We will assimilate you, resistance is futile.
No really, here is something I discovered accidentally. You don't need troops to put down the resistance. What you say? Even though resisters are resisting, they still have a chance to change to your culture, and when they do they aren't resisting anymore. Not always practical but after I found this I tend to let them resist and just use the not resisting citizens. After all, resisters are effectively nonexistant, they don't produce, they don't eat therefore they don't starve. I'd rather keep a troop withing striking distance to retake the city if it flips than garrison and risk losing troops while putting down resistance. But that has it's own problems at times, like a sneaky enemy cavarly grabbing the city back and making a crack to exploit in the front.

No really, here is something I discovered accidentally. You don't need troops to put down the resistance. What you say? Even though resisters are resisting, they still have a chance to change to your culture, and when they do they aren't resisting anymore. Not always practical but after I found this I tend to let them resist and just use the not resisting citizens. After all, resisters are effectively nonexistant, they don't produce, they don't eat therefore they don't starve. I'd rather keep a troop withing striking distance to retake the city if it flips than garrison and risk losing troops while putting down resistance. But that has it's own problems at times, like a sneaky enemy cavarly grabbing the city back and making a crack to exploit in the front.