When the land splits a sunder

[HazieDaVampire]

What do yous do (Around late indust or modern) when you're attacking down a thin bit of land, and it splits into two?

Do you attack down one way then the other, of do you split up your forces and go both ways? Or what?
Go a little one way, then a little the other, then a little more on the first one, then a little more on the second?

[FrustratedPoet]

Assuming the two bits of land contained roughly the same amount of resources/luxuries/cities I would split my force in two if I had enough units to do so.

If my army was smaller I would clear out one bit of land and use boats to quickly transport my victorious army to the other side when I'm done.

[HazieDaVampire]

I just had a situation like this, and i attacked one way and destroyed roads coming from the other way (The land looped round, so the AI seemed more happyer to move them around and use the roads from the way i was going!) with my airforce and ships!

[Velociryx]

The short answer is: It depends.

The longer answer is this:

In general, if you are stronger culturally, it's pretty easy to simply cordon off the smaller of the two sections with a small force fortified on a choke point, leaving it to be dealt with later, as the main body of your army free to deal the death blow to the civ you are attacking.

If you are weaker culturally, and if cities along the "short path" have their borders pressing against your new acquisitions, then you can ill afford to leave them....slash and burn, or capture and starve before proceeding down the longer path.

If the paths are about the same length....pick one and ram your army down the throat of that side, adopting a holding pattern along a choke point of the other path.

Least, that's what I'd do....

-=Vel=-

[HazieDaVampire]

Hey, could you tell me what exactly to do if the captured citys keep on flipping?
i've lost about 15 Elite Cavalry in my current war!

[Velociryx]

The exact flip formula (or at least a pretty detailed one) is 'round here somewhere, but in general, to keep cities from flipping, here are some things you can do:

1) Station one unit per pop point in the city. That can take a lot of units, so starve them (PS: artillery doesn't count).

2) Have settlers on standby, raze their city, and resettle with your own population.

3) Don't station anybody IN the cities you capture, but right outside them. Then, when they flip, take them right back. This also has the advantage of luring the AI to rush toward your (undefended) holdings. Silly AI....

-=Vel=-

[Arrian]

Like Vel says, it depends.

If I have a powerful enough military and culture, I'd go both ways at once.

If I had a powerful military but weaker culture, or an ok military, I'd move more carefully. I would concentrate my forces, pick one way to go, take one city, defend it properly, then wheel in the other direction to take one city... repeat. UNLESS there is a relatively short, direct, easy (terrain) route to the enemy's core cities. Then I might just shoot straight for that and break them.

-Arrian