What do I do to knock them out? Say I'm attacking a city that has four or five cannons and seven or eight fascists all fortified inside. How do I take the city? What do I need to attack with?

The key though I think is the naval bombardment to soften them up. If you are attacking a landlocked city then you may have to move on up next to it and bombard it from there a little bit, just make sure you have units in reserve to fill in the spots of the units that will die. Whenevr I bombard from land the next turn the computer always attacks the stack, kills off a unit and then retreats.

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Omni - the only 4 or 5 to a stack guy... diversity wins the day again.

So what do you recommend to a newcomer? How do you conquer rival nations without only 4-5 units in a stack?

i can sometimes use spies, if ever needed. but three stacks of 12bombardier will

Why does this work? When the first stack attacks, it will eliminate about 3 or 4 defending units. When the second stack goes in, there will not be enough defending units in the front line, leaving the cannons vulnerable.

It's costly to you, but that's the way it's supposed to be. You should only expect victory if your attacking force is twice the defending force. (according to Sun Tze)

Edit :
Man, the AI is stupid... :
I turned a city to barbarian while they had a stack of 7 units next to it. What did they do ? Move away !
It also doesn't seem to have any influence on regard...

i use 3 12-unit armies to surround the city, i use the first 2 armies to attack and retreat after just 2 rounds, only lose 2 defender units, after the 4 rounds, the defender city usually loses 3-4 defender units, and then the 3rd army captures the city losing at most 1-2 unit. So totally i lose 3-4 units the most instead of 12+

The second best way is through intrigue, either with Spies or Cyber Ninjas.

If you have to resort to war to take a desired city, then what I find is the most effective way is to bombard the city with stacks of bombers. the advantage of bombers over, say, battleships or artillery, is that bombers can fly back to their carriers or airbases without fear of retaliation from the city's garrisoned artillery units that battleships and other units must endure.

If all else fails (and I do mean all else), then simply nuke the foolish city and take what remains of it. This should be a last resort, as the pollution, diplomatic penalties, and the sheer devastation of the city are rather bad.

quote: Originally posted by cdo2001 on 01-04-2001 02:22 PM i use 3 12-unit armies to surround the city, i use the first 2 armies to attack and retreat after just 2 rounds, only lose 2 defender units, after the 4 rounds, the defender city usually loses 3-4 defender units, and then the 3rd army captures the city losing at most 1-2 unit. So totally i lose 3-4 units the most instead of 12+

That's what I did too !! Why didn't I get the same result?? Hmmmm ..... Ah, I remember now, I jacked the defense bonus of city walls way up, hoping to give defending side more advantage.
What happened was, I gave computer players many more cities to start with, hoping this economic advantage will translate into military might. And to prevent the AI from 'rushing' me, I jacked up the defense bonus of city walls. With all that extra units lying around, you would think that AI would attack me constantly.
But Nooooo .... they just sit around and wait for me to slowly eat them up one by one

Anyway, back to the point. cdo2001, I think that's a good strategy, and a reasonable one too. Attacking enemy cities with three stacks of 12 units is like surrounding the city. You can normally expect to reduce your own loss to a minimum by surrounding enemy troops. I just wish AI can counter this particular strategy.