Note: This guide assumes you have all game-altering DLC and expansion packs (all Civ packs, Wonders of the Ancient World, Gods & Kings and Brave New World)



The first Assyrian cities are believed to have been founded over 4,500 years ago, but the Akkadians and Sumerians would dominate the area for the first few centuries. Come the 21st century before the common era, Assyria achieved its freedom and around two centuries later, formed an empire. Much alike Egypt, Assyria had three peaks of power - Ashurbanipal, the Siege Tower and the Royal Library date to the latter of these, the Neo-Assyrian empire of the 10th to 7th centuries before the common era.

While then ruled by Babylon, the Persians and multiple other empire-building nations, the Assyrians left their culture's mark on the region - particularly on Persia. The Assyrian people live to this day, but they face a new threat - extremists who would plunder and destroy their ancient cities and monuments. The Assyrian people need unity in this troubled time. Under your rule, can you elevate a new Assyria onto the world stage and spread its influence throughout the world? Can you reconstruct a civilization to stand the test of time?



Before I go into depth with this guide, here's an explanation of some terminology I'll be using throughout for the sake of newer players.

Finisher - The bonus for completing a Social Policy tree (e.g. Free Great Person for Liberty.)
GWAM - Great Writers, Artists and Musicians. These are the three Great People who can make Great Works for tourism leading to a cultural victory.
Opener - The bonus for unlocking a Social Policy tree (e.g. +1 culture for every city for Liberty's opener)
UA - Unique Ability - the unique thing a Civilization has which doesn't need to be built.
UB - Unique Building - A replacement for a normal building that can only be built by one Civilization.
UU - Unique Unit - A replacement for a normal unit that can only be built by one Civilization or provided by Militaristic City-States when allied (provided that respective Civ isn't in the game.)
Uniques - Collective name for Unique Abilities, Units, Buildings, Tile Improvements and Great People
XP - Experience Points - Get enough and you'll level up your unit, giving you the ability to heal your unit or get a promotion.

Assyria's start is biased to avoid tundra, which should nudge you into a more central position, letting you more reach more nations for early conquests.


Your uniques complement war mostly, with your Unique Building coming in the ancient era and your Unique Unit in the classical era.

• When you conquer an enemy city, whether from a full Civ or City-State, you gain a random technology
  
  • You can only gain technologies the respective enemy has and you don't
    
  • This can only happen once per enemy city (so losing and recapturing a city won't work and you can't get technologies out of recapturing your own cities you lost)
    
  • Cities captured by other means don't count (e.g. trade deals)

A standard melee unit (for purposes of promotions and Social Policies)
A melee siege unit (unofficial description)
*Assumes a normal speed game.


Negative changes

• No ranged attack
  
• Can only attack cities (but can still deal damage in defence)

Positive one-off changes

• 12 strength, up from 7 (+71%)
  
• 3 sight, up from 1
  
• Can melee attack (but again, only cities unless in defence)
  
  • This allows Siege Towers to capture cities, unlike normal Catapults.
• Does not need to set up to attack
  
• When adjacent to an enemy city, friendly land units within 2 tiles gain a 50% bonus against that city
  
  • This works even if the Siege Tower is embarked, though embarked and naval units themselves do not receive the 50% bonus.

Positive stay-on-upgrade changes

• 33% defence vs. ranged attacks (Cover I)

Building of the Science line
*Assumes a normal speed game.


Positive changes

• +1 Great Writing slot
  
• +10XP to units built in the city with the slot filled

Note that these scores are a matter of personal opinion based on experiences with the Civilization. You may discover a way of utilising the Civ more effectively in unconventional ways.

Cultural: 7/10
Diplomatic: 3/10
Domination: 9/10
Scientific: 8/10

While domination has the highest score here, that's mostly due to the Siege Tower. Beyond the early-game, Assyria will probably do best out of a war-focused scientific victory, though they're quite capable of a cultural victory, too - research the militaristic technologies to give yourself an advantage, then steal the peaceful techs.


Overall

Being the only other Civ that has such a powerful early war advantage, the Huns are the Civ most alike Assyria. The Huns have even better early war potential than Assyria, but Assyria has better bonuses beyond the early-game.

Same start bias

Assyria's bias to avoid tundra is shared with Babylon and Songhai.

Similar to the UA

Another UA which rewards city captures is that of Songhai - in their case, they get three times as much gold rather than stealing a technology. For a different kind of UA with emphasis on technology-stealing, look to England and their extra Spy.

Similar to Siege Towers

The closest thing to the Siege Tower is the only other melee siege unit in the game, the Hunnic Battering Ram. You can find a comparison between the two units later on in this guide.

A different Catapult replacement to Siege Towers is Rome's Ballista, which is more like the original unit, just with more strength and ranged strength.

Similar to Royal Libraries

Royal Libraries are the only UB to offer an extra Great Work slot, but not the only one to offer additional unit experience - Poland's Ducal Stables also do. Ducal Stables offer 15 XP rather than 10, but it only applies to mounted units.

The only other Library replacement is China's Paper Maker which is maintenance-free and offers gold. Unlike the Royal Library, which takes time for its bonuses to be useful, the Paper Maker's advantages work immediately.

Above: You can see I've just taken a city, if you look carefully.

Assyria's playstyle revolves around a cycle of researching military technologies, taking over land with them (and hence gaining technologies missed earlier,) consolidating those gains and researching more military technologies.

In the early years, you should (after relevant worker technologies) dive right into getting Construction for Composite Bowmen, and Mathematics for your Siege Towers. Most Civs won't be prepared for such an early attack (as generally focusing on military technologies so much in the early game would hurt their infrastructure) and as such it's not hard to go taking a few cities.

That city-taking will get you a bunch of technologies you didn't research earlier, and may very well put you as one of the world's leading Civs in terms of science. The mistake here is to simply sit back and play peacefully for the rest of the game. If you want to make the most of the UA, you need to constantly be preparing for the next war. Get the odd non-military technology as needed (such as cultural technologies) but don't spend all your time on them - continue to focus on those for war.

Avoid eclipsing rivals in science, because that means you can't take technologies off them any more - just another reason to keep beelining those military techs.


Just because you're going to war often doesn't mean you have to win by domination - you can use this UA by picking off small cities, razing them, letting rival Civs plant new cities there and repeating the process. You don't have to take capitals (and after the Siege Tower obsoletes, that's a pretty hard thing to do, though they're worthwhile targets for rival Civs focusing on culture.)

If you find yourself slipping behind in technology, and other major Civs look too strong to invade, you can also take technologies from City-States. To get an idea of whether they have technologies you don't, or not, look at their military units or tile yields near their city. A mine on a resourceless hill with 4 production generally means they have Chemistry, for example. Even City-States ahead in technology tend to be easy targets for conquest due to their limited ability to raise a large army, but don't go overboard - directly declaring war on more than two City-States in quick succession will give you penalties to influence in other City-States. That will set you back considerably in the World Congress.

Because of the Royal Library and the odd Great Work you may have stolen, a cultural victory is a good late-game choice. The Autocracy tree offers you a way to tie warmongering and culture together, with a huge tourism boost with Civs with a common enemy - a boost that doesn't require those Civs in question to actually like you.

A science victory also works by researching the bottom half of the late game's tech tree (stuff like Giant Death Robots and XCOM Squads) and using the advanced military units to capture cities from cultural, diplomatic or more peaceful scientific players to fill out the top half of the tree.

As a final note, don't bother accepting cities from peace deals unless they're particularly good ones, as you won't get technologies from gaining cities in a trade deal (and every city you own pushes tech costs up by 5% on a standard map size.) Swap them out for some luxuries or gold instead.

Death on wheels. After much consideration, that's how best to introduce this unit. The Siege Tower will tear apart city defences almost as effectively as a Hunnic Battering Ram (see the following section for a full comparison) but more importantly, lets nearby other units get a massive city attack bonus.

It's in your best interests to send a relatively early attack force with these units and backup, so grab Mathematics early! You'll make up the technologies you missed through conquest.

Because the Siege Tower is a melee siege unit, it can capture cities (unlike Catapults). You can go with a minimal melee force (though the odd Spearman might be useful) and still capture those cities.


Above: While they can only attack cities, Siege Towers can deal plenty of damage against weaker melee units in defence. Be careful of the terrain - Lisbon was impratically hard to attack due to that chokepoint. I would've been better off attacking Harar from an alternative route first.


The best units to take advantage of the huge bonus are ranged units, seeing as they can dish out plenty of damage without recieving it. Archery and The Wheel are on the way to Mathematics (so you could bring Archers or Chariot Archers) but typically, it's best to pick up a few more technologies and get Composite Bowmen. Composite Bowmen with the 50% bonus are essentially strength 16.5, just over two-thirds the effectiveness of a default Catapult!


Above: Be sure to take at least two Siege Towers, as they cannot give themselves the 50% bonus to city attack, but they can to another nearby Siege Tower. They benefit from the Discipline Policy in the Honour tree, too, meaning putting them adjacent to each other isn't a bad idea.


Above: The Sapper promotion has a range of two tiles. Make sure you keep your army together to get the bonus, or else you'll end up in a messy situation like this.

An interesting point of the Sapper bonus is that it works even if the Siege Tower is embarked. This means you can escort Siege Towers with naval units, keeping it safe from harm while still providing the bonus. Note that the bonus itself does not apply to non-land units, including naval units.




Siege Towers have 3 sight, up from the normal 1. Alright if you want to scout out enemy lands before you invade them, or even some exploration before you launch an attack, but generally not particularly useful. They don't make good spotters for ranged units as you should be placing them adjacent to cities (hence getting them within line of sight) anyway.



Above: This unit has both Cover promotions. As a siege unit, that forest isn't adding to defence, but it's still a respectable strength 18 when defending against Archers and cities.

Usually, the biggest problem you'll face when attacking a city are Archers, hiding in cities where they can't be killed (at least, not until you've captured the city) and the city's ranged attack itself. Now, they deal less damage meaning your Siege Towers can last much longer in combat.

• Cover I (+33% defence vs. ranged attacks)

The Sapper bonus does not carry over, and for that reason it may still be worth hanging on to some Siege Towers for quite some time. Even though their low strength makes them impractical for use on land, you can still escort them with strong naval units to provide the bonus that way.

Comparisons to the Hunnic Battering Ram are inevitable. Both are melee siege units which are devastating to anyone on the recieving end, are best-used in early rushes, can only attack cities, cost 75 production, have 2 moves and have the Cover I promotion giving defence against archery units. So, here's a few key differences I want to outline between the two, highlighting differences in their usage.


The big difference here. You only need to have two technologies to get a Hunnic Battering Ram going. You need four for an Assyrian Siege Tower. The longer it takes to get an early rush going, the harder it is.

Let's take into account the backup units - the Huns have their unique Horse Archers, while Assyria will tend to use Composite Bowmen. That'll cost Assyria roughly over twice as much science than for the Huns. So, the Huns will launch an attack significantly earlier and may hence cause more damage.


Both Battering Rams and Siege Towers can only attack cities, but differ a lot in defence. Battering Rams come with a 33% defence penalty (and only have 10 strength vs the Siege Tower's 12) making Siege Towers much more resiliant in combat.


Battering Rams have a 300% city attack bonus, while Siege Towers have 200%, giving an effective strength of 40 for the former and 36 for the latter. However, as soon as you have two, the tables turn. Siege Towers' Sapper bonus doesn't apply on itself, but applies on all nearby military units - including other Siege Towers. Now, the effective strength vs cities for Siege Towers is up to 42. Because of the higher base strength for Siege Towers, they get more out of the Discipline Social Policy than Battering Rams do.


Something the Siege Tower has that the Battering Ram doesn't. By making nearby units considerably stronger against cities, it makes them easier to take down.


3 sight on Siege Towers is alright to see nearby enemies (particularly Barbarians on the way to an enemy city) but generally makes little difference.


Assyria can build Spearmen to defend against enemy Chariot Archers and Horsemen, while the Huns cannot. However, as the Huns strike very early, they won't be up against many mounted units.


The Assyrian UA focuses on getting something after capturing cities; the Hunnic one gives a production bonus on Pastures letting you get to war sooner - a bonus before capturing cities.


It'd be easy to look at all this and assume that the Siege Tower is flat-out better than the Battering Ram, but that's not necessarilly the case. The Battering Ram comes much earlier, and has pretty much the same strength against cities as the Siege Tower, giving it a much better potential for early rushes.

Overall, the Battering Ram is geared more towards quick rushes with small armies, while the Siege Tower works better for medium-sized forces. The former can probably take out more rival Civs, but the Siege Tower may just take out more cities. The Huns are more likely to win the game with the Battering Ram, but Assyria has more potential for the rest of the game once the respective siege units go obselete.

Careful here. The temptation is to get Royal Libraries before your first major war. But until you fill that Great Writing slot, Royal Libraries are no different to normal Libraries, and it'd take far too long to fill that slot before you start building up an army.

Instead, use your conquest-technologies to work your way towards Drama and Poetry and build the Writer's Guild in one of your bigger cities - make sure you've always got those Writer slots filled. Because you should have a Royal Library in most of your cities, you'll pretty much always have a space to put Great Works of Writing - a luxury that other Civs don't have, seeing as Writer slots tend to be the ones there's not enough of.

Besides your own Great Works, you should be capturing plenty in your mid-game and late-game conquests. Going after cultural Civs - particularly ones that don't defend so well like Brazil and The Celts - is a good move. Royal Libraries offer you plenty of space to keep all of those in.

So, Royal Libraries can aid a late-game victory goal - to win by culture. Using the Autocracy tree at in the late-game isn't a bad idea seeing as you can carry on going to war and taking advantage of your UA while also contributing towards culture through the Cult of Personality tenet.


Being able to store more Great Works gives you an advantage over most in tourism generation. If you get influential enough on other Civs through your good level of tourism, it can help out your conquests later in the game. Here are the three main effects:

• Trade Routes with a specific Civ gives you more science, regardless of their tech status. This helps out with beelining those more expensive technologies.
  
• Spies are more effective at stealing technology. You probably want Diplomats rather than Spies for the tourism bonus and World Congress manipulation potential.
  
• Reduced unrest time and population loss after capturing cities. If you're in the business of keeping your cities (such as via the Order ideology) this is quite good. But Assyria tends to do well out of capturing and burning small cities, so this can actually hurt your war efforts - the bigger the city, the longer time it takes to raze.

Now, what about that unit experience for filling the Great Work slot? It's actually not very significant. Being only 10 XP, the only time it'll get your unit a promotion is if there's no other sources of XP in the respective city, otherwise it'll just nudge a unit a little closer to the next promotion.

Just because the boost is minor, however, doesn't mean you can't make use of it. In the midgame, pretty much all your cities will have Royal Libraries, but there may be plenty without Barracks. You can move a Great Work of Writing into one of those cities as a maintenance-free stopgap Barracks.

Because you can move Great Works instantly, it's worth doing so before purchasing units in cities - Barracks or no Barracks. Unless you're after theming bonuses, you may as well avoid keeping Great Works of Writing in cities unlikely to ever build or buy units.

Assyria's a warmongering cultural player if you want to make use of all your uniques. Hence, start with Honour, then go into Aesthetics. Exploration's probably the best third choice due to its finisher if you're playing culturally. Policies listed within each respective tree are in the order you should typically get them in, but the situation may vary from game to game.

If you're into science, instead, try going into Commerce as a second tree, and get into Rationalism as soon as it's avaliable. Tech boosts will help you beeline military technologies (to take more techs) while Commerce's gold helps support a larger army.


Opener

Barbarians will be much less of a problem thanks to this opener. If you take Construction before Mathematics, (or plan to upgrade Archers into Composite Bowmen,) it gives you a little time to train up your ranged units before going into war. Remember that you can't get any more XP from Barbarians once the respective unit has 30 XP.

Warrior Code



As is the case with The Huns and their Battering Rams, Warrior Code gives a production bonus to building Siege Towers. Cutting turns off their construction lets you launch an attack sooner, increasing the odds of success. In addition, the free Great General will be of great use to your armies, seeing as this policy is the only way to get one before war.

Discipline

If you have two Siege Towers adjacent to the same city, as mentioned earlier, they give each other the 50% Sapper bonus. Now, if they're also adjacent to each other, here's another 15% bonus, seeing as they count as melee units. A 265% city attack bonus ain't bad, (280% with the Great General) and this bonus also helps defend your Siege Towers, too, as the 15% bonus isn't just for when the unit's attacking.

Military Tradition

You're going to do plenty more fighting yet, so getting units to strong promotion levels will be good. Siege Towers, being melee siege units but upgrading to ranged ones, will see some promotions lose relevance when they're upgraded, so be sure to go for those that still will be useful.

Military Caste

Good for consolidation after capturing a city, you can heal a unit up inside while providing a little happiness and culture. When the whole series of Siege Tower wars is over, (if anyone's still alive,) the bit of culture will help get through the cultural Social Policies while happiness helps maintain the more useful conquests you might make. Raze the cities in bad locations lacking wonders.

Professional Army

Unfortunately, you can't keep that Sapper bonus forever, and the time will come when you have to upgrade your army. Keeping your army ahead of rival ones is important and one of the reasons why you should mostly be beelining military technologies.

Finisher

Getting gold for every kill helps to prevent your economy going into recession when waging wars, as can happen if a conquered city has higher building maintenance than gold production.


Opener

If you're not using a unique to its full potential, you're usually not using the Civ to its full potential (exceptions include the Japanese Zero and the Incan Slinger.) You should certainly go into Aesthetics to help your cultural aims, making good use of your UB. Faster GWAM generation will be very useful on the way there. Be sure that your Writer, Artist and Musician slots are always filled for maximum production.

Cultural Centres

There's no reason to be short of Great Work slots now, which means you can dedicate pretty much all your GWAMs towards tourism gain immediately rather than hanging on to them or using them for other uses to avoid the maintenance cost.

Fine Arts

Excess happiness is unlikely to be very large in an empire that conquered its way to glory, but this is needed on the way to other policies.

Artistic Genius

You may as well get this sooner rather than later, for more accumulated tourism or to help out with theming bonuses for even more tourism.

Flourishing of the Arts

While Assyria isn't a great wonder builder, all you need is one wonder in a city with plenty of Great Works to let lots of culture - the free Golden Age makes it briefly even better. Bonuses to culture will be useful for getting through ideological tenets later - the sooner you get to the big tourism-boosting ones, the sooner you win the game.

Ethics

Again, getting through tenets faster will help get to the crucial tourism-boosting ones.

Finisher

Theming bonuses are hard to come by when you're not spectacular at wonder building. The real draw is the ability to buy GWAMs with faith. Futurism in the Autocracy tree gives you lots of tourism whenever a GWAM is born, so you can just save up faith and purchase a tonne of them when the tenet comes.


Opener

Why Exploration? Mostly because of its finisher, which is important for getting more artifacts and hence tourism. Besides that, it could be worth pointing out that after Siege Towers, it doesn't really make a difference whether you're fighting by land or by sea, so long as you're taking cities. The Renaissance era is particularly good for naval combat, so it'd be a shame to waste that. This opener lets your sea units move faster and see further.

Naval Tradition

Early warfare by Assyria is likely to be land-based, but other empires are fairly likely to found cities by the coast (it's very common for capitals to be there.) This policy gives you lots of happiness out of them, helping you to get through one of the hardest points in the game for keeping your empire content.

Maritime Infrastructure

Better production in coastal cities prepares you for naval warfare and also lets you build those coastal buildings offering you happiness with Naval Tradition.

Navigation School

The final piece in the puzzle of naval warfare. If the map lacks open seas or the only Civs you can really go to war with have strong navies, get this policy last.

Merchant Navy

Cutting maintenance lets you support more units in times of war.

Treasure Fleets

A pretty significant gold boost, letting you support even more units, or buying them in cities. By purchasing a Royal Library in a newly-conquered city, moving a Great Work of Writing there and buying a new unit, you can quickly keep it defended with a promoted unit without having to hold back your veteran units or having to maintain a Barracks.

Finisher

Just because hidden Antiquity Sites are reserved only to those finishing Exploration doesn't stop competition from being fierce. You may wonder why to go for Exploration's finisher rather than simply capturing those artifacts from other Civs' cities. The answer is that that'd require taking on some larger cities which is something hard to do at this stage of the game and will probably put you in a prolonged war.

You should probably start with Honour, see the previous section for details.


Opener

The Commerce tree helps you maintain more units. The opener, for example, will give you a little more cash in your capital.

Wagon Trains

The capital cities you may have conquered early on can't be razed, so you'll probably have to build long roads to connect them with other cities (or link them to Harbour cities.) Wagon Trains can free up a lot of cash from that.

Mercenary Army

Can be useful for getting more gold out of cities you capture

Mercantilism

Cheaper gold purchasing is great if you need a quick unit in a border city (be sure to move a Great Work to its Royal Library first if it has one) and this policy also offers a little science from gold buildings.

Entrepreneurship

Great Scientists and Engineers are more useful to you than Merchants. This is just on the way to Protectionism.

Protectionism and Finisher

Even if no-one will trade with you, you can still get a bit more out of your luxuries, and the amount of happiness this policy generally gives is colossal, helping to support more conquests. Trading Post gold goes very well with Rationalism's Free Thought (which you probably have by now, seeing as you should prioritise Rationalism policies over Commerce.)


Opener

Getting more science will make it faster to beeline military technologies and thus make your wars more effective.

Humanism

You'll get more Great Scientists hopefully, and thus more science. Simple, really.

Free Thought

Having a unique Library is an incentive to have one in most cities, hence getting Universities in most cities isn't such a hard task to fufill.

Secularism

Squeeze some science out of those Artists, Writers and Musicians. There's no reason you can't keep culture as a backup if domination and science don't work out.

Sovereignity

Recover some cash from science buildings enabling you to support more military units.

Scientific Revolution

The point of getting this policy is for the finisher, as you probably will have trouble signing research agreements.

Your UA suggests you should go to war often. Your UB helps with war, but mostly with culture. What uses them both effectively? Autocracy.

Want a scientific win? Order lets you have that, helps your army out and can help with culture, too.

This guide shows the best choices for the first "inverted pyramid" of tenets (3 from level 1, 2 from level 2, 1 from level 3)


Futurism

You'll want this first as you'll generate more GWAMs under the effect of this policy - every time one's born, you gain 250 tourism with all other Civs. Simple.

Mobilisation

When you're on the front lines of a war, you need reinforcements fast, and you often have to just buy them in your border cities. This policy makes that easier to do.

Fortified Borders

This offers a maintenance-free way to get plenty of happiness, and helps secure the cities of yours with more Great Works.


Nationalism

Less maintenance lets you raise a bigger army, or maintain more culture buildings.

Police State

Those capitals and better cities you captured earlier in the game will now generate plenty of happiness for supporting more conquests, and new cities you conquer will more quickly be brought to a status of being less unhappy.


Cult of Personality

You get a significant tourism bonus against Civs fighting the same enemy as you. You don't have to like them, and they don't have to like you. They could've denounced you and embargoed you. That doesn't matter.

The best way to take advantage of this tenet is to declare war on someone shortly after someone else has. Two Civs fighting the same opponent often inspires other Civs to declare war, too, giving you potentially loads of Civs to get that precious 50% bonus on. Be sure to focus on picking off the Civ-you're-at-war-with's smaller cities so you can leech technologies off them, and also to avoid the full force of their defensive army. The other Civs attacking them can deal with that.

This tenet gets even more powerful if you have multiple opponents in common - it stacks! You can get some pretty huge tourism bonuses, but you'll need to start up a huge war.


Double Agents

So you don't lose your tech advantage. After all, it'd be awful if you were about to invade someone, only for them to steal your military technologies and be on level pegging.

Hero of the People

Order-based science relies on Great Engineer production; this tenet helps to produce them faster.

Young Pioneers

Production buildings throughout the game helped you to raise an army, and now they'll help you get the spaceship going (as well as enabling Engineer slots to make Great Engineers.)


Workers' Faculties

Makes it easier to set up an infrastructure in time for the spaceship, and will get those last few technologies faster.

Five-Year Plan

Loads of production gets late units up faster as well as the spaceship.


Spaceflight Pioneers

Makes the spaceship that little bit faster to build.

Religion is useful for any Civ, though it's not a high priority for Assyria. This section lists a selection of the best religious beliefs for Assyria, arranged in a rough priority order in each category. Highly-situational beliefs (including most faith Pantheons) are not listed, although picking up a faith Pantheon is a good way to secure a full religion later.


God of Craftsmen

Every bit of production counts in the early-game when you're building up an army. While the production bonus is minor later on, a good early start will lead to a good later game. If you start near some sea resources, God of the Sea may be better.

Messenger of the Gods

The classic scientific option. While it'll help scientific Assyria the most, it's good for beelining military technologies anyway.

Goddess of Love

Eventually, pretty much all your cities will be at size 6, so cutting back on the unhappiness will be handy to support all those conquests.

Sacred Waters

It's common for other Civs to start on rivers, and cities on rivers get a 25% International Trade Route bonus. Getting a bit of happiness out of it isn't such a bad idea.


Tithe or Church Property

Either of these will get you cash to help maintain an army and cultural buildings.

Ceremonial Burial

A rather weak source of happiness, but when you're off making conquests, every bit counts.


Pagodas

The classic solution to happiness problems, maintenance-free.

Religious Community

Production bonuses are useful all through the game, such as building more military units.

Peace Gardens

Ironic, considering you'll be going to war often and the happiness here supports such conquests. This belief is useful for GWAM-generating cities, as you should build Guilds in cities you can build Gardens in where possible.


Religious Texts or Itinerant Preachers

This helps to defend your religion from outside pressure without costing lots of faith.

Just War

Difficult to use if you have a weak religion (though sending a Missionary or Prophet to convert a few cities of a Civ just before you declare war will probably work fairly well) but once you've got going, a 20% combat bonus against near that is pretty nice.

Some decisions in the World Congress are crucially important, but the challenge for you is nudging votes the way you want. Having diplomats in other Civs' capitals is a very good idea for both the tourism boost and to be able to bribe them to vote how you like. Voting choices may vary depending on your game.

Note "priority" refers to how high you should prioritise your votes if it comes up, not how much you should prioritise putting them forward. If someone wants to implement an army tax, you should prioritise to vote no, for example. If you could put forward a vote, then it'd be a bad idea to put Standing Army Tax on the table. Note also that voting choices can vary depending on your game.

Arts Funding

Medium-High priority
Vote yes if you're cultural
Vote no if you're scientific

Cultural Heritage Sites

Medium priority
Vote yes unless a rival cultural player has lots of wonders or you're playing scientifically

More culture for wonders will later mean more tourism.

Embargo City-States

Medium priority
Vote no

In case you get embargoed or everyone hates you, it's good to have the option of City-State trade open. Beelining technologies means that International Trade Routes with other Civs both gives you and them science, but again, it's good to have the option open.

Historical Landmarks

Medium priority
Vote yes unless you lack Antiquity Sites/Landmarks in your own lands or you're playing for science and there's a prominent cultural player in the game

Older Landmarks often make you more tourism than Great Works do. Boosting its culture and hence its tourism is a pretty effective move. Plus, all that early-game warring should lead to plenty of nice Antiquity Sites in your own land.

International Games

Very High priority if you're cultural
Medium-High priority if you're scientific
Vote yes if you're cultural
Vote no if you're scientific

That double tourism boost from being the highest contributer combined with all the other late-game bonuses rushes you to cultural victory quickly. If it passes, drop everything and concentrate on contributing to it.

Of course, a scientific Assyria won't want it.

International Space Station

High priority
Vote no if you're cultural
Vote yes if you're scientific

Natural Heritage Sites

Low priority
Vote yes unless you have no Natural Wonders

Nuclear Non-Proliferation

Medium priority
Vote no unless you lack uranium and are unlikely to get any

Scholars in Residence

High priority
Vote no

Having this in place just means that beelining military technologies will be less effective, as other Civs can more easily get those techs to defend.

Sciences Funding

Medium priority if you're cultural
High priority if you're scientific
Vote no if you're cultural
Vote yes if you're scientific

Standing Army Tax

High priority
Vote no

World's Fair

Medium-High priority if you're cultural
Low priority if you're scientific
Vote yes if you're cultural
Vote no if you're scientific

It's hard to pick up wonders when you're focusing on warmongering. Because of early-game rushing, I'd advise you don't build any wonders in the Ancient or Classical eras, as is the case with The Huns. Some cultural wonders are missing from this list, typically because they go on a tech route you probably will be late to.

Of course, you can always attack and conquer cities to get a hold of wonders (probably the best way for Assyria.) Ones containing Great Work slots are particularly useful, as the Civ with them will probably have the slots filled - all you have to do is take the city for a decent tourism boost.


Alhambra

A nice choice for any warmonger. Usually, the most promotions you'll get out of a new unit in the late-game is three (all XP-granting buildings and either Total War from the Autocracy tree or Brandenburg Gate) or two in the mid-game (a Barracks and an Armoury.) Now, melee, gunpowder, mounted and armour units get another one, and four promotions can get you instantly to March when building new units.


Globe Theatre (Cultural Assyria favoured)

While you probably won't be short on Great Writing slots, this wonder's on the same path as a fair number of military techs, and getting it denies other players the chance. The free Great Writer's nice too.

Leaning Tower of Pisa

Because there's only ever two specialist slots each for Artists, Writers and Musicians, you need an increased Great Person generation rate to make more. The Leaning Tower's on the same tech path as plenty of militaristic technologies, so it'll work well for you.


Brandenburg Gate

Anyone wanting to go to war later in the game will probably find great use for this. As stated before, together with all XP-boosting buildings, new units in the city immediately start with three promotions.

Louvre (Exploration Only, Cultural Assyria favoured)

The ultimate theming bonus wonder, letting you boost your tourism by a fair bit before even Hotels and Airports come into play. Make sure you're excavating those Antiquity Sites so you can get the +8 total bonus.


Broadway (Cultural Assyria favoured)

Great Writing and Painting/Artifact slots are plentiful for Assyria, though you may be a little short on Music slots. Broadway will help out at that. Because the theming bonus requires three loads of music from the same era, faith-purchasing Musicians isn't a bad idea.

Eiffel Tower (Cultural Assyria favoured)

12 tourism is pretty good, and the happiness supports conquests.

Kremlin (Order Only)

An incredible tank-building bonus, which should make wars easier to wage.

Neuschwanstein (Cultural/Warmongering Assyria favoured)

For synergy with the Autocracy tree's Fortified Borders, having both Walls and a Castle in a city now makes a total of 5 happiness, 3 gold and 2 culture.

Prora (Autocracy Only)

For a Civ that mixes culture with war, a wonder that offers happiness (supporting conquests) based on Social Policies is pretty effective.


Great Firewall (Scientific Assyria favoured)

Helps preserve a tech advantage and hurts cultural players.

Pentagon

To make the most use of your UA, plenty of wars throughout the game will be a good idea. Over the course of the game, you may end up with very highly promoted units. Make sure they're the strongest they can be with a cheaper upgrade cost.

Sydney Opera House (Cultural Assyria favoured)

Like Broadway, a useful wonder for storing Great Music. Culture boosts are nice too.


Hubble Space Telescope (Scientific Assyria favoured)

You're likely to finish the bottom half of the tech tree first - where this wonder is located. Completing it helps to make spaceship parts much quicker, so as soon as you get the other technologies, you can rapidly get to work.

Here's a list of possible misconceptions or errors about Assyria.


Like the Huns, a Barracks takes away precious early production you could be using for building up your army. Not to mention the fact Bronze Working isn't on your initial research route, so together your army will be both weaker and take longer to launch.


A small army won't really overwhelm a city anyway, even with a powerful unique unit. The point of taking two is that Siege Towers don't give the Sapper bonus to themselves, though they do to other Siege Towers, meaning having two is far more effective than just one.


Trebuchets, whether new or upgraded from Siege Towers do not have the powerful Sapper bonus. They're also only mildly better than Siege Towers against cities, with the same amount of strength in defence and the downside of having to set up to attack.

Cannons, on the other hand, have a mildly higher defensive strength but are much better at attacking cities. At this point, you could rush in a Siege Tower for the Sapper bonus and pelt the city with Cannons/Crossbowmen, but that'd only be reliable for particularly small cities.


Slowing down your Siege Tower/Composite Bowman war will only make it less likely to be successful. Besides, Royal Libraries offer nothing extra until you've got Great Literature pieces, which will take quite some time to get going.


The only time Royal Library XP makes a major difference is when it's the only source of XP in a city, as the 10XP it provides is enough to get a new unit a single promotion. Otherwise, all it'll do is get a unit closer to the next one. Still, it's a good idea to move Great Literature to cities which are building units.


It's pretty random the technologies you'll pick up from conquest, and as such you'll need to research some others to clean up the tech tree. Besides military technologies, cultural ones will be important, too.


While Assyria can attack those a bit ahead in science to grab technologies, those much further ahead in science will probably destroy the Assyrian army before it can take a city. Instead, try attacking a player more on a par with your technology level so you can take their non-military technologies while you research the military ones. It should give your technology a leg up to help deal with that tougher opponent.

Assyria is a fearsome opponent indeed with their Siege Towers, though their power fades somewhat later in the game.


The Assyrian UA gives them technologies regardless of the size of the city they conquer. Hence, it's important not to neglect the defences of your smaller cities. Don't found lots of cities near them - that's fairly obvious.

The absolute best defence against the UA is to get military technologies yourself. Not only does it offer more defensive options, but it makes your lands less desirable for conquest as you may lack technologies to offer them. Of course, this isn't always an option.

Taking a city twice won't give Assyria a second technology, so once you've recaptured a city, they may no longer be a target.

For Assyria to make the most of their UA, they need to go to war often, which will get people angry at them. When the time comes, see if you can negociate lots of Civs to go to war with Assyria - it shouldn't be too hard to do, and even if they fail, it should take Assyria's focus off you. You can always turn the World Congress against them, too.


Always target Siege Towers first. They can capture cities - archery units cannot. Because of their Cover I promotion, melee units (both standard and mounted) will be the best way to take them out. And because of their very strong city attack, it's important to stop them getting to your cities in the first place.

As soon as you know Assyria's in the game, it's not a bad idea to send a Scout either on the edge of their lands or between your lands and theirs. When it becomes evident they're mobilising a force in your direction, that's the point to focus solely on defences.

The nature of the Sapper bonus Siege Towers have means Assyria may well attack from one angle, leaving the other side relatively safe for your units. Horsemen can hit Siege Towers, then run back to the opposite side of the city to avoid arrow fire.

If two or more Siege Towers are adjacent to one of your lesser cities, it might be a good idea to move defending units out and possibly sell the buildings within the city. After all, weak cities are only good for Assyria for the free technology and they'll probably just burn them anyway.

Like many early warmongers, Assyria may leave their home defences weak. Sending a small pillaging force into their lands might just panic them into bringing their units back, but more likely it'll discourage them from sending reinforcements to their front-lines army.


Great Literature slots are usually quite limited. Assyria's Great Literature can as such be found in cities you wouldn't normally find Great Works, seeing as Royal Libraries will be in pretty much every city they own. If you manage to pick off one of their cities, you may get more Great Works than you might otherwise expect.


Early-game Aggressors - While Assyria's off attacking, its defences may be weak. If they're attacking you, you should probably keep an army back to defend, but they may just be a prime target if they're off at a war with someone else.

Other Aggressors - You may need a more militaristic technology route than normal to keep up with Assyria (and to be less of a target.) They may be a little vulnerable in the midgame due to the costs of upgrading the old army.

Cultural Players - Avoid keeping Great Works in small cities - Assyria might just pick them off for their UA bonus, and a Great Work will be icing on the cake. Defensive wonders work well - the Great Wall makes life far harder for them, but the Red Fort and Himeji Castle can also work.

Diplomatic Players - Militaristic City-States can help you defend better without throwing off your plans for the game too much. Be sure to get Assyria embargoed latter in the game when the World Congress rolls around.

Scientific Players - A good defence is all-important seeing as you may well be the main target of Assyria. Horsemen or Swordsmen will be good against Siege Towers. Be sure to keep new cities well defended.

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These guides cover every Civ in the game and can be used as quick reference guides.

• Civ summaries (Gives a brief overview of how each Civ plays)
  
• Civ-specific tricks, secrets and clarifications (Compiles the lesser-known features of each Civ)

All 43 Civs are covered in in-depth guides linked below. In brackets are the favoured victory routes of each Civ.

• America (Domination)
  
• Arabia (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Assyria (Cultural, Domination and Scientific)
  
• Austria (Cultural, Domination and Scientific)
  
• Aztecs (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Babylon (Scientific)
  
• Brazil (Cultural)
  
• Byzantium (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Carthage (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Celts (Cultural)
  
• China (Domination)
  
• Denmark (Domination)
  
• Egypt (Cultural)
  
• England (Domination)
  
• Ethiopia (Cultural/Scientific)
  
• France (Cultural)
  
• Germany (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Greece (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Huns (Domination)
  
• Inca (Scientific)
  
• India (Cultural/Scientific)
  
• Indonesia (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Iroquois (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Japan (Domination)
  
• Korea (Scientific)
  
• Mayans (Scientific)
  
• Mongolia (Domination)
  
• Morocco (Diplomatic)
  
• Netherlands (Diplomatic, Domination and Scientific)
  
• Ottomans (Domination)
  
• Persia (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Poland (Domination)
  
• Polynesia (Cultural)
  
• Portugal (Diplomatic)
  
• Rome (Domination)
  
• Russia (Domination)
  
• Shoshone (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Siam (Diplomatic/Scientific)
  
• Songhai (Domination)
  
• Spain (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Sweden (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Venice (Diplomatic)
  
• Zulus (Domination)