What are the best/fastest early game tactics for taking cities

[Osu]

I just moved up to immortal and am having difficulty. For those of you who often go for domination victory, what is the best way to take out enemy cities quickly? It seems like sieging up cities takes way too long. Any good tips?

[gimmethegepgun]

First few constructions should be Slingers, which should be upgraded with gold, and an extra Warrior. 3 Archers and 2 Warriors can take out pretty much anything in the early game, and whittle down cities so you can take them. Add more, better units when you can, like Heavy Chariots or Horsemen. And if your enemies are coastal get a Galley so you can siege them and attack from another direction.

[Osu]

What's better against walled cities, towers or battering rams?

[gimmethegepgun]

Both. Their effects stack, though remember that the ram won't work on medieval walls.
However, I personally don't find the siege tower to be very useful unless you have a large tech advantage already because your ranged units won't damage the city center unless the walls are low, and they don't work with cavalry any more.

[plaguepenguin]

After the AI civ you're attacking starts getting walls, I tend to build catapults, instead of or in addition to rams and towers. Even if less immediately useful than rams (and they aren't usually less immediately useful, but they are vulnerable to ranged attacks from the city, so it can be dicey), catapults have a much stronger upgrade path, and some of their promotions are quite nice. By the mid-game you will be dependent on the siege artillery upgrade line as your only available means to get past walls, so might as well start getting them those juicy promotions by employing them in your early wars.

[darKStar]

if your unlucky and you don't have a nearby neighbour, you can always send a settler with your army, then settle when you take your first city so loyalty doesn't become a problem. also try not to let your units die, promotions can make a big difference and units are much more expensive to buy than to upgrade.

[Osu]

I managed to clear my continent of 3 civs using these tactics. Now to go find the others.

Battering rams seem to help a lot. Siege towers, on the other hand, don't seem to do anything at all. You don't actually do anything with the towers other than attaching them to a melee unit, right?

[rcuajunco]

step 1 insure you have close neighbors by having lots of rivals or putting in more rivals than recommended for size of map u made
step 2 pick a good early game agro civ such as gilgamesh for war cart spam
step 3 build 6 slingers, 1-2 battering rams, op early game unit of ur civ about 2-4
step 4 unless city has a wonder u want you probably should pillage instead of capturing it, u need gold to upgrade units and maintaining large military, you don't need more cities.
step 5 complain you have to give orders for 30-70 units a turn.

[Osu]

My first domination game on King level was aztecs. They are IMO the best early agro civ. Turning enemy units into builders!!! So OP.

[Osu]

step 6: don't forget to get catapults early and level them up. those archers and crossbowmen you rely on in the early game become borderline useless late game. Catapults, on the other hand, upgrade to arty, which is your most important unit in the late game. Near the end of my last game, I had a group of 3 rocket artillery armies reducing enemy city defenses to rubble in 1 turn.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Osu:

Siege towers, on the other hand, don't seem to do anything at all. You don't actually do anything with the towers other than attaching them to a melee unit, right?

So, when you attack a city with walls, both the walls and the city center are attacked for the same amount of damage, using the same equations as unit combat, but the damage to the city center is reduced by the percentage of wall remaining (and the damage to the wall is reduced by 85% if a melee range unit, 50% if a non-siege ranged unit). What the siege tower does is makes it so that melee and anticav units will deal full damage to the city center regardless of wall percentage (they still have to deal with the combat strength bonus from the walls though). The battering ram likewise makes it so that melee and anticav units deal full damage to the wall instead of 15%.

[Dray Prescot]

For a very early War of Conquest, try playing Trajan (of Rome) to get their early All Roads lead to Rome ability, build your first new City close to a City State that you can become the Sovereign of, i.e. get 3 Envoys in (if you are the 1st Civ to meet them you get one Envoy, then do a quest for them such as build a Road to them plus put your first Envoy in them or an Envoy from a Tribal Village award), and Levy their military units, and attack the nearest Civ while it still does not have Ancient Walls. Their Levied units plus your own Archers, by that point your Slingers should have been promoted to Archers, should be able to conquer that Civ.

You need ROADS to move your military units, i.e. NEW (sometimes higher tech) Units as you build them, to the military front fast enough (bad terrain can really slow you down without Roads). As soon as you conquer an Enemy City, particularly the first City, from that Enemy Civ, you get an INSTANT Road connecting all the way back to ROME (I think that the distance limit is 30 tiles for the (Roman) Road). With GOOD Roads you can go on a War of Conquest very early in the game and keep your Archers and Ram(s) (you only need 1 or 2 of them) moving to the front quickly, and then switching to your next Victim quickly (just build another new City near your NEXT Target to get the Road to them). Also try to get an early Great GENERAL (FORGET Great Prophets points, go for the General Points), so also try to get an early ENCAMPMENT for the General Points plus more Battle Experience for units built there.

Do NOT WASTE any Resources or Time on Religion, Holy Site, Buildings, etc. They do not help your War of Conquest. You can use a conquered Religion to keep anyone else from getting a Religious Victory, while you go for a different Victory Condition.

Very early in the game, the Road network has not yet been built up by the the various Trade Routes, so that slows down War(s) of Conquest by ALL other Civs considerably. This makes Trajan's Roads a BIG advantage early in the game. Plus Trajan get the Roman LEGION, a better version of the Swordsman. Trajan also gets a free Monument in every City, a nice early boost to Culture for each City, and useful for getting faster to those important Civics, i.e. better governments for war fighting.

Roman Roads, better/faster governments and Civics/Policies, Levied City State Units (possibly/hopefully including some Archers, at least by the time you Levy them the 2nd time), an encampment (or 2 encampments) with a barracks or target range, Roman Legions and the Roman Forts that Rome can build, (Roman built) Archers, a Great General, a battering Ram (you will NOT need it before they get Ancient Walls built)(eventually catapults), and eventually some Horse type units, and you are off to conquer several of your closest neighboring Civs. You can have your first Civ conquered around 1000 BC, usually before they even have City (Ancient) Walls.

I had China conquered with just 3 Levied Warriors and 4 Archers by 925 BC turn 79 before they even had Ancient Walls. I had captured two Cities and a Settler unit (used for the Roman City to the SE). Shangai would revolt to me in the future, which saved me from the Grievance penalty for KILLING a Civ.

I had the Ottomans (6 of 7 Cities) conquered by Turn 168, with France soon to follow (by turn 203). This example is from a GS Civ 6 game about 2 years ago. Egypt could be an very easy next target (I have them surrounded on three sides), although they were allied to me at the time.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2002787053

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2002801765

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2002803648

[Exemplar]

Have you tried a 2 encampment opening on immortal? Most civs work with it, and you get decent eurekas toward niter units if you do them in the right order. Also it's fun because it's not holy site or campus opening.

would include early walls, just figure early masonry and prioritize them. then maybe have a settler ready when you get military engineering to make sure you have niter.

[Exemplar]

Originally posted by Exemplar:

Have you tried a 2 encampment opening on immortal? Most civs work with it, and you get decent eurekas toward niter units if you do them in the right order. Also it's fun because it's not holy site or campus opening.

would include early walls, just figure early masonry and prioritize them. then maybe have a settler ready when you get military engineering to make sure you have niter.

I did this today with ottomans for fun. I hit my stride with 3x and 4x promoted jannies just a little late, after 500ad, and will have bombards soon with the niter, money and mercenaries civic in about 5 turns. Once I clear my continent of Saladin and Roosevelt, not much will stop me.