Capturing enemy cities, how to get there?

[RandomLeader]

I've read lots of threads and many articles but one thing I haven't seen..

It is clear that it's far more usefull to capture good enemy cities such as holy cities and capitals. Problem is that usually they are far away. Distance is not the problem to me but how to get there and still have a strong stack with you? Do you raze cities along the way?

My scenario usually comes to this. I capture cities along the way so AI cannot build military too close of my borders. I loose few with every city and my stack gets smaller. If I don't do this I face suicide catapults too often. No matter what I don't seem to get to the city/cities I want and hold them if I don't capture cities along the way. If I capture them my stack is loosing force. What are the sizes of stacks you use generally and what they contain? Do you go straight to the city you want or do you compromize?

This is not a thread to point out my mistakes, god knows there is. I would like to know how other people usually function and achieve their goals.

 

[Bhruic]

Well, to be as simplistically blunt as possible, I simply build reinforcements. It's not hard to make your reinforcement speed roughly the same as your battle loss speed.

Bh

 

[RandomLeader]

Well, to be as simplistically blunt as possible, I simply build reinforcements. It's not hard to make your reinforcement speed roughly the same as your battle loss speed.

Suprisingly that is what I try to do. Problem is that how do I get reinforcements to the same location where rest of my stack is. I don't want to be at war for centuries cause AI gets so easily help from other nations. I don't seem to get allies no matter how pleased they are with me.

 

[Bhruic]

I'm not sure why you present that as a problem? As long as you are capturing cities next to your borders, it should be pretty easy to get the reinforcements there. The only time it might be a problem is if you are warring through someone else, but that doesn't seem to be the situation you are describing.

Bh

 

[RandomLeader]

I'm not sure why you present that as a problem? As long as you are capturing cities next to your borders, it should be pretty easy to get the reinforcements there. The only time it might be a problem is if you are warring through someone else, but that doesn't seem to be the situation you are describing.

I'm not sure that my english is understandable. Advice I need is how to get to distant cities (usually enemy capital or holy city) which I really want instead of crappy outbound cities of other civilisation. I want to know how other players achieve this.

I didn't want to say that I want to capture nearby cities at all.. that is just a thing I end up doing.

 

[Bhruic]

Ok, well, it depends on the situation, really. If it's early game, for example, and I can't really support a lot more cities, then I'll either raze cities enroute, or I'll simply head straight for the enemy capital, if feasible. Basically, it depends on what lies between my territory and their territory. I'm not going to take a city that'll end up being isolated from the rest of my cities. So if I have to raze some cities to free up the space inbetween, I will. If not, I'll head straight for the capital and take it.

Later on, I usually keep any non-crappy city. "Crappy" in this case usually means badly placed, where I want to move the city anyway, or just play useless. My other cities will be producing defenders for the new city, as well as reinforcements for my stack, as necessary. I'll keep taking cities along the way until I get to the one I want.

Bh

 

[AnaNg]

I don't know if this is a good thing to do or not, but in a situation like that I'll generally send the initial stack to the distant target. It may get harassed a bit by some roamers (it works best if I can get close to the distant city through neutral territory or through another civs OB agreement but works fine if you have to declare to get there)

The reinforcements I'm building can get to the nearby cities (and defend my own) much faster and those are usually more lightly defended so when I get a smaller stack I'll send it out to get the near cities.

At some point the stacks merge into one about the size I started with to finish off the last couple of cities.

 

[tempuraki]

go by boat, or sign open border with another civ so you can use the other civ's road.

otherwise, take the cities, rest up your wounded units. make reinforcements, and have the reinforcements guard the new cities, while the rested units join your main stack.

Or build cavalries.

sometimes it'll have to be slow, just pick a different target, or be prepared to go the distance.

 

[slobberinbear]

It's hard to bypass the outer ring of cities protecting the prime cities. Even if you do bypass them, their culture is usually sufficient to choke out the "good" city you were originally targeting.

Build a big army and keep reinforcing it until you wipe out your opponent or choose to declare peace. Raze the cities you don't want but be prepared to settle the area yourself or the AI will quickly resettle.

To maintain your offensive, have a medic unit in each stack and don't be afraid to use suicide siege units. Your reinforcements under this strategy will be roughly 50% siege, 25% garrison, 25% city assault/stack defense.

 

[Saltiana]

Do you raze cities along the way?

Never raze a city you could use! mid/late game you don't want to found a new city, it's a waste of time except if the position sucks too much.

My scenario usually comes to this. I capture cities along the way so AI cannot build military too close of my borders. I loose few with every city and my stack gets smaller. If I don't do this I face suicide catapults too often. No matter what I don't seem to get to the city/cities I want and hold them if I don't capture cities along the way. If I capture them my stack is loosing force. What are the sizes of stacks you use generally and what they contain? Do you go straight to the city you want or do you compromize?

I think you are choising the wrong objective to begin with : when you start a war, you should have an idea about what you can take with your stacks and for how long you can go warring carelessly before the war weariness become absolutely unmanageable (is your target sharing your religion ? have you a clear military superiority over him ?). When you know approximatively how deep you can go warring in his territory, you choose some objective : typically not too far if your enemy is strong or/and have the same religion or deeper if it's not the case.

Then you go, you take those cities and sue for peace, extorting tech and money, then heal troops, make and move reinforcements to your new borders and as soon as you feel ready (and when you can declare again of course), you go with a new objective. Repeat one, two, three time at most, it's more and more easy each time, and the war weariness does not become unmanageable.

Of course you should adapt if you see that you can continue warring when you thought you couldn't (or if you can't go as deep as you thought ).

For the stack itself, well it's classic : except for ancient war, have a lot of siege ; you don't want to lose your highly promoted raiders (or you want to make some ^^). Myself I go with 50% of siege, suicide them all the time, so reinforcement are basically siege. Don't forget to have in your stack the future defender of the cities you come to claim thought, it sucks to let a raider promoted unit in a city because you forgot the garrison

Hope this help.

 

[Molon Labe]

Depending on the geography, you could try beelining for his capital with your stack. Keep a few units to harass and destroy roads to resources and resources in the border cities, and take those cities second.

If you delay taking the capital, which is usually the production center, the AI will build a very potent defensive force that will whittle your stack down resulting in having to build many reinforcements and prolonged warfare. Taking the capital first and working back to your borders can often nip that problem in the bud.

it can't always be done, but if at all possible, give it a try and see if it works better for you.

 

[mice]

Just adding a note to the comprehensive answers already given; Reinforcements often need to be seige. These get picked off by the AI mounted units, so you need station points along the way. Longbow/pike on a forest hill is good for this.

I think you have to grab those outer ring cities in BTS. The AI can whip reinforcements better so taking these cites means they can whip from them.

Choose outer cities that will serve as station points for your reinforcements to go through.

 

[Carnage04]

Yeah, you need to make sure you bring siege weapons as reinforcements. Protect them with various high defense units as they traverse to the front. Dragging the war out by a couple turns to get more units to the location is a lot better than simply stopping your assault short of your objectives.

I would not leave the outer cities standing as when you finally capture the capital city, you will have a city trapped by culture that shrinks to size 1, revolts every few turns, and eventually rejoins the civ you took it from.

 

[Cer]

By the time technology for macemen and crossbows is available, you'll want to use a few catapults every time you take a big/old city from the AI.

You'll also probably want to raze or take+keep the cities that arent your top priority, because their cultural influence can mess up the city you really want.