To successfully attack a player-owned city, you need to first scout the city successfully. You should start by sending a single scout, if time is not of the essence. Then, you can send how many ever you judge necessary to get in. Once you know exactly what you’re dealing with, you can begin to plan your attack. The first thing to take under consideration is the order in which the city’s defenses will be met by your armies. The following would be accurate for a city that had every type of field, wall, and army defenses.
Traps- Will be met first, you should send a wave of MM equal to the number of traps the enemy has to clear them before you send anything else, unless all you are sending is MM. Scouts can be sent on attack to knock out traps quickly if you accidentally forget to send MM first and your army would beat MM sent now, or if you are in need of quickly disabling them for a wave of cavalry.
Trebuchets- Will fire on any siege weapons sent immediately. You do not need to worry about these if you are not sending siege weapons. Rams at a rate of 1 ram to 6 trebs are the best way to clear these out, before sending any other siege weapons in.
Spikes and Caltrops- These will be met as you meet any defending army at the city. Only infantry troops will meet the caltrops, and only horsed units or units on wheels (wagons and siege) will meet the spikes. Pikes work well on caltrops, tho any infantry troop will do, and cavalry of either kind do well against the spikes. You do not need to clear spikes if you plan on sending no infantry, and likewise, you don’t have to clear spikes if you are only sending infantry.
Scouts- The quickest troops with 3000 speed, scouts will meet your army first. This is usefull when you don’t have enough scouts to successfully scout a city - you can send a small group of pikes or swords or MM to clear out the city’s scouts before trying to scout again. Any unit does well against scouts so you do not need to send anything special.
Cavalry- Have a speed of 1000 and will be the next troop type to meet your army. Pikes do well against this unit, as well as Heavy Cavalry. Pikes sent in a wave of 3 pikes to 1 horse unit should be effective in finishing off horsed units.
Heavy Cavalry- Have a speed of 750, and come in right behind Cavalry. See Cavalry for information on sending pikes to attack these units.
Pikes- 300 speed. Pikes are not heavily armored and can be easily dispensed by ranged units.
Swordsmen- 275 speed. Swords are heavily armored, and defend well against archers, but ranged units in greater numbers, or horsed units do well against these units.
Archers- 250 speed. Cavalry, Heavy Cavalry, Swords, ballistas, and archers in greater numbers are all good at ridding a city of archers.
Militia Men- 200 speed. Any unit works well against these units.
Supply Troops- 180 speed. Do not concern yourself with these units.
Supply Wagon- 150 speed.Do not concern yourself with these units.
Battering Rams- 120 speed. See catapults.
Ballistas- 100 speed. See catapults.
Catapults- 80 speed. The slow, cumbersome siege weapons can pack a punch, but using Heavy cavalry will cut them down before they can do much damage at all.
Crossbows- MM in large numbers will take out these wall defenses with high losses. Archers are more effective than MM, but also suffer heavy losses, sending in swords and archers mixed will lessen the losses. Cavalry and Heavy Cavalry work well, and sending in HC with Cavalry will minimize your HC losses.
