turns to setup if you dont have the upgrade and can get shot at from cities if you cant get the 3 tile distance. Also rocket artillery has the relatively slow for the late game movement speed of 2 so it takes a while to get to the front line if you are rolling through civs and are building in your home cities. Bombers on the other hand have a huge range of 15! Like I was able to bomb across continents at some points. And the damage was roughly comparable to rocket artillery and the only setup is the 1st turn of rebasing. I'm not sure how vulnerable bombers are to AA/fighters since AI didn't use them much in my playthrough but for myself I was able to take a lot of cities late game with bombers and tanks that would rush to the damaged cities.

 

[gfeier]

If you put a tank alongside the city, you can hit it from three hexes away with your rocket artillery. Four if you use balloons. Kind of funny to see the balloons tagging along with my rocket artillery.

 

[Tech Osen]

If you're on a map with enough water than frigates and battleships make short work of walls with the right promotions. You can also use submarines to spot for battleships so you don't take damage.

 

[Victoria]

Very early game barbs are better than archers because archers are -50% vs cities and cannot take a city themselves and often suffer from lack of ZOC to siege a city. Archers are the better troop for killing other troops so are often used for city sieges instead but that's not your question... which is what is best. You can argue archers because they are good elsewhere.

Once walls are up melee troops only do 17% damage against a city as opposed to 50% so archers are better until you get a Ram. Melee would only be better if their strength was significantly higher to counteract the 17% and you need to consider your melee troops get damaged.

This formula works going forward as well so swords with ram are better than xbow.

When we get to knights we get to a very important couple of advantages.
They move twice as fast as foot so take more cities in the same amount of time, very important to stop the enemy building and redeploying mad also an extra tile after a river. The big issue is they need a ram unless the city strength is weak, luckily, if you push knights well, cities are still weak and is a big thing in their success.
Mounted also ignore ZOC so can slip between enemy troops to siege a city faster.

Once modern walls are in place you really need artillery as already specified but once a city hits 80 odd it takes a bit o rocket artillery is needed or bombers. Bombers are great, especially as the ene,y just does not get the interception rules (nor do we)

I did notice in the last GOTM that helicopters ignore the -5 for rivers which is nice when performing a siege.

For the coast, ranged ships get the -50% for walls but not for cities so are better than ground ranged. A melee ship with a ram is just fine until modern walls.

The best way overall to take a city is nuke it.

 

[Canadian Bluebeer]

archers/xbow/melee if no walls.
Once walls, then yep, siege is needed.
Artillery/RA you ALWAYS want a balloon with them. 4 range means you can shoot at whatever, and they generally cannot shoot back.
2 sets will generally flatten the walls in 1 shot.
Bombers are also good to have.

To take the city, well, tanks/infantry work well, choppers are good and speedy. Heck, once the city is at 0hp, anything melee can do it.

Bombards, while packing a heavy punch early one, have lousy range, slow movement.
I try to get 3 in place to all fire on the same turn. One of them is probably going to get shot at, but, if I can take out the city in 1 turn, it's good.

Nasty part is when there are interlocking encampments. They can smart. (so I'll knock out their walls first if I have to, heal, then advance)

Ranged naval units are also great. I'll run a melee in to see the city, shoot with the others, and move the melee unit back out.
Rinse/repeat until golden brown. Helicopters can do the same for those cities in very hilly/jungle/forest terrain.

 

[Disgustipated]

Once walls, then yep, siege is needed.

*cough* battering ram *cough*.

Once they are obsolete though, then yes, artillery is the way to go. It's worth building 2 cats/bombards for the Eureka anyways. By the time you get bombers, invest heavily in those as they are much faster if you plan on taking a lot of cities like I like to do in my world conquest games.

In the late game really nothing can stop jet bombers and helicopters (though you want to destroy their army first as your helicopters can be vulnerable). This truly is lightning warfare.

 

[Canadian Bluebeer]

Anti-tank really does a number on choppers. They smart.
So when I spot those (and barbs love them), I send in the marines and panzers.
AT works great against light cav, but tank armies will chew them up. (and really shouldn't)
AT vs Helicopters shouldn't be so good, Anti-Air should eat them alive.
AT vs Tanks should work better than it does.
Infantry should eat them both then ask for seconds.


(Arty of course should just blow the snot out of anything it can range on except air units. We don't like them. Unless you're ADA, in which case it's
"come to momma" time.)

 

[Victoria]

but tank armies will chew them up

Promoted ones?
What about one with lvl4 promotion behind a tank army?

 

[Canadian Bluebeer]

Promoted ones?
What about one with lvl4 promotion behind a tank army?

Promoted Tanks or AT?
Promoted Tanks of course are really nasty.
I don't think I've run into promoted AT.

I'll have to test that. (hey, something new to play with in FT)

 

[Victoria]

hey, something new to play with in FT

Yeah use firetuner, I know you love it... get the level 4 promotion for an AT unit and use it as a second line troop. Especially with the square support promotion also.

I got Nukes going through FT tonight, was not too bad

 

[Canadian Bluebeer]

er? adding nukes with should be simple.

(just logged in using the other comp, swapping to Linux on the main, and will do more testing and streaming tonight.
Yes. Firetuner can be on the windows machine and talk to the linux version. Some quirks, but it works)

Will take a look at the promotions for AT units tonight.

(food first)

 

[Zenstrive]

Rack up money per turn,
declare war on them,
wait 10 turns while swatting their armies,
deal peace, with two or their three cities agains your GPT
Profits!
Repeat it with other civ every 30 turns.

 

[Disgustipated]

Anti-tank really does a number on choppers. They smart.
So when I spot those (and barbs love them), I send in the marines and panzers.
AT works great against light cav, but tank armies will chew them up. (and really shouldn't)
AT vs Helicopters shouldn't be so good, Anti-Air should eat them alive.
AT vs Tanks should work better than it does.
Infantry should eat them both then ask for seconds.

Oh yes, helicopters are very vulnerable as I mentioned above. You really have to eliminate the AI's military first, but after that, you can take cities in rapid succession. I usually keep them behind tanks/tank armies and mech infantry/mech infantry armies until opposition armies are defeated. Then they can zoom ahead.

 

[LedStone]

Yeah and once they make the AI a bit better, the defensive side of cities is really cool too. With the ability to make encampments, cities with walls and the terrain of rivers/hills/mountains/ocean etc I find myself making my own Maginot Lines a bunch which is enjoyable strategizing