A general strategy for Assyria

[Cromagnus]

what does it help to go heavy warmonger early game?

Espacially if u do care for culture stuff it doesnt help at all to kill every1 before they even get the chance to generate great works.

I don't disagree, early city capture is basically pointless, but the siege tower is most effective very early. So it's a dilemma. Not capturing a city with a siege tower until t90 is the equivalent of not attacking anything with your CBs until t90. It's a missed opportunity. You can take two capitals by t60 with siege towers and archers, and along the way, raze two expos for a total of 4 techs, and probably get 2 more in a peace deal to sell/raze. If you can somehow avoid getting DoW'd, it's probably worth doing this in the long run. But, on Deity at least, this will almost certainly get you DoW'd, so meh, maybe it's better, given the state of warmonger penalties, to rush the Writer's Guild and fill your Royal Libraries.

However, in the specific case of continents, it's totally worth it IMHO to clear out your entire continent before meeting the other continent. You'll get good relationships and RAs and have the whole continent to yourself. That's generally awesome.

 

[megabearsfan]

I don't disagree, early city capture is basically pointless, but the siege tower is most effective very early. So it's a dilemma. Not capturing a city with a siege tower until t90 is the equivalent of not attacking anything with your CBs until t90. It's a missed opportunity. You can take two capitals by t60 with siege towers and archers, and along the way, raze two expos for a total of 4 techs, and probably get 2 more in a peace deal to sell/raze. If you can somehow avoid getting DoW'd, it's probably worth doing this in the long run. But, on Deity at least, this will almost certainly get you DoW'd, so meh, maybe it's better, given the state of warmonger penalties, to rush the Writer's Guild and fill your Royal Libraries.

However, in the specific case of continents, it's totally worth it IMHO to clear out your entire continent before meeting the other continent. You'll get good relationships and RAs and have the whole continent to yourself. That's generally awesome.

Yeah, early conquest is generally unfavorable in BNW, but Assyria is an exception due to their uniques, regardless of what victory you are trying for. You just have to be very careful to avoid the warmonger penalty if you're not going for conquest long-term.

And if you do take your whole continent, you don't have to worry as much about warmonger penalties because you should be able to subsist your economy off of city state trade routes. You'll have the whole first half of the game to get off to a head start in alliances with CSs on your continent, so you won't have to worry as much about rivals on the other continent allying with them and causing your trade routes to be plundered.

 

[tommynt]

Having no trading partners for some time and delaying science for some time to build military is definatly not helpful for ANY type of winning condition - at least not on higher lvl ..

 

[Cromagnus]

Having no trading partners for some time and delaying science for some time to build military is definatly not helpful for ANY type of winning condition - at least not on higher lvl ..

Fair point. Reliance on TR beakers makes playing nice early beneficial. Assyria kinda gets the shaft with their UU on Deity then.

 

[tommynt]

Well latly there was this GOTM with assyria, I do think every topfinisher did no war or maybe only 1 or so.

I mean since last patch the whole discussion is pretty pointless anyway - warmonger penalties are WAY too high to even consider doing more as 1 DOW.

And if this discussion is about culture win it is DEFINATLY best to wait with war till ais did gather great works before attacking them.
The ST bonus can still be there - just having one closeby to your artileries ..

 

[Txurce]

Assyria is very powerful on many maps - Pangaea is where it loses strength, and even there mainly on Deity. But even on Pangaea/Deity, the UA is still top-notch - it's the UU which is nerfed by the new rules. Judicious warring and taking a tech path which leaves other paths profitably unresearched provides a game-long tech edge, even if you're the tech leader. The RL/GW bonus is gravy.

 

[megabearsfan]

And if this discussion is about culture win it is DEFINATLY best to wait with war till ais did gather great works before attacking them.

The strategy that I referenced in my original post is supposed to cover all victory types. Not just cultural. Although the conflict between conquest and culture victories has dominated this topic.

In any case, there's no reason not to go after whoever finishes the Parthenon, since you KNOW you'll find a great work there. I've seen the Parthenon be built as early as 1000 B.C. (King difficulty).

Assyria is very powerful on many maps - Pangaea is where it loses strength, and even there mainly on Deity. But even on Pangaea/Deity, the UA is still top-notch - it's the UU which is nerfed by the new rules. Judicious warring and taking a tech path which leaves other paths profitably unresearched provides a game-long tech edge, even if you're the tech leader. The RL/GW bonus is gravy.

Agreed. I very much enjoyed playing as Assyria, and by halfway through my first game with them (late Medieval), I realized just how open-ended they were. I went into the game thinking I would have to play a very aggressive warmonger strategy, but then realized that I was suddenly the top-contender for a culture victory due to having the extra Great Works and Royal Libraries in which to store them. Civs that are adaptable like that tend to be my favorites, since I can keep playing even if my intended strategy goes kaput.

In a follow-up post, I also wrote some thoughts regarding the fall patch:
http://www.megabearsfan.net/post/2013/11/25/Civ-V-BNW-fall-patch-review.aspx.
In that post, I proposed alternate rules for warmonger penalties. I'm curious to see what people have to say about that as well. Not sure if the revision would benefit Assyria much though. The basic principle was to change warmonger so that refusing an offer for a peace treaty would become the biggest modifier, rather than capturing cities. This would be a bit of a challenge though, since it would require A.I.s to offer worthwhile terms of surrender, and it would require CSs to autonomously sue for peace (which would be a non-trivial change).

 

[tommynt]

The strategy that I referenced in my original post is supposed to cover all victory types.

OK great strategy ...

 

[budweiser]

Well latly there was this GOTM with assyria, I do think every topfinisher did no war or maybe only 1 or so.

That was a trap. AI was strategically positioned to punish any aggression.

 

[megabearsfan]

It was brought to my attention that I erroneously reported that Assyria could not steal techs from city states. I have done some further testing and confirmed that Assyria's ability does apply to city states. I have updated the strategy post accordingly.