How to take those annoying "1 tile island" cities - and another related trick

[Phalanx]

Maybe Im wrong, but everyone seems to think that you have to wait for marines to be able to attack these cities! You *DONT*.

Nothing before marines can attack right off a transport - its true - but the key word here is attack. If the city is empty then you can just stroll a unit right in off a coracle (or whatever).

So, the question is how to empty the city. Since you cant do shore bombardment with anything before a battleship and waiting for a battleship is as bad as waiting for marines there has to be a better way! This is the other trick mentioned in the topic.

***All units can attack into squares that they cant move into.*** This includes fire triremes attacking cities as well as tanks attacking units on mountains. If they win the attack then they dont move into the square as usual - they just stay put - but the enemy units are destroyed.

This means that you can attack a 1 tile island city with a stack of fire triremes and empty the city then walk in a hoplite off a coracle and take it. Easy.

Of course, its trickier if you allow the enemy enough time to put tanks into the city. Pretty much no stack of ships (including battleships - i tried) will destroy 5 fortified tanks in a city and believe me, marines are useless. In cases like this there is just no substitute for *many* stealth bombers

[lago]

A neighboring civ was down to a single 1-tile city and it was annoying the hell out of me. I built 12 Ironclads and rammed it. It was ugly...only 6 of the Ironclads survived, but they took out all the defenders.

[jkadabomb]

This would seem like a bug to me. I mean comeon if tanks cant move on mountains how can they launch an attack aggainst something on a mountain?

[Moose_Flyer]

quote: Originally posted by Phalanx on 12-31-2000 08:48 PM Of course, its trickier if you allow the enemy enough time to put tanks into the city. Pretty much no stack of ships (including battleships - i tried) will destroy 5 fortified tanks in a city and believe me, marines are useless. In cases like this there is just no substitute for *many* stealth bombers

You'd be surprised at how effective the new advanced sea units are in CTP-II. I played a game which was riddled with single tile island fortresses guarded by multiple tanks, artillery, machine gunners etc. I had an assault team of 1 destroyer, 1 dreadnaught, and 1 nuclear submarine (I was just playing around) they emptied 2 cities before I lost the destroyer, 1 more city before I lost the sub and the damaged dreadnaught partially emptied a 4th before he died. I did the same thing with a team of 3 Krakens. They made short work of the tanks... that is until I hit a city with the battlements improvement and 4 tanks... OUCH! Until then I thought the team was near invincible!