Losing momentum in the mid-game

[Arcanior]

Whenever I'm going for a domination victory, I notice that I start to lose momentum around the medieval era (i.e. once the first 'big' rival and possibly one smaller AI are conquered). At this point, I generally need build out more infrastructure to be able to upgrade my army, Feudalism comes online which leads to building a lot of builders, perhaps even a few extra settlers now that the immediate threat is gone and there are some good settling spots left.

It's not that I can't win from here on out - eventually my army gets upgraded and I can go and conquer the next AI, but by then my units are early Industrial units, more often than not. For some reason, medieval warfare always kind of eludes me. Is this common, or am I probably doing something wrong? I play on Emperor, for the record - recently moved up from King.

 

[Mrkoekie]

I also wonder how to be effective during medieval times. It feels impossible on Emperor to conquer. I always go passive during this age because it seems any army you send to a city just 2 hits you. It feels like fightning units have to few health overall.

 

[IMADAJ]

I haven’t tried emperor yet, but I had the same thing happen to me on King.

Try...
Switching gears to focus on science to tech up.
Combine units to make corps.
Pillage districts to lower city defense.
Get a great general.

Wait until your modified power is at least equal to the city defense.

There is a sticky that goes over how damage works and that was an eye opener for me.

Having +5 more power than what you are attacking gives you a 20% damage bonus. A great general can give you that.

Having +10 more power than what you are attacking gives to an extra 50% damage bonus. Creating a corps can give you that.

 

[Bibor]

Medieval/renaissance warfare is about sheer numbers. If you keep producing units, you can continue, but get ready to lose around a half of them. There’s no real superiority till industrial.