Conquering Cities

[QuestGAV]

Hey guys,

While I sit here pining away for Oct 24th, I purchased CTP2 yesterday used for $4 to consume some of my time. I'm having a good time with the game and I've got a solid grasp of the mechanics and benefited from many of the strategy threads. I'm playing Cradle 1.30b at Medium level.

I've run into a roadblock trying to conquer decent sized AI cities. I get my butt handed to me in 12v12 combats with equal techs and a relatively well-built army (IMO). Is it reasonable to throw 2-3 stacks at a city to take it over at this level/time period?

My armies at the moment look something like this:
3-5 Hoplites
3-5 archers
3-5 chariots/jav cav

Am I doing something wrong or should I expect to be throwing away lots of troops per city?

[Ekmek]

catapults and bombarding units ought to help and yeah its not a simple wearing down like civ3 so you got to invest some armies into your wars

[Maquiladora]

There seems to be a period early in the game when conquest is easy. The AI cant fully garrison all its cities in time, and it hasnt built many (if any) defensive buildings.

After this period you need bombard units as E says, or be prepared to lose a lot of men.

[QuestGAV]

Sounds good, guess I just haven't gotten to a point where I have any bombard units available. I think I've gotten the hang of it a bit better now. My last few conquerings I've retreated after the hoplites died and saved most of the stack and then attacked with the next, the attrition is much more tolerable now.