Civ 5 Assyrian Civilization

Civ Bonuses, AI Info, Strategies, Unique Units and Buildings

Updated for Gods and Kings and Brave New World DLCs

Civilization's Leader: Ashurbanipal

Civ Bonus: Treasures of Nineveh
Gain a Free Tech when you conquer an enemy City. May happen only once per City and does not count when you gain control of the City through Trade.

Unique Unit: Siege Tower
Requires Mathematics, Replaces Catapult
Catapults are not that popular, so replacing it with the wonderful Siege Tower is a welcome bonus to Assyria. It is a Melee unit that gets +5 combat strength over a normal Catapult (to 12) and starts with the Cover I promotion, giving +33% defense against ranged attacks, +1 Sight, and a +200% bonus vs Cities. Units within 2 hexes get a +50% attack bonus on Cities, so it can boost your Archer or Composite Bowmen's damage when sieging a City.

Unique Building: Royal Library
Requires Writing, Replaces Library
The Royal Library contains a Great Work of Writing Slot. When filled, units that are trained in the City get +10 Experience, which stacks with those +15s from the Barracks, Armory, and Military Academy. Getting this going early is not very important, but later it is very helpful to start units with three upgrades and get them closer to a fourth.

Strategies/Ideas for playing Assyria:
Assyria's Unique Unit and Civ Bonus both direct them toward Warmongering. It's quite OK for you to have a technological disadvantage, so long as your military is strong and backed by their powerful Siege Towers. Having a disadvantage, even slight, lets you take advantage of their Unique Bonus and get a free, random tech from your conquests. Their Royal Library does not have to be stocked with your own Great Writers' works, but can be filled with the writing of other Nations if you so choose. Still, it's better to get the Writer's Guild well before the mid-game for the cultural and experience boosts you'll get. Great Works of Writing should automatically go to your Royal Libraries, but do check the Culture screen to make sure they are in the Cities that have the best production bonuses, as more units will be trained there, thus more benefit.

The Siege Tower is absolutely devastating in the early game, thus making Mathematics a Tech you'll want to beeline just after your Luxuries are workable. Even one of these units attacking an early City can be crippling to the target Civ. Nearby units will receive the +50% combat bonus from the screenshot above, which will increase the damage they inflict upon their target City. It's entirely possible that with good maneuvering you can steamroll a City in only one to two turns. With a Barracks, the Siege Tower can come out with Cover II, which will protect it even further. The open/rough terrain bonuses hardly matter for this unit, but any upgrades should be directed toward one of those paths in case your units survive to one day get upgraded to Artillery. If you plan to wage another war before Muskets come out, you should probably go for a couple extra Siege Towers so you can get them on the field before Trebuchets replace them. I would not bother upgrading a siege tower unless going all the way to Cannon, because of the benefit to nearby units.

Perhaps more difficult than waging war with Assyria is deciding when to stop. If you're playing Continents, then you will probably want to take over your entire continent if no one else has been met. No one will be around to know of your misdeeds, thus avoiding the Warmonger penalties that stack up exponentially as you conquer more Cities. I don't bother with conquering City-States however, their bonuses are too helpful, particularly when you're the only one around to receive them and have incentive to hunt Barbarians to sharpen your army. Puppet newly acquired Cities to limit the Unhappiness that accumulates, and pace yourself so that you don't go beyond -8 Unhappiness or so, to avoid revolts that can distract you from your battles in foreign lands.

I recommend a Liberty to Honor transition with Assyria. You want to get to expand quickly, so go directly for the free Settler from Liberty, then transition to the right side of Honor for the combat bonus and happiness/culture for garrisoned Cities, along with reduced upgrade costs for Military units. Later, you can finish off Liberty to get the Tile Improvement upgrade speed and free golden age/great person, to help you with improving your inevitably wide empire. The reduction to unhappiness from connected Cities, along with the +1 for having a unit stationed in the City will help immensely with dealing with Unhappiness. Autocracy is not a bad Ideology choice for them, as Prora will boost your Happiness, and it is very focused on Domination Wins. Total War is also immensely helpful by giving starting units more XP, and giving you higher production toward those units.

Another issue you'll face is a lack of income, so get Markets and perhaps a couple Cities dedicated to gold production, as early as you possibly can without ruining your war plans. Honor's finisher will help support your upgrades, but you need plenty of GPT to support a large military. Get some Sea Trade routes going with other Civs or City-States and protect them from Barbarians by destroying any coastal encampments along their route. Later in the game, keep a strong military presence to deter war and make it so that you are the one deciding when combat begins. You should absolutely go for a Domination victory, focusing on those Civs that have higher tech. If you take the Capital of a Civ and leave them crippled, get a Peace Treaty, improve your Cities, then focus on the Civ with the highest technology to prevent them from outpacing you. Late-game, war is the same, but you'll still benefit from Treasures of Nineveh. If you want to finish with Domination, then be sure to capture or acquire cities in treaty deals that will make good staging grounds for future air strikes - for example, one near the border of another Civ, so that you can crush their capital and secure your victory.

Tweet

Are you sure you want to report it?

Share Tips and FAQs (3)

Our Sims Forum is the place to go for faster answers to questions and discussions about the game. Use the form below to share your own experiences and provide helpful tips to other readers.

Bebop Space Cop says...

2/2

Diplomatic: As with any diplomatic game you focus on one of the other 3 victory paths to set the basis for your future gold production, quest finishing(great people generation, etc) for city states, and transition to gold and diplomacy later on when city states are important and you can start buffing your interests through gradual world congress decisions. So the issues caused by Ashurbanipal are more or less based on the similar path your following in the early game. Late game, the only way you wont have had to deal with Ashurbanipal most likely is if he was on another continent, in which case he is basically the problem of his island mates, and, should you have good gold production and a military to liberate any coastal city states he might have taken (good luck getting landlocked ones), he isn't too much of an issue. All you may have to worry about from then on is your coastal defense should you not compliment him when he does his hair nice and thus declares war on you. He doesn't really focus on allying with city states, so as long as you can defend from a possibly warmonger Ashurbanipal overseas you should have no troubles with your usual victory route.

Overall the biggest issue you'll have with him no matter what is his tenancy to swarm new cites across any little bit of land. This often requires continuous war with him due to him settling even 4 tiles from you city in an area that will grant him 5 workable tiles cut off from his empire. Its like he doesn't even want to play smart, he just wants to ***** you off. In some games where hes my neighbor this becomes simply too unbearable, and I often loose more than I would from 1 city being captured, and he will continue this well until he dies, and eliminating a civ is a such a huge diplomatic hit you may never recover. Its basically lose lose unless your neighbors offer to help. Thats also worth mentioning too: every Civ who knows him from the start will despise him after his first war or so, so your best bet for survival is forging an alliance to attack him on multiple fronts. Beyond that Ashurbanipal plays like a disease, he wont stop hurting you until you wipe him out, but with the hits you'll take along the way may never be recovered.

Reply

Flag

9

6th August 2014 4:31am

Redmond Jennings says...

I love the way you hate, Cowboy.

Reply

Flag

10

10th August 2014 9:38pm

Bebop Space Cop says...

1/2

The preferred strategy for playing AS Assyria is very well stated above, but playing against Assyria can feel like a whole other story. Assyria has the perfect mix of goals and timing in UU to the point I consider it my nemesis over the entirety of Civ 5.

Ashurbanipal will make it a constant effort to win with any condition, due to his ludicrous early UU, warmonger nature, and I often find him to be an immense unfriendly wonder-*****, and the second you build a few wonders he wants he will never even consider being nice to you unless that diplomacy list is glowing bright green. Overall to add with it, he is incredible unfriendly and will let one or 2 poor diplomatic situations ruin any chance of diplomacy with others. By the time you reach the modern era so long as you have separate ideologies, you will never get above hostile, no matter what you try (at least from countless games with him, if I'm not forced to kill him instantly due to him trying to attack immediately.)

Allow me to explain along each victory path he is a nuisance in great detail:

In general: He possess on of the most powerful for its time UU's in the game, and he knows very well how to use it. And while immense focus on units over technology or culture leads to a stiff decline in other AI like Attila or Montezuma, his UA helps him keep up to date and his early science building only helps his early conquests. If you are his neighbor its no question if he will declare war on you, its when and how many cities will you loose. And when you think "overproduction of early military units" and you think the Huns who by doing so get outclassed, think again. he will produce just as many, even leaving them warriors and archers, but due to the siege towers your cities will fall much easier. And if you have an AI whos a buffer between you and him, it is important to assist you neighbor if they wont ruin your preferred victory path or kill you, as Ashurbanipal gaining a wide lead can cause some bad things.

Domination: If hes on your continent he will put up the biggest fight no doubt, and again, if hes your neighbor your early conquests will consist of defending instead. should he not be your neighbor and you allow him to conquer certain civs while you do others, you will be better off, facing a possibly overstretched and by then
(should you be good about your science, as he'll focus all of his from captures) technologically advanced military. It also helps keep those civs hes attacking off your back to let you stay more unopposed. No matter what path you take, its important to get him ,off guard.

Science: The lack of multiple military units and high science will make you target number 1 for Ashurbanipal if hes on your continent and doesn't have another civ as a copious buffer. The best bet you have here is to stock up on siege units (as Korea you can likely get Hwacha's before he attacks if you beeline) since Siege towers count as cities with damage. If you can outclass him and shrink him down, you MAY be fine (see below)

Cultural: Ashurbanipal is the biggest P.I.T.A ever when you are going for a cultural victory. The remaining issues of a lacking military and his early warmonger ways. However, when not at war Ashurbanipal is probably one of, if not the biggest, wonder-***** in Civ 5, and if you build even a few of the, you know, all, he will hate you. An intercontinental Ashurbanipal is terrible, because the only way to eliminate him is human intelligence or a large alliance of offensive AI. He stole the Louvre, Uffzi, and many many more important cultural wonders from me, which he never intends to use for culture or tourism, just so you cant have them basically. If you can pull out a basic science lead so you unlock wonders before him, this should stop being an issue around the modern era. The biggest cultural pain however lies with his aggravation level and speed. Due to his poor deals and quick temper getting open borders with him is very challenging, and due to his innate cultural gain from so many wonders you will be hard pressed to get the open borders boost or any great musicians in there with trading away most of your strategic resources and a few last copies of happiness resources, and that's if your lucky enough to get him to even consider it. it took me 4 bright green modifiers to get him to give me the just stated deal.

Reply

Flag

7

6th August 2014 4:10am

Page 1 of 1

Join In

[cancel]

Name:

Email:

Share:

Captcha:

 

Enter code:

 

Remember my name and email for future contributions.