Assyria

Economy:

The Assyrian Villagers are 30% faster. That’s good for exploring and all resource gathering that involves walking, like woodcutting, hunting and possibly shore fishing. Because this bonus works right from the start of the game Assyria is one of the fast civilisations. The increased Villagers’ speed is also good for running from enemy attacks (including lions; remember that military units are slightly faster than other Villagers). It’s also good on small maps with little wood (there’s less need for pitting every few tiles). 
Assyria gets all Market technologies, so it can continue increasing the Villagers’ output and your bonus works until the end of the game. 
Assyria doesn’t get Architecture – and therefore no faster building, no extra hit points for buildings. That’s a big disadvantage for a Wonder strategy.

Religion:

Assyria gets all Temple technologies. There are no bonuses for the Priests though. Enemy Priests can be countered by Chariots and CAs.

Military:

Assyria’s best military units are of course the archers with their increased fire rate. On the other hand Assyria doesn’t get Alchemy, impies, compies, the Elephant Archer and the Heavy Horse Archer. Its other land units are okay and until the Iron Age their only disadvantage is the lack of Nobility (which probably helps most against siege weapons anyway). Keeping up with civs producing compies by the dozen may be a problem though – CAs cost lots of wood. In the Iron Age the army is weakened by the lack of Chain Mail and most Government Centre technologies. 
The infantry (with all swordsman upgrades available) is weakened in later ages by lack of piercing armour and Chain Mail. The lack of Slingers is a severe handicap for two reasons: Slingers are cheap siege units with their increased attack against buildings. They also weaken the Bowman rush. The Academy units are hardly worth getting but that’s not important here anyway. 
All Cavalry upgrades are available but without Nobility. Assy doesn’t get scythes in ROR. 
All Siege weapons are available but they have limited range in Iron. 
Assyria gets all walls and towers but without Architecture building lots of them is a time consuming business. 
The navy is nothing special. In AOE the Iron Age navy is weak – after all the cat trireme and upgrade is missing here.

Best in Age(s):

Stone, Tool and Bronze. The lack of most Government Centre technologies and some strong Iron Age units makes Assy relatively weak in Iron when other civs get there too. It’s a good rush civ because of its strong early ages.

RM Ranking:

Very strong civ in AOE.

Single Player:

Good civ for the human player; played by the CP they are often quite slow. A CA rush (you won’t often see that carried out by the CP) can be so devastating that you’ll learn not to use it because it finishes the game before it really starts. In ROR Assy must confront enemy Slingers. If you’re slow to Tool and Bronze your best bet is to rely on Axemen to counter Slingers and wait with building an Archery Range until you’re in Bronze.

Multi Player:

They tend to rule on all maps except islands. Their CA rush is notorious, with faster rate of fire than anyone else and the fact they only cost food and wood.

DM Ranking:

If you don’t get killed in the first few minutes by elephants, then you should be able to bulldoze everything else with siege. However they lack engineering which is fatal when facing other cats.

Score: 42%

Ranking: 15th

Description: The second worst DM civ around. Lacking eles, scythes, engineering and alchemy. This means it is vulnerable at the start of a DM and has weak siege, especially against other siege. Also their towers do 1 less damage.

Multiplayer: If you want to challenge use this civ, just don’t expect to get very far, as you first need to hold out till your siege weapons come out. Then you need to deal with the loss of engineering. Tough civ to play.

Best when: You are up against a civ who lack the ele and the heavy cat.