Recipe for city conquest

[godochaos]

· Build up forces, 10 or so melee/assault/cav with 4-6 catapults/cannon/artly
+ or – depending on situation. 2-3 Cavalry for exploitation. You should have multiple units at reserve at home in case of trouble.

· Stage units at border, then declare war

· Move into position around city, taking care to cut the city off from reinforcements. Make sure that if the city has any cats or cannon that you don’t have big stacks. Cavalry exploitation force of mounted units penetrates beyond city and cuts roads, and attacks strategic resources like iron, horses etc. Use hills, forest and rivers to your advantage when considering how he will counter attack.

· Reduce defenses of city to 0%, do this by using the bombard ability of the cats and cannons. This % will show as a white % below the city. DO NOT ATTACK WITH REGULAR UNITS UNTIL THE CITIES DEFENSE ARE REDUCED AND THE DEFENDERS WEAKEND BY COLLATERAL DAMAGE.

· Cause collateral damage. When the defenses are at 0% then have the cats or cannons cause collateral damage by attacking the city directly. This will require the sacrifice of some of these units. I limit this step if the city is not defended by a lot of units like say 1-3.

· Assault the city, using the heavy melee or gunpowder or tank types assault the now 0% and collateral damaged city.

This recipe is general in nature and requires adaptation to the specific circumstances.

good luck!

 

[GenocideBringer]

wont bringing along other units with your artillery stop them from being sacrificed?

 

[oxonian2001]

This isn't CivIII. Arty units have two attack options: bombard and direct attack. Bombard is effective only at reducing city defenses; it has no effect on units. Direct attack works just like an attack with any other unit: the arty moves into the enemy square, and the two duke it out until one is destroyed. Your arty can suffer damage or even die. Godochaos was warning us to expect to suffer heavy arty casualties during the direct-attack phase.

 

[quail]

I tend to skip the collateral damage if my regular units can kill the defenders themselves. If you run low on artillery then your whole attack grinds to a halt while you build some more.

 

[godochaos]

What oxonian said is correct.

To elaborate on that point, If the enemy has 10 units defending the city, then its worth while for me to send in 4 catapults in direct attact to their deaths before I launch the final assault. What will happen is each cat will cause minor to light damage to all or most of the 10 units. When done 2-6 times it can cause horrible attrition. Then I send in the assault troops and then tend to take the city pretty readily with modest casualties. Even if the enemy has better troops it is possible to be successful by sacrificing 5 or so cats or cannons/artly.
But on the other hand if the city is defended by 3 units then maybe just use 1-2 or even no cats for direct assault.

If anyone can ad any specific tactics for breaking a city please let me know. I want to add that I don't know to much about bombers and fighters yet, but I assume they are like regular artly.

Another point, for coastal cities you can use frigates/destroyers etc for the bombard that reduces the % on city defences.

 

[Mujadaddy]

I would only add this "formula" ---

Bring FOUR units for EVERY defender in a city --
1. One "Strong Attacker" (like a swordsman)
2. A second "Strong Attacker"
3. One "Skirmisher" (cheaply mass-produced unit, like an Archer)
4. One "Artillery Piece" (Catapults in early game)

Then you can operate correctly, according to the Bombard, Bombard, Bombard, then Attack.

NOTE 1: The above numbers are correct, ie, you should have FOUR dots for every ONE enemy dot in the city you're attacking.

NOTE 2: If you have MORE THAN ONE CITY to take in the WHOLE CAMPAIGN, you should have TWO of the above groups READY BEFORE YOU declare war---ALWAYS have an extra Attack Group!! This is IN ADDITION to having reinforcements and defenders ready for your new prize.