City/Town/Street Fighting

[Cussa]

How you best navigate through cities and is there a guide around for EB to effectively take cities without losing too many troops.

- Cussa

P.S - Woot! My 200th post!

[Boriak]

The key of taking a city is to take your time. If there are +25 units involved in a siege (both sides together), I tend to disable the time limit because just to capture the walls can take 30 minutes. I started doing this after I lost a city battle because I ran out of time (the enemy had about 15 men left).

Bring plenty of missile troops and some solid infantry. Cavalry is nearly worthless, unless you're takinga huge city with its great city center. Cavalry can charge in those. Other than that, simply move your solid infantry (spearmen, phalanx, etc) forward under the cover of missile troops, stop and dig in if they attack, advance once they retreat.

Street fighting means enemy can't flank you except at the crossroads (neither can you).

Exploit higher ground of standing on walls (talking about missile troops).

Try to surround enemy units. That way, when they start to retreat, they can't run away and you can finish them off. If you don't, they run to the city center and regroup. Also in that regard, try to lure units off the city center. That way, if they rout, you don't have to kill them all.

[Entropy Judge]

How you best navigate through cities

Which city style, what size, and where are you starting from? Barbarian Settlements are very easy to navigate, while Greco-Roman cities tend to be painfully difficult to navigate at larger sizes unless you're at the gate that goes almost directly to the City Center, in which case it's a pretty easy straight shot. Frankly, I tend to pause the game at the beginning of the battle (with an Unrestricted Camera, of course) to look at troop placement and to look for the best place to go through. If you want to justify it for Roleplay reasons, just make sure you have a Spy in the city.

and is there a guide around for EB to effectively take cities without losing too many troops.

What faction are you playing with? I mean, there's the standard "Resiege the city every 4-9 Turns until the Garrison is down to less than 40% of their original number, then keep the siege up through the end and the city will probably Surrender instead of trying to fight, especially if you significantly outnumber the Garrison." If you're playing something with lots of good Archers and you're facing low-Armour Barbarians, taking the Walls (if any) and sticking your Archers up their can quickly and easily shatter any defenders. More generally, I've found that moving in 2-3 separate strike forces works best - if you've kept your forces well-supplied you should have a qualitative edge over the dispersed defenders that try to blunt any given offensive, and if they leave one of your heads alone they set themselves up for a flanking/encircling maneuver that lets you kill a lot of them without losing too many troops. As always, if you can get Pikes and stick them in a street they're extremely difficult to kill off, particularly with the boneheaded AI. If the settlement you're attacking has smaller Walls, make sure you have your missile troops deplete most (but not all!) of their ammo before breaching the wall.

[Cussa]

Thank you Boriak & Entropy Judge ... some wonderful insights on city battles! Thanks mates!

- Cussa