When do I heal my units in a city attack?

[stormwriter]

I've been storming opponent cities lately. I artillery them, and on the next turn, they usually retaliate and i receive some collateral damage. Some of my units get pretty damaged, and i haven't taken the city yet. So, my units are weak - do i continue taking the city, or wait and heal them? If i do, that gives the city time to heal itself and reinforce.

[]LoL[Harm]

I would select your entire stack and then check the odds by hovering over the city with the Alt key held down. This will give you a general sense of the odds. If you're damaged and still have good odds then go for it. Otherwise it may be better to back off onto some defensable ground (forested hills) and sit for a spell, reinforce, heal up and get more artillery ready for another assault.

[Brutus66]

Well said.
Try to attack with overwhelming force. If defenders survive the first attack, they might get promotions and be harder to kill next time.

[khearn]

Also, split your force into multiple stacks so they aren't as vulnerable to collateral damage. As they used to tell us in the Army, "Spread out! One grenade would get you all!"

Additionally, by spreading out you deny the city the use of more tiles, since a city can't work a tile occupied by a hostile unit.

[Footie Mad]

If you feel you can take the city by losing a couple of units the best option would be to take the city and heal inside it, but if you can't and need reinforcements and time to heal it might be a good idea to wait or even move away. Finding a forest square nearby will give defensive cover, time to heal and wait for the reinforcements.

[DeepO]

save your promotions. Generally, you know in advance which units will only be used for city raiding. So leave their promotions untaken, and march your units into enemy land. These promotions can be taken in the same turn as attacking: they don't use movement points.

You will get attacked, but by using a promotion you will regain half of your lost health. If you can wait with 2 promotions, you will get near full health.

Waiting with promotions is risky, though: don't do this with your defenders, promote them asap so their bonusses help protect the rest of your stack. Only city raider is an obvious choice for waiting: you won't get any bonus on defense, which means that waiting before taking the promotion is not going to cost you anything. The first time a raider attacks is vs a city... that's the moment it must have its promotion, never sooner.

DeepO

[stormwriter]

Wait a sec... giving them a promotion gives them some health back? ANY of the promotions give that bonus? That seems pretty cool.

[khumak]

Originally posted by DeepO
save your promotions.



The first time a raider attacks is vs a city... that's the moment it must have its promotion, never sooner.

DeepO

Hmm, that's a very interesting idea. I could definitely see this being true for the city attack promotions but what about when you already have all of those and are considering first strike promotions, strength promotions or gunpowder promotions? From what I've noticed my attacking units that have first strike maxed rarely take much damage and frequently can get in 2 attacks per round without taking any damage at all. Plus I generally send 1 "garrison unit" with the medic promotion with all of my attacking stacks so that they can quickly heal any damage they take.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by khumak


Hmm, that's a very interesting idea. I could definitely see this being true for the city attack promotions but what about when you already have all of those and are considering first strike promotions, strength promotions or gunpowder promotions? From what I've noticed my attacking units that have first strike maxed rarely take much damage and frequently can get in 2 attacks per round without taking any damage at all. Plus I generally send 1 "garrison unit" with the medic promotion with all of my attacking stacks so that they can quickly heal any damage they take.

It all depend on the use of the unit.

- Defenders need defensive promotion (fs, combat, type-specific, terrain specific) asap. They are there to protect your attack force, and in extremis are replaceable. Your city raiders are not.

- pillagers are a bit like defenders, but their promotions can be saved: risky, but if succesful a saved promotion might mean another town pillaged.

- mobile defensive units (attacking threats to your stacks) can be promoted, or can be saved. The advantage of waiting is that you can choice whenever an attack is needed. Spears? Go for pinch. Archers? Cover. The disadvantage is of course that if the enemy gets through your defenders, it will eat the mobile defenses as well.

in general: if you can afford to wait, do so. Don't be to bold, though, those promotions are important and waiting in the wrong situation is asking to get killed.

DeepO