Pointers for Assyria domination on Immortal difficulty

[Astennu]

Hi guys,

Been testing out an entirely new form of gameplay since BNW came out (for me at least)

Very early domination rush with Assyria.

I've started a game on continents, Immortal, epic, legendary start, 10 player large map.

I spawn next to Shaka (closest neighbour) Boudicca, Casimir and Siam. Shaka is in the middle of everyone and his aggressive expansion gets everyone mad at him, hence I join in dogpile war against him and capture 2 of his cities and get the other one in a peace deal.

Sounds like a good start right? Well it hasn't turned out how I'd like, since I have had to neglect infrastructure in order to beat Shaka and my science and growth is lagging. The Assyrian UA has helped, but only by so much.

After leaving Shaka with 1 city, the arguably OP Poland is racing ahead in tech and declares war on me since my now captured Zulu cities are on his doorstep.

Having forgone my infrastructure I don't have the best tech units to repel his invasion and despite some crafty use of Citadels his Longswordsmen and Knights eventually become too much.

I'm gonna replay the game as I always do (love seeing how a tweak in strategy can result in a completely different outcome) am I'm thinkin what can be done differently.

At the moment I'm thinking I should've just took a couple Zulu cities and not went for any more but instead concentrate on my own growth so I don't fall too far behind. Poland's UA gives him a big advantage in anything he wants and the level of unit spam on Immortal makes it very hard to just take everyone down in the early stages with siege towers.

In summary, I'm thinkin of just knocking out my neighbour Shaka, concentrate on defense and growth for a bit THEN continue warring and hopefully cripple Casimir before he becomes too strong. Any suggestions?

 

[GhostSalsa]

Even well-managed early conquest usually sets your entry into the modern era back 50 turns, compared to turtling, and your victory back the same. That doesn't mean it's wrong to play that way... just a lot more work. However, I still prefer to only engage in early conquest if it's for good wonders.

It doesn't sound like you got any notable prizes from the Zulu? Then I would try to let them conquer someone else first, let them steal some wonders and works. Turtle until Artillery and rush them before they get bombers up. They won't be any less hated then, but now your science and culture infrastructure are solid and you can afford to conquer at will.

If you did get good stuff, I would have just stuck with it. Poland will probably give you peace and be friends again once you get some units up. You might have to do a painful artillery-vs-bomber invasion of them circa turn 240 but it will work out fine if you've got your moves all planned out - plus you'll tech up to flight as you conquer. Victory before 360 unlikely but that doesn't mean it's not worth playing through.

10-player domination, no thanks. I've tried it once on Immortal as well and actually got almost the same result - had everyone else in the bag but Poland was stronger than I wanted to bother with.

 

[Astennu]

Wow! I managed to win the game today and it was crazy. Thanks for the reply btw.

10 player continents Immortal is grueling for a Domination win and in the end I gave up and won via science.

After conquering the Zulus in the middle of the map I had both Siam and th Celts declare war on me from the South and Southeast. I don't know how I did it, but I fought back easily 10x my own number of forces with crafty use of Citadels as well as a city on top of a hill, next to a river in deep jungle. I had literally used 3 crossbowman and city bombard to kill about 20 Celt units!

It was absolutely hectic. I am use to playing nice relaxed, high infrastructure and growth games. My gold dipped into negative many many times and my road networks were pillaged like crazy. After I subdued the Celts and Siam made peace, I was finally building myself up when Poland attacked. My forces were COMPLETELY out of place due to fighting in the south and had to pull back immediately. The war dragged on from the early Industrial to late Modern era and I took 2 of his cities. We traded Ulundi, the former Zulu capital literally 10+ times.

In the end the Assyrian UA is what allowed me to win the game. My growth was not that great due to constant war, however every city I took netted a free technology, which kept me in the game. I snagged Hubble Telescope and kept pumping RAs and GS. In the end it was neck and neck between me and Catherine (she had the worst population score but still ranked #1 in science, crazy huh).

She was about 1 tech in front of me and probably would have won, EXCEPT she conquered an English city on my continent, which allowed me in turn to conquer it off her and snag Computers! Which allowed me to get Nanotechnology in time and buy the final spaceship part. I chose Freedom obviously, and I had to trade 30gpt to get the 4000 or so gold needed to buy the parts, but it was obviously worth it! Such an eventful, draining game.

 

[GhostSalsa]

Nice, clinching spaceship with the Assyrian UA - I'm curious what turn you ended up winning on?

 

[Astennu]

Nice, clinching spaceship with the Assyrian UA - I'm curious what turn you ended up winning on?

Hmm, I'm at work atm so unable to check but it was mid 500s (on epic speed)

I was delayed at least 100 turns from all the DOWS on me

 

[GhostSalsa]

cool - 540 epic turns is 360 standard turns so it sounds like i was p close in my guess. Basically that's when I've hit a VC on my games with heavy mid-game conquest and war and also the turn that the occasional strong Immortal AI can get a victory together, science or tourism.

 

[Astennu]

cool - 540 epic turns is 360 standard turns so it sounds like i was p close in my guess. Basically that's when I've hit a VC on my games with heavy mid-game conquest and war and also the turn that the occasional strong Immortal AI can get a victory together, science or tourism.

Nice, do you think Assyria is viable for science? You can warmonger to keep up in tech and attack a runaway/tech leader at the same time
It was alot of fun.

 

[GhostSalsa]

Yes, it's great to tech up that way and I've had several games where it would have been useful - as civs that were not Assyria. But both times I was Assyria I had really nice, secure starting locations and no incentive to conquer mid-game. So naturally I was tech leader by Industrial and never got to use the UA either time. It's impossible to actually plan on being behind on tech.