Early city defenses are so OP.

[CivAddict2013]

Early city defenses are SO OP. You literally can't take a city before Horsemen. All the AI needs to do is sit in a city with one archer and boom, you can't take a city. THEY DON'T EVEN NEED WALLS. Battering rams barely do anything. Just sit in your city with a slinger and two shot Warriors and Spearmen.

It seems like before Swordsmen or Horsemen you just can't take a city at all.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Three archers and a warrior is generally enough in my experience.

 

[nzcamel]

Three archers and a warrior is generally enough in my experience.

Or two of each.

 

[MartinMcMartin]

same here, 2 archers and 2 warriors will work. even with walls it's easy. 3/4 archers stepping in and out after each other works fine....

 

[Horizons]

I think crossbowmen are OP. Once you see the AI building them (which is usually quite quickly) ancient war is over. If you don't have a lot of iron, you won't be able to take any cities till at least bombards.

 

[Tech Osen]

Make sure you put the city properly under siege, though tricky when it's on the coast and annoying when on a lake. Melee units are actually better in the long run for attacking districts than horses though it takes a few promotions to get them there, extra defense against ranged attack is a life saver and first tier. Swordsmen really make short work of a city without walls.

 

[Disgustipated]

It's annoying, but cities can be taken. Sometimes I can lure the archer out, though that doesn't always work. If I can't lure it out, I can usually still take the city if I bring enough troops, preferably swordsmen. Usually when I run into problems it's because I didn't build enough units for the war to begin with. If you have enough archers of your own, bring in 3 or 4 archers and they will take a shot at the archer and you can move the wounded one back. Though if they have walls, you will get 1 shotted (Or 2 shotted is more accurate to say) and losses are inevitable.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Early city defenses are SO OP. You literally can't take a city before Horsemen. All the AI needs to do is sit in a city with one archer and boom, you can't take a city. THEY DON'T EVEN NEED WALLS. Battering rams barely do anything. Just sit in your city with a slinger and two shot Warriors and Spearmen.

It seems like before Swordsmen or Horsemen you just can't take a city at all.

What, you can't kill off a city with a slinger in it?
A typical city with a slinger (assuming the defender hasn't produced anything stronger than a warrior yet), will have about 10 combat strength.
Which means, 2-3 warriors will absolutely dumpster that city.

Not to sound arrogant, but if your quote above is indicative of how your early wars go, you should practice the game more.

 

[Linklite]

Do you mean +10? Cities when I get to them generally have 18-25CS, depending on whether they're garrisoned. I can take them still...but it does mean dedicating a lot of resources to building armies rather than building up the cities.

 

[Kotofei]

Not to sound arrogant, but if your quote above is indicative of how your early wars go, you should practice the game more.

Yeah, I came expecting a complaint about ancient walls being OP, which they kind of are. But if you're struggling against cities without walls, check out some Potato McWhiskey youtube tutorials.

 

[Brutus2]

1. Use three melee units to surround a city and put it under siege.
2. I almost always take Tortoise as the first promotion on my melee units
3. Three archers along with a couple attacks from the melee units should easily take a city especially if it's under siege
4. When walls go up, bring Siege Tower / Battering Ram
5. Great Generals help of course but not required.
6. You will likely lose some units along the way so you should still be building and sending reinforcements.

 

[ezzlar]

I think difficulty jumps a lot when one compares: Undefended early city, with one archer, with city walls and one archer. Ancient walls are good enough until the endgame, you still get that full power ranged shot with it. And like someone mentioned, with crossbowmen things really slow down.

And a bit assymetric, in the hands of the human it is incredible powerful. With the AI, a boost.

 

[reddishrecue]

I've seen cities taken online all the time early with archers and whatever warrior horsemen Spearman there is.