Assyria

Well, the Zulu do it, too. But that's not my point. They should be an early blooming civ, like Babylon. If it continues to bloom all the way through the late game, great.
Zulu only does it for one unit class though.

Why should Assyria be an early bloomer though? The UB is built for long term, and the UA is as well (science is a slow pay off)
 
Zulu only does it for one unit class though.

Why should Assyria be an early bloomer though? The UB is built for long term, and the UA is as well (science is a slow pay off)

Beause they're known for knocking down the walls of Babylon. Same way Egypt is known for Wonders. It doesn't mean they can't work for the long term (just like Babylon). But it's not a big deal. You either prioritize those sorts of connections, or you don't.
 
Beause they're known for knocking down the walls of Babylon. Same way Egypt is known for Wonders. It doesn't mean they can't work for the long term (just like Babylon). But it's not a big deal. You either prioritize those sorts of connections, or you don't.
Well the UU is great at knocking down walls early and mid game. Once siege gets 3 range its less useful though.
 
Zulu only does it for one unit class though.

Why should Assyria be an early bloomer though? The UB is built for long term, and the UA is as well (science is a slow pay off)
I mean, Assyria is one of the oldest civs in existence so I can see why people would want them to be better early. I also thought their bonuses were extremely disconnected from the real life kingdom.

That said, Tradition into mid-late game warmongering is definitely the best way to run them and has been for a while imo.
 
A question I have about the UU for Assyria is this:
Why not just make it a great general replacement? It seems to function on a similar niche as generals of being a support-buff unit that can't fight itself.
 
A question I have about the UU for Assyria is this:
Why not just make it a great general replacement? It seems to function on a similar niche as generals of being a support-buff unit that can't fight itself.
That's what I wanted all along, but I think people said that using siegetowers in modern eras would be weird, or something along those lines.
 
Because that would be boring.
I can see the point. The strength of the UU is you can build it on command which is something that can't be said for generals. Other then that I don't see how generals with sapper would be 'boring'.
 
i'd vote a big no on making siege towers a different unit. They're really cool and unique as is. I just wish they had medic 2 or something other than medic 1. Medic 1 is almost never useful at all.
 
i'd vote a big no on making siege towers a different unit. They're really cool and unique as is. I just wish they had medic 2 or something other than medic 1. Medic 1 is almost never useful at all.
Doesn't the UU go out of production at a certain era? Would it be possible to have sapper appear on generals as well? I've never really played as Assyria but I'm sure the concept of having an unpromotable unique unit go out of production would be depressing.

On the other hand if you slapped sapper on great generals it would kinda step on the identity of other GG based UA's wouldn't it?
 
Doesn't the UU go out of production at a certain era? Would it be possible to have sapper appear on generals as well? I've never really played as Assyria but I'm sure the concept of having an unpromotable unique unit go out of production would be depressing.

On the other hand if you slapped sapper on great generals it would kinda step on the identity of other GG based UA's wouldn't it?
I don't know. I've never lost a seige tower, and once two are built you can't build more unless they die.
 
Finished a really long game (Marathon, Pangaea, 22 civs, huge, King) with Assyria. Some thoughts:

The conquering part of the UA has a bit of a stepping stone to it (took me a few tries to get the early game right), but scales very, very nicely - once you get to the part where you finish Tradition and start aggressively looking for people to mess with, those science jumps really help make you lead in science... or get away further. Combined with the other part of the UA, snowballing away with science is very fun and possible, particularly in combination with the recent 'puppets no more increasing science cost' change. Being ahead in science is almost a necessity too, as in a Pangaea everyone hates you for your warmongering by midgame and you're in constant war. But really, what's -145 happiness when you're about to own the world? (As a sidenote, learned the hard way that warmongering penalty for repeatedly killing off someone is pretty big. People really, really did not like me after I killed Askia, someone else liberated them, then I killed them off again - repeated a few times.)

Siege Tower does its' job fine(notably, helping get that early city siege going without having to protect cumbersome and weak catapults), although adding Medic 2 probably would not hurt. I'd say keep them and Great Generals separate though.

This game was started before the recent Royal Library change, and the prebuilt piece of tablet + extra slot in there probably does help with what I'd ask for anyway - being able to 'fill' it at a reasonable pace. That said, post Military Academy four promotions is borderline ludicrous. March/Logistics right off the bat is crazy good, no doubt about that.

Flavorwise... yeah, I sort of agree that Assyria should maybe be more about conquering before most people have discovered how to read and getting ahead that way, buuut I don't really have problems with the current set of uniques either.
 
After 80 turns Assyria founded only 1 city (see pic). Everyone else has 3-4 cities. Is this a bug or may happen normally due to... what?

Edit. Ok, on turn 102 they founded 2nd city. Still, quite strange...
 

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Assyria is doing quite bad in my many games, and siege towers are pretty much free kills for the player. It feels like they invest too many resources on something they can't effectively protect if they lack enough meatshields, and that sets them back in AI vs AI battles as well.

I don't like the limitation to 2 of them nor the fact* you can have these ancient siege engines efficiently supporting your own atomic era units (because as a player, losing civilian units is really hard). Today after the n-th game where I abused my neighbour Ashurbanipal I decided to comment out the CBP changes to the UU and I look forward to our next meeting. Does the AI know how to use battering rams/siege towers, and to not produce too many of them?

I also like to see the sige tower model in game, having it hidden under some other unit doesn't feel epic enough.

*based on some previous reply to this topic, need confirmation
 
I don't like the limitation to 2 of them nor the fact* you can have these ancient siege engines efficiently supporting your own atomic era units (because as a player, losing civilian units is really hard). Today after the n-th game where I abused my neighbour Ashurbanipal I decided to comment out the CBP changes to the UU and I look forward to our next meeting. Does the AI know how to use battering rams/siege towers, and to not produce too many of them?

No. At least as of when the change was made, the AI was HORRIBLE with Siege Towers and at least below decent with Battering Rams. I mean, Gazebo made the change for the reason, trust me. Is it weird that their ability lasts the whole game, but they can't be built after a certain point? Yes, sure. But, yeah, you've almost certainly made AI Assyria worse. (fwiw, they are fine in my games as is)
 
I think siege towers should be able to be built all game, to help Assyria AI. I've personally never lost a siege tower in the three or so games I've played to completion with Assyria, and I doubt other people lose them like they're hotcakes.
 
As I said, players just don't lose civilian units ever. And that's part of the issue tbh. Personally I don't like to have those units helping my modern era sieges, while they (in my experience) don't last that long in AI hands.

I have some terrible vanilla memories of carpets of siege towers being held by a single scout so I see how the fake-general ability is helping the new AI, it just didn't feel that scary when faced in game, where having 'some' good manouvered sturdy city killers would have added a lot more to Ashurbanipal early pushes.
 
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Excuse me, have you noticed Assyria underperforming? In my games it doesn't conquer as much as it could, but is always near the top. Standard map and speed.

Read above. Without player intervention, they are right there with all the average performing civs, nothing to complain there.

As a player, killing the escort is quite easy and taking down towers really settles back the AI, losing a high production cost unit in one hit.

Now, since Assyria isn't itself broken and as a player you can keep towers alive forever and have fun, this could be a moot point; except that I find silly having siege towers in modern eras, and the civ is a way stronger late warmonger in player's hands.
 
Now, since Assyria isn't itself broken and as a player you can keep towers alive forever and have fun, this could be a moot point; except that I find silly having siege towers in modern eras, and the civ is a way stronger late warmonger in player's hands.

I agree that siege towers in modern times is flat-out ridiculous from an immersive pov, but this has been discussed before. No viable alternatives to make the civ keep performing were brought up. The dialogue became about whether they were currently UP or not (they're not), vs whether the current design is conceptually nonsensical, and should be reconsidered.
 
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