Attacking a city without catapults

[Adrian Hon]

I know it's a bad idea, I just want someone to tell me not to try

I'm in a big Pitboss game at the moment and am currently destroying my nearby AI opponent. The first city was easy to take - only three defenders, 20% culture bonus, no land bonus. The one remaining city, their capital, however, has 60% culture bonus, 25% hills bonus with 2 axemen, 3 archers and 1 spearman. Combat odds tells me that my stack of 13 swords and archers (with various upgrades) has no more than 10% chance of winning any battle.

I've decided not to be an idiot and suicide all my units, but then the question becomes, what do I do now? I'm still at least 15-20 turns from Catapults, and I have a big army sitting on their doorstep draining my money. I'm not going to disband all of them, since many have useful upgrades, but what should I do? Pillage everything around? Just surround the place with a small garrison of fortified units and wait for the cats?

It's irritating me for no good reason, since I'm under very little threat from them. Still, this particular city is really annoying me, because it's sitting on some really lovely land and I would love to just wipe them out.

[Adrian Hon]

I just came up with a much better idea - use the spare units to replace my crappy warriors and archers that are currently defending my cities.

But on a broader note, was I foolish to attempt a pre-catapult war? It seems like there's basically no way to take a city with the level of defences I've described without them.

[rah]

2 ideas.
1. Park on any critical resource and see if that baits a few units out of the city. If he strips down to archers, 10 swords should be able to take them out.

2. Make a peace treaty. IF at peace the ai sometimes will switch to settlers and need escorts. Or will send some units out exploring. As long as you're at war and parked next to his city, all the AI is going to do is build more units there.

[Adrian Hon]

It's true that the AI does have a settler holed up in there... but not necessarily much space for it to go. Nice ideas though, will probably try the latter.

[rah]

Offer open borders, he may send them across your land in search.

I like to attack as many cities as possible in the first few turns of war to avoid that build up. Sometimes it's best to go after their cap first. (if near enough to a border) Because by the time you cream the border cities, the AI has had too much time to build extra defenders in the cap.

[Arrian]

Attacking a hill capital w/o catapults is, nearly every time, stupid.

When it's not stupid:

1) Massive tech advantage (Tanks v Longbows)
2) The garrison is only ~2 units. If it's just 2 archers up there, they can be dislodged by softening with fastmovers and then hitting with city raider types, and the casualties won't be hideous. This is usually an early rush situation.

The one remaining city, their capital, however, has 60% culture bonus, 25% hills bonus with 2 axemen, 3 archers and 1 spearman. Combat odds tells me that my stack of 13 swords and archers (with various upgrades) has no more than 10% chance of winning any battle.

This is not one of those situations, and thus you have indeed selected "I am not an idiot."

Fortify some units on the opponent's most productive (hammers) land tiles, to cut down on the number of extra units they can build before you show up with catapults. Do this with axemen, given the unit mix the enemy has. One per tile (they should be forests & hills... if there is something like a cow pasture or iron/copper on flat ground, that I'd pillage). Pull the rest of your army back and wait for 'pults.

-Arrian

[Adrian Hon]

Thanks for the advice everyone! I ended up taking peace, mostly to save me some money so I can speed up the cat research. I'm going to wait and see if any of the AI's units venture out.

The annoying part of this (and reason why I really want the city) this is that it's not even possible for me to starve the capital out - it has *three* clams (or fish, or something), each producing four food. There's no chance of me pillaging the fishing boats either. Ah well... time to tend the domestic side I suppose.

[binTravkin]

Attacking a hill capital w/o catapults is, nearly every time, stupid.

No it's not as long as we're talking about AI.

All you need is stronger units and more of them than the enemy.
I use horse archers and have no problem unless a spearman appears, whereas I routinely lose two of HAs and defeat the spear with the third.
After all if you're attacking you must be outnumbering (or heavily outteching).

Also, when fighting using mobile forces (2 movement) catapults become somewhat cumbersome to manage - it's then useful to scout and plunder ahead and come back once defenses have been bombarded down and/or some collateral damage done.

[Arrian]

Like I said,

When it's not stupid:

1) Massive tech advantage (Tanks v Longbows)
2) The garrison is [small].

I probably overstated the type of tech advantage you need. But otherwise it stands.

If the garrison is small and you have a large force, you can go throw your units up that hill and accept the loss of several, knowing they will (probably) soften the defenders some and allow your second wave to take the city. Result: acceptable losses.

The garrison here was neither technologically inferior nor tiny in comparison to the player's invasion force.

-Arrian

[AshenPlanet]

.

2 axemen = 5 + 110% = 10.5 * 2 = 21, 3 archers = 3 + 185% = 8.55 * 3 = 25.65, and 1 spearman = 4 + 110% = 8.4 for a grand total defense of 55 strength.

Bring 110 strength of units (18 swords), and that city is yours.

.

[wodan11]

Starting the war in the first place was a good idea. You got at least one city, and more importantly, you knocked the AI back a couple of pegs. Make peace, then in 20 turns when you have a couple of cats, declare again and go get the capitol.

Even if you weren't so close to getting cats, it would still have been a good idea. Otherwise, all the other cities would have ~50% defenses by that time, too.

In other words, you have two easy wars, instead of one big difficult war.

Wodan

[rah]

And when you come back there will be Longbowmem so bring lots of cats.

[binTravkin]

Yeah, got the situation too last time when I decided to be generous enough to give the ai some peace..

[rah]

Yeah, sometimes the AI doesn't upgrade until necessity.
Parked two squares away with your stack, and see only macemen in the city. Declare war move one space next to the city, and the next turn it's all rifleman.

I try to trade them something to deplete their money the turn before I declare, but it's not always effective.

Annoying.

[Arrian]

Yeah, because the AI gets massive discounts on upgrades. It costs them a pittance to upgrade maces to rifles, even on fairly low levels.

-Arrian