How do you guys like to capture AI cities in the early/mid-game?
I'm still playing vanilla (normal difficulty) and my sieges only pan out if I get lucky. The issue is that a single city + ranged garrison attack will cut my ranged units' CS significantly and kill them the next turn if I attack, meaning the total damage I'm throwing at the city drops by I'd say 20% each turn until the city is just outhealing me. This is even without any/many additional defenders harassing me from the sides, and it's more frustrating if the terrain is shit.
I did okay in two games I used Artillery on the offense (used one or two to bombard a city, kept one or two units behind as protection then capped w/ a melee unit at low HP) but I'd like to improve my warfighting in general. I don't use siege weapons pre-Artillery b/c I never have more than 2 -4 Iron.
Siege units don't cost any iron in the expansions, so they are far more useful. In fact, the only unit types that cost iron now are swordsman and frigates. I pretty much exclusively play with all the DLC, so the tactics I like to use may not work for you. With that being said, sieging a city is still pretty difficult, so I usually start a war, destroy the army of the other civ, maybe take 1 city if I want to annex it and the civ I'm at war with is being stubborn, and take as many cities as possible in the peace deal. Then I start a second war once the treaty ends and finish them off. Mandekalu Cavalry can clean an army and still be useful during city sieges, so I love to play as Songhai for domination victories.
As for sieging a city itself, you need to change your army based on the city, but there is a basic outline of what your army should be like.
Melee units:
Early game-
Of course, you need melee units to capture cities, so bring a few melee units. However, until you reach gunpowder, melee units are crap (Except for swordsmen, and even then they're just okay) so only bring 3-4 unless you have a melee UU. Even then, you should never use warriors for anything other than a meat shield unless you're the Aztecs and have Jaguar warriors. The AI tends to prioritize killing melee units, so feel free to use one as a decoy if you think your siege units might be in danger.
Midgame:
Technicly gunpowder units and melee units are different unit types (Impi do more damage to gunpowder units) but I don't care, so I'm talking about them here.
Melee units are far more useful midgame. The huge power boost they get from guns, combined with the lowered range of machine guns, make melee units viable for making a siege force. They still have trouble when attacking cities, but they clear out enemy forces so easily that creating a large amount of melee units is worth the more difficult siege. Good offensive UUs are sparce for gunpowder units, and the only one I think is worth building extra for wars is the Janissary.
Ranged units:
Early game-
Ranged units should make up the bulk of your army until you reach gunpowder. Composite bowmen and crossbowmen in particular are extremely powerful units, so build plenty of them if you want to siege in the early game. They can also clear out any units around the cities with comparatively little danger.
Midgame-
However, once guns come into play, ranged units take a huge hit in usefulness with the machine gun. The 1 space range is a huge hit to the usefulness of ranged civs. Once I get to the machine gun I never build any new ranged civs, as artillery serve the purpose better.
Mounted units:
Horsemen should usually only be used for clearing out enemy units and stay out of the siege, but that all changes if you have a mounted UU. Mounted UUs have the best bonusus out of any kind of unit type, with the exception of Egypt's pathetic war chariot. I Always build extra mounted units if I have a mounted UU, and if I'm playing as the Mongols, Carthage, or Songhai I make mounted units the bulk of my army and siege force. Mounted units are useless for seiges normally, though.
Siege units:
Siege units are necessary for making sieges with the fewest possible casualties. The boost they have to attacking cities is huge, especially in the early game, and the damage boost adds up quickly. Make sure that at least 3 are sieging the city at the same time. It's fine to have more siege units, but they are costly to make, even without requiring iron, so try to keep the siege unit building to a moderate amount. They also stay useful in each era, so perk/upgrade whoring is much easier with siege units.
