How to properly attack and take over an enemy city?

[Mateo1041]

Hi everyone,

I've been playing Civ IV and just began my first war. But I've found that my 15-20 units just can't take a northern city with 5 or so defenders. Plus, only one unit at a time will fight. Is there a better strategy to this? I do have catapults, but they seem really whimpy. I also have everything from horse archers to longbowmen to mounted war elephants.

Am I doing something wrong? I would think 15-20 men should be able to overtake 5 men. Is there a way to have all attack at once automatically?

Thanks,
- Matt.

[Prussia]

You probably are fresh out of Civ 3 where numbers are key and bonuses don't really apply enough to care.

Look at your unit's strengths and weaknesses (select them and scroll over the box with their name, movement, and combat, and it will show you some things like, +50% city attack.)

Also, make sure you are not attacking behind a river, as that is a major minus percentage to your combat chances.

Catapults are all you will have for a long time, and even if they are wimpy, they are all you got, so try bombarding the city defences until they are gone, then start attacking.

If you right click over the city but do not let go, it will show the odds of the battle and the percentages that apply, make sure to consult and measure this.

If the city is on a hill, it might be best to use a unit with guerilla I. Speaking of promotions, use the units with the promotions that will best suit the situation you are in.

Armies do not apply in Civ 4, so get used to each unit attacking seperately. It doesn't matter that much though, so don't worry about it too much.

I hope this helps.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Here's what I do. I'm sure others have better strategies, but my usual technique is:

Bombard the city down to 0% defense with catapults, or later on, with Frigates/Cannon.

The following turn (when my units are all able to attack, including the siege units), check to see what my success chance is with my best attack units. If the chances are high (80+%) and I have lots of those units poised to attack, I attack with those. Otherwise I'll suicide-attack with enough catapults to make my chances better.

My rule of thumb is to either bring at least twice as many attackers as there are defenders, or make sure that my attackers are vastly superior (e.g. Cossacks vs. Longbows).

[Urban Ranger]

Quantity alone doesn't mean anything, you need to look at the odds.

First of all, you need catapults. They aren't very strong, but you need them to knock down defenses. Just keep bombing away until the defense is 0.

Then you need a bunch of attackers. Depending on what the enemy has, they can be axemen (with city raider upgrade preferably), swordsmen, horse archers, elephants, or something even better.

Then you need a few defenders to prevent the enemy throwing stuff at your stack of doom.

Getting the right unit mix is part of the discovery in Civ 4.

[Martinus]

Lots of good advice there.

Some more props:

Your units do not appear to include any iron/bronze units (such as swordsmen, macemen, axemen). If you have any of these resources, build more of these units, as they are really a backbone of city-taking armies. (Longbowmen are more of defense units, and Horse Archers and War Elephants can be easily countered with Spearmen/Pikemen - I suspect that, from the fact you can't take the city, your enemy has a few of those in the defenses).

Another thing is that in Civ4 it is very vital to take the city preferrably in the first turn of your attack, and if it is not possible, in the second. This is because every attack you make grants the defenders experience points, and if you do not take them out in the first turn, they will likely get a promotion (and heal, probably back to their full health) on the next round.

As others said, it is good to reduce the defenses to 0% by bombardment on the turn(s) preceding the attack. Attacking with catapults then causes collateral damage. Also, since you have already catapults, you may try to research Engineering (depending on other techs you have, you may be only 1 tech away from it) and build trebuchets, which are vastly superior in taking cities.

[Nugog]

Originally posted by Martinus
Lots of good advice there.

Reduce the cities defenses to 0%

Use the best possible units (swords, axes or Praets)

Do not use massive numbers, use quality units (I'm sure there is a pun in there )

Do not forget to wisely use promotions, dont promote all your units the same way, play around with them and see what works best (ie dont go Cmbat 1, followed by City Raider 1 with all of your units).

Check out the defending units, use the best possible attacking units to counter those are defending.

Ensure that you will have enough full strength units to defend the city once you take it, and ensure they are defensive units!

If the defenders are wounded, try checking out the attack ratios of your less promoted units - they can be very successful against damaged units, and as they promote faster, they can help build a "killer" force.

Sounds complicated, but once your used to it, it is not that difficult. If I can do it , anyone can!

If you are having difficulty, then consider either stepping down the difficulty, or save the game, open up worldbuilder and experiment.

Once you get a handle on the new combat structure, it does make sense, and once you are good at attacking cities, do not forget to apply this knowledge to your own city placement, and choice of defending units.

If you want to take a warmongering point of view, then choose a warmongering civ, Rome is a perfect choice.

Enjoy!

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Martinus
Lots of good advice there.

You also have to look at which units the enemy has, and which units you can build. If the enemy has no mounted units, then there's little point in building spearmen (as they get double strength against them). If their cities are filled with melee units, then the axemen could be the better choice
Don't just look at the strength number, when chosing which units to build, look at their bonuses instead
A longbowman has a higher strength than axemen, but they are best suited for defense (a longbowman with two defense promotions fortified in a city on a hill can be very difficult to take out), while axemen can get city-attack promotions

[MortVader]

Good advice from you guys.
I have a few comments to clear a couple of things up, as I see it:

The Guerilla I promotion works only for hill defence, not hill attack, so it will be no good for offensive purposes. (post#2)

Another way to check your success odds vs an enemy army is to hold down ALT while pointing the mouse at the unit(s).

Trebuchets only apply to the Warlords expansion, so unless you are playing this one, you'll have to do with catapults, until you can build canons and later on artillery. (post#5)

[Prussia]

In warlords there was something about it working for hill combat. That's what I'm playing now, so maybe I got confused.

[Mateo1041]

Thanks so much for your insight, everyone. That does help. I've played a few Civ III games, but most of my experience is with Civ I quite a few years ago. So far I absolutely love Civ IV with the exception of my city takeover struggles.

I am able to build swordsmen and axemen, so will try that. I had been looking at the attack strength of the war elephants (8), so that's why I built more of those. They seemed to be better due to their superior attack strength.

Ok, so catapults for destroying defenses and fortifications. Then attack with swordsmen since I'm able to produce those. I'm not looking forward to seeing which attacking units match the defending units best for damage. Sounds awfully complicated.

Can I attack any of their defending units, or only the currently active one? How do I select which defending unit to attack?

FYI, email notification must not work. I have it checked, but never received any reply emails.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Mateo1041
Can I attack any of their defending units, or only the currently active one? How do I select which defending unit to attack?

You don't.

The computer picks the defender with the best odds against your current attacker. Thus, if you attack with a mounted unit, and the defender has a spearman, it will be used. If you attack with a melee unit, and the defender has an axeman, it will likely be used. Etc.

[gradea]

Its important to have dedicated specialist units. Bombard units with maxed Collateral damage, city takers with City Raider maxed, and general attack/stack defense units with Strength bonuses. A medic or two doesn't hurt either.

[Prussia]

to above post.

Especially if you have large armies such as yours.

[Stuie]

Originally posted by Prussia
In warlords there was something about it working for hill combat. That's what I'm playing now, so maybe I got confused.

Guerilla III gives +25% for attacking a unit on a hill.

To the rest of the thread: Combined arms

[Brael]

Like others said, bombard the city defenses to 0, make sure you aren't attacking across a river (unless you're using units with amphibious, then it would be to your advantage since counterattacks would be harder for the enemy), use siege units collateral damage... chances are you're going to lose the siege unit in the process but you do alot of damage and with unit costs, you're much better off losing a level 1/2 caapult than a level 4 swordsman in an attack. A catapult that takes .5 str off each defender will give you a huge boost for that round.

Finally, make sure to use promotions, if you only have one promotion available for city attackers and the enemy is using mainly longbows or archers you would be better off taking cover than city raider (+25% vs archery vs +20% when taking cities), though if you have 2 promotions it wouldn't really matter since city raider 2 is +25, unless you wanted to go shock/cover or something.

In my games I do the majority of my warmongering in the middle ages since I usually play japan. I'll do armies of 2 Knights (with medic 1 on some and sentry on others), 8 Samurai (mostly city raider but some shock/cover units), 4 Trebuchets with Barrage 1, and 2 Pikemen with either Combat 2 or Formation depending on my civics. So my standard army ends up looking like (stuff in parentheses depends on if i'm using a +2 exp civic)

Knight - Combat 1, Medic 1
Knight - Flanking 1, Sentry
Samurai - Combat 1, City Raider 1, (City Raider 2)
Samurai - Combat 1, City Raider 1, (City Raider 2)
Samurai - Combat 1, City Raider 1, (City Raider 2)
Samurai - Combat 1, City Raider 1, (City Raider 2)
Samurai - Combat 1, Shock, (Cover)
Samurai - Combat 1, Shock, (Cover)
Samurai - Combat 1, Cover, (Shock)
Samurai - Combat 1, Cover, (Shock)
Trebuchet - Barrage 1, (Accuracy)
Trebuchet - Barrage 1, (Accuracy)
Trebuchet - Barrage 1, (Barrage 2)
Trebuchet - Barrage 1, (Barrage 2)
Pikeman - Combat 1, Combat 2, (Formation)
Pikeman - Combat 1, Combat 2, (Formation)

Then I make anywhere from 1-8 armies like this and move them around replenishing lost units as needed. It's not really the most efficent army I could put out but it definatley gets the job done, atleast on Prince. Upkeeps for those sorts of armies would be brutal on higher levels I'm sure.