How to finish the deal – invading civilizations

Time to harvest the fruits. It’s time to kill, krush and destroy (conquer)!

First of all you need to consider whether it’s an appropriate time to invade. Ask yourself:

  • Do I have enough forces?
  • For what purpose should I invade X? Does he have wonders, strategic resources, luxury goods?
  • Is it risky to invade X? Are there any hostile/am I in war with civilizations on an other flank (a two flanked war is never good)

If you’ve come to the conclusion that it’s definitely appropriate to kickass then start marching your troops to their border. Personally I like to attack their smaller settlements first and work my way in. Every acclaimed city is a major setback for the opponents progress. Besides it’s usually very hard to go straight for the capital and you may experience major casualties.

“Veni, vidi, vici.”
I came, I saw, I conquered.
Julius Caesar
Accurately illustrated in Cyanide & Happiness.

How to attack a city

Attacking a city is pretty much straightforward, try to surround it with as many units as possible and hack at it until you win. As it’s not possible to stack units you must spend some turns getting the units in a proper position. The normal combat tactics applies. Additionally, bringing siege units like the catapult and trebuchet could make life easier capturing cities.

Tip: Save up upgrades for your frontline units so you can heal up to full health when damaged. This reduces your casualties and enhances your army endurance.

Yay, I’ve captured a city. Now what should I do with it?

Image of a spearman using the heal ability after promotion.
This spearman got bruised up while attacking a city. Luckily he can use the heal upgrade and he's as good as new!

Basically you can either raze it or keep it. If the city cover a large or strategically strong territory then you should have a good reason not to keep it. One reason could be to deny the city to one of your opponents when you realize you're unable to defend it.

If you choose to keep it, notice that it will cost a lot of happiness, so you should consider speed building a colloseum or circus somewhere to balance things up if necessary. You could start off puppeting the city if your happiness is sparse and then later annex it. If the city has luxury goods you not yet own it’s a mighty bonus.

Lastly, remember to keep building roads and connecting your cities. As you expand your empire, you need more territory to cover and thus roads become more important.

Thank you for reading.

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