Why is it so hard to take cities?

[Cade McCaslin]

I have been playing as persia, and am loving the game in general. Epic speed, classical era, map of the middle east. I find that taking cities is considerably harder in this mod, which im ok with. Im not ok with cities being impossible to take. Mecca was situated on a hill with walls and a archer as garrison, and even with 3 catapults hitting it every turn, it took less damage than it healed, and was able to two turn kill the catapults without the help of additional units. How is it even possible to go for a domination victory if cities are invincible?

 

[randomnub]

I wouldn't feel comfortable attacking a (Tradition? Harun usually picks that, and Justice helps garrisons) capital on a hills with walls with 'only' 3 catapults; if it looks like healing too quick it's also possible he's working the Defense process unlocked at Military Theory. A screenshot of your situation would help answer here but you should first surround such a tough nut with melee units, that prevents city healing and gives a +20% CS to the sieging side. Hit the city with melee attacks every few turns to deal with the garrison, if it takes damage it deals less damage when firing, or has to stop to heal.

It's also well possible you're past the time you can effectively siege such a city (if you're using Shock Immortals, consider bringing Drill Swordmen, just don't wait until Pikemen because he'll probably field Cames by then), sometime you need a tech advantage before you can take enemy capitals that worked on improving their defense.

 

[azum4roll]

You can just surround the city with Immortals and fortify them all, attacking the city whenever one is at full health. Give them Drill as well.

 

[Moi Magnus]

I have been playing as persia, and am loving the game in general. Epic speed, classical era, map of the middle east. I find that taking cities is considerably harder in this mod, which im ok with. Im not ok with cities being impossible to take. Mecca was situated on a hill with walls and a archer as garrison, and even with 3 catapults hitting it every turn, it took less damage than it healed, and was able to two turn kill the catapults without the help of additional units. How is it even possible to go for a domination victory if cities are invincible?

Cities are far from being invincible. However, catapults are not the good way to proceed.
Unless unique units involved, at least half of your invasion army should be melee units, the other half should be split between siege, ranged and maybe one high level scout.

To quickly take a city, you need to circle it with 6 units to "blockade it", preferably melee since they have more defense (and you will need naval units against coastal cities). It gives -20% to city strength and prevent city hit points regeneration.

Cities without wall/castle/... don't need that much effort, so checking your ennemy tech level is quite important before launching an attack.

If you don't have enough units to circle it, the first priority is to take control of the field by killing the ennemy army, constantly protect your catapults to make sure they can't be attacked, and use melee units with drill to finish off the garnison and help to capture. And make sure to retreat before they die. Archer in garnison mostly force you to use melee units to attack and kill it because your catapult will not survive the attrition war.

Blitz attack with only few units against a well protected city (for example with walls in classical era) is not something that can happens.

 

[tu_79]

Guide for taking cities :

1 Remove nearby enemy units.
2 Surround the city with durable units (melee, mostly).
3 Hit the city with siege, naval ranged, and ranged.
4 If your melee are 100% health, hit the city with melee units too, preferably those with siege promotions first, but the others too, as long as the combat tooltip predicts more than 50% wounds.

In case the city has incredibly high defense (might happen), go for crippling wars. Pillage, capture workers, trade routes, kill units. Chances are that they will crumble out of unhappiness.