Pillaging the land but not the cities + some questions

[JenniferKind]

Bare with me, pretty new to the game. I have noticed that taking out cities in CIV 4 is pretty difficult until you get a couple catapults, or cannons, or better yet some Bombers. These are all expensive units that are very slow. I've read other threads that suggest just taking some nimble units like Cavalry or Horse Archers and just razing/pillaging their land, in this order:

- Take out mines
- Take out road to mines
- Take out pastures/other special res tiles
- Take out towns/villages/cottages/hamlets
- finally take out farms..

Okay, so lets say that I do this pretty successfully, what should be my goal then? Obviously if this is with a neighbour civ, my culture/land will hopefully spread. But when what else should I do??

- Declare peace treaty and hope to trade?
- Send some missionaries to his land ?? How else can I cause his people to revolt??
- How do I secure his old resource spots, if my town border doesn't reach to his previously owned mines??

Also is there anyway to disable cutscenes in the game? They occasionally crash me to desktop (geforce ti4200 card).

 

[petey]

Taking out cities has been made a lot harder over previous versions and it's tough to just run in and grab them. Pillaging the improvements gets you cash and denies the benefits to the AI civ. Taking out the roads leading to his other cities makes it harder for him to get units in to defend those cities and you can take some of them out while they're stuck in the open on the way there and even faster units have trouble coming out to attack you and then getting back to the city afterwards, so you can pick them off.

Artillery units are slow and expensive, but they'e worth the cost and you really shouldn't go after cities without having them. Bring them in with your defensive units and have your faster units pillage the area as you go in. Then take the city after you've weakened it.

 

[mrjepson]

I'd move up town/village pillaging to the top. These are the most profitable. The key point of pillaging is to ruin the enemy city from the inside. Deny them trading routes, production, health and happiness. You will often see the city shrinking. You will need to bring in artillery to finish the job if you want to take it but if you don't want it just pillage for the cash and the knowledge that your opponent now has a useless city costing him units that could be used elsewhere as well as maintainence.

 

[petey]

Another good pillaging tip is to put some fast units in a boat and send them to the other side of their civ before you declare war and them set them to pillage around there. You'll end up losing the units, but it will force the AI to send some units to the other side of his empire to deal with them, so he's not able to concentrate everything on your border to repel your main invasion.

Those ones should focus more on running away rather than pillaging and only doing that when they get a chance and focusing on his resources. The objective is to keep as much of his army tied up chasing the annoyance instead of defending his border with you.

 

[UberCivver]

What I like to do is send in a sizable (5-6 units of varying types) expeditionary force at first to just wander and pillage (villages, towns first! remember, they have to start over at a cottage if rebuilt), maybe destroy some units, gain some experience and perhaps even last long enough for my main force to arrive. Ideal scenarion, 2 or 3 survive, are upgraded a level or two and can help in the invasion; however, normally they are all destroyed, but not without them causing some major damage to their economy.
-UberCivver