Problem taking cities

[Artifex]

When I declare war early in the game against any civs the cities will be level 3 or 2, then after war it will go to pop 1 every time.

The AI does this so the city is destroyed when I win the battles.

I almost never take cities early, every time my forces close with the ai cities the ai will pop rush down to 1 pop.

What am I doing wrong?

I play emperor level, maybe on lower levels this isn't a big deal. But this is a big deal early in the game when you commit resources to build up archers instead of settlers. I need those cities intact to compensate for my expansion hit. Or I'll be seriously behind.

[minke19104]

hmm sign ROP, and place enough troops on their every cities..

I dunno, dont let them poprush? Or wait till they swtcih to Republic/Monarchy

[Artifex]

Which leads me to another question. How bad of a diplomatic penalty is it for you to sneak attack while in an enemies territory?

Is it worth it?

Is the diplomatic penalty devastating?

I have never played that way since I thought that basically killed any trading/diplomacy options for the rest of the game.

[Arrian]

It hurts you... but not as badly as a RoP-rape hurts you.

The best defense against the AI poprushing every city down to size 1 is to use fast attackers to overrun them before they can manage it.

Or attack religious civs... they tend to get temples up and running pretty quickly, so you can often keep size 1 cities of theirs.

-Arrian

[Artifex]

So archer rushing is out unless you want to sneak attack? I just read where sneak attacks and RoP rapes don't carry a bad enough penalty and that its such an effective strategy that its viewed by many forum members as a cheap exploit? true?

Funny I never thought of trying it as much as I play Civ III. Maybe thats the sure fire easy way to win on emperor every time. I got that impression from the thread I read in the archives.

If so, has the penalty been stiffened in recent patches?

[minke19104]

Check out badams thread at CFC... There's a link from here somewhere about attitudes. ROP Rape hurts you pretty bad in my games..

[Arrian]

ROP rape is cheap. I've done it once - in the original "game of ultimate power" actually - but that was well past the point of when the game was decided. I just wanted to speed things up. It didn't change the outcome. I haven't used it since.

Archer rushing works, but you gotta go after the capitol, cities with culture, and/or cities size 3 or bigger. Try following their capitol around. Their palace puts out culture, and so long as a city has 1 culture point, it won't be autorazed.

-Arrian

[Konquest02]

And you can't autoraze the capital, so you end up by getting more cities this way...

--Kon--

[Ephesos]

Just so you know, that's a problem on the lower difficulties too. In a warlord game, I missed capturing three cities this way. However, the capitol thing does work.

In all seriousness though, fast attackers will win the day. Get hordes of horsemen. This works particularly well for the Iroquois, since that's their UU.

Other than that, simply try to hit all at once. RoP violations will definitely hurt you later, so just rush in from the border, avoiding attacking penalties (across rivers, defender-garrisoned mountains, etc.) and you should be fine.

Hopefully you'll soon be able to stop doing this .

[Theseus]

ROP rape is bad.

Sneak attacks are OK, although you do take a hit.

The Arrian Deception is good... very good.

[RGBVideo]

Movement-2 units are vital in the early times, in the later times, try getting a tech-lead.

[RGBVideo]

In higher difficulties, tech-lead is almost impossible, though. Try diplomacy.

[badams52]

Artifex, you can wait with units nearby till the city grows to size 2 (I've done this before) or you can play chase the capitol. You could also have a few settlers at the ready to build cities for the ones you auto-raze. I do this most of the time (especially for jungle cities) and this also allows me to dictate my city placement.

[Konquest02]

When rebuilding cities in the jungle, try not to settle on the exact location of the AI city. That way, you'll save valuable worker time as the jungle under the cities is automatically chopped. I try to do this unless valuable resources are nearby.

--Kon--

[Theseus]

On the other hand, AI city placement is an excellent indicator of future resources.