how do you wipe 'em out early?

[debeest]

I'm playing a game where I feel fully in control. The AI civs are unusually backward. It's around 1200 AD and the other six (oops, five now) civs only have a total of about 25 cities, about the same as me. I feel like I have an opportunity to wipe them all out earlier than I usually do. But I'm finding it frustrating. The weapons I normally use for the major onslaught include spies, howitzers, cruisers, airplanes, etc. One thing these tools have in common is that they're unaffected by city walls. My experience attacking walled cities with normal ground units has been thoroughly discouraging. I've got Sun Tzu, but these cities mostly have barracks, so I have no veteran advantage. Thus, even a phalanx has a decent chance against any ground unit short of cavalry, and with any defensive terrain at all, even cavalry have trouble. And even with a pretty good tech lead, I've always found that some AI civ will get gunpowder before too long and spread it all around. Takes tanks to beat musketeers behind walls consistently. I can probably get ironclads pretty soon, and that should allow me to take all the coastal cities. Who's got suggestions for what to do about the inland cities?

[Smash]

Cavalry can take out muskets behind walls.Kind of expensive though.Better to use some dips and tear down the walls or bribe it all together.No walls and cav win easily.River cities can be a pain.

Engineers/pre-worked settlers and cannons or artillery will take out pretty much any city,walls or no.Slow and methodical type stuff.Flash a fort..load er up..attack.

Units must be veterans for higher difficulty levels.Or should be anyways.

[Dis]

yep don't forget about artillery. I'm not sure about cannons though. artillery can take a city when a tank can't (they have fp of 2 compared to the tank's fp of 1). It just slows things up a bit.

[DaveV]

Also, remember that naval bombardment ignores city walls, so you can use your ships (frigates and ironclads) to empty coastal cities. I usually just accept losses as the price of taking the city. Each city you take means less production for the bad guys and more for you, so it's worth losing some units.

[War4ever]

remember too...if your on the same continent, a way to speed things up is to connect your cities and especially your furthermost, to the enemies empire....

land invasions MUST include dips about 1/4 of my starting army, engineers/sets for roads/rails/instantforts/ def troops to repell firepower both inside and outside of enemy cities and those of which you need to hold once captured , and of course your heavy shock troops..which should be both mobile and standing.

reinforcements for me usually come in the wake of my agressive losses.....

DaveV states correctly, casualties are a part of war and to be good at civ from a conquest point of view, you must be able to accept casualties...sometimes at a shockingly high rate....

[Marquis de Sodaq]

DaveV has the right idea to start (frigates/ironclads). Invaluable for all coastal cities that "need new leadership."

Veteran cavalry and cannon have attack=12, sufficient to wipe out musketeers behind city walls. Artillery have attack=15, if you are that far along. If they gain a terrain bonus, just increase the number of bad boys you throw at them. Tho cannon are slow, but are cheap to build. Escort with your own musketeers (you'd use them to defend the conquest, anyway), and you have a slow-walking, but overwhelming force.

There will come a point when the AI civ is broken, as I like to call it - they no longer can rush build defenders. After you take a few cities, they will often be broke. Go for the throat!

[DaveV]

Once you have railroad and explosives, a huge cadre of engineers can lay track across grass/plains/tundra in a single turn, and your big guns can zoom along to attack the next city. Cannon become the equals of cavalry, and artillery are just about as good as howies. As Dissident mentioned, the 2 FP of artillery is huge.

Edit: for AI civs in representative governments, you can "shield starve" their cities before attacking - park units on all shield-producing squares around their city the turn before you attack. Then they can only support units with the city square (most likely one shield = one unit). That should cut down on your losses.

[Lars-E]

How about classic "early conquest strategy". I think this is not in the GL, but there's a thread about it. If those threads can be found these days

lighthouse, superionclads, magellan, etc

[debeest]

Thanks, all.

I guess I'm really talking about inland walled cities with veteran units in them. As I noted in my first post, I know I can take out the coastal cities with ships because they ignore the walls. I have Sun Tzu, so my units are all veteran; but the AI civs all have few cities, so they've all built barracks and I have no veteran advantage over them. Yes, cavalry and cannon CAN win battles against musketeers behind walls, but they attack at an 8:9 disadvantage even without defensive terrain, so they lose more than half the time. DaveV's shield-starving suggestion would be useful, but we're still at a pre-representative government stage, so they have a pretty good support cushion. We're actually still at a pre-gunpowder stage, so I'm only up against phalanxes (not even pikemen), but my crusaders have been dashing their brains out attacking 5:6 against walled phalanxes. Other than sacrificing waves of diplomats to take out walls, is there an effective approach? Should I just build my civilization for a while and wait for a more propitious time?

[DrSpike]

diplos.............instaforts and catapults..........It's all here

[La Fayette]

1) All coastal cities with ironclads.
2) The remaining inland cities with walls can be taken either with the walls (cavalry and high losses, or instant fort + cannon and slow movement)...
or after destroying the walls:
To be on the safe side, you need (x+1) dips if there are x improvements in the city. That is why I advise to send 1 dip exploring first and preferably attack cities with a low number of improvements first.
3) Never forget that if you have taken the capital and the AI's treasury is lower than 1000 gold, there is no instant move of the capital and you can bribe the remnant for cheap (keep in mind that rushbuilding 7 dips costs more than 500 gold).

[kilane royalist]

Wipe out the costal cities, and then buy the rest. As a democracy with about 50% of the cities on the board, a progressive build of Adam Smith's plus cash generating wonders will mean that when you are ready to begin the diplomatic offensive, you can trash your science improvements - which alone should net you 2000 gold, and drive for victory, leaving only the capitals.

Switch from Democracy to Republic, lay seige and starve the cities down.

[geofelt]

The key is to attack with enough force to take the city in one turn. If you do not, the barracks will heal the defenders,and you will be back where you started from. Find a place next to the city to build a fortress(pre-work settlers if necessary), and flood it with units. A few good defenders, then lots of cannon or artillery. I no longer want to take down walls. This gives me a bigger city when I take it. Plan on losing one or two cannon per defender, and one artillery per defender. If the city is on defensive terrain like a river, it will be double the losses.

[Jaguar]

Artillery/Riflemen stacks. Slow, but unstoppable.

[Scouse Gits]

The guys have said it all - my threeha'p'enth is just a refinement - throw overwhelming force at their capital - any of the above formulae work well - I prefer a horde of vet crooks (Crusaders), but the losses can be horrific. Repeat the formulae (taking capital) until they are broke - buy the rest. It is definitely easier to dip rape and then overwhelm - but I feel this destroys too much that might be captured - but that is just me...

Good luck and give them HELL!