GS gameplay mystery

[planetfall]

Playing GS version of civ and need insights into gameplay mystery of why military failed to make progess.

Turn 137 sumeria attacked
----------------------------
Item Sumeria Me
cities 8 17
mil # 363 132
techs 40 32
iron 57 51
horses 57 51
niter 9 7
oil 4 0



Turn 181 sumeria peace
----------------------------
Item Sumeria Me
cities 10 22
mil # 110 2276
techs 46 45
iron 75 123
horses 75 123
niter 34 49
oil 70 1
NB: my 1 oil from peace agreement


Basically a stalemate. Starting positions with Sumeria line infantry, knights, and bombards. Me with muskets, horsemen, and crossbows.I was able with time to get 2 different cities under seige with 4 line inf, and 3-4 field cannons each city.

But could not make a dent on the city defenses. Each cannon attack only resulted in a 1 or 2 point defense drop for at least 4 turns in a row. Heck I'll lose more on the city bombardment. I could not figure out a way to move forward. I expected to at least have one city. So questions:

1-- how could a city under seige keep city defenses so strong? Did I have to wait for air or artillery? Would pillaging tiles increase the drop in city defense?

2-- What would have been your plan? With Sumeria starting to get tanks and I had no oil for at least 10 techs, I couldn't think of anything other than suing for peace.

Thank you for your ideas

 

[Vandlys]

Difficulty level? Age you were in?

Could you post screenshots?

It seems like you did not have any siege units, is that correct? Personally, I always use siege units to quickly widdle down the walls, use ranged to take out units around the city with a couple of melee at hand to keep things at bay. At higher levels I mostly don't bother with war, but if I do I like to have cavalry at hand to control the battlefield.

Attacking cities without any siege units is impossible in my opinion, and at higher levels even those barely make a dent in my experience.

 

[planetfall]

Maybe that's the issue. I thought field cannon of 60 bombard would be better than bombard with 55 bombard. I missed that field cannons have -17 vs district defenses but bombard units have full vs district and less vs land units.. Still thought it would take away more than 1 or 2 defense count per attack.

Difficulty level was neutral, i.e. prince, and in industrial age of techs.

 

[Mahasona]

I think you mistook field cannons for siege units, whereas they are just strong range units with 60 attack - not siege strength. They make little difference against strong city walls.

Siege units are pretty fragile. At this point in the game I would be getting my science moving and head towards flight for observation balloons that give an extra tile range when next to siege, keeping them safe and out of the way.

 

[planetfall]

Yep, tanks are starting to gather on borders, but I have airports now, so just a matter of adding planes. Should be ok, but will just kill off the wasted field cannons. It would be different if they upgraded to artillery, but machine guns, give me a break. Worthless for offense.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

As mentioned, field cannons are ranged units and won't work well against cities. You are also attacking in the hardest era of the game, the Renaissance. The problem here is that walls are absolutely over the top in terms of defensive power in this era (assuming they built Renaissance walls), and even with bombards you can quite often struggle to the point where progress is very slow (if you make any at all). If you managed to get a fully promoted bombard for +1 range, then it starts to become a bit more bearable, but can still be a real slog depending on terrain etc.

The whole pacing in this game is wrong, something you will notice once you get to the industrial era and unlock flight. At that point it's game over for the AI, as you can now get balloons for your siege units and bypass their defences with ease, and later bombers which just absolutely dumpster any city defences. It is unfortunate that this is so, because it makes domination games lack replay value after a while, unless you purposefully don't abuse flight tech.

 

[planetfall]

Agreed, I was attacked so defensive choice. This was the second attack by civ. One attack per era is too much to not try to make pay by losing a city. I thought with seiged city and time I could do it.

I normally either go early or wait for air power/artillery. A few times for a real mess, go nukes.

In earlier civ versions cannons were seige units and I didn't catch the change in civ6.

 

[Airey]

Or just denfend and pillage, more efficient.
Sometimes it's better not to take AI cities.
Set goals of what you want to gain through war (passive or aggressive).
Reevaluate what you have gain (vs what was invested) after 44t of warfare.