Tips for an early Assyrian steamroller that doesn't end on Immortal+

[DarkAmen]

I wanted to play as Assyria on Pangea; go honour for quick barb killing and get to double exp then build siege towers and steam roller till the. To have fun I want to use the siege towers as early as possible. So I beeline them and then comp bows. I use the barb killing to level archers I need to kill the melees before they kill towers after I upgrade them.

On Pangea I can never get enough cash to fund the army to move it quick enough to stop the loss in science (big-ve gpt) equal the tech I get from city captures. And my archers cost gpt and (by the upgrade and attack time) I can't get cash always upgrade them (despite a scout run to find CSs).

I can win easily enough by holding back and waiting till I have GPT; but the Siege towers obsolete quickly and I to get lots of cities use from them (they upgrade badly).

Will playing diety make it easier as the AI get cities quicker and they'll be packed quicker helping the tech popping? Has anybody tried this and had fun...

I find I can take out 4 or 5 AI if I paly on continents but those remaining at the end of the 2nd steamroller rush (post astronomy) have out-teched me by miles; and whilst it's fun getting to that point; I want to blitz on through to the end - hence pangea and not having to wait for astro.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I don't know if this strategy will work for you, but I found this fun way to play with Assyria:

Have a small, elite siege task force. Focus on civs with more techs than you, and trim away their smaller cities a little at a time. Raze them and force them to rebuild. If they don't have techs for you to take, let them grow for a while. Eventually, you will eclipse everyone in technology. They you move in on whatever victory type you were going for.

Assyria's UA is designed to take advantage of your rivals' science. So if you are sinking your rivals left and right, you are making permanent enemies, bogging yourself down with ravaged cities, and ruining your own UA. I prefer to simply treat your rivals like a crop field. Let them grow, and harvest their small cities when they are ripe (ie have technologies that you don't). Keep your rivals from being too expansive, then when the time is right, you can rip through them all like a whirlwind.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I found Assyria's UA hard to wield effectively. Of course, I was on King, so I out-teched them fairly quickly. I do think the goal is to beeline military and get at least spears and Siege Towers. They kill cities very quickly. You don't need a large army, you just need enough to keep other units at bay while they kill. However, even when beelining to the military techs, I didn't get that many other techs to make up for it and my science was weak because I didn't have the necessary infrastructure.

That being said, I won the game, so it worked out.

 

[Unthinking Pain]

Just go nuts building wonders. AT least, that's what I see the Assyrian AI do every game. Then they covet my wonders and attack me on a suicide long-distance attack.

Wait, maybe that plan didn't work out so well.

 

[njmfff]

I found Assyria's UA hard to wield effectively. Of course, I was on King, so I out-teched them fairly quickly. I do think the goal is to beeline military and get at least spears and Siege Towers. They kill cities very quickly. You don't need a large army, you just need enough to keep other units at bay while they kill. However, even when beelining to the military techs, I didn't get that many other techs to make up for it and my science was weak because I didn't have the necessary infrastructure.

That being said, I won the game, so it worked out.

Early wars with Assyria is kinda easy, when cities have just walls or no walls at all. One Siege tower to camp in front of the city, 1-2 warriors to guard\attack, and archers\c-bows to either attack city or defending units. Cities fall quite fast. Only problem is, in early wars, you'll get 2 turns research sailing.

 

[Bl01_Z]

I have been doing the exact same thing as you. I usually test new civs and strategies on lower levels to diagnose their strengths and weaknesses and then move up if I consider them viable. I tested this originally on king/large map/continents /12 civs. I steamrolled 80% of my continent wiping Rome Arabia Austria the Huns and Russia off the face of the earth save for a couple useless cities I let them keep. I had some happiness issues mid game which forced me to pause my conquering and build circuses and colloseums and zoos everywhere but I completely dominated with a diplomatic victory by mid 1800s.

I decided to test this on emperor next. Same thing composite bow men and seige towers. I took over my entire continent completely erasing the other five civs off the face of the earth. Was coasting to an easy science win when I happened to stumble I to a other diplo victory. I was up 10-15 techs on the rest of the world.

I decided to try this on immortal and this is where I ran into major problems with this strategy. the problem is this: i can always wipeout my closest neighbor, but with bnw game mechanics this victory is so costly in terms of time, units, production and sacrificing of infrastructure that you r already way behind everyone else and now everyone hates you. The Assyrian us is op up until emperor because the ai is too stupid and helpless to defend itself and u can tech up on the military side and conquer your way into other techs until u r in the lead then just coast.

Whereas on immortal this strategy drains u initially because your first conquest is a big speedbump that u can't catch up from. Too much happiness and gold bleeding as well. So i am trying to refine this strategy to balance conquest against infrastructure to succeed. I will update u as i go along.

 

[njmfff]

hmm, true, but you don't have to attack in early on. You can just build towers and upgrade them later on into next tier unit. Kinda like Persian Immortals, spam them when you can build them, let them clean up the barbs for XP, but use them later on as Pikes and Lancers in war against other civs.

 

[FrostK]

On Immortal its rather easy domination. But on Immortal its easy for any civ.
On deity... didnt yet get domination for Assiria on deity. And I think Assiria is not the best for Deity.
Because you need permanent war, when on Deity diplomacy is important.

 

[The QC]

Disclaimer: I'm not an Immortal+ player, so I cannot guarantee that my ideas are good enough for those difficulty levels. My level is Emperor.

My opinion is this:

Do not try to maximize the Assyrian UA. Do not:

• delay science buildings
• use deep beelines just to make sure the others have a tech you don't
• go on overlong, unsustainable conquest sprees
• refuse cities as part of peace deals

Really, build libraries and the NC as usual and research what you need in the order you need it. The Assyrian UA will give you something random, so you can't rely on it. Also, you can't take cities at a pace that gives you all the techs that the others have, so you can't rely on the UA as your main source of science. It's just a nice bonus, nothing more. Also, peace deal cities are better than captured ones for many reasons, including the warmonger label and army conservation, so don't fall in the trap that, just because you could take it by force, you should.

Do not beeline to the siege tower.
There's no point in taking cities when your economy and infrastructure can't take it. It's also more useful to start conquering when the target has built cities closer to you and/or has had time to build a few useful wonders in their capital. Taking a capital at turn 30 may seem like a success, but in fact you just acquired a small, empty city a million miles away from your capital.

Do try to get at least one piece of writing early in order to maximize the XP gain of your units. And don't forget that you can move it from city to city easily, so you can give the XP bonus to any unit being built in a city with a Library, not just one city per piece of writing. This bonus may seem like the smallest one, but it's the most consistent thing that the Assyrians have and the most long term, so do not dismiss it.

The Assyrians are not built for an intense, non-ending conquest spree. They are also not fit for an early mad rush, because this simply does not exist in BNW anymore. You need trade routes and happiness and some degree of diplomatic relations (or you need to at least delay the moment when everyone hates you forever). And it's not possible to win the game with the siege towers alone, unless you're playing small maps. On normal maps the towers give you a nice advantage during a period of the game, but there will still be much to play once they obsolete.

Edit: I guess we all expected that we knew how the Assyrians would play, based on their characteristics, but we were wrong, because we didn't know how much BNW changes the game. We also all expected them to be overpowered, but in the contest of BNW they simply aren't, so you shouldn't play them as if they are. You need to work in order to win with them.