How to take a city?

[nohelpforu]

I keep attacking this city but it isnt enough, killed the army but region isnt mine yet. Do I have to seige first?

[Mobster_Lobster]

You only need to click on the city itself and is yours. Make sure you click on the actual city as just defeating an army that comes out of the city doesn't matter. You must directly attack the city.

[bytestream]

And make sure that you don't just siege it.

[hottwiz]

what i did was seige it first then attack (on the same turn) seemed to work. but unless you have a good army or dont mind lossing troops i dont recommend attacking right way because the fortifaction give 'armor'/health to the ememy makying them harder to kill

[nohelpforu]

Well on normal difficulty I just attack a city that had 1 level 12 army, some militia, and a hero, and level 100 fortifications, and took it out with an army of 4 demons and a hero, demons all level 1 without upgrades.

My problem and the reason I asked was because the city didnt take when I finished the attack. But I guess the enemy hero was only critical so it needs 2 attacks or something.

[Shrinkshooter]

Seiging a city decreases the city defense (which is seen as a bonus to enemies' health pools if you fight them at the city) and once that defense is gone, it starts damaging the HP pools of the garrison.

If the AI refuses to engage you while you're seiging, just wait until the city defense is 0 and the garrison unit count is 0. Once that's done, you can attack and claim the city instantly by clicking on it.

You can choose to take it for yourself or you can burn it down, but you need to wait a number of turns for the happiness to return to stable levels before you can raze it. If you mouse over the city's happiness meter it will show you a negative value for "ownership." Once that's gone you can wreck it.

[hottwiz]

mabye your battle came out as a draw, aka after 6 phases no one wins so that means you dont take the city but if you did win then maybe you glithched out?

[nohelpforu]

No, I'm pretty sure (since I posted this 2 days ago and have since continued playing) that the hero being in the city and coming out as critically wounded but alive was taken as the hero still being a unit in the army. Once a hero is wounded they seem to teleport to whatever city they were commissioned in. Therefor the enemy hero mmediately spawned inside the city I was attacking as a unit with 1 hp, outside of battle, tricking the game into thinking units were still alve in that city.