What is the best unit for attacking cities in each era?

[cseanny]

Could do it but that seems terrible. And dangerous, although in some instances you actually never need a new tech again.

It's extremely powerful. You typically don't need anymore tech and when you do:

The massive surge in units nets you tons and tons of land and new cities much quicker which as we know translates to more happiness resources, reseaarch, production, etc. Old cities eventually get out of unhappy faces (cause you're researching again). If you're CRE throwing down a few cheap inexpensive buildings like Theatre, Collosium, and owning dye, etc lets those cities become productive much quicker.

My favorite unit would probably be the HA, follwed by the Catapult. Even on Deity it's too ezy to quickly whip 30+ units in 10-12 turns in the mid BCs and rampage. While cannons and rifles are good my games don't typically last that long.

 

[Bibor]

Disregarding diff. level and UUs, I'd say:

Shock Elephants + Catapults
Cuirassiers + pre-built Catapults/Trebuchets
Combat II Cavalry + Zeppelins
Grenadiers + Cannons
Infantry + Artillery

These combos, at least from my experience, are reliably cost-efficient. I mean, a Shock elephant has effectively no real counter until Pikes, requires no tech monopoly and is reasonably priced. And it also comes around Currency time, far better than the Chariot/axe economy crashes.

The problem with most units in this game is that you need to tech your nuts out to get them (I'm looking at you, Maceman!) and once you get them, you need like 2 more unit types just to make them survive counter-attacks.

Now, the Cuirassier + prebuilt siege is an interesting combo I often use. I haven't seen other people do this. Basically what I do is I start prepping the war really, really early. That early that there's no way in hell I can afford to upgrade *that* many Horse Archers or Elephants as I can build. So Instead I build like 15 Chariot archers, and the rest goes to siege. I usually end up with like 10 catapults or trebuchets. The advantage of this method is that I have enough siege to bring down city defences of the enemy's closest cities and lose zero Cuirassiers in the first wave. And movement speed is not an issue for the first 1-3 neighboring cities anyway. After I burn off all the siege, I just continue to produce Cuirassiers and later Cavalry.

 

[elitetroops]

Now, the Cuirassier + prebuilt siege is an interesting combo I often use. I haven't seen other people do this. Basically what I do is I start prepping the war really, really early. That early that there's no way in hell I can afford to upgrade *that* many Horse Archers or Elephants as I can build. So Instead I build like 15 Chariot archers, and the rest goes to siege. I usually end up with like 10 catapults or trebuchets. The advantage of this method is that I have enough siege to bring down city defences of the enemy's closest cities and lose zero Cuirassiers in the first wave. And movement speed is not an issue for the first 1-3 neighboring cities anyway. After I burn off all the siege, I just continue to produce Cuirassiers and later Cavalry.

If you built wealth or failgold instead of those cats and trebs, you would reach MT faster and could afford to upgrade more cuirs. I'm pretty sure that the amount of cuirs you lose on the first 1-3 cities would be worth quite a bit fewer hammers than 10 siege. And movement is a big issue if the difference is attacking on the same turn you declare, or waiting one turn for the siege to move in place. 1-3 spies would be a lot cheaper and faster to burn down defenses. But if you use those, you should probably save them for the tougher cities, like the capital.

 

[Pangaea]

Drafting can be difficult in the big cities due to a low happy gap, but in the cities sized e.g. 6-8, it's usually not a problem to draft 2 or even 3 times. If you can draft Rifles, that quickly gets you an army that the AIs at the time probably can't resist. If you also have some CR Maces to upgrade....

Having some of those become CR Infantry is pretty cool too btw. Barely ever done it because it's so late in the game, but it's great fun.

 

[Izuul]

Now, the Cuirassier + prebuilt siege is an interesting combo I often use. I haven't seen other people do this. Basically what I do is I start prepping the war really, really early. That early that there's no way in hell I can afford to upgrade *that* many Horse Archers or Elephants as I can build. So Instead I build like 15 Chariot archers, and the rest goes to siege. I usually end up with like 10 catapults or trebuchets. The advantage of this method is that I have enough siege to bring down city defences of the enemy's closest cities and lose zero Cuirassiers in the first wave. And movement speed is not an issue for the first 1-3 neighboring cities anyway. After I burn off all the siege, I just continue to produce Cuirassiers and later Cavalry.

I don't think I've ever launched a Cuir attack with siege support. First, you're talking about cats and trebs because you won't have cannons if you go straight for Cuirs. I don't think even a treb is gaining any advantage over a Cuir because they have to deal with the walls and castles plus they are weaker until some of the collateral starts stacking up. Secondly, trying to add siege to a mounted stack nullifies one of its biggest advantages, speed.

 

[Bibor]

If you built wealth or failgold instead of those cats and trebs, you would reach MT faster and could afford to upgrade more cuirs. I'm pretty sure that the amount of cuirs you lose on the first 1-3 cities would be worth quite a bit fewer hammers than 10 siege. And movement is a big issue if the difference is attacking on the same turn you declare, or waiting one turn for the siege to move in place. 1-3 spies would be a lot cheaper and faster to burn down defenses. But if you use those, you should probably save them for the tougher cities, like the capital.

Agreed that failgold is an option. I just never do that, for some reason.
About siege, I rarely actually burn them, except in dire situations when the enemy has some other sort of advantage.
My reasoning (and I do this often) is that with pre-built siege I can add rifles and cannons to the push (after all, a cuirassier rush is usually the endgame). If I'm not mistaken, upgrading 10 cats/trebs to cannons is less than 1000 gold.

 

[Lexicus]

Drafting can be difficult in the big cities due to a low happy gap, but in the cities sized e.g. 6-8, it's usually not a problem to draft 2 or even 3 times. If you can draft Rifles, that quickly gets you an army that the AIs at the time probably can't resist. If you also have some CR Maces to upgrade....

Having some of those become CR Infantry is pretty cool too btw. Barely ever done it because it's so late in the game, but it's great fun.

I always end up with a core group of CR Mech infantry who started as axes/maces

 

[rah]

Too me pre-built means I was paying maint. for them for a lot longer than I needed too.
And since I usually play tech trading off, I don't have alpha yet when I start my cuir rush so spies aren't an option. Speed is everything and every gold saved prior can speed it up when it's time.

 

[Windsor]

On drafting:

Consider sacrificing two cities which you draft to oblivion. Stack all units for HR-happy and use the cultural slider when needed.

Once the units move out the cities will of course have massive unhappiness, but its often worth it. Hopefully you have settled in such a way that other cities can take over the good tiles anyway.

By doing this you will greatly reduce the draft-anger in your core cities. And in general, don't be afraid to stack draft-anger(or whip-anger).

Also remember that the Hippodrome gives +1 per 5%:culture rather than +1 per 10% as regular theaters do.

 

[DrCron]

With the major number of happiness-resources + Forges cities usually can be drafted between 2 and 3 times. The cities should be low population so size 6 or 7, minimum what's needed for drafting. I think I've even drafted cities 4 times but then it gets really harsh.

You could read the mid- to endgame war-part of Replay #8 or the early-mid-game war of Replay #9 (see signature) , those feature Conquest with mostly draft Rifles and show some interesting tactics.

Thanks, I'll check them out. Thanks everyone for the answers on drafting, that's useful.

 

[Philobulbus]

Nukes