GOGwiiisfun: I played a bit of civ 4 a while ago, but my main problem with it was that I just couldn't get into the enemy's fortified city on a hill, even though I had superior troops and more of them. When I had them attack the city they just died without doing a thing to the enemy. Anyone got any tips for that? I wish that there was a sort of siege mechanic, where you could starve out the enemy to either force them to surrender or force them come out of their fortress and to attack you .
Just Psyringe said, siege units are key, especially when the AI builds units on hills and defends it with archers with 2 city defense upgrades. You can see droves of knights go down to their deaths just trying to take that city with no siege units. You've got to have patience and spend a few turns to bombard the defenses to get that additional defense percentage down to 0 or you will sacrifice a lot of good men.
I like this, to me this feels real. It seemed at times in other Civ games taking cities could be too easy. With Civ IV, both buildable defenses AND culture add defense bonuses, and if built on a hill, you bet that city can be tough, but it's very, very doable if you have patience, spend a few turns bombarding them (think damaging their walls and castle and cultural buildings and thus lowering morale) and it will lower those bonuses down. With hilltop cities, and if you're reasonably close in technology, it usually requires taking it all the way down to 0. With other cities, you can probably get away with being a little less patient and just cut their defenses in half and if you've got them outnumbered you'll still take the city.
When I attack a city, relative close in tech, I always think first of all 2Xnumber of defenders PLUS two, and start by spending a few turns besieging them and wearing down their defenses. Trust me, it can be done, I've won by conquest in this game and that's something I was never able to do with Civ 2. I was able to do it in 3, but it was just no fun because of the waste and corruption crap, but with 4 being a war monger can be fun, even though my preferred style of play is actually to be peaceful. But then they piss me off, and well, I can't be held responsible for my actions when they do that. LOL
Also, someone mentioned religion above, yes, that was a great addition, and if you play Betrayal of the Sword you'll find corporations can be an AWESOME time. I always go after the best hammer adding corporation (it's either the mining company or the construction company, I think it's the construction company) and if you have lots of resources it will add 10, 15 or maybe even more hammers to each cities production amount (that has that corporation, you have to spread the corporation like you do religion) and that's raw hammers, as in before all the other adjustments kick in. So, if your city has a forge, a factory, and power, a 15 hammer corporation bonus adds 30 hammers PER TURN to that city's production.
And if you go with the food corporations, it can really, really increase a cities population capability, to the point that you could maximize every tiles hammer output (or income output) and feed the city through the food bonuses from the corporation.
I really liked the corporation added, but I read on other sites that a lot of folks didn't. Oh well, we're all different.
