Conquering large barb cities

[Biwin]

Hey there, I was wondering if anyone has any experience conquering barb cities that have
evolved to 10k+. There's one sitting around 12.5k nearby my capital and it's like a big juicy plum I want to squeeze,
but am way too terrified to. My scouting report shows it has a lvl 16 wall but 0 troops. However went I sent ~500 troops there a few weeks ago they were all instantly shredded to bits, even though the simulator shows minimal losses.

How many troops will it take to bring this down? I'm afraid to throw any scholars at it in case they die. Currently my army stands at:

Lancers: 1750
Sents: 1750
Zerks: 900
Guardians: 1300
Rams: 75
Ballistae: 150

Would this be enough? I'd probably hold off on rams/ballistae as I want to keep it intact, but it may be worth it to bring down some of that wall.

[Fire820]

I'd send my zerks with my scouts to the city in one attack. Then look at the results

[Biwin]

I'd send my zerks with my scouts to the city in one attack. Then look at the results

What would mixing these two units accomplish?

[Stephonious]

That way, if your zerkers die then you'd still have the scouts to show you what the current makeup of the BC was at the time (as long as your scouts don't run into defending scouts)

[korey27]

ehh, its pretty simple.. send zerks, rams, ballistas (have them aim at the wall.) if there is no troops after the wall is down then you have no problem. just send a scholar with at least 100-200 zerks or knights until you have it.

[Biwin]

Knights eh? I haven't built any of those since I gained access to Guardians. I know their attack is stronger but the difference seems minimal compared to the defense advantages on a guardian. But I digress - is there any reason my scouting reports are showing 0 troops? Do BCs have invisible troops or something?

[korey27]

Whatever your unit of choice for offense your units will suffer if there is that wall there. And I sometimes wonder about luck and if you have a barb city with no wall and no troops and you happen to lose a guy, maybe he just go tired and fell over dead along the way, bad luck right. Take care of that wall and send scholar with offensive units and you should have no problem. Other than that If you are trying to conquer this terrible 10,000+ barb city with no deaths then luck should play apart. Just be happy it wont attack you back or send its barb buddies at you with scholars. Crazy if you were the first guy to get his city taken by barbarians huh.. hmmm

[Biwin]

Thanks for the advice all - one last quick question in regards to clearing a city's wall:

Can I send waves of rams/ballistas targeting the wall alone without suffering heavy losses? (assuming there's no enemy troops at the city in question.) Or do I have to send other units with them to protect them?

[DudeCorp]

I think I set 10 rams alone to a barbarian city last week, just so I could have that question answered myself. It was something like a level five wall and I lost all my rams.

[korey27]

In my experience you must send units with them. When attacking you are going to lose units. Its apart of it. Unless you attack a player who has not logged in and has 1085 points no units, no walls. But the more you send the less you will lose.
If you are into stats check out the Help page 'units overview' and then keep track of the defense the wall provides and you will get a guesstimate on how good the defense is on the city you are attacking. But when attacking a city that has less points
most of the time, if you look at your morale and luck, it's always lower and the luck is sometimes in the negative. I'm sure that plays a part.