City combat (Civ5)

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Introduction[]

Cities are the most important targets in the world, but they are big, and if fortified and defended by other units can be quite difficult to capture. However, doing so can reap rich rewards - in fact, the only way to knock another civilization out of the game is to capture or destroy all of its cities. Also, this is one of the paths to victory in the game: the domination victory.

City combat statistics[]

Every city has defenses, like arrow slits or gun holes, and anti-air guns in the modern age. It also has an automatic defense unit, which mans the defenses and repels enemy attacks, and performs the city's ranged attack each turn. This unit uses weapons determined by your current military technology, meaning that it becomes more effective in later eras. The unit is protected by the city's defenses and always fights at its full strength, which can be increased by a garrisoned unit or defensive buildings, but a city will always have enough fighting ability to prevent an enemy from walking in and taking it over with impunity.

Health[]

This stat represents the current state of the city defenses. An undamaged city has 200 hit points (HP). More are added to this maximum by constructing city defense buildings: the Walls, Castle, Arsenal and Military Base. As the city takes damage in combat, its HP are reduced.

If a city's HP reach 1, any enemy unit that can make a melee attack can capture the city by entering its tile.

Note also that cities Heal automatically each turn (being constantly repaired by their inhabitants), making them even harder to capture. The amount healed is approximately 10-15% of the city's total HP.

Strength[]

A city also has Combat Strength, representing its military might compared to attacking units. This strength isn't static, like for units, because a city endures through the ages while units gradually become obsolete. The following factors are used to determine the Combat Strength of a city:

Base - A basic factor, determined by the current era of the civilization. For example, a city has a base Combat Strength of about 9-10 in the Ancient Era, but the base increases to 50-60 in the Modern Era.
Vantage - If the city is situated on a Hill, it has an advantage over attackers, which translates into additional Combat Strength.
Population - Each Citizen increases a city's Combat Strength.
Defenses - If you build defensive buildings in the city, each of those will increase its Combat Strength.
Garrison - If you station a land unit (not a naval or air unit) in the city, it is considered garrisoned. While it is garrisoned, the city's Combat Strength increases by several points.

The city's Combat Strength determines the damage it does with its ranged attack, and whenever it's attacked by melee or air units (which triggers a retaliation attack, just like normal melee combat). Lower HP doesn't affect a city's strength as it does for units - a city always fights at its full strength.

Ranged attack[]

Every city has the ability to shoot at attacking armies. The attack has a range of 2, complete visibility (no terrain features impede it), and is always at 40% of the city's full Combat Strength (60% with Oligarchy), even if the city itself is damaged. Bonus Combat Strength gained from defensive buildings is not applied when the city attacks. Being a ranged attack, the targets cannot retaliate.

City combat[]

All unit types can attack a city and damage it, if in range. Melee attacks trigger a retaliation attack, as normal. Naval melee units can attack a city from an Coast tile bordering it. A city can't retaliate against ranged attacks, but they cannot drop it below 1 HP either - the city must be captured by a melee unit.

All in all, an army attacking a city is always at a disadvantage. The city has considerable Combat Strength (which is usually higher than the average Combat Strength of the attackers, even without additional bonuses) and always fights at its full strength, while the attacking units' strength declines when they're damaged. The city also has a powerful ranged attack that can devastate and even kill units in one shot. Finally, it can garrison units inside, keeping them safe while they attack the besieging army.

Attacking cities with melee units[]

When a unit engages in melee combat with a city, the city and the melee unit both suffer damage. No matter how few hit points the city has remaining, it always defends itself at its full combat strength. Usually, a city's Combat Strength for the relevant age is larger than that of the attacking unit (especially if the city has defenses), so attackers are always at a disadvantage. However, only melee units can capture cities, so they have to attack eventually.

Garrisoned units in cities[]

A city's owner may station a military unit inside the city to bolster its defenses. Note that while all types of units positioned in the city's tile are completely invulnerable to attacks, only land units may form a garrison. So, for example, a city may have a ship and airplanes in its tile, but none of them will add to the city's Combat Strength, while a single Swordsman will serve as a garrison despite not being a ranged unit.

A portion of the garrisoned unit's Combat Strength is added to the city's total Combat Strength. The garrisoned unit will take no damage when the city is attacked; if it is a melee unit, however, it will still suffer damage when attacking surrounding units. (In real life this is called a sortie, and melee combat takes place in the defender's tile, so the garrisoned unit does technically leave the city to make its attack.) Note also that the garrisoned unit still confers its bonus to the city when it attacks, as long as the unit doesn't end its turn outside the city.

Siege weapons[]

Certain ranged units - Catapults, Trebuchets, and so forth - are classified as "siege weapons." These units get large combat bonuses (+200%) when attacking enemy cities. They are extremely vulnerable to melee combat, and should be accompanied by melee units to fend off enemy assault.

Most siege weapons have to be disassembled to move around the map. When they have reached their destination, they must expend 1 Movement to "set up". They cannot attack until they have done so.

Siege weapons are important. It's really difficult to capture a well-defended city without them!

Capturing cities[]

Main article: Conquered cities (Civ5)

When a city's HP reach 1, an enemy melee unit may enter the city, regardless of whether or not there are any units already inside. When this occurs, the city is captured. Any military units (be they land, naval, or air units), missiles, and Great People which were stationed inside are destroyed. Civilian units, such as Workers, are captured according to the normal rules. All defensive buildings, such as Walls and Castles, are destroyed and need to be rebuilt later by the new owner. A random selection of other buildings are also destroyed. Finally, the Population of the captured city is reduced by half, presumably killed during the looting of the city. The city will slowly regain its HP, starting at somewhere around 40% HP at the turn of capture.

The newly conquered city will also enter Resistance mode - a state when the surviving Population is silently opposing the occupation, and simply refuses to work for the new owner. This mode continues for as many turns as there is Population after the city capture. Resistance doesn't occur if you've conquered back a city you've originally founded (meaning that you've liberated your own city which was under enemy occupation), or when you liberate the city and give it back to its original owner, whomever this was.

As of the Fall 2013 patch, Population loss and Resistance may be reduced if you have some degree of cultural influence over the civilization which owned the city. There is a 25% reduction in both factors for each level of influence beyond Exotic: -25% for Familiar, -50% for Popular, -75% for Influential, and no Resistance or Population loss for Dominant.

The conqueror loots an amount of Gold from the city proportionate to its size; they also receive all Great Works that were displayed in the city. Finally, they receive a choice of what to do with it, and if they choose to Annex or Puppet it, territorial borders that belonged to that city pass to their empire. Note that the game remembers each and every tile a city has conquered in its lifetime - it's exactly those tiles that change owners when a city is captured. All resources the city controls also pass to the conqueror (unless their improvements were pillaged). Whatever the choice, the civilization which loses the city has taken a huge blow.

Conquering City-States[]

A City-State that is captured by a civilization loses its status as City-State and turns into a normal city for that civilization. Its special features (i.e., bonuses for its type) simply disappear, and it is thereafter treated as just another city, controlling some territory, etc. The calculation for achieving diplomatic victory also changes to reflect the diminished number of City-States in the game.

City-States cannot be Razed, however. This means that another civilization may later Liberate the City-State, restoring its former status and reversing all of the above changes.