Assyria underpowered?

[EEE_BOY]

Spoiler :

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, since as with spies the technology you can steal is determined by your own tech level (you can't steal a tech you can't otherwise research), so if the defender has Civil Service but you don't yet have Mathematics, you're not going to be able to take Civil Service. Beyond that, you don't need to be behind in tech to gain a bonus, just not have techs the other civs do. This will usually be the case if you're going down the military path - you can steal techs like Philosophy or Compass that other civs will get before you even if they have fewer techs overall.

To the question at hand, I've had little success with Assyria on Emperor and Immortal and I'd agree that it might be a little weak:

The UA is certainly never going to compensate for teching, and often I find myself further behind trying Assyria than as a non-militaristic civ, so that I will often be in the situation where I can't capture cities quickly enough to compensate technologically. It may be best playing Assyria with the late game in mind, taking very beaker-intensive techs in late game war, but that loses all synergy with the siege tower.

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 only effective use of siege towers I've seen has been from a Zulu AI that got them as a UU from a militaristic CS - and without supporting catapults they wouldn't have worked then.

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).

Royal library is great for industry era military push after resting from the early war.

Basically a free BG (World wonder that gives +15xp) in every city. This allows triple promoted units from all cities!!! I would call it super op

 

[Aaron90495]

Royal library is great for industry era military push after resting from the early war.

Basically a free BG (World wonder that gives +15xp) in every city. This allows triple promoted units from all cities!!! I would call it super op

No, not quite. It gives +10 XP, meaning it'll never be enough to get you a new promotion unless you don't have any other XP buildings.

 

[Gort]

When judging Assyria, remember that it's quite possible (and indeed, optimal) to beeline certain technologies while ignoring others, meaning you can be generally ahead in science, but still have techs to steal from other civs.

Same reason spying encourages beelining as well.

 

[Wodan]

The main thing I like is that as a matter of course you get siege units with lots of XP throughout the game. This naturally results in numbers of Trebs and Cannon with 3 range. And 4 range Artillery are just incredible.

 

[Strategist83]

Assyria is very powerful, absolutely no problem there. The issue with them is how poorly their unique ability is designed: The best way to play Ashurbanipal - who allegedly was a a leader more interested in scholary pursuits than warfare - as a a total luddite who refrains from focusing on improving his empire's science rate, building military units instead (since your technological backwardness is the only way to take advantage of the UA, it does nothing for you if you are ahead). It makes no sense that the best way to play Assyria is to neglect your own science production in any field. Therefore, their UA should be changed so that Assyria gets a bonus (likely: increased Great Writer generation) if they are the most advanced civ in the world, making them the game's only science-military civ instead of just another pure war civ.

It's true what other posters have pointed out here that you can "attack civs following another tech path" (although you have little way of knowing who is teching what, and deep beelining is mostly not recommended regardless), but it still doesn't fix the optimal-is-being-behind problem, which is very real: It should be in Ashurbanipal's best interest being way ahead of everybody else in every field given his interest in scholary pursuits, but instead this is the 'worst' position for him to be in. Being more advanced than everybody else should be rewarded, not penalized. The civ needs a redesign; it was a mistake making them *only* about warfare when both their history and the fact there are already more than enough pure warmongers in the game suggest a science-military civ would be more interesting.

 

[headcase]

The 10 XP can be fairly useful. It puts units only 5 XP short of a level-up, which will happen pretty quickly unless they're being built for show.

 

[Olleus]

Haven't played them yet (will play them yet) but I disagree that you have to be behind in tech to play them well. Being behind in tech is never a good thing. In general, putting yourself in a bad position just to be able to use your UU/UA/UB is never the optimal way to play, even if it is sometimes fun.

The UA seems designed for either high difficulty play were you are never ahead OR constant expansion. Its not there to make you the tech leader, its there to let you conquer lots of cities without falling too far behind in tech. The UU makes this conquering part easier in the early game. The UB is a bit of a gimmick, to get a slight mid/late game advantage - but nothing that will really affect the course of the game.

 

[CanaDutch]

Out of the few games I've played BNW I've won a Deity game with Assyria, Standard, Earth map and 2 extra AI. I killed the first AI with 2 siege towers and the second AI with 2 siege towers and 3 trebuchets. I prioritized the NC after teching siege towers, because I wasn't planning to rely solely on the UA to keep up in tech.

No-one liked me anymore, but I managed to bribe potential threats into declaring war on each other. Only the capitals of my opponents were any good so I razed the rest. Social policy wise, I completed both the tradition and patronage tree. The siege tower stayed useful up to cannons, while the royal library helped with pumping out frigates that were close to getting logistics.

After conquering Asia and Africa I became the tech leader and easily defeated 3 civs in America with battleships, most notably the culture runaway Siam, who actually forced me to take on the Freedom ideology as I had naively hoped that conquering the great works of my enemies would've been enough to have a decent amount of tourism.

I think I still have a 4000bc save file if anyone's interested, it's quite a fun map.

 

[AgentTBC]

Therefore, their UA should be changed so that Assyria gets a bonus (likely: increased Great Writer generation) if they are the most advanced civ in the world, making them the game's only science-military civ instead of just another pure war civ.

You can't make a UA like that because on any of the higher difficulties the human player will never be the most advanced Civ in the world in the first few eras.

 

[Navelgazer]

Plus the Royal Library + Tradition + REX can make for a bizarre and interesting cultural victory. pump out writers in your capital when nobody else has near as many slots for them while taking out your nearest rivals in the early game. After that everybody is playing catch-up to you and you didn't lose ground tech-wise while setting it all up.

 

[Babri]

I've just realised a bit of a problem with Assyria. They get a unique library which is nice and all that but in all the games I've played, libraries of all kinds increase science while for the UA to shine, you actually have to kind of be behind?

You don't really need to be behind. If you play King or above, AI would most probably be keeping up with you in tech but they will have different tech paths taken, so you'll get the bonus from their UA. For example you solely focused on military techs & then invade a peaceful Korea you get all those other juicy techs for FREE in a couple of turns as you capture their cities.

 

[Theruss]

I think Assyria is a very powerful Civ in the hands of the player. Although I have never seen them do well in the hands of the AI. A lot of the time, I see them with just their capital and maybe one additional city, and it doesn't take long until they are completely conquered and eliminated from the game. You'd think with those awesome Siege Towers, the AI would do fairly well with them, but nope...

 

[EulerMcE]

I played a game of Assyria on Emperor where I'm usually too clumsy to get a lead in tech for quite a long time. I waited for the great writer before building an army. The medieval dawned, I attacked people only to find I was the tech leader and had already eclipsed my victims. That was weird and bittersweet. Then I moved up to Immortal and all my siege towers died to unit spam. Good times.

I have yet to meet an Assyrian AI early in the game. He always turns up across the ocean in a heavily marginalised position.

 

[civ54lyfe]

worst thing about Assyria is their freaking start bias. Plains really? the worst tile type in the game. i've rerolled them about 5 or 6 times and it's plains and usually half desert or desert in the far outskirts. and not awesome desert with floodplains just desert. one minor good thing is usually the plains were moderate forest good for chopping some units or buildings.

but their awesome siege tower may make up for this, chopping a few of those. their library is garbage; Maya's simple buffed up shrine is far better than this.

 

[Nivrax]

Assyria as AI seems to have very high chance of snowballing out of control. If their first push in classical work against non-warmonger, they will have both huge empire and be fine in techs. He did managed to get 1/3 of the world on Deity, killing off China and Siam.

 

[Gort]

worst thing about Assyria is their freaking start bias. Plains really? the worst tile type in the game.

What? Tundra is far worse.

 

[civ54lyfe]

oops that true, forgot about Sweden (and to a lesser extent Germany also starts near Tundra often times) yeah Tundra is so bad that i'll never play Sweden for this. i guess i meant "worst of the normal tiles". a Plains start with a ton of wheat is doable though.

 

[Navelgazer]

I thought Assyria's start bias was simply "Not Tundra," but in any case plains (which I normally don't like) can be good for Assyria because they make mobilizing for conquest of your neighbors that much faster.

 

[Yzman]

worst thing about Assyria is their freaking start bias. Plains really? the worst tile type in the game. i've rerolled them about 5 or 6 times and it's plains and usually half desert or desert in the far outskirts. and not awesome desert with floodplains just desert. one minor good thing is usually the plains were moderate forest good for chopping some units or buildings.

but their awesome siege tower may make up for this, chopping a few of those. their library is garbage; Maya's simple buffed up shrine is far better than this.

Desert is worse, tundra is worse and water is worse. Plains give you food and production, which when farmed is great. Its probably the 2nd or best flat tile.

 

[MarshalN]

So I'm trying my first game as Assyria.

Since early war is obviously key to actually using this civ's abilities, I figured an early war it will be. It was random map, but it looks like it's Pangaea, on immortal. Poland spawned next to me, Sejeong far south in the tundra. We are on the western end of the continent. Shaka and Attila and India are next, and Sweden and someone else (forgot) on the farther end.

So, Poland was the first target. I took Lodz with a few archers and a siege tower. It was almost comically easy. Then I sued for peace, since I needed to upgrade to CB and build more towers. Meanwhile, Shaka DOWed Poland and actually lost a city, and Attila began demolishing India.

Then, Poland DOWed me back as soon as our treaty expired, along with Attila, who until then was pretty friendly. I thought I was dead, but Attila is doing the "DOW but not sending troops" thing, so I was able to kill Poland's army and then took the rest of the cities, except a 1 pop second founding of Lodz. I also took Shaka's captured city - thought about giving it back to him, but then, I figured I might need it as a land buffer if he declares on me, which I'm sure he will at some point.

So, at something like 120 turns, I have two cities that I founded, and three puppets, including the former Poland capital of Warsaw. I'm now 3rd in tech, as opposed to last (when I started the war). Warsaw also happens to have the Great Wall, which is at least reassuring - I'll probably survive even a Shaka/Attila joint onslaught. Although I did lose a tower because of the Great Wall as well. Can't have everything.

So, the plus - the siege tower is ridiculously powerful. Taking Warsaw down was really easy - 3 towers, 3 CBs, and that was it. I lost one tower, but I would've kept it if there wasn't a great wall (couldn't get away in time when it's weakened). It also makes the CBs that tag along way more powerful against the city. Sieging other cities is even easier - it's a bit like attacking a city with riflemen when your opponent is still barely into renaissance.

The free tech - I got four of them - is nice. You don't get to pick the tech, so it may or may not be useful, and if you're not lucky it could be the thing you're researching right now that's almost done (you're not going to hang around wasting military troops to wait for the tech to finish). So, it's a bit of a crapshoot. I did get a tech out of every city I take, and if you focus on beelining for things, I think it's easier to get techs for free.

The UB is pretty crap. I haven't had time to build a writer's guild, and even if I do, it'll be a while before I even get the bonus. By that time I think the UU will be more or less obsolete, although I can see myself using the UU instead of upgrading to treb simply because it gives that bonus to every single unit around the city as well - it's like an extra general. So there's a good reason to keep at least one or two siege towers around until they won't last more than one turn - which is probably renaissance, at least. If you get cover2 (which is probably the first thing one should get with the tower) it can keep the party going.

Another problem is that early war mongering has costs. I'm doing fine on money, mostly because I have a lot of wine around me. But there's that warmonger penalty that won't go away. On this map with so many warmongers, it's less of a problem, but if you are stuck on a map with a lot of peaceful civs that are more defensive minded, it can get tricky.

I'm not sure how this game will end. Shaka+Attila is pretty worrisome - I kept the puppets instead of razing them partly so that I have land to give if they invade, and cities to wear down their units. I'll try to make friends with Sejeong, but so far there have been very few friendships and lots of DOWs this game. We'll see.