Advice for playing with Assyria

This isn't so much Assyria, but playing wide/war mongering. I typically play on Emperor on BTS, but have dropped to prince while playing all the new civs. I have easily won all the other games, but my game as assyria is going terribly. I tend to do tall, but for assyria I switched it up. I didn't build any cities as I planned on just conquering them all. My happiness is terrible, I have no money, like 6 rather bad cities I conquered other than my capital which is doing well. And to make things worse everyone hates me because I am a war mongerer, and passed resolutions banning city state trade, and embargoed me. That did wonders for my economy which I managed to be making around 1 gold a turn mid game haha. For this game I ignored culture and religion. I also have a bad habit of not annexing cities as i don't like to deal with the extra culture cost, but I guess I am going to have to go through my cities to fix them.
Has anyone done well with assyria? If so, which social policies were you using/how do you manage all the negative unhappiness?

Don't neglect culture. At all. Later in the game, you will get stomped by other people's tourism.
And when going straight warmongering, go Honour. Gold when killing units helps incredibly well and Military Caste keeps both your happiness and culture up.

dont puppet cities, just raze them. if razed on capture, cities stil give gold and techs for your economy, experience for units and great works for culture, tourism and experience again (when placed in UB slot).

Sounds like you should have razed some of those cities. Also, it's pretty easy to bully CSs if you have the largest army in the world (and you probably should) for cash.

When I played Assyria, I razed all but four cities (3 were capitals) because I knew they wouldn't pay for themselves for a LONG time and had no useful buildings in them. Later in the game, I ended up resettling in similar spots. For money, I traded with CSs and just marched my army from CS to CS demanding tribute khalasar style. One of them, a mercantile CS, I allied because they had three unique luxuries that I didn't have. So, I was basically bullying CSs to pay-off the mercantile CS and keeping the leftovers to fund my bullying-based economy.

you should exploit seige tower at its max

for that you need construction, for which you need archery, among other things

now to connect those

build many (lets say five) archers, which upon construction you will upgrade cheaply (80 gold) to composite bowmen. accompany them with two siege towers (do not need more).
go for terracotta army, which doubles your army. than conquer

notice
you will need to have at least two cities in order to support army without production penalty. you can either go with liberty (obvious choice) or puppet city state (this should be easy without terracotta, and few composite bowmen with one siege should be more than enough). in that case go through order tree to maximize military potential.

since you need to build scout, monument, granary, library (royal one, actually, but no additional use for it in this early stage) and a lot of army prior to terracotta army, aim for worker from city state, and make peace, of course

I almost exclusively play immortal, and this is possible. If you play deity it will be much harder, but I assume you would not be asking this, if you are at deity level
Everything bellow immortal should work just fine with this tactic. Hope it will pay-off, I am giving advice based on civ experience, not Assyrian one
This is how I will play, and Assyria is my next game choice..

I ended up on a continent with 5 other civs (emperor, epic speed, huge map). I went liberty, built one settler, and then started raising an army. I beelined composite bowmen and siege engines and sent three of each and my starting unit (upgraded via hut to a spearmen) on a rampage. I took out Spain, Poland, and Etopia in quick succession, razing cities without unique luxuries or really good buildings to the ground. (Ended up gaining 5 cities off those three civs. With Denmark and Carthage left on my continent, I attacked the rexing Cathagians and have captured or burned about half their empire.

The real trick for me was beelining military tech hard and ignoring the rest and letting my passive ability grab those techs for free. I managed to get to the Printing Press first and used the free great person to grab the globe theater too. Past the connect luxuries goods, I basically did not research on my own and just chased down the end of the tree like a madman.

I used the siege towers basically as meatshields to keep other units off my archers and they captured the cities for me without delay. I really find these guys to be better than the Zulu or even the Huns. I don't think they have the ease that the Mongols or Arabs have, but I find their passive to be incredibly strong again.

I've avoided settling anymore cities so I can pursue national wonders. I don't know if that's the best route, but I wanted to get a bunch of critical ones done before doing more settling. I figure food trade routes could fix later game issues and help a new city grow very quickly.

Don't play it. In BWN it's mostly about peace and Assyria's UA about war. I played it a few times on immortal, killed of 2 civ's. The result was a never ending denounce chain and DOW from almost everyone. Noone will trade with you etc.

gremlins0 said:

This isn't so much Assyria, but playing wide/war mongering. I typically play on Emperor on BTS, but have dropped to prince while playing all the new civs. I have easily won all the other games, but my game as assyria is going terribly. I tend to do tall, but for assyria I switched it up. I didn't build any cities as I planned on just conquering them all. My happiness is terrible, I have no money, like 6 rather bad cities I conquered other than my capital which is doing well. And to make things worse everyone hates me because I am a war mongerer, and passed resolutions banning city state trade, and embargoed me. That did wonders for my economy which I managed to be making around 1 gold a turn mid game haha. For this game I ignored culture and religion. I also have a bad habit of not annexing cities as i don't like to deal with the extra culture cost, but I guess I am going to have to go through my cities to fix them.
Has anyone done well with assyria? If so, which social policies were you using/how do you manage all the negative unhappiness?

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Just go for the lower tech tree while you conquer and target a neigbour, that is likely to go the other path so you get profit out of the UA. That way you can research up to Machinery while getting poetry, writing, education etc. for free.

CivAddict201320 said:

Don't play it. In BWN it's mostly about peace and Assyria's UA about war. I played it a few times on immortal, killed of 2 civ's. The result was a never ending denounce chain and DOW from almost everyone. Noone will trade with you etc.

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Denouncements can be avoided by:

• DOW'ing earlier. Before other AI have any stock in who wars against whom via friendships.
• Denouncing the AI before DOW and before they have friends "You're evil! As white knight of hope and truth I must rid the world of you!" (This really only works once before you're a warmonger)
• Not completing wiping out a civ. Take their capital, worthwhile cities, and leave them limping, take peace and gold. If you wipe out one civ, plan on wiping out everyone because you WILL be disliked.

Oh, and to OP - pretty much just siege towers and a few archers, maybe a horse for pillage/archer counter. Note that they buff eachother. Yeah.

Just because Assyria has warmonger traits, it doesn't mean that you have to warmonger. The royal library seems peaceful already and it has a slot for great writing, which allows one to generate tourism at an earlier time. The seige tower and the technology boost for conquering cities from civilizations that have more technologies can be useful but not a must. Besides, ashurbanipal was a scholar since the ub is the royal library.

I never disliked the actual Assyrians, just their civ in-game. If you strip the warmongering and want to go for sciency, pick Korea or something. But maybe it's just me, because I get my butt kicked on immortal sometimes,but thet seem underpowered to me. Looking foeward to a good early rush with them.

reddishrecue said:

Just because Assyria has warmonger traits, it doesn't mean that you have to warmonger. The royal library seems peaceful already and it has a slot for great writing, which allows one to generate tourism at an earlier time. The seige tower and the technology boost for conquering cities from civilizations that have more technologies can be useful but not a must. Besides, ashurbanipal was a scholar since the ub is the royal library.

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I am deeply confused by the Royal Library.
It is supposed to be a sort of extra Barracks if filled with a Great Writing. But it is almost impossible to get one before Renaissance, especially if you try to play early Warmonger.
So, is the Royal Library nothing more than a Library with some extra flavour bonus that almost never gets used ?

I had a weird game with Assirya when I tried to invade and conquer while keeping my happiness and money afloat which, in BNW, is difficult in itself.
I was using all the advantages of my CiV: the UU made every enemy wall fall, and the UA allowed me to stay scientifically competitive thanks to my neighbours who had the great idea to beeline different branches than I. The libraries were... libraries.
After I had absorbed everyone on my continent, I finally started building on the ruins and head to a bright future, fairly confident that after that rocky start, I was going to steamroll everyone thanks to the advantage I had gained.

Then suddenly a Roman caravel appears from the other side of the ocean, and I discover Rome is 10 technologies ahead of me, has 3 times my military force, as many cities as me, and crushing culture. And I was playing only on King !
I managed to steal the victory through Diplomatic mischief, but I am totally clueless on what went wrong.
Is it better to ignore early warmongering and the UU, beeline scientific/economic technologies then star war at the end of the Classical period to steal the missing techs ? Can the Royal library be filled by then ? Should Assyria wait even later ?

Souka said:

I am deeply confused by the Royal Library.
It is supposed to be a sort of extra Barracks if filled with a Great Writing. But it is almost impossible to get one before Renaissance, especially if you try to play early Warmonger.
So, is the Royal Library nothing more than a Library with some extra flavour bonus that almost never gets used ?

I had a weird game with Assirya when I tried to invade and conquer while keeping my happiness and money afloat which, in BNW, is difficult in itself.
I was using all the advantages of my CiV: the UU made every enemy wall fall, and the UA allowed me to stay scientifically competitive thanks to my neighbours who had the great idea to beeline different branches than I. The libraries were... libraries.
After I had absorbed everyone on my continent, I finally started building on the ruins and head to a bright future, fairly confident that after that rocky start, I was going to steamroll everyone thanks to the advantage I had gained.

Then suddenly a Roman caravel appears from the other side of the ocean, and I discover Rome is 10 technologies ahead of me, has 3 times my military force, as many cities as me, and crushing culture. And I was playing only on King !
I managed to steal the victory through Diplomatic mischief, but I am totally clueless on what went wrong.
Is it better to ignore early warmongering and the UU, beeline scientific/economic technologies then star war at the end of the Classical period to steal the missing techs ? Can the Royal library be filled by then ? Should Assyria wait even later ?

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My experience (immortal) tells that it's usually very bad to ignore or completely. I know, I know, Assyria can catch up, but if you are planning for war your cities should have decent anyway, so squeezing in a Royal Library and Writer's Guild in your capital should be possible - rather postpone the Amphitheater.

I have played assyria extensively. It depends what level you play but assuming you play immortal+ then this is the basic strategy on standard speed. You want to start scout then worker and start farming right away to get growth up asap. You ate going to i
Open tradition, get the free monuments and then go for the next to policies that unlocks for more growth and happiness. Don't worry about lux right away because u want to beeline writing and u won't have the improvement necessary. Once u get writing build a library and a granary. The library is essential to sprint to mathematics to get a siege tower. After u get writing yet mining very quick to chop down forests while u hard build a settler or buy one if you have the funds. After u get the settler start pounding out archers and beeline directly to mathematics and then start building seige towers. After mathematics you should rush construction so u can upgrade your archers to CB. Your second city should have the following build order, library ,caravan then the archers/siege towers. by turn 50 you should be amassing troops. By turn 70-75 you should have about 4 siege towers and 4-5 archers/cb. Start by taking out a city state or two which should be amazingly easy work since you can roll your siege towers into perfect position. Use the experience to promote your siege towers to cover II. Now they will have 66% protection against range attack which will make it easier to steamroll cities. Puppet those city states and turn your focus to your nearest neighbor. As you take out the nearby city states keep building siege towers and cbs in your first two cities and national college. Try to target city states with resource diversity so you can buff your happiness a bit. Now set your sites on your nearest neighbor. By turn 90 you should have a massive army of siege and CB. Start building colloseums and circuses in your first two cities to get happiness back up as well as caravans for gold. Your first neighbor should be helpless against an army of siege towers and CB so long as you start your assault before turn 90. Raze every city unless it is a great city. Sell it for anything you can get if you absolutely need to avoid the unhappiness right away. Take the capital and once you leave that neighbor crippled you stop war mongering.

A few things to keep in mind. After you complete beelines to mathematics and construction immediately research the technologies that take the fewest turns. The point is when u start taking cities your free tech will be one that saves u alot of turns of research.
Time your city conquests carefully. Try not to be a turn or two away from completing any given tech before taking a city to maximize your free tech. You should have a good idea of how many turns you will need to take the next city and you should tech accordingly.

while killing city states and taking out your neighbor try to steal as many workers as possible.
after you finish crippling your closest neighbor move your massive forces to your borders to discourage being attacked. Even if you are you should be able to defend fairly easily by now. Upgrade to xbows if you haven't already. and build infrastructure and get a couple more cities when you can to fill out some of the areas from razed cities if there are good locations. Beeline education if you haven't already gotten there. You should have 6-7 very solid cities by turn 150. At this point build universities. Fill out the rationalism tree. Go order for its happiness boosts on the first tier and prioritize science the rest of the way.
whenever possible especially early game try to get people to hate the civ u plan on attacking. Or if there is a target who is already being attacked join that war to make a friend. This is tested on immortal.

Nice write-up, Bl01_Z. I'm in my first Assyria game on Immortal.

One tip I could add to your writeup is to steal an early worker from your target city-state, if you aren't doing worker steals already.

In my game, I opened up with a LOT of empty space next to me, so although I opened Tradition, I switched to Liberty. My continent was shaped like a tall tube with lots of impassable mountains limiting the north-south avenues. I was in the south, Denmark in the middle, Zulu on top. Like you, I decided to munch the nearest city-state (which is close to a nice Natural Wonder). (Yes, Assyria does get a tech from conquering a city-state!) Sometimes people make peace with the city state the same turn they declare war to steal the worker. I think that's an exploit that should be fixed, but also I think declaring war on the same CS twice might count against you twice for warmongering, so I just left myself in a state of war with that CS until I had my Siege Tower.

My capitol had three quarry locations, and my first ancient ruins gave me Pottery, so I decided to beeline Stonehenge and get the +2 faith from quarries pantheon. (Who needs shrines?) I took the +2 gold founder belief and it's helping keep me from going bankrupt with all my marauding units and lack of available international trade routes.

My build order was something like
Scout
Worker
Stonehenge
Monument (because I decided to delay the free culture buildings and switch to Liberty)
Granary
Settler
Stone Works
Barracks
Spearman
Composite Bowman
Siege Tower
Horseman
Terracotta Army for four units (no Warrior because it got upgraded by ancient ruins)

Social policy order:
Tradition opener
Liberty opener
Liberty free worker (2nd worker)
Liberty +1 production
Liberty free settler
back to Tradition

I got some good news when I was about to conquer the city-state with 1 Siege Tower, 1 Composite Bowmen, and 2 Spearmen: Shaka asked me if I wanted to declare war on Denmark between us. Shaka took out most of his army and I rolled in with 2 Siege Towers, 2 Composite Bowmen, 2 Horsemen, and 2 Spearmen and took both cities.

As a bonus, I plundered a Great Work of Writing from Copenhagen to put my Royal Library.

I imagine Shaka is none to pleased that I reaped all the spoils from our joint war on Harald, so I'll have to see how this game goes!

I'm sure Dhaka doesn't care you strolled in bc the ai is stupid and all the ai considers is that "you fought together against a common foe" if up
Ou play really nice with Dhaka u should be able to parlay that into a dof and the game should be a cakewalk as Dhaka is extremely loyal to his friends. In one game as assyria on immortal I was ammassing my troops to prepare an assault on an undetermined opponent when I noticed attilla was steamrolling Babylon. He captured two cities and razed them. He had already done me the favor of whittling down Babylon's military so I just strolled into the gap with a couple write towers and took a great city with extreme ease. A couple turns later stills asked me for a dof and then with my eastern border secure as attilla is also extremely loyal i turned west and took out India. Delhi had about 8 wonders. By this point siege towers were going obsolete so i had to upgrade and set my sights on Ethiopia who declared war on me. I razed harar and started to move towards adis Ababa. I took the capital and the game was an infrastructure builders dream from there. Just building super tall cities and cruised. Your game should be super easy with Dhaka being a willing war monger ally the rest of the way.