If you're wondering why I haven't updated in 2 weeks, I've been busy, and also this has happened, and it's making it annoying to play the game.
The Conquests
- Thread starter choxorn
- Start date
Chapter 38: The Mayan-Aztec War
It was known that the war was going to be difficult for a while. The Mayans couldn't produce any more troops until the government re-stabilized the country, and the Javelin Throwers couldn't be used because they didn't want to waste the boost to the Mayans that a victory would give them. So they'd pretty much just be on defense for a while, with just Quetzal Bowmen and Spearmen to fight.
They did, however, have two big advantages: One, they were more advanced than the Aztecs, who were stuck with inferior Archery technology, and Two, they were fighting on their own terrain defensively, against an enemy that would have to come far to attack them.
At the moment, all the Aztecs had nearby was a couple of Archers and a Warrior-Settler group, who were no threat at all. Only a lot of Archers and the fearsome Aztec Jaguar Warriors (2/1/2 in this scenario) could pose a serious threat.
Well, that, or the prospect of the Aztecs convincing either the Olmecs or the Toltecs to join them. Luckily, nobody knew how exactly they could do that (Military Alliances require a tech nobody's researched yet).
Predictably, the Aztec Archers advanced in 1082, presumably preparing to attack, and the Settlers and Warriors wisely retreated.
Elsewhere, some Toltec Warriors exterminated a group of South American barbarians, and the Toltecs and Olmecs both reached the new age that the Mayans had recently reached.
The Aztec Archers weren't really a serious threat to the defenses of Yaxchilan, but they were preventing some of the citizens from working (whatever value that was during Anarchy), and the Mayan army quickly realized that the Quetzals could kill them more easily and prevent them from destroying any of the countryside. So, in 1085, they did just that, and both of the Aztec Archer units woke up in the morning with a nasty case of being killed by arrows.
In the meantime, the Acali and the South American explorers tried to explore the last bit of South America, and the other Acali tried to look at the Olmec and Aztec coastlines.
The Olmecs, not liking that they'd run out of space to expand into but seeing plenty of land available in South America, decided to go for it, even if that land would be pretty much useless to them. So, 2 groups of Settlers and their escorting Warriors and Spearmen left the city of Chilapa in 1087, heading for Mayan territory so they could pass through to South America. They hadn't entered yet, but they would soon. The part of the Mayan government that was currently existing decided to not fight over it when they did come in, at least until the Anarchy ended, but they would ask them to leave.
In 1092, the Olmecs predictably entered Mayan territory, and some more Aztecs started being spotted to the West of Yaxchilan again. Good, the Mayans didn't want this to be too easy, did they?
Exactly as they said they would, in 1095, the Mayans sent a message written "Olmecs go home" in broken Olmec and sent it to the Olmec settlers. The settlers made the messenger paint the message in non-broken Olmec on a tent they had several times, and then said they'd think about it.
The exploring Acali encountered two similar barbarian ships near a body of water they called the Gulf of Venezuela the same year. It might have resulted in a battle had either ship had any actual weapons.
The Moche had developed a new system of Laws for their country. The Mayans found this interesting and wanted it, despite not having much actual ability to enforce laws at that particular moment. Presumably, they wanted it for after they left Anarchy. Anyway, the Mayans went to them and told them that in return for these Laws and some Gold, the Mayans would teach the Moche how to farm- a skill that would be extremely valuable in the Moche's highly elevated cities were it was harder to get food than in the flat grasslands or the jungles. The Moche happily accepted this trade.
And the trade would not go to waste for the Mayans either: The government finally was able to restabilize the country in 1098, went into a far more efficient Monarchic government than the Despotism they had earlier used, and quickly went about seeing what the code of laws put forth by a man named Pacal could do for them.
Feeling newly empowered by this new government, they quickly got ready to fight the war that much more seriously. There wasn't much they could do against the Aztecs in 1100, but they could tell the Olmecs to get the heck out and put some more force behind it. The Olmecs, clearly scared now, promptly returned home.
Speaking of which, the map the Moche had given the Mayans inexplicably included all of the coast of Mexico. The Acali in that region no longer needed to explore, so it decided to return home, as well. It decided to do this by taking a shortcut through some deeper, more dangerous waters, not wanting to get home just by hugging the coastline. This would prove to be a poor choice. In 1102, they ran into a hurricane and the storm really battered the ship. It might have made it to land if it was a little bit closer to land, but as it stood, they had no chance, and the ship and all of its crew soon found itself at the bottom of the ocean.
The South American explorers had also explored everything, and seeing that it would take a long time to come home, they were obsolete, and they were only costing the Mayans unit support, the Archer and the Warrior units decided "Screw This" and disbanded in 1105. The Acali went home, though, as it still had some use.
But by far, the biggest news of the day was that Javelin Throwers had gotten an impressive victory over Aztec Archers camping in the jungles outside of Yaxchilan, getting the general boost that the Mayans had been putting off while in Anarchy.
Not that this deterred the Aztecs at all. In 1107, despite not consisting of much, the Aztec Spearmen and Archers continued advancing Southeast. It appeared that they had decided "Screw Yaxchilan, I'm attacking something else," since nothing else could really explain the path they were taking.
In what can only be described as the least important battle ever fought, the Battle of that part of the Jungle way to the Southwest of Yaxchilan was exactly where it sounded like it was, in some Jungle on the Mayan-Olmec border. It started in 1110 with Quetzal Bowmen deciding to kill the Aztec Spearmen that had taken up residence there, quite successfully. It continued in 1112 with the nearby Aztec Archers not liking this and sending down enough arrows at the Bowmen to block out the sun from the nearby hill they were on and moving into the Jungle, and finished in 1115 with some Javelin Throwers avenging their fallen comrades by killing the Archers. And thus ended the Battle of "This Battle's Name Is Too Long."
The Aztecs took more time to send their next tiny attack, so the Mayans could temporarily focus on other things, like building more units to defend with and later counter-attack with, and building. In particular, they were interested in building something called the "Palace of the Inca" (why it would be called this despite not being anywhere near the Inca was anybody's guess) that would greatly enrich them and make people happy (It's basically Wall Street with a content faces bonus). Bonampak was selected as a good location for it.
Jaguar Warriors finally started showing up in 1122- One unit of them, to the west of Yaxchilan. The Javelin Throwers responded by giving the Jaguar Warriors some new holes in their body in 1125.
In 1127, The Aztecs seemed to be thinking "Oh crap, these Mayans are serious about this whole war thing," since the Aztec Archers on the hill just outside the Mayan border now fortified and waited for the other Archers in the area to catch up, and the Aztecs also said, "Hey, Mayan dudes, we were thinking about peace..." to which the Mayans responded, "How funny... we weren't thinking about peace."
Sensing that the Aztecs now seemed afraid, the Mayans sent a lot of Javelin Throwers and Quetzal bowmen West onto a hill to meet those Aztec Archers in 1130- and later, to advance past them. The lines of battle were drawn, and there was going to be some fighting soon.
The Aztec Archers inexplicably decided that they'd have a better chance of winning if they struck first. The Mayans were a bit surprised by this in 1132, but nonetheless prepared for it, and the ensuing battle can only be described as a slaughter. Two of the Archer units were decimated by Javelin Throwers, and the few survivors of one of them captured and enslaved. The Third unit, realizing attacking was pointless, decided to go around the hill into the Jungle.
That didn't help them much either, as Quetzal Bowmen killed them in 1135 with little trouble.
Between those two events, a major scientific breakthrough happened in 1133, when a scientist named Ah Cacao invented Invention.
"Amazing," replied Smoke-Jaguar when he heard the news, "he must be a really great scientist," only half-sarcastically.
He actually was a very, very great scientist.
He decided he'd use his knowledge to build something in Chichen Itza after it finished the Sacrificial Altar it was currently busy building.
Back on the war front, the Mayan stack advanced onto Mount Mountain in 1135, and saw some Aztecs on the other side between them and Calixtlahuaca.
The Aztecs, having learned not to attack Mayan Ranged Units while they had an elevation advantage, decided to go around the mountain in 1137.
They should have just realized a smarter idea was to try to stay as far away as possible. As it stood, they weren't nearly far enough.
Despite having to attack across a river and onto a hill, the Mayans realized the Aztecs sucked so much at defending they could kill them easily in 1140. Quetzals killed the strongest group, the Veteran Archers. Javelin Throwers destroyed the other group of Archers on that hill, and enslaved everyone who didn't have too many Javelins stuck through them. Quetzals moved in to take out the fortified Jaguar Warriors, who took some damage, but were fast enough to retreat and even remain fortified.
This enabled them to be strong enough again for an attack on the Quetzal Bowmen in 1142, doing a tiny little bit of damage before retreating again. The Mayans, not liking this strategy, swore to not let them use it again. Oh well, at least they managed to kill the Archers that also attacked them that year. Hills and Rivers really are a nice defensive bonus.
Meanwhile, Ah Cacao was hard at work helping the Mayan military in other ways, by building a monument to the God Tezcatlipoca to aid them in their wars. When completed the power of this god (and the fact that it was just cool and a lot people liked it) would grant them free Barracks for the soldiers, strong city defenses, and strong armies. (It's basically Sun Tzu + Military Academy + The Pentagon + A Double City Defense Bonus, all in one) The monument was completed in 1143.
In other news, the Moche had dealt a devastating blow to the Inca by winning the battle of Cuzco, and laying waste to the city. The government survived and fled to Tiwanaku to the south, but the already weakened Inca Empire was now utterly crippled. They'd be lucky to even survive the war at this point.
Back on the war front, the Mayan Army fulfilled their promise in 1145 to not let the Jaguar Warriors escape again when they were killed by Javelin Throwers. They also went about dealing with the very strong Warriors escorting some settlers, probably the same ones they'd seen earlier. By "Very Strong," We mean "Strong enough to kill a Quetzal Bowmen unit attacking uphill across a river." Luckily, they weren't strong enough to kill two when the second wasn't attacking across a river, or this would be very embarrassing, and the Mayans wouldn't have killed the Warrior and captured the Settler.
The same Quetzal Bowmen held off a pathetic Aztec Archer counter-attack in 1147, and reassured the Olmecs that they'd only entered their territory to kill those Aztecs would soon leave.
In 1150, most of the Mayan military was still a few years away from reaching the Aztec city of Calixtlahuaca, an isolated city that the Mayans wanted for the Gems outside the city. But one of the Javelin Thrower units had reached the city, as had one of the newly created units of Silent Hunters- Very Strong, faster than average foot soldiers, and stealthy enough to sneak past guards to attack any unit in a stack of them that they wanted. That wasn't useful in this case, but their powerful attacks were nonetheless more than sufficient to kill one of the Spearmen units in the city and report that there was only one left defending it. The Javelin Throwers could have attacked, but then decided that was too risky, and they'd wait for stronger units in the larger force behind them.
They were ready in 1155- 4 units of Javelin Throwers, 2 of Quetzal Bowman, and 2 of Silent Hunters. The Aztecs hadn't reinforced the city, so it was more than enough. Wanting to get some slaves out of it, the Javelin Throwers decided to attack... and failed, doing no damage at all. The next attack by Quetzal Bowmen didn't do much better. At this point, the Silent Hunters decided "Enough of this" and one of them went in and killed those stupid Spearmen. The city fell to the Mayan forces, and the workers that had been hiding in it were captured. The Gems couldn't be immediately sent throughout the Mayan Empire due to lack of roads, but soon there would be roads.
In the meantime, the Mayans thought about it and decided that there really wasn't anything more they could gain from fighting the Aztecs- all their cities were too far away to be valuable, and if they wanted Slaves, they could easily fight someone else. They'd probably fought enough to get all they ever could from an Aztec peace deal anyway, so they approached the Aztecs, asking for a peace treaty/surrender.
The Aztecs were more than happy to give the Mayans all their gold, a Map, and a new technology they'd researched called "Military Strategy" to end the war. The tech was a bit of a misnomer, granting people the ability to build Walls and figure out how to get other people to join them in wars rather than much actual strategy, but was pretty valuable nonetheless.
Some of the people had trouble adjusting to the end of the war, even starting a riot in Palenque in 1157, but most people were pretty happy about it.
All throughout this time, of course, the scientists had been hard at work doing sciency things, and in 1162, they made another breakthrough in the field of religion, however valuable that was. Well, it would let them build another wonder, if that was worth anything.
The Mayans had emerged victorious from the Aztec War. They had plenty of slaves ready for sacrifice once they had finished serving the quite useful purpose of improving the land with the non-slave workers. They'd probably need more, though, if they wanted to get the bonus they desired from them. They could easily get said slaves by attacking either the Toltecs or the Olmecs, both closer to the Mayans than the Aztecs and both weaker.
The only thing left to do was pick a target.
It was known that the war was going to be difficult for a while. The Mayans couldn't produce any more troops until the government re-stabilized the country, and the Javelin Throwers couldn't be used because they didn't want to waste the boost to the Mayans that a victory would give them. So they'd pretty much just be on defense for a while, with just Quetzal Bowmen and Spearmen to fight.
They did, however, have two big advantages: One, they were more advanced than the Aztecs, who were stuck with inferior Archery technology, and Two, they were fighting on their own terrain defensively, against an enemy that would have to come far to attack them.
At the moment, all the Aztecs had nearby was a couple of Archers and a Warrior-Settler group, who were no threat at all. Only a lot of Archers and the fearsome Aztec Jaguar Warriors (2/1/2 in this scenario) could pose a serious threat.
Well, that, or the prospect of the Aztecs convincing either the Olmecs or the Toltecs to join them. Luckily, nobody knew how exactly they could do that (Military Alliances require a tech nobody's researched yet).
Predictably, the Aztec Archers advanced in 1082, presumably preparing to attack, and the Settlers and Warriors wisely retreated.
Elsewhere, some Toltec Warriors exterminated a group of South American barbarians, and the Toltecs and Olmecs both reached the new age that the Mayans had recently reached.
The Aztec Archers weren't really a serious threat to the defenses of Yaxchilan, but they were preventing some of the citizens from working (whatever value that was during Anarchy), and the Mayan army quickly realized that the Quetzals could kill them more easily and prevent them from destroying any of the countryside. So, in 1085, they did just that, and both of the Aztec Archer units woke up in the morning with a nasty case of being killed by arrows.
In the meantime, the Acali and the South American explorers tried to explore the last bit of South America, and the other Acali tried to look at the Olmec and Aztec coastlines.
The Olmecs, not liking that they'd run out of space to expand into but seeing plenty of land available in South America, decided to go for it, even if that land would be pretty much useless to them. So, 2 groups of Settlers and their escorting Warriors and Spearmen left the city of Chilapa in 1087, heading for Mayan territory so they could pass through to South America. They hadn't entered yet, but they would soon. The part of the Mayan government that was currently existing decided to not fight over it when they did come in, at least until the Anarchy ended, but they would ask them to leave.
In 1092, the Olmecs predictably entered Mayan territory, and some more Aztecs started being spotted to the West of Yaxchilan again. Good, the Mayans didn't want this to be too easy, did they?
Exactly as they said they would, in 1095, the Mayans sent a message written "Olmecs go home" in broken Olmec and sent it to the Olmec settlers. The settlers made the messenger paint the message in non-broken Olmec on a tent they had several times, and then said they'd think about it.
The exploring Acali encountered two similar barbarian ships near a body of water they called the Gulf of Venezuela the same year. It might have resulted in a battle had either ship had any actual weapons.
The Moche had developed a new system of Laws for their country. The Mayans found this interesting and wanted it, despite not having much actual ability to enforce laws at that particular moment. Presumably, they wanted it for after they left Anarchy. Anyway, the Mayans went to them and told them that in return for these Laws and some Gold, the Mayans would teach the Moche how to farm- a skill that would be extremely valuable in the Moche's highly elevated cities were it was harder to get food than in the flat grasslands or the jungles. The Moche happily accepted this trade.
And the trade would not go to waste for the Mayans either: The government finally was able to restabilize the country in 1098, went into a far more efficient Monarchic government than the Despotism they had earlier used, and quickly went about seeing what the code of laws put forth by a man named Pacal could do for them.
Feeling newly empowered by this new government, they quickly got ready to fight the war that much more seriously. There wasn't much they could do against the Aztecs in 1100, but they could tell the Olmecs to get the heck out and put some more force behind it. The Olmecs, clearly scared now, promptly returned home.
Speaking of which, the map the Moche had given the Mayans inexplicably included all of the coast of Mexico. The Acali in that region no longer needed to explore, so it decided to return home, as well. It decided to do this by taking a shortcut through some deeper, more dangerous waters, not wanting to get home just by hugging the coastline. This would prove to be a poor choice. In 1102, they ran into a hurricane and the storm really battered the ship. It might have made it to land if it was a little bit closer to land, but as it stood, they had no chance, and the ship and all of its crew soon found itself at the bottom of the ocean.
The South American explorers had also explored everything, and seeing that it would take a long time to come home, they were obsolete, and they were only costing the Mayans unit support, the Archer and the Warrior units decided "Screw This" and disbanded in 1105. The Acali went home, though, as it still had some use.
But by far, the biggest news of the day was that Javelin Throwers had gotten an impressive victory over Aztec Archers camping in the jungles outside of Yaxchilan, getting the general boost that the Mayans had been putting off while in Anarchy.
Not that this deterred the Aztecs at all. In 1107, despite not consisting of much, the Aztec Spearmen and Archers continued advancing Southeast. It appeared that they had decided "Screw Yaxchilan, I'm attacking something else," since nothing else could really explain the path they were taking.
In what can only be described as the least important battle ever fought, the Battle of that part of the Jungle way to the Southwest of Yaxchilan was exactly where it sounded like it was, in some Jungle on the Mayan-Olmec border. It started in 1110 with Quetzal Bowmen deciding to kill the Aztec Spearmen that had taken up residence there, quite successfully. It continued in 1112 with the nearby Aztec Archers not liking this and sending down enough arrows at the Bowmen to block out the sun from the nearby hill they were on and moving into the Jungle, and finished in 1115 with some Javelin Throwers avenging their fallen comrades by killing the Archers. And thus ended the Battle of "This Battle's Name Is Too Long."
The Aztecs took more time to send their next tiny attack, so the Mayans could temporarily focus on other things, like building more units to defend with and later counter-attack with, and building. In particular, they were interested in building something called the "Palace of the Inca" (why it would be called this despite not being anywhere near the Inca was anybody's guess) that would greatly enrich them and make people happy (It's basically Wall Street with a content faces bonus). Bonampak was selected as a good location for it.
Jaguar Warriors finally started showing up in 1122- One unit of them, to the west of Yaxchilan. The Javelin Throwers responded by giving the Jaguar Warriors some new holes in their body in 1125.
In 1127, The Aztecs seemed to be thinking "Oh crap, these Mayans are serious about this whole war thing," since the Aztec Archers on the hill just outside the Mayan border now fortified and waited for the other Archers in the area to catch up, and the Aztecs also said, "Hey, Mayan dudes, we were thinking about peace..." to which the Mayans responded, "How funny... we weren't thinking about peace."
Sensing that the Aztecs now seemed afraid, the Mayans sent a lot of Javelin Throwers and Quetzal bowmen West onto a hill to meet those Aztec Archers in 1130- and later, to advance past them. The lines of battle were drawn, and there was going to be some fighting soon.
The Aztec Archers inexplicably decided that they'd have a better chance of winning if they struck first. The Mayans were a bit surprised by this in 1132, but nonetheless prepared for it, and the ensuing battle can only be described as a slaughter. Two of the Archer units were decimated by Javelin Throwers, and the few survivors of one of them captured and enslaved. The Third unit, realizing attacking was pointless, decided to go around the hill into the Jungle.
That didn't help them much either, as Quetzal Bowmen killed them in 1135 with little trouble.
Between those two events, a major scientific breakthrough happened in 1133, when a scientist named Ah Cacao invented Invention.
"Amazing," replied Smoke-Jaguar when he heard the news, "he must be a really great scientist," only half-sarcastically.
He actually was a very, very great scientist.
He decided he'd use his knowledge to build something in Chichen Itza after it finished the Sacrificial Altar it was currently busy building.
Back on the war front, the Mayan stack advanced onto Mount Mountain in 1135, and saw some Aztecs on the other side between them and Calixtlahuaca.
The Aztecs, having learned not to attack Mayan Ranged Units while they had an elevation advantage, decided to go around the mountain in 1137.
They should have just realized a smarter idea was to try to stay as far away as possible. As it stood, they weren't nearly far enough.
Despite having to attack across a river and onto a hill, the Mayans realized the Aztecs sucked so much at defending they could kill them easily in 1140. Quetzals killed the strongest group, the Veteran Archers. Javelin Throwers destroyed the other group of Archers on that hill, and enslaved everyone who didn't have too many Javelins stuck through them. Quetzals moved in to take out the fortified Jaguar Warriors, who took some damage, but were fast enough to retreat and even remain fortified.
This enabled them to be strong enough again for an attack on the Quetzal Bowmen in 1142, doing a tiny little bit of damage before retreating again. The Mayans, not liking this strategy, swore to not let them use it again. Oh well, at least they managed to kill the Archers that also attacked them that year. Hills and Rivers really are a nice defensive bonus.
Meanwhile, Ah Cacao was hard at work helping the Mayan military in other ways, by building a monument to the God Tezcatlipoca to aid them in their wars. When completed the power of this god (and the fact that it was just cool and a lot people liked it) would grant them free Barracks for the soldiers, strong city defenses, and strong armies. (It's basically Sun Tzu + Military Academy + The Pentagon + A Double City Defense Bonus, all in one) The monument was completed in 1143.
In other news, the Moche had dealt a devastating blow to the Inca by winning the battle of Cuzco, and laying waste to the city. The government survived and fled to Tiwanaku to the south, but the already weakened Inca Empire was now utterly crippled. They'd be lucky to even survive the war at this point.
Back on the war front, the Mayan Army fulfilled their promise in 1145 to not let the Jaguar Warriors escape again when they were killed by Javelin Throwers. They also went about dealing with the very strong Warriors escorting some settlers, probably the same ones they'd seen earlier. By "Very Strong," We mean "Strong enough to kill a Quetzal Bowmen unit attacking uphill across a river." Luckily, they weren't strong enough to kill two when the second wasn't attacking across a river, or this would be very embarrassing, and the Mayans wouldn't have killed the Warrior and captured the Settler.
The same Quetzal Bowmen held off a pathetic Aztec Archer counter-attack in 1147, and reassured the Olmecs that they'd only entered their territory to kill those Aztecs would soon leave.
In 1150, most of the Mayan military was still a few years away from reaching the Aztec city of Calixtlahuaca, an isolated city that the Mayans wanted for the Gems outside the city. But one of the Javelin Thrower units had reached the city, as had one of the newly created units of Silent Hunters- Very Strong, faster than average foot soldiers, and stealthy enough to sneak past guards to attack any unit in a stack of them that they wanted. That wasn't useful in this case, but their powerful attacks were nonetheless more than sufficient to kill one of the Spearmen units in the city and report that there was only one left defending it. The Javelin Throwers could have attacked, but then decided that was too risky, and they'd wait for stronger units in the larger force behind them.
They were ready in 1155- 4 units of Javelin Throwers, 2 of Quetzal Bowman, and 2 of Silent Hunters. The Aztecs hadn't reinforced the city, so it was more than enough. Wanting to get some slaves out of it, the Javelin Throwers decided to attack... and failed, doing no damage at all. The next attack by Quetzal Bowmen didn't do much better. At this point, the Silent Hunters decided "Enough of this" and one of them went in and killed those stupid Spearmen. The city fell to the Mayan forces, and the workers that had been hiding in it were captured. The Gems couldn't be immediately sent throughout the Mayan Empire due to lack of roads, but soon there would be roads.
In the meantime, the Mayans thought about it and decided that there really wasn't anything more they could gain from fighting the Aztecs- all their cities were too far away to be valuable, and if they wanted Slaves, they could easily fight someone else. They'd probably fought enough to get all they ever could from an Aztec peace deal anyway, so they approached the Aztecs, asking for a peace treaty/surrender.
The Aztecs were more than happy to give the Mayans all their gold, a Map, and a new technology they'd researched called "Military Strategy" to end the war. The tech was a bit of a misnomer, granting people the ability to build Walls and figure out how to get other people to join them in wars rather than much actual strategy, but was pretty valuable nonetheless.
Some of the people had trouble adjusting to the end of the war, even starting a riot in Palenque in 1157, but most people were pretty happy about it.
All throughout this time, of course, the scientists had been hard at work doing sciency things, and in 1162, they made another breakthrough in the field of religion, however valuable that was. Well, it would let them build another wonder, if that was worth anything.
The Mayans had emerged victorious from the Aztec War. They had plenty of slaves ready for sacrifice once they had finished serving the quite useful purpose of improving the land with the non-slave workers. They'd probably need more, though, if they wanted to get the bonus they desired from them. They could easily get said slaves by attacking either the Toltecs or the Olmecs, both closer to the Mayans than the Aztecs and both weaker.
The only thing left to do was pick a target.
Last edited:
Verarde
Pondering Wearing A Hat
I would head for the Olmecs (the ones to your south?) first, as that area has some good resources and land. Good update!
Verarde
Pondering Wearing A Hat
Then the Toltecs should be your target.
Toxicman007
Custom User Title
Mesoamerica is my favorite Conquest, and I usually play as the Maya. I always take out the Toltecs first, so I can expand south towards the Moche. I suggest you take out or severely weaken them.
HagiaSophia
Chieftain
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2011
- Messages
- 73
How did the Moche beat the Inca?!?!? 
Whenever I play as the Maya, I end up with the Inca on my doorstep, demanding gold!
Whenever I play as the Maya, I end up with the Inca on my doorstep, demanding gold!
CELTICEMPIRE
Zulu Conqueror
That's one thing I love about Civ, it always plays differently.
Choxorn, if you haven't made your move already, it looks to me like that city within/along your southwest, Chilapa*, would be a good one to take. If nothing else, it'd ensure that your jewel-mining city stay connected to the rest of your holdings+.
The Olmecs might send troops from their capital to the slaughter, but then you'll be in all the better position to extort them. Doing so would help the Aztecs as well, but you seem to've proven your position of strength well enough against them!
Then, if the Toltecs really do have better resources, you can pay them a visit
* I keep thinking chuleta, like a cut/strip of meat in Spanish.
+ Huh, I feel a little like Nwabudike Morgan, phrasing it that way.
The Olmecs might send troops from their capital to the slaughter, but then you'll be in all the better position to extort them. Doing so would help the Aztecs as well, but you seem to've proven your position of strength well enough against them!
Then, if the Toltecs really do have better resources, you can pay them a visit
* I keep thinking chuleta, like a cut/strip of meat in Spanish.
+ Huh, I feel a little like Nwabudike Morgan, phrasing it that way.
Toxicman007
Custom User Title
Choxorn, I'd like you to know that ever since I starting reading this thread, I myself started doing the same thing (but not writing it here because I'm lazy). So far, I won Mesopotamia with Egypt (in one continuous session, hooray for me having no life), and I won Rise of Rome with Persia. I just barely reached the domination requirements before Rome would have won with victory points. Right now, I'm playing (and winning) as the Vandals in the Fall of Rome scenario. I plan to play (and win) every single Conquest in your honour!
HagiaSophia
Chieftain
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2011
- Messages
- 73
In this Conquest, do the Conquistadors actually ever appear?
CELTICEMPIRE
Zulu Conqueror
no...
HagiaSophia
Chieftain
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2011
- Messages
- 73
-_-...
Great. So I deliberately delayed scourging the world of my fellow Mesoamericans for nothing?
Great. So I deliberately delayed scourging the world of my fellow Mesoamericans for nothing?
Chapter 39: Change of Plans
Many things were considered in the debate over whether to attack to Toltecs or whether to attack the Olmecs. The major reason to attack the Toltecs was that there was more to gain- they had more resources and more land, including soon-to-be-very-valuable Llamas just outside of Tula, and some luxuries farther South and East. There was also a spot near Chinkultic that was good for building a canal between the two great Oceans. The Olmecs just had some Spices outside of Potonchan, and taking Chilapa would keep the Mayans' territory more contiguous. But it didn't appear that the Toltecs had built enough roads yet to take good advantage of this. Though the Mayans' map of Toltec territory was outdated, they still probably hadn't built many roads. To try and get confirmation of this, the Mayans decided to buy the Toltecs' World Map for the great price of 1 gold, confirming that the Toltecs had, in fact, barely any roads at all in the territory the Mayans were interested in.
So the Mayans came to the decision to attack the Olmecs first, hopefully giving the Toltecs enough time to build some roads.
That, too, would have to wait, for exactly the same reason. The Mayans really needed to finish the road they were building to Calixtlahuaca, and maybe build some more roads in Olmec territory, before they invaded.
In 1172, an Aztec Settler Pair appeared. "Not Again!" said everyone in the country. Well, it was still in Olmec territory and several years away from entering Mayaland, but still. It was also noticed that the Moche had accumulated huge amounts of gold (700, and into the thousands a bit later). From where, nobody was exactly sure.
As the Mayans continued building stuff and enjoying the Golden Age, they noticed in 1180 that being in a Golden Age would let them build a wonder called the "Great Pyramid" in Chichen Itza in just 40 years. It wasn't that great, just gave them some free Granaries, but... wow, that was really short for a wonder. The only competition they had for it was the Aztecs, who were building it in Tenochtitlan. It seemed like as a good of a time as any to build an embassy there. The embassy revealed that Tenochtitlan kind of sucked, but that it had been evidently working on the Pyramid for a while, and was only 15 years from finishing it. So much for that idea, but at least it gave the Mayans some valuable information.
Also that year, the Acali that went to check out the coasts finally returned, docking in Copan. It couldn't be directly converted into the much better Great Acali (if I even can upgrade units in this scenario, I think I need a Fishing Dock to do it), so it was just scrapped and the parts were used to make part of a brand-new Great Acali.
In 1182, the workers finally finished the road to connect Calixtlahuaca to the rest of the Mayan Empire. The Gems near the city could now be brought everywhere in the Empire. This made a lot of people happy, and some cities even started celebrating in the streets because of how awesome these Gems were.
Now the only thing left to do before the Olmecs could be invaded was build a road on a hill to the North of Chilapa that would make invading the city much easier. There was just one problem: The Aztec Settler pair had moved onto that hill, so the workers would have to wait for them to move. In the meantime, they decided to head to some plains just inside of the Olmec borders between Yaxchilan and Potonchan, and build a road to connect the two cities. They'd have to do it later, anyway, why not now when they had nothing else to do?
In 1187, the Moche decided a good use for all their gold would be bribing the Olmecs to declare war on the Inca. In other important news, Emperor Montezuma stubbed his toe on a rock, and immediately had the rock sacrificed to Quetzalcoatl.
Chichen Itza needed something to do with its massive building-stuff capabilities in 1190. They decided to build the Temple of the Sun, the wonder that researching Theology had given them the ability to do. It had some useless effects (Reducing War Weariness, which doesn't actually happen with any government in this scenario), some decent effects (The heal-in-enemy-territory effect of Battlefield Medicine, giving me a court in every city), and, best of all, a high culture boost. It wouldn't be finished as fast as the Pyramid, but it could still be finished pretty fast.
Speaking of the Pyramid, the Aztecs finished it in 1192.
Around the same time, the Olmecs started sending some of their military into Mayan territory, presumably to go fight the Inca. Cool, just leaves their homeland that much more undefended. The Aztec Settler Pair also entered Mayan territory, presumably to go build a useless city in South America. Not cool.
Having completed the road connecting Potonchan to the Yaxchilan, the workers went to go build the road on the hill they'd been trying to build on earlier. The lack of ability to use the road they'd just built in Olmec territory slowed them down a bit, but they'd still be finished pretty soon.
In 1197, the Olmecs and Aztecs predictably kept heading further East into Mayaland to their eventual destination. Slightly less predictably, the Toltecs also entered, with 2 Javelin Thrower units and 2 Spearmen units, in a Jungle outside of Lagartero that had some Jade. This was slightly more worrying. Where were they going?
The Mayan scientists finished working on some studying of Celestial things they were doing. They concluded three things: One, that they could build better docks for their ships now, Two, that they maybe should build a better observatory to research the few things they still had to research faster and make ships faster, and Three, that weird stuff was going to happen in about 815 years, something to do with future people, the end of the world or lack thereof, and the Mayans' completely awesome calendar.
Back to the other problem, the Mayans got increasingly worried about what the hell the Toltecs were doing in 1200, so they decided to ask.
Smoke-Jaguar went with some guys to meet Ce Acatl Topiltzin about it. The conversation went something like this:
"Hey, dude with the unpronounceable name, what the heck are all your troops doing in my land?"
"Um... invading you?"
"Oh, so it's war then? Cool, we were just about to do the same thing, well, bye, I'll probably have to kill you guys later!"
"Right back at you."
This obviously meant that the Mayans would have to abandon their plans for war against the Olmecs and fight the Toltecs, so most of the giant force that was still in Calixtlahuaca preparing for whatever headed East. It also meant they'd have to let the Olmecs and Aztecs in, since the Mayans could hardly fight a two-front war right now.
They also badly needed to improve their defenses of Lagartero, which currently consisted of just 2 Spearmen units and a Quetzal Bowman unit. They wanted to upgrade the Spearmen to Temple Guards, now. Problem: They didn't quite have enough gold to upgrade both of them. Solution: The Inca had enough gold to make up the difference and then some, and were far behind in tech.
So, partially out of need and partially out of pity, the Mayans sold the Inca knowledge of Math for this gold and a map.
The just-finished Great Acali headed North to explore stuff.
In 1202, the Toltec Javelin Throwers attacked. One of the units attacked one of the Temple Guard units defending Lagartero, and surprisingly, actually killed them. The other, probably deciding that it would be really hard to do that twice in a row, just destroyed the road to cut off access to that source of Jade- and the other source to the South, due to poor Mayan roads. The Spearmen headed west, possibly heading for the final source of Jade to the west of Lagartero.
The Mayans counter-attacked in 1205, hoping to kill both of the Javelin Thrower units. They failed at this, as the Javelin Throwers continued to be surprisingly good, making the Silent Hunters that attacked them retreat. They couldn't stop the Quetzal Bowmen from killing one of the two units after that, but, damn, Toltec Javelin Throwers have the powers of ridiculousness at their side, or something.
Two pieces of bad news arrived in 1207: Some more Toltec Javelin Throwers, and also some Toltec Warriors, appeared. They could be countered a bit by the simultaneous arrival of the rest of the units from Calixtlahuaca, but that still wasn't good. Worse was that the Mayan Golden Age ended.
They couldn't even deal with the Javelin Throwers, not yet. For one thing, they were too far away, and for another thing, it was much more important to keep the Spearmen away from the Jade and the Stone to the west- and it would be much easier to deal with them in 1210, while they were on a hill, and not a mountain. So, the Javelin Throwers and Quetzal Bowmen attacked. The first attack was a failure, that just saw some dead Javelin Throwers. The Quetzal Bowmen proved more successful, and killed one of the Spearmen units. The other one, having been weakened by the earlier Javelin attack, was easily destroyed by another attack from some Javelin Throwers.
Elsewhere, a newly-created Great Acali in Tikal went to explore the Southwestern ocean.
The Toltec Stack advanced onto the Mountain south of Lagartero in 1212, making them all but impossible to deal with.
The Olmecs asked the Mayans to declare war on the Inca. The Mayans found this slightly amusing, due partially to the pointlessness of that, and partially because, damn, even the Olmecs were stronger than the Inca. They somewhat jokingly said that they'd declare war on the Inca if the Olmecs declared war on the Toltecs. The Olmecs not only agreed but threw in some gold and a map. They must really hate the Inca. Well, the Mayans can't dislike having an ally, and now the Olmecs will get out of Mayan territory faster, and at least distract the Toltec stack a bit.
The Olmecs weren't in a position to actually fight the Toltecs yet, but they did keep moving East.
Although it wasn't really advisable to attack the Javelin Throwers while they occupied the Mountain, the Silent Hunters could easily sneak up there and kill the Warriors, as non-threatening as they were. In 1215, they did exactly that.
The Lagartero garrison was pretty strong now, but also full of injured units. Just to be safe, one of the Spearmen units defending Tikal went to back them up.
In 1217, this would prove to be a good idea. The first Javelin Thrower attack was repelled by the Temple Guard (This time...), but the Guard joined the ranks of Heavily injured troops in the city. The Spearmen went out to meet the second attack. They fought it off, too, pretty easily. The third Javelin unit decided attacking the city again would probably be bad, and just fortified on the mountain, and waited for some reinforcements. Two units of Toltec Archers entered from the East a bit later, probably with plans to attack the city. The Olmecs proceeded to mess up those plans by getting Jaguar Warriors to kill and enslave one of those units.
No more battles happened in 1220, since the Mayan military wasn't really in shape to attack, especially not well-fortified Javelin Throwers on a mountain. But the Great Acalis did explore. One of them ended up stuck in deep waters because it forgot how slow it was (3 moves, not 4... damn you, Caravel graphic!), and later, it ran into a storm, with predictable, and bad, results.
The Toltecs also decided not to attack the Mayans, just send the other Archer unit up onto the mountain and prepare to fight later. They did fight the Olmecs, though, in the Jungles to the East of Lagartero. Not very successfully- when they were on the attack, a unit of Toltec Warriors did kill some of the Olmec Jaguars, but the Olmecs then counter-attacked, killing those Warriors with more Jaguars and some Toltec Javelin Throwers in the same area with Quetzal Bowmen.
The Mayan army had healed enough in 1225 that they decided it was time to kick the Toltecs off of the Mountain. The Silent Hunters attacked the Javelin Throwers, being the only ones strong enough to really fight them. And fight they did, finally getting rid of those meddling Javelin Throwers. The Archers, being much weaker and unfortified, were now an easy target for anyone who wanted to fight them, and some Mayan Javelin Throwers quickly took the opportunity to charge up the mountain and give the Toltecs some new, Javelin-created holes in their bodies.
The Great Acali that hadn't suck encountered some safer, more peaceful, and probably shallower waters to the South of Calixtlahuaca and Tikal. Perhaps there was some land in the region, or perhaps it was just some weirdness in the Ocean. It would end up being the second one, but it was quite a large area of shallower Sea... perhaps exploring all of it would see more results.
The Toltecs and Olmecs continued their battle in the Jungle in 1227, with the Toltecs sending out a surprisingly strong Archer to fight. It killed a unit of Olmec Jaguar Warriors, then withstood a counter-attack from Olmec Quetzal Bowmen, albeit barely. People who watched the battle were almost surprised when they were finally killed by an equally injured unit of Olmec Jaguar Warriors.
Having fully healed from earlier conflicts, having finally dealt with all the invading Toltecs, and having been reinforced by some newly-built units, the Mayans decided 1230 was a good time to go on the offense and sent some guys towards Tula and Teotihuacan. One of the Silent Hunters killed a unit of Toltec Archers near Tula on the way there.
The Toltecs responded by sending in two units of Warriors to the Jade Hill and the Jungle to the Southeast of Lagartero. The Olmecs responded to this by attacking them with Jaguar Warriors, who retreated upon being almost killed.
The Moche continued to wonder why there was anyone who didn't hate the Inca as much as they did, and got the Toltecs to declare war on them.
In 1235, the Mayan armies decided it would be better, or at least, easier, to fight the Toltec Warriors than to attack the cities. They weren't entirely correct, seeing as how one of the Warrior units was able to kill some attacking Quetzal Bowmen, But Javelin Throwers and Silent Hunters quickly avenged their deaths, and the small threat that the two Warrior units had posed was extinguished.
There were still a few left capable of attacking Tula, which seemed pretty weakly defended- just 3 units of Spearmen and 1 of Archers. There were too many to kill them all now, so the Silent Hunters just went with the easy target and killed the Archers, while some Quetzal Bowmen killed one of the Spearmen units.
While they waited for more units to arrive, some Silent Hunters defended the mountain to the North, both to keep Toltecs away, and so that workers could build a road there to make getting to Tula and Teotihuacan easier.
In 1237, the Toltecs couldn't do much to reinforce Tula due to their crappy roads, aside from try to rush more defenders in the city itself, but they could fight off the Mayans that were near Teotihuacan. They thought the injured Javelin Throwers were weak enough to attack with Warriors, a misjudgement that cost them some perfectly good Warriors. They were, however, weak enough for Quetzal Bowmen to kill them, although the Quetzals took a bit of a beating doing so. This led the Olmecs to attack said Quetzals with Jaguar Warriors, failing badly. Figuring that if at first you don't succeed you should try again, the Olmecs tried to kill the Quetzals with more Jaguar Warriors, succeeding this time.
A hastily-created unit of Temple Guards stood to defend Tula in 1240, making the city impossible to take due to the Mayans not having enough units capable of attacking. Even if the Toltecs hadn't rushed it, they probably would have been safe from the almost-dead Quetzal Bowmen anyway, and the Mayans could have only attacked with Silent Hunters. They decided to do that anyway, killing one of the units of Spearmen, quite skillfully. So skillfully, in fact, that their leader, Eighteen Rabbit, was selected to head back to Lagartero and build an Army.
The Toltecs and Olmecs did surprisingly little fighting in 1242- the only battle was one between Toltec Javelin Throwers and Olmec Jaguar Warriors, which the Toltecs won.
On the home front, two good pieces of news happened for the Mayans. First, the scientists greatly advanced Medical Knowledge- enough to allow population to grow higher than ever before.
The other thing that happened: The Palace of the Inca was completed in Bonampak, giving great rewards for the Mayans.
The battle of Tula resumed in 1245, with a newly arrived group of Silent Hunters killing all of the Temple Guard in the city. There were now only Spearmen remaining, and only one unit of them. The other Silent Hunter group that Eighteen Rabbit had led would take the city if it could kill them. It was a bit risky, as that group was only about 60% efficient due to injury, but the battle was still probably in their favor. Sadly, it seemed that whoever was leading them now wasn't as good as Eighteen Rabbit was, since they didn't survive the battle. Tula would remain Toltec for some time to come.
To make matters worse, the Toltecs had managed to start building their own Silent Hunters, which were now headed towards the Mayans. One was now in Mayan territory with a unit of Javelin Throwers.
In 1250, the remaining unit of Silent Hunters near Tula tried once more to attack the city, but was forced to retreat by a newly-created unit of Temple Guards.
Other Mayan units chose not to try to attack it again, figuring that getting rid of the menacing Toltec Hunters was a better idea. Mayan Hunters tried first- and failed, because Silent Hunters are surprisingly good defensively. It took two more attacks from Javelin Throwers to finally bring the Silent Hunters down, and then some Mayan Silent Hunters to kill the Toltec Javelin Throwers also occupying that space.
Toltec Super-Lucky Javelin Throwers attacked and killed some Mayan Javelin Throwers in 1252. Why does that always happen?
Eighteen Rabbit's shiny, new Silent Hunter Army killed the Javelin Throwers in 1255, but now had to head back to Lagartero and heal, due largely to being composed mainly of mostly injured units in the first place.
The Olmecs and Toltecs didn't fight any in 1257. Probably, this was because they'd decided to sign a peace treaty.
The Mayans really didn't like this, since it meant that the Olmecs now clogged up their routes to Tula and Teotihuacan- they couldn't use Mayan roads anymore, after all. Yet they couldn't really boot them out in their current position, even if the Olmecs would almost certainly not declare war if given the choice between the two.
On the other hand, this meant the Mayans didn't really have to be at war with the Inca anymore, for all the good that did. They didn't have much reason to stop fighting them, though, especially with the Inca having nothing to give them for Peace.
The Army and all the other units had healed by 1265, and now they really needed the Olmecs to get the heck out of the way so they could get to Tula. Luckily, the Olmecs left when asked to, unlike the Toltecs. The army immediately headed South, along with some Quetzal Bowmen and Javelin Throwers.
The Great Acali, having gone far Southeast along the waters they could safely travel through, encountered some land. It wasn't much, just a small, jungle-filled island (Real-world Cocos Island, I think) with some Salt in the water nearby, but it was something. And there was still further Southeast they could go.
The Mayan scientists finished work on something they could do with Llamas in 1267. They probably assumed that they would have control of Tula by now, but they didn't, meaning the actual uses of this tech would be delayed until Tula fell and a road was built to the Llamas.
Earlier in the year, startling oversight had led the Mayans to forget that some slave workers defended by a unit of Javelin Throwers a bit into their territory were not immune from attack, due to the Toltecs having Silent Hunters. A unit of said Hunters took the opportunity to kill those Javelin Throwers and capture the Workers.
But this victory would be short-lived. Mayan Silent Hunters killed the Toltec Silent Hunters in 1270. The Workers, who had been ordered Southeast, were recaptured by Javelin Throwers shortly afterward.
Eighteen Rabbit's Army, being pretty large, could no longer sneak around and fight whichever unit in a stack it pleased- it was way too obvious for that sort of Stealth (Apparently, Stealth Attack is one of the abilities units don't keep if they go into an army... I never knew that, because no land unit has that ability in the normal game). But it didn't really need to anymore, since it could pretty much kill anything. For example, the 2 Temple Guard units and the Spearmen unit defending Tula.
With nothing else to do, the Javelin Throwers and the Quetzal Bowmen that had come along now just attacked some Toltec Javelin Throwers near Tula. Both of the attacking units were defeated and enslaved. So, Toltec Javelin Throwers are lucky both in battle and in enslavement chance, huh?
Elsewhere, a newly built Great Acali in Palenque heading North tried not to forget how fast it was.
In 1272, the Moche continued proving that they didn't actually need all those military alliances (not that that stopped them from signing said alliances) by capturing Tiwanaku, and this time being nice enough to not burn the city. The Inca government retreated to Ollantaytambo, and is now left with 2 cities it didn't have at the beginning of the war, with no room left to retreat into.
Also, the Temple of the Sun was completed in Chichen Itza, just 85 years after it had been started.
The Toltec Javelin Throwers had attempted to retreat with their new slaves. The Mayans weren't about to let them get away with that, and sent some of their own Javelin Throwers to kill them in 1275. Not only were the Toltec Javelin Throwers defeated, they were also enslaved, something that hadn't happened in a while. Basically, as a result of the last few battles, the Mayans had gained a new slave, and two of their military units were converted into fully-functional workers. Not that bad, they needed some Workers.
Also, Silent Hunters killed Toltec Javelin Throwers on the Mountain near Tula.
Although the Toltecs knew they wouldn't be able to get their slaves back, as they had run away and been covered by more Mayan troops, they could at least kill the offending Javelin Throwers. In 1277, the Silent Hunters that went to kill them did a very bad job of that, ending up being killed themselves. A second group of Hunters was able to finish the job, sadly.
Still waiting for roads to build and units to heal, all the Mayans could really do in 1280 was clean up some random Toltec forces. Silent Hunters killed the surviving group of Toltec Silent Hunters from the battle of 1277, and Quetzal Bowmen and Javelin Throwers killed 2 units of Toltec Javelin Throwers.
So many Toltecs... so little time.
Many things were considered in the debate over whether to attack to Toltecs or whether to attack the Olmecs. The major reason to attack the Toltecs was that there was more to gain- they had more resources and more land, including soon-to-be-very-valuable Llamas just outside of Tula, and some luxuries farther South and East. There was also a spot near Chinkultic that was good for building a canal between the two great Oceans. The Olmecs just had some Spices outside of Potonchan, and taking Chilapa would keep the Mayans' territory more contiguous. But it didn't appear that the Toltecs had built enough roads yet to take good advantage of this. Though the Mayans' map of Toltec territory was outdated, they still probably hadn't built many roads. To try and get confirmation of this, the Mayans decided to buy the Toltecs' World Map for the great price of 1 gold, confirming that the Toltecs had, in fact, barely any roads at all in the territory the Mayans were interested in.
So the Mayans came to the decision to attack the Olmecs first, hopefully giving the Toltecs enough time to build some roads.
That, too, would have to wait, for exactly the same reason. The Mayans really needed to finish the road they were building to Calixtlahuaca, and maybe build some more roads in Olmec territory, before they invaded.
In 1172, an Aztec Settler Pair appeared. "Not Again!" said everyone in the country. Well, it was still in Olmec territory and several years away from entering Mayaland, but still. It was also noticed that the Moche had accumulated huge amounts of gold (700, and into the thousands a bit later). From where, nobody was exactly sure.
As the Mayans continued building stuff and enjoying the Golden Age, they noticed in 1180 that being in a Golden Age would let them build a wonder called the "Great Pyramid" in Chichen Itza in just 40 years. It wasn't that great, just gave them some free Granaries, but... wow, that was really short for a wonder. The only competition they had for it was the Aztecs, who were building it in Tenochtitlan. It seemed like as a good of a time as any to build an embassy there. The embassy revealed that Tenochtitlan kind of sucked, but that it had been evidently working on the Pyramid for a while, and was only 15 years from finishing it. So much for that idea, but at least it gave the Mayans some valuable information.
Also that year, the Acali that went to check out the coasts finally returned, docking in Copan. It couldn't be directly converted into the much better Great Acali (if I even can upgrade units in this scenario, I think I need a Fishing Dock to do it), so it was just scrapped and the parts were used to make part of a brand-new Great Acali.
In 1182, the workers finally finished the road to connect Calixtlahuaca to the rest of the Mayan Empire. The Gems near the city could now be brought everywhere in the Empire. This made a lot of people happy, and some cities even started celebrating in the streets because of how awesome these Gems were.
Now the only thing left to do before the Olmecs could be invaded was build a road on a hill to the North of Chilapa that would make invading the city much easier. There was just one problem: The Aztec Settler pair had moved onto that hill, so the workers would have to wait for them to move. In the meantime, they decided to head to some plains just inside of the Olmec borders between Yaxchilan and Potonchan, and build a road to connect the two cities. They'd have to do it later, anyway, why not now when they had nothing else to do?
In 1187, the Moche decided a good use for all their gold would be bribing the Olmecs to declare war on the Inca. In other important news, Emperor Montezuma stubbed his toe on a rock, and immediately had the rock sacrificed to Quetzalcoatl.
Chichen Itza needed something to do with its massive building-stuff capabilities in 1190. They decided to build the Temple of the Sun, the wonder that researching Theology had given them the ability to do. It had some useless effects (Reducing War Weariness, which doesn't actually happen with any government in this scenario), some decent effects (The heal-in-enemy-territory effect of Battlefield Medicine, giving me a court in every city), and, best of all, a high culture boost. It wouldn't be finished as fast as the Pyramid, but it could still be finished pretty fast.
Speaking of the Pyramid, the Aztecs finished it in 1192.
Around the same time, the Olmecs started sending some of their military into Mayan territory, presumably to go fight the Inca. Cool, just leaves their homeland that much more undefended. The Aztec Settler Pair also entered Mayan territory, presumably to go build a useless city in South America. Not cool.
Having completed the road connecting Potonchan to the Yaxchilan, the workers went to go build the road on the hill they'd been trying to build on earlier. The lack of ability to use the road they'd just built in Olmec territory slowed them down a bit, but they'd still be finished pretty soon.
In 1197, the Olmecs and Aztecs predictably kept heading further East into Mayaland to their eventual destination. Slightly less predictably, the Toltecs also entered, with 2 Javelin Thrower units and 2 Spearmen units, in a Jungle outside of Lagartero that had some Jade. This was slightly more worrying. Where were they going?
The Mayan scientists finished working on some studying of Celestial things they were doing. They concluded three things: One, that they could build better docks for their ships now, Two, that they maybe should build a better observatory to research the few things they still had to research faster and make ships faster, and Three, that weird stuff was going to happen in about 815 years, something to do with future people, the end of the world or lack thereof, and the Mayans' completely awesome calendar.
Back to the other problem, the Mayans got increasingly worried about what the hell the Toltecs were doing in 1200, so they decided to ask.
Smoke-Jaguar went with some guys to meet Ce Acatl Topiltzin about it. The conversation went something like this:
"Hey, dude with the unpronounceable name, what the heck are all your troops doing in my land?"
"Um... invading you?"
"Oh, so it's war then? Cool, we were just about to do the same thing, well, bye, I'll probably have to kill you guys later!"
"Right back at you."
This obviously meant that the Mayans would have to abandon their plans for war against the Olmecs and fight the Toltecs, so most of the giant force that was still in Calixtlahuaca preparing for whatever headed East. It also meant they'd have to let the Olmecs and Aztecs in, since the Mayans could hardly fight a two-front war right now.
They also badly needed to improve their defenses of Lagartero, which currently consisted of just 2 Spearmen units and a Quetzal Bowman unit. They wanted to upgrade the Spearmen to Temple Guards, now. Problem: They didn't quite have enough gold to upgrade both of them. Solution: The Inca had enough gold to make up the difference and then some, and were far behind in tech.
So, partially out of need and partially out of pity, the Mayans sold the Inca knowledge of Math for this gold and a map.
The just-finished Great Acali headed North to explore stuff.
In 1202, the Toltec Javelin Throwers attacked. One of the units attacked one of the Temple Guard units defending Lagartero, and surprisingly, actually killed them. The other, probably deciding that it would be really hard to do that twice in a row, just destroyed the road to cut off access to that source of Jade- and the other source to the South, due to poor Mayan roads. The Spearmen headed west, possibly heading for the final source of Jade to the west of Lagartero.
The Mayans counter-attacked in 1205, hoping to kill both of the Javelin Thrower units. They failed at this, as the Javelin Throwers continued to be surprisingly good, making the Silent Hunters that attacked them retreat. They couldn't stop the Quetzal Bowmen from killing one of the two units after that, but, damn, Toltec Javelin Throwers have the powers of ridiculousness at their side, or something.
Two pieces of bad news arrived in 1207: Some more Toltec Javelin Throwers, and also some Toltec Warriors, appeared. They could be countered a bit by the simultaneous arrival of the rest of the units from Calixtlahuaca, but that still wasn't good. Worse was that the Mayan Golden Age ended.
They couldn't even deal with the Javelin Throwers, not yet. For one thing, they were too far away, and for another thing, it was much more important to keep the Spearmen away from the Jade and the Stone to the west- and it would be much easier to deal with them in 1210, while they were on a hill, and not a mountain. So, the Javelin Throwers and Quetzal Bowmen attacked. The first attack was a failure, that just saw some dead Javelin Throwers. The Quetzal Bowmen proved more successful, and killed one of the Spearmen units. The other one, having been weakened by the earlier Javelin attack, was easily destroyed by another attack from some Javelin Throwers.
Elsewhere, a newly-created Great Acali in Tikal went to explore the Southwestern ocean.
The Toltec Stack advanced onto the Mountain south of Lagartero in 1212, making them all but impossible to deal with.
The Olmecs asked the Mayans to declare war on the Inca. The Mayans found this slightly amusing, due partially to the pointlessness of that, and partially because, damn, even the Olmecs were stronger than the Inca. They somewhat jokingly said that they'd declare war on the Inca if the Olmecs declared war on the Toltecs. The Olmecs not only agreed but threw in some gold and a map. They must really hate the Inca. Well, the Mayans can't dislike having an ally, and now the Olmecs will get out of Mayan territory faster, and at least distract the Toltec stack a bit.
The Olmecs weren't in a position to actually fight the Toltecs yet, but they did keep moving East.
Although it wasn't really advisable to attack the Javelin Throwers while they occupied the Mountain, the Silent Hunters could easily sneak up there and kill the Warriors, as non-threatening as they were. In 1215, they did exactly that.
The Lagartero garrison was pretty strong now, but also full of injured units. Just to be safe, one of the Spearmen units defending Tikal went to back them up.
In 1217, this would prove to be a good idea. The first Javelin Thrower attack was repelled by the Temple Guard (This time...), but the Guard joined the ranks of Heavily injured troops in the city. The Spearmen went out to meet the second attack. They fought it off, too, pretty easily. The third Javelin unit decided attacking the city again would probably be bad, and just fortified on the mountain, and waited for some reinforcements. Two units of Toltec Archers entered from the East a bit later, probably with plans to attack the city. The Olmecs proceeded to mess up those plans by getting Jaguar Warriors to kill and enslave one of those units.
No more battles happened in 1220, since the Mayan military wasn't really in shape to attack, especially not well-fortified Javelin Throwers on a mountain. But the Great Acalis did explore. One of them ended up stuck in deep waters because it forgot how slow it was (3 moves, not 4... damn you, Caravel graphic!), and later, it ran into a storm, with predictable, and bad, results.
The Toltecs also decided not to attack the Mayans, just send the other Archer unit up onto the mountain and prepare to fight later. They did fight the Olmecs, though, in the Jungles to the East of Lagartero. Not very successfully- when they were on the attack, a unit of Toltec Warriors did kill some of the Olmec Jaguars, but the Olmecs then counter-attacked, killing those Warriors with more Jaguars and some Toltec Javelin Throwers in the same area with Quetzal Bowmen.
The Mayan army had healed enough in 1225 that they decided it was time to kick the Toltecs off of the Mountain. The Silent Hunters attacked the Javelin Throwers, being the only ones strong enough to really fight them. And fight they did, finally getting rid of those meddling Javelin Throwers. The Archers, being much weaker and unfortified, were now an easy target for anyone who wanted to fight them, and some Mayan Javelin Throwers quickly took the opportunity to charge up the mountain and give the Toltecs some new, Javelin-created holes in their bodies.
The Great Acali that hadn't suck encountered some safer, more peaceful, and probably shallower waters to the South of Calixtlahuaca and Tikal. Perhaps there was some land in the region, or perhaps it was just some weirdness in the Ocean. It would end up being the second one, but it was quite a large area of shallower Sea... perhaps exploring all of it would see more results.
The Toltecs and Olmecs continued their battle in the Jungle in 1227, with the Toltecs sending out a surprisingly strong Archer to fight. It killed a unit of Olmec Jaguar Warriors, then withstood a counter-attack from Olmec Quetzal Bowmen, albeit barely. People who watched the battle were almost surprised when they were finally killed by an equally injured unit of Olmec Jaguar Warriors.
Having fully healed from earlier conflicts, having finally dealt with all the invading Toltecs, and having been reinforced by some newly-built units, the Mayans decided 1230 was a good time to go on the offense and sent some guys towards Tula and Teotihuacan. One of the Silent Hunters killed a unit of Toltec Archers near Tula on the way there.
The Toltecs responded by sending in two units of Warriors to the Jade Hill and the Jungle to the Southeast of Lagartero. The Olmecs responded to this by attacking them with Jaguar Warriors, who retreated upon being almost killed.
The Moche continued to wonder why there was anyone who didn't hate the Inca as much as they did, and got the Toltecs to declare war on them.
In 1235, the Mayan armies decided it would be better, or at least, easier, to fight the Toltec Warriors than to attack the cities. They weren't entirely correct, seeing as how one of the Warrior units was able to kill some attacking Quetzal Bowmen, But Javelin Throwers and Silent Hunters quickly avenged their deaths, and the small threat that the two Warrior units had posed was extinguished.
There were still a few left capable of attacking Tula, which seemed pretty weakly defended- just 3 units of Spearmen and 1 of Archers. There were too many to kill them all now, so the Silent Hunters just went with the easy target and killed the Archers, while some Quetzal Bowmen killed one of the Spearmen units.
While they waited for more units to arrive, some Silent Hunters defended the mountain to the North, both to keep Toltecs away, and so that workers could build a road there to make getting to Tula and Teotihuacan easier.
In 1237, the Toltecs couldn't do much to reinforce Tula due to their crappy roads, aside from try to rush more defenders in the city itself, but they could fight off the Mayans that were near Teotihuacan. They thought the injured Javelin Throwers were weak enough to attack with Warriors, a misjudgement that cost them some perfectly good Warriors. They were, however, weak enough for Quetzal Bowmen to kill them, although the Quetzals took a bit of a beating doing so. This led the Olmecs to attack said Quetzals with Jaguar Warriors, failing badly. Figuring that if at first you don't succeed you should try again, the Olmecs tried to kill the Quetzals with more Jaguar Warriors, succeeding this time.
A hastily-created unit of Temple Guards stood to defend Tula in 1240, making the city impossible to take due to the Mayans not having enough units capable of attacking. Even if the Toltecs hadn't rushed it, they probably would have been safe from the almost-dead Quetzal Bowmen anyway, and the Mayans could have only attacked with Silent Hunters. They decided to do that anyway, killing one of the units of Spearmen, quite skillfully. So skillfully, in fact, that their leader, Eighteen Rabbit, was selected to head back to Lagartero and build an Army.
The Toltecs and Olmecs did surprisingly little fighting in 1242- the only battle was one between Toltec Javelin Throwers and Olmec Jaguar Warriors, which the Toltecs won.
On the home front, two good pieces of news happened for the Mayans. First, the scientists greatly advanced Medical Knowledge- enough to allow population to grow higher than ever before.
The other thing that happened: The Palace of the Inca was completed in Bonampak, giving great rewards for the Mayans.
The battle of Tula resumed in 1245, with a newly arrived group of Silent Hunters killing all of the Temple Guard in the city. There were now only Spearmen remaining, and only one unit of them. The other Silent Hunter group that Eighteen Rabbit had led would take the city if it could kill them. It was a bit risky, as that group was only about 60% efficient due to injury, but the battle was still probably in their favor. Sadly, it seemed that whoever was leading them now wasn't as good as Eighteen Rabbit was, since they didn't survive the battle. Tula would remain Toltec for some time to come.
To make matters worse, the Toltecs had managed to start building their own Silent Hunters, which were now headed towards the Mayans. One was now in Mayan territory with a unit of Javelin Throwers.
In 1250, the remaining unit of Silent Hunters near Tula tried once more to attack the city, but was forced to retreat by a newly-created unit of Temple Guards.
Other Mayan units chose not to try to attack it again, figuring that getting rid of the menacing Toltec Hunters was a better idea. Mayan Hunters tried first- and failed, because Silent Hunters are surprisingly good defensively. It took two more attacks from Javelin Throwers to finally bring the Silent Hunters down, and then some Mayan Silent Hunters to kill the Toltec Javelin Throwers also occupying that space.
Toltec Super-Lucky Javelin Throwers attacked and killed some Mayan Javelin Throwers in 1252. Why does that always happen?
Eighteen Rabbit's shiny, new Silent Hunter Army killed the Javelin Throwers in 1255, but now had to head back to Lagartero and heal, due largely to being composed mainly of mostly injured units in the first place.
The Olmecs and Toltecs didn't fight any in 1257. Probably, this was because they'd decided to sign a peace treaty.
The Mayans really didn't like this, since it meant that the Olmecs now clogged up their routes to Tula and Teotihuacan- they couldn't use Mayan roads anymore, after all. Yet they couldn't really boot them out in their current position, even if the Olmecs would almost certainly not declare war if given the choice between the two.
On the other hand, this meant the Mayans didn't really have to be at war with the Inca anymore, for all the good that did. They didn't have much reason to stop fighting them, though, especially with the Inca having nothing to give them for Peace.
The Army and all the other units had healed by 1265, and now they really needed the Olmecs to get the heck out of the way so they could get to Tula. Luckily, the Olmecs left when asked to, unlike the Toltecs. The army immediately headed South, along with some Quetzal Bowmen and Javelin Throwers.
The Great Acali, having gone far Southeast along the waters they could safely travel through, encountered some land. It wasn't much, just a small, jungle-filled island (Real-world Cocos Island, I think) with some Salt in the water nearby, but it was something. And there was still further Southeast they could go.
The Mayan scientists finished work on something they could do with Llamas in 1267. They probably assumed that they would have control of Tula by now, but they didn't, meaning the actual uses of this tech would be delayed until Tula fell and a road was built to the Llamas.
Earlier in the year, startling oversight had led the Mayans to forget that some slave workers defended by a unit of Javelin Throwers a bit into their territory were not immune from attack, due to the Toltecs having Silent Hunters. A unit of said Hunters took the opportunity to kill those Javelin Throwers and capture the Workers.
But this victory would be short-lived. Mayan Silent Hunters killed the Toltec Silent Hunters in 1270. The Workers, who had been ordered Southeast, were recaptured by Javelin Throwers shortly afterward.
Eighteen Rabbit's Army, being pretty large, could no longer sneak around and fight whichever unit in a stack it pleased- it was way too obvious for that sort of Stealth (Apparently, Stealth Attack is one of the abilities units don't keep if they go into an army... I never knew that, because no land unit has that ability in the normal game). But it didn't really need to anymore, since it could pretty much kill anything. For example, the 2 Temple Guard units and the Spearmen unit defending Tula.
With nothing else to do, the Javelin Throwers and the Quetzal Bowmen that had come along now just attacked some Toltec Javelin Throwers near Tula. Both of the attacking units were defeated and enslaved. So, Toltec Javelin Throwers are lucky both in battle and in enslavement chance, huh?
Elsewhere, a newly built Great Acali in Palenque heading North tried not to forget how fast it was.
In 1272, the Moche continued proving that they didn't actually need all those military alliances (not that that stopped them from signing said alliances) by capturing Tiwanaku, and this time being nice enough to not burn the city. The Inca government retreated to Ollantaytambo, and is now left with 2 cities it didn't have at the beginning of the war, with no room left to retreat into.
Also, the Temple of the Sun was completed in Chichen Itza, just 85 years after it had been started.
The Toltec Javelin Throwers had attempted to retreat with their new slaves. The Mayans weren't about to let them get away with that, and sent some of their own Javelin Throwers to kill them in 1275. Not only were the Toltec Javelin Throwers defeated, they were also enslaved, something that hadn't happened in a while. Basically, as a result of the last few battles, the Mayans had gained a new slave, and two of their military units were converted into fully-functional workers. Not that bad, they needed some Workers.
Also, Silent Hunters killed Toltec Javelin Throwers on the Mountain near Tula.
Although the Toltecs knew they wouldn't be able to get their slaves back, as they had run away and been covered by more Mayan troops, they could at least kill the offending Javelin Throwers. In 1277, the Silent Hunters that went to kill them did a very bad job of that, ending up being killed themselves. A second group of Hunters was able to finish the job, sadly.
Still waiting for roads to build and units to heal, all the Mayans could really do in 1280 was clean up some random Toltec forces. Silent Hunters killed the surviving group of Toltec Silent Hunters from the battle of 1277, and Quetzal Bowmen and Javelin Throwers killed 2 units of Toltec Javelin Throwers.
So many Toltecs... so little time.
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The Toltecs put up a much better fight than I had expected of them! Good tech on their side, too, if they discovered that Temple Guard tech at about the same time you did. Then again, I guess they were better-rested than the Aztecs or the Olmecs by that point.
As for the Olmecs, I'm glad that your alliance did some good -- and provided a decent bit of theater, too -- while it lasted. At least it was they who flaked out, so you won't need to feel bad if you do make your lands contiguous at their expense at some point.
Is Easter Island accessible by Great Acali in this scenario? I wonder what's there, if anything. Goody huts would be nice.
As for the Olmecs, I'm glad that your alliance did some good -- and provided a decent bit of theater, too -- while it lasted. At least it was they who flaked out, so you won't need to feel bad if you do make your lands contiguous at their expense at some point.
Is Easter Island accessible by Great Acali in this scenario? I wonder what's there, if anything. Goody huts would be nice.
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