How are you handling enemy cities now?

[shinkicker]

I had my first battle against an enemy city last night, and I have to admit I wasn't happy with the results.

I'm on about my 3rd or 4th start but finally found a game setting to my liking and have advanced to Medieval era. I have 4 city states (which I detest as space-wasting pests) around my empire, and two of them were feuding. One, Hanoi, offered me a reward if I would take out Edinburgh.

So I sent my Great General, accompanied by 2 each of war chariots, swordsmen, a spearman and an archer unit plus a pair of catapults well-equipped with boiling tar and dead sheep to loft over the battlements.

Rule 1: Never lead with your catapults. This isn't Civ4. While your archer units can stay 2 hexes back to fire on the city (for 0 or 1 damage!), the catapult wants to run up to the gates to unload its firepower. And even a small city like Edinburgh (pop 5) had enough bombardment power to eat the catapults in one hit each.

I had to sacrifice my spearmen and swordsmen to break down the gates at last, at great cost to my expensive army. The reward from Hanoi was sufficient - occasional military units of their choice as long as they liked me - but I was shocked at the differences in methods required in Civ5 vs Civ4. No more running a stack of 10 catapults up and battering the walls. The name of the game now is "finesse".

I'm thinking that one solution might be to create several "cannon fodder" foot units, like spearmen or swordsmen, and lead with them to soak up the city bombardment before you send in the catapults. Even then, however, even a small city is going to make pudding out of your catapult units on the next turn. They weren't very stout in Civ4, and that hasn't changed in 5.

Who's come up with a good way to destroy a city without losing most of your costly army?

 

[Fin]

I used the "cannon fodder" approach with Spearmen when I was duking it out with Askia. Surround a city with them, use them, three or four archers and a catapult behind them to bombard from behind the front lines. Took all three of his cities with only losing a Spearman. I believe I was playing on Prince.

If any of those cannon fodder units get a promotion, I tend to go with the one that heals them automatically. Makes them go further.

 

[skeezix]

I'd love to have some tips as well

In my current game I'm surrounded by city states that have lucked into optimal positioning, I think -- the landmasses is essentially:

w|w
w|w
wXw
w|w
w|w

w == water; mostly inaccessible due to ice or being a 'pond'
| == passable land (forested mostly)
X === city state

I have _Several_ of these guys.

It is difficult to get into the water, though I can on one side for one of them .. so I've got triremes bombarding remotely, but they've got an archer unit in the city taking it down

Being forested means no massive unit speeds.. one tile movement pretty much, at this early era; being a single tile wide means shuffling units in and out is a nightmare. Walk a unit in one tile at a time while being hit by city-archers or city-attack and its nice and reduced by the time it gets there.

I have a warrior/sword/phalanx going up to the city, followed by an archer, with trireme for support on the side; city smashes that first unit, and then I hjave only the archer/trireme left. If I want to bring another unit in I have to back the archer out first. giving the city state much time to repair itself and ready up defences.

This seems like the worst case scenario for an early game -- they're in ideal locations, and the cost to keep friendly is more than I can afford (250 gold for +35 points? then losing 1 pt per turn, with a donated unit only providing +2 points?) I simply cannot stay friends with them, and I cannot conquer them.

It would seem city states must be ignored for quite awhile, especially if you have a few of them around.

Any suggestions?

It seems to me you have to throw a couple melee units up front, which will get pounded hard, while your archers soften thigns up, and its going to take awhile... unless youhave surrounded them with a half dozen archers, but thats quite an expense in this one

jeff

 

[Skrin]

I'd just like to point out that you *should* lead with catapults. They just work a little bit differently then before. Now you have to use the action to set them up for ranged attack, and then you can bombard a city (for 4-5 damage usually). This, combined with archers, can lead to quick city captures.

 

[sevventh]

I'd just like to point out that you *should* lead with catapults. They just work a little bit differently then before. Now you have to use the action to set them up for ranged attack, and then you can bombard a city (for 4-5 damage usually). This, combined with archers, can lead to quick city captures.

Setting up siege units is the key. Hills give ranged units a boost in distance they can shoot, also beware of some tiles that can block line of sight that may not be obvious at first, units can later be upgraded to ignore line of sight.

 

[automator]

I'm really excited for my first real war. I've had less than an hour of play time so far, so besides taking a couple barb encampments and doing some open ground fighting, I haven't really seen this happen.

I was sooo bored by the Civ IV "bring a stack of seige, toss them again the walls, then clean up with melee" situation. War is now going to be battles, not just a linear path of destruction!