Placing Citadels offensively

[Mesix]

The GG tile improvement got a nice buff in G&K. It can be placed in your borders, or any tile adjacent to your borders. The Citadel will change the tile and all adjacent tiles to your territory like a culture bomb ability (the GA used to have). In addition, the Citadel will grant a defensive bonus to your units, and cause damage to nearby enemy units.

Here are some screen shots of the Citadel being used as an offensive expansion tool.

Playing Into the Renaissance scenario, the Celts have DOW my English civilization (not entirely unexpected I must say). The Celts have four cities on the island of Brittany, and I have only London.

I have been building up units in preparation for her attack. The war opens as a defensive war where my melee units act as meat shields for my ranged units who kill off her invasion force. Then the first GG appears.

Spoiler :

I march the first GG north and place a citadel in her territory, effectively cutting off the southern city from reinforcements. As I organize my forces to take the southern city, she loses a lot of units to my fortified citadel augmented by a couple of composite archers.

Spoiler :

It isn't long before a second GG appears, who I use to place a second Citadel north of the first. Now I can safely bombard Dublin with two catapults and rest assured that her waves of units will die at the walls of my citadels. This one is next to her city, so it has the added bonus of killing off her annoying catapult inside the city due to damage from the Citadel after a few turns.

Spoiler :

 

[budweiser]

Yup. I find it pretty effective. I've used it twice now to invade my neighbor. The second time I did it our borders were touching, so I declared war, moved my GG in 1 tile nd then made the citadel. This drove a wedge betwenn 2 of his cities and one citadel was all I needed.

 

[Khadroth]

Half the time I use it just to steal resources from already disgruntled AIs. Then later when they invade, they invariably end up marching over it and outright killing some of their units.

 

[trystero49]

If your opponent offers you a peace treaty that is pretty agreeable because you've destroyed a huge chunk of their army/are marching towards their capital but you don't feel like your forces are co-ordinated/strong enough, then you can send in your GG into their territory (if borders are touching), steal it, make peace, and then spend 10 turns preparing to take the city. I've used this a lot on Immortal, where I make a citadel within a tile or two of an enemy city, and then I can place catapults in parts of my territory that can fire onto the city. I think it's great that the Great General can do this now, because I almost never used GA for culture bombing.

Just a couple things to remember, you can't culture bomb from water tiles anymore (makes sense, because you can't build a citadel while embarked for obvious reasons), and if you are going to build a citadel you need to have the technology that clears whatever is on the tile. One time, I couldn't build a citadel on a marsh because I hadn't researched masonry.

Also, the AI isn't very good at not standing next to a citadel with units that have less than 30 HP. Which is great, because I have no mercy for the computers.

 

[Halcyan2]

Also note that the AI can use citadels offensively as well.

When I was playing Into the Renaissance as Catherine, I started by Citadeling the Mongols to prepare for an upcoming war. While I was waiting for them to DoW me, they culture bombed me *three* times (with the Khans that automatically spawn for them).

 

[Alatar1313]

Yeah I love using citadels this way on deity. I often take one city from the AI then use the GG that spawned from the combat to press further in. I get my healing bonus from being in my own territory plus full movement bonuses from the road that already links that city to their other cities.

I also love stealing resources from city states with them (assuming its one I don't plan on allying soon). They often have resources that aren't available anywhere close to them so stealing them is pretty effective. I've used chains of multiple GGs with China to do this when I have an overabundance of GGs sitting around.

 

[Halcyan2]

I also love stealing resources from city states with them (assuming its one I don't plan on allying soon). They often have resources that aren't available anywhere close to them so stealing them is pretty effective. I've used chains of multiple GGs with China to do this when I have an overabundance of GGs sitting around.

My favorite use is taking Natural Wonders away from City States!

I wish Great Admirals could culture bomb water tiles so I can snatch GBR, Krakatoa, and sometimes Gibraltar.

 

[marvelharvey]

An important note:

When placing a citadel, so that it's touching an enemy city, make sure that they don't re-capture the city after you take it. The re-capturing will flip the city's surround 6 titles into the enemy's control, including the citadel and kill off your units.

I learned that the hard way!

 

[Halcyan2]

An important note:

When placing a citadel, so that it's touching an enemy city, make sure that they don't re-capture the city after you take it. The re-capturing will flip the city's surround 6 titles into the enemy's control, including the citadel and kill off your units.

I learned that the hard way!

Does that happen even if the tiles are already yours? (i.e. the AI settles right next to your borders, so he doesn't get his full 6 tiles). Would capturing and then losing that city cause you to actually *lose* tiles that way?

 

[Pieman]

I was playing a game recently against a friend... we ended up with 6-7 citadels in a 15 tile area with roughly 3 apiece. I had tried to use the citadels to get the edge on a crucial border city but hadn't counted on him hitting back with his own, and his citadels basically saved his border city and lead to the eventual destruction of my army.

 

[rsadiwala95]

w8.? Can u build that in enemy territory...?? didn't know tht...?

 

[smallfish]

Yeah you can build them in enemy territory. That's how you handle opponents with Great Wall:

Spoiler :

 

[krc]

Yes, you can build them in enemy territory. But you must be adjacent to your own territory.

 

[rsadiwala95]

Had i known this earlier...

 

[rev063]

Does that happen even if the tiles are already yours? (i.e. the AI settles right next to your borders, so he doesn't get his full 6 tiles). Would capturing and then losing that city cause you to actually *lose* tiles that way?

I've lost territory claimed by a citadel to a *razed* city before. When the city finally burned down, one of the tiles adjacent to both my citadel and the city ruins became neutral, which seemed like a bug to me. Oddly, the other tile also adjacent to both the citadel and the ruins remained under my control.

 

[jahsoldier]

Has anyone tried abusing China's UA with the new citadel ability? Seems like you could bag a heck of a lot of land and deny your neighbours key resources all the way through the game.

 

[dac050]

Bismark used a citadel on me to take away 2 wheat tiles. He didn't feel like garrisoning it, however, so when the war finally started, I rode a Knight into the unoccupied citadel and pillaged it. Then I marched my army right over top of it.

 

[Calouste]

Yes, you can build them in enemy territory. But you must be adjacent to your own territory.

And it must be enemy territory, you can't do it in territory of another civ you just have open borders with and are not at war with.

 

[Khan]

There were games pre G&K where I had more GAs than I knew what to do with and I used this same strategy very effectively, sometimes completely isolating an enemy city and watching the population implode for a very turns before the coup de grace (less revolt that way!). It worked so well I sometimes targeted GAs even when playing as a warmonger.

Obviously this works much better with a citidel included, but when I'm in warmonger mode, I hate giving up the general whereas the GA did me little good. The general follows you from battle to battle whereas the citadel is generally one and done.

 

[Mesix]

Apparently, the AI knows how to use citadels offensively as well. In my recent game as Babylon, Elizabeth is making good use of GG to blaze a trail to the Inca capital.

Spoiler :