How do you take cities on levels >= Regent?

[themoffster]

beore now I only polayed Chieftain (way too easy) and Warlord (quite difficult, pathetic I know).
I tried Regent, but I can't take cities with 5 or 6 archers early in the game like I could in the previous levels on a city of size 1.

Any help?

 

[Furry Spatula]

Well nothing should be different as combat levels with you and the AI are always the same, the only difference between difficulty levels, interms or combat, is the bonuses or lack of bonuses you get while facing barbs.

 

[Pillager]

I usually rush for swordsmen in the early stages. If you build half a dozen of those you can usually be guaranteed a couple of cities.

The AI will build more units, so you do have to prepare your attacks more.

(On Regent/Monarch)

 

[Jodien]

Build a stack of 8 offensive units and 2 defenders. All should be veterans. You can invade your neighbor easily in the early stages.

 

[Daaraa]

I try to never invade without Swordsmen.

 

[Arathorn]

They have more troops, so you need more, too. Instead of 6 archers, take 9 archers and a couple spearmen (to defend them).

Or wait longer to attack with different troops. The strategy is pretty similar, you just need to be better at it -- and bring overwhelming force whenever you're attacking.

Arathorn

 

[kb2tvl]

I assume your playing babs? Im not sure of how many you will need but planning for 10 or so should be fine. Last emporer gameI played, I massed 10 immortals and started my conquest of the babs.... I suggest setting down as many cities around your capitol before the computer does. Then start building offensive units. You do need veteran offensive units though. Anything less will give you losses that are too high.

If your not playing the babs or persians, I would wait for horseback riding and just build horseman. They take a bunch longer but have retreat as a capablility.

 

[Neomega]

Catapults. Eight of em. Spearmen two of em. Archers, three of em. Keep the war up and you won't lose. Bombard the city, destroy the walls, peck at the spearmen, until you've whittled away four or five hits in one turn with the catapults, then send in the archers to finish them off. Try and bombard from a hill or better, mountains, spearmen defend better there. If attacking a city on a hill, bring in horsemen to finish the stragglers hit by your catapults. When forces try to slip by you and head towards your country, hit em with catapults in the field, the damage is much more likely to happen here. Once the city falls you still have 8 catapults left, move on to the next city, with or with out your offensive units, they can catch up later. Just bring you two spearmen along.

 

[pandora]

i tend to overwhelm them with culture or with early rushes (archers,sm,mw...a single homogenic stack:10 to 20 units (medium map/mon-dei)).

 

[Sanaz]

Once you have writing, investigate the cities before starting the war. You can see what defense they have, making planning easier. Always plan on them rushing one defensive unit also, and maybe running a nearby unit back to the city.

 

[Sullla]

Almost all of those strategies are too risky for my taste. Why not focus on building in the early game and hit your foes in the Middle Ages with superior forces? Using archers is far too big of a gambit for me, and I'm not the person to turn a game off and start a new one if my gambit doesn't work. And don't forget the bonus starting units that the AI gets on levels above Regent either. I say that the better course is to wait until you have overwhelming force and then attack swiftly and decisively. Or, for a more concrete example, you can look at my Epic8 game here...

 

[Yzman]

I usually have 3 war periods. One with swordsman. Next one with knights and last one with calvary. I'm a builder but this helps get my empire bigger,

 

[Hades]

I have 4 war periods: Swordsman, Cavalry, Tank, and MA. I sometime skip the swordsman, if I have enough room to expand. Attack with knights can be costly: 4 attack againt pikemen with 3 defence and bonus agaist mounted units. I love modern warfare.

 

[Neomega]

I don't believe there are any defense bonuses for any units, like there was in Civ II, including the pikeman.... I may be wrong but I am pretty sure the pikeman has no special abilities in CIv III.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Depends on if my territory is sufficient and productive enough to support two rings of cities around my capital and FP. If not, then I'll take over a neighbouring civ for their territory with whatever forces I have on hand. I usually move defenders together with my offensive units to protect them and also garrison newly conquered cities (and free up the offensive units to continue on the offensive). This phase will take place very early on and shld be done by the time knights come around.

After that, no longer interested in wars for territorial expansion, unless it's for 'prestige', 'revenge' and points. More of the short-term quick wars to grab resources and luxuries. Of course, sometimes these wars drag on and you find yourself killing off the irritant civ in peevishness.

 

[Jodien]

Catapults don't seem to make any effective difference in my games. I take 5 catapults to an invasion but 4 shots out of 5 on an enemy town fail with no damage. They need Maths which is a little late tech compared to Iron working and riding, and the catapults are still too expensive to build in numbers.

I suggest you go for the swordsmen and horsemen in the early years.

 

[Neomega]

you need at least eight catapults to do any real damage, 12 to be efficient. 5 is nothing.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Catapults are too much of a hassle to produce in numbers in the early ages IMO. I usually just go with the available offensive units, supported by defenders. Unusually works, if you plan your campaigns well, with clear objectives and making use of the terrain and such.

 

[KDan]

If you are playing a civ with an early unit (eg Iroquois, Aztecs, etc) use that unit early in great numbers to completely overrun your neighbours. Often those UU's are reasonably cheap so you should be able to build a lot of them (especially jaguar warriors!). Just make sure that when you attack a city you have 4-5 units to be certain to take down the defenders and capture the city this turn - that's early in the game. A little bit later, when they start having more advanced defenders or if you're attacking a bigger town where they have more defenders, make sure to always stack a large number of your troops near the city before attacking. There's nothing worse than losing 4 of your units to damage 4 defenders, only to find the next turn that the defenders are all back to full health when your next 4 units arrive.

Daniel