Assyria underpowered?

Seabastian Civ said:

Very good points. But we both agree that simply spamming siege towers doesn't work.

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Well, sure. You can't "simply" anything in CiV, and Assyria is no exception. I don't think that should be a criticism of Assyria's uniques. That said, maybe they could be improved or made more realistic... but again, that could probably be said about most of the civs/leaders.

Also don't forget that it is giving you a great work of writing slot that does not require amphitheatres, which gives you advantages.

The benefits of the RL as I see them are :

1. You do not have to expend hammers on ampitheatres until you need to build OPERA HOUSES. Allowing you to focus your production elsewhere. This allows you to focus on your science/military.

2. If you are favouring a small civilization it allows you to have more slots for great works of writing.

3. POSSIBLY : Not sure if PUPPETS favour science over culture, but if they do then they may build ROYAL LIBRARIES before CULTURE buildings thus enabling you to pop in a great work and improve their cultural output (for example for border growth et al). As PUPPETS do not increase SP costs, this could possibly provide a culture boost for a small empire.

4. You can easily expand a new settlements borders without investing in monuments or amphitheatres. Similar to using a faith purchased cathedral (with a GW).

5. You can obtain extra XP for your units allowing them to gain Level 1, 2 or 3 quicker then they normally would.

6. If you go wide, the extra GWW slots can be filled through great works that you capture. Allowing you to pursue a CV aggressively.

The Royal Library is more about flavouring the CIV to encourage a scientific focus. Assyria is all about SCIENCE through war, with a small cultural bonus for those that choose to exploit it.

In summary ASSYRIA allows you to further your SCIENTIFC goals through warfare (UA) and your cultural goals through warfare (UB - GWW capture after sacking a city), whilst providing you with a strong military advantage in the early ages (UU + UB (Extra XP)).

PhilBowles said:

On difficulties above Emperor, you'll always be behind in tech at the start, when you want to be attacking with Assyria, and as anyone you always want libraries.

It's also a misconception that you want to be behind with Assyria - in fact you want to be close to tech leader,

The siege tower is powerful out of context, but it is not sufficient compensation for having no ranged siege units. You need several, or a couple of supporting melee units, to get the most from it, and you still can't skimp on ranged units. Unlike the Hun battering ram, the siege tower costs you the catapult, a long-lived unit at a critical game stage, and having no ranged siege before Physics is tough. Especially as the siege tower's effectiveness as a direct siege unit (rather than to support other units) tails off before the catapult's.

The Royal Library has very little synergy with the civ's approach. It requires a Great Work of Writing, and you don't want to be devoting effort to teching to Drama and Poetry and then building a Writers' Guild early, plus the experience boost is less than you get from a barracks. So either you use it late, or you try to rely on looting a Great Work from a captured city. In either case, it's a somewhat pointless bonus since by that time you've built the units you need (particularly if you're successfully capturing cities).

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You make several good points, but are way off on catapults. Siege towers more than compensate. Cats are some of the most useless units in the game. Calling it long lived is a joke, it is the most one shotted unit of the game. CBs and later XB supported by siege towers make a short work of any city under 35 strength. At this time cats have been obsolete for thousands of years.

Maxym said:

You make several good points, but are way off on catapults. Siege towers more than compensate. Cats are some of the most useless units in the game. Calling it long lived is a joke, it is the most one shotted unit of the game. CBs and later XB supported by siege towers make a short work of any city under 35 strength. At this time cats have been obsolete for thousands of years.

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I have to agree. The 12 strength of siege towers (same as trebs!) make them insanely tough. Losing one actually requires moving it to within range of an archer, a city and several warriors. They are tough, tough bastards. SO much so, that I reitarate my claim that they shouldn't cause any damage when defending

I started a game with Assyria this weekend. Played a lot because I hurt my back Friday and couldn't do much. King, standard speed, large pangaea map, raging barbs, sparse resources, and one less civ than whatever the default number. It's a very odd-shaped continent and I still haven't explored the whole perimeter yet, in the modern era and I have the Great Lighthouse.

Tradition, Honor opener, Commerce, Rationalism opener, Freedom. (I have foreign legions and artillery and leftover siege towers for their sapper bonus, everyone else still has muskets and knights and trebuchets -- but it's a really big map with a lot of rough terrain)

As soon as i got 2 siege towers I captured Rio de Janeiro and another city which I razed, and went from last place in science to third, and there were no more techs to steal from Brazil. I could have wiped Pedro off the map, but I was having happiness problems, so I took Brasília in a peace deal (it had marble) and set my sights on Germany.

By the time I got my happiness positive again (I had lots of truffles and not much else; nobody had any spare luxes to trade) I was the tech leader. Eventually I did DoW Bismarck and took 4 or 5 of his dozen cities (razed all but 2) but I stopped short of capturing Berlin. One of the cities had Forbidden Palace and another wonder and that was enough for now, and I'm not ready to piss off my good friend Gandhi yet. We've been denouncing the same other leaders (Brazil and Egypt) and he has been overlooking my warmongering.

Somebody has eliminated Mongolia; I think it was Shaka, but it might be Egypt and then Shaka took the Mongol cities from them. (that would explain why Gandhi hates Ramses so much)

I did not expect to be the technology leader so quickly. (I use trade routes to determine if a civ has *any* techs that I don't, and none of them do) It kind of takes the fun out of capturing AI cities. Does that mean I should be playing at a higher level? I also think large continents might be a better map for Assyria; eliminate the other civs on your continent before Astronomy, then work on gold and infrastructure so you can crank up your war machine later when you meet the rest of the world.

As I move up in difficulty I'm getting more and more interested in Assyria. I play on Immortal so I'm sure taking early cities (which I love to do, and succeed far more often then otherwise by doing so) will give me techs in addition to the HUGE advantages of having an early cap or two. The siege towers are interesting to me partly because they're tougher and can actually take cities but mostly because they give a big bonus to units around them that stacks with the GG bonus. The royal library won't help early but it will help you upgrade faster once you generate a great writer or two. It's not an easy Civ to play but my intuition tells me they can be very strong if used properly. I've never played against a human so this is confined to SP. Also, I still don't have a Deity win under my belt. Just the same, I don't think Assyria is under-powered, I think it's misunderstood and misused. I'll get back to you when I give it a shot on Immortal. Lower then that and I won't get much return at all out of the UA.

The sapper bonus from a non-upgraded siege tower never goes obsolete, you just have to be careful so the city or a strong melee unit doesn't one-shot it. So move the tower into position the same turn you attack with bazookas and GDR's, and make sure the it always starts at 100% health so the AI targets something else if the city doesn't fall in one turn. Don't actually attack with the siege tower until the turn you expect to capture the city.

It's supposed to work even if the siege tower is embarked, so parking it on top of a destroyer or battleship is pretty safe.

Keep in mind that this thread started right after BNW release before any of the BNW patches. (There may be out of date aspects in the 2013 posts)

Haha... of course, I just looked at the dates on the posts