The Conquests
- Thread starter choxorn
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Toxicman007
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Not to hijack your thread, Chox, but yesterday I finished Middle Ages. I hit the VP limit, so now I have four wins out of four games. I started Mesoamerica as soon as I hit the "That's it, I'm done" button in the Middle Ages, so here are some results (spoilered to avoid confusion).
Also, I've been playing on Regent, which might explain why I've won them all.
Also, I've been playing on Regent, which might explain why I've won them all.
Spoiler :
Alright everyone, I've got a massive update for you all that I'm about to finish. It will probably be up pretty soon.
Maybe I've won now, maybe I haven't. You'll have to wait and see.
What I can say, though, is that I'm going to have to split it up into 2 parts, as I've gone well above the 30,000 character limit, and I don't really want to delete any of it.
So get ready for the super massive uber two-partner update of epicness!
Maybe I've won now, maybe I haven't. You'll have to wait and see.
What I can say, though, is that I'm going to have to split it up into 2 parts, as I've gone well above the 30,000 character limit, and I don't really want to delete any of it.
So get ready for the super massive uber two-partner update of epicness!
Sparthage
Fighting Tyranny
lurker's comment: I'm looking forward to it choxorn. I wish I could finish my update (soo close now) but my school teachers are trying to make me hate writing. 
You've done a nice job so far, keep it up for the lurkers.
You've done a nice job so far, keep it up for the lurkers.
Chapter 40: Apocalypto Minus 700
It is fairly well known that the Mayans, like all Mesoamericans around this time, liked sacrificing a lot of captives taken in war. It is also wondered why they had done barely any sacrificing at all for hundreds of years.
In 1280, the High Priest of Chichen Itza told Smoke-Jaguar to hurry up and get some sacrificing done, as the gods seemed to be getting either pissed or bored at the lack of sacrificing.
"Oh, right... I'll get to that eventually, it's just that these slaves are right now way more useful for building stuff than they are for sacrificing, and I probably need some more... you know what, go tell the Gods I'll start burning some Toltec cities and get even more sacrifices. That will probably please them. Tell them they'll get plenty of sacrifices after the Toltec War is over."
The Priest went off to do that, somehow.
To be fair, Smoke-Jaguar hadn't just been planning on razing Toltec cities for that reason. Some of them were horribly placed away from rivers, Chinkultic was too far South to take advantage of the point where the isthmus between the two Oceans narrowed to its thinnest, and Iximche was next to a dormant volcano that could easily become active at any time. To be fair, there wasn't really a better place to put some of them. Teotihuacan couldn't really be both on the river and the sea at the same time, for instance.
The Mayan force outside the city hadn't yet decided whether to keep Teotihuacan or not when they attacked it in 1285. The Silent Hunters outside the city, sneaky as ever, killed a newly-created Silent Hunter in Teotihuacan before it could be a threat, and one of the Temple Guard units in the city. Eighteen-Rabbit's Army moved in to do some more, but were only able to kill one of the two remaining Guard units that year. Soon, this city will fall.
On another note, the workers that had gone to improve the area around Tula finished a road to connect the city to the rest of the Mayan Empire, which also got the Llamas in the mountains accessible for building Tambos.
The Toltecs didn't seem to have the ability to counter-attack any more in 1287, and, in fact, nothing at all of note happened that year. The Mayans happily took this easy pass to Teotihuacan, and a Silent Hunter killed the Temple Guard in the city in 1290. It remained in Toltec hands, though, since they had managed to get one more unit in the city. No problem: The other Silent Hunters would just deal with them. This didn't really work as intended, and the Silent Hunters were forced to retreat. They did manage to damage the guards, though, and damage them enough that the Mayans thought they'd be able to finish the job with some lightly injured Javelin Throwers. They thought wrong, and "lightly injured" became "lightly dead." Sigh, thought Eighteen-Rabbit. Looks like nothing will get done unless I do it... and he proceeded to completely destroy the Guards and take the city, as well as the two workers inside.
The Mayans decision of what to do with it was made easy by something completely unrelated to the war: The Aztecs had a Settler and some Jaguar Warrior defenders of a Settler right outside the city. If it was razed, the Aztecs would get the spot. The Mayans certainly weren't going to allow that, so they went with "capture."
The Toltec Government, having long ago fled the city, set up a new capital in Chinkultic.
The Mayans didn't like that the Aztec Settlers had forced them to make that decision about keeping the city. They wished to be able to freely decide, but if the Aztecs continued heading Southeast, they would likely run into the same problem in the future.
So they gave the Aztecs an ultimatum: Get that Settler pair, and the other one they had near Lagartero, the hell out of Mayan territory, or there would be trouble.
You can imagine the surprised look on Smoke-Jaguar's face when he learned that Montezuma had chosen the second option.
"Well, I guess we get some free slaves now..."
The Mayans' first reaction was to try for the chance of even more by once again sending Javelin Throwers to kill the Jaguar Warriors near Teotihuacan. They failed, and once again Eighteen-Rabbit's Army would have to finish the job and grab the Settler. Farther to the west, the Jaguar Warriors near Lagartero were killed by Quetzal Bowmen and that Settler captured as well.
Meanwhile, the Great Acali in the Northeastern Ocean reached what they called the Northern Edge of the world to the East of the Aztecs. Everyone wondered what, exactly was keeping them from going North, but whatever. They decided to head East into the dangerous Sea to see what they could see. They saw a coastline just to the East.
Realizing that they needed a way to fight the Aztecs more easily, the Mayans signed a Right of Passage with the Olmecs. This would benefit both: The Mayans could more easily fight the Aztecs, and the Olmecs could send their units Southeast faster.
The Olmecs strangely chose not to do this, however, instead sending their units back West into their own territory in 1292. What, did they not want to fight the Inca or something?
The Moche clearly didn't want to fight the Inca either, since they signed a peace treaty.
So, the Inca aren't dead after all, thought Smoke-Jaguar. Perhaps I should make peace with them at some point...
The crew of the Great Acali never got to see what exactly the coastline they had discovered was, as they were sunk by a giant magic triangle. They weren't actually in the triangle, but it somehow still sunk them anyway.
Not much happened for a while after this, due to the fact that the Mayan units were all healing. Eighteen-Rabbit's Army was still in decent shape in 1295, though, so it started heading south in the general direction of Tonina and Iximche. It killed some Toltec Javelin Throwers that seemed to be heading Northwest.
From their new position on a hill, Eighteen-Rabbit's Army saw some more to the South. The Toltecs didn't attack the Army in 1297, but they did head west. There was only one possible location they were heading: They were heading for Tula, which was completely undefended.
The Army tried to deal with the threat as best as they could in 1300, killing another unit of Javelin Throwers to the South of the hill they were on, and another unit of Silent Hunters to the West of that hill. As nice as this was, they didn't have any way of dealing with the one remaining unit of Silent Hunters, who would be able to reach either Tula or the workers on the nearby Mountain in 1302.
But luckily, the city wasn't so far away from Lagartero and Teotihuacan that it couldn't be reinforced with some units from those cities. They'd be able to hold out from an attack long enough for some Mayan Silent Hunters to kill the Toltec ones. In fact, the Mayans could have sent even more Silent Hunters than they did, but they wanted to send some of the ones in Teotihuacan to attack Tonina.
Speaking of Silent Hunters, a battle in the Olmec Empire between Mayan and Aztec Silent Hunters at around the same time resulted in a victory for the Mayans and a bunch of corpses for the Aztecs.
Far to the South of all of this, the Great Acali in the Southern Ocean had continued exploring after finding the tiny island with the Salt decades ago, and now found another tiny island (The Galapagos?), with exactly as much jungle on it. There wasn't any Salt that could be taken in the water surrounding this island, but there were some Whales to the Southwest of it.
Not at all surprising in 1302 was the Toltec Silent Hunters choosing to attack Tula, nor was the victory they managed to get over the Mayan Silent Hunters that had come to defend the city. Slightly more surprising was the Aztecs not liking having lost the battle of That Jungle Near Potonchan, and sending in some Silent Hunters to avenge the loss. They did this successfully, and the Mayan winners of the first battle were the losers of the second battle.
Luckily, despite the loss in Tula, there were still some more Mayan Silent Hunters on the Mountain defending the workers in 1305. They charged down and wiped out the Toltec Silent Hunters that had survived attacking Tula, ending the small threat they posed.
To the East, the Silent Hunters reached Tonina, and found the city poorly defended by just a unit of Temple Guards and a unit of Spearmen- not nearly enough. The two units of them could even take the city this year, and were that much happier to attack. They did indeed manage to take the city in 1305, easily crushing all of the city's defenders. And this time, there were no Settlers in the area, nothing at all to stop them from burning this large city to the ground to be replaced with a city on the river to the North.
A large number of the city's residents died from either the battle or the burning of the city, but enough remained to form two slave worker groups. They, combined with a third slave group captured during the battle, were tasked with building a road through Tonina's rubble so that the Mayans could continue their advance.
To the Southwest, Eighteen Rabbit's Army, being free from saving Tula, reached the gates of Iximche and killed some newly trained Silent Hunters before they could become a problem. The Army also killed a unit of Spearmen in the city, just because.
The Toltecs continued being unable to mount anything effective to fight the Mayans with in 1307... but it wasn't them the Mayans had to be worried about. The Aztecs started pouring through the Olmec border, clearly also having a Right-Of-Passage with the Olmecs. Several units of Jaguars started camping in the area to the South of Yaxchilan, and a Silent Hunter unit died attacking the Temple Guard in the city. The Mayans thanked their lucky stars the Aztecs had lost their Silent Hunters in the attack, and that they hadn't attacked with the Jaguar Warriors. The city was only defended by those Temple Guard and a unit of Spearmen- any more attacks, and the city would probably now be in the hands of the Aztecs. Yaxchilanians were basically thanking the Gods that the Aztecs were stupid.
The Mayan scientists were not stupid, though, and they continued researching at a pace far ahead of the rest of the world. Specifically, they finished work on the research of Currency, which would let them build some nice Markets for the trading of money and goods as soon as they got their Tamboes finished, if they ever did.
Iximche hadn't managed to put up much in the way of new defense in 1310, and was now only defended by a lone unit of Spearmen. Eighteen-Rabbit's Army found that the skulls of these Spearmen made nice decorations.
They thought about destroying the city and sparing the Volcano nearby the trouble, but decided that there wasn't really a better place to put it with the location of the volcano and the Ocean being where they were.
Now came the problem of how the hell the Mayans would deal with the Aztecs. They couldn't really fight both them and the Toltecs at the same time without really straining their forces or preventing necessary infrastructure from being built, and the Aztecs' ability to strike them through Olmec territory was a big pain in the neck. They needed a solution. They also needed a short-term solution to the problem of 3 units of Aztec Jaguar Warriors dangerously close to Yaxchilan. The Mayan military and government leaders met to discuss a solution.
After a bit of discussion, Eighteen-Rabbit had one. "I have a solution," he said. "Get the Olmecs to fight the Aztecs for us."
This was thought to be a bit of a strange solution at first. The Olmecs were far weaker than the Aztecs were, and even with Mayan help, would have difficulty fighting them off. Furthermore, the Mayans planned to declare war on them eventually anyway, didn't they?
But it was a solution to all of their problems, at least in the short-term. It didn't even seem to hurt them much in the long term: The Olmecs hadn't proved to be very trustworthy in keeping deals, and the Mayans might not even need to fight the Olmecs anyway if some plan that the High Priest had involving "Sacrifice Slaves until the Gods grant us victory" or something like that worked.
So it was the solution they picked. The Olmecs, understandably, weren't terribly willing to fight the Aztecs... but the promise of some Mayan Jade and new technology not only made them willing to join the war, but willing to give the Mayans a good amount of money. Not a bad deal, really.
The Olmecs got to work in 1312, fighting the Aztec Jaguar Warriors near Yaxchilan with some of their own. They weren't terribly good at it- the first Jaguar Warriors they sent were crushed and enslaved by the Aztec Jaguar Warriors, and they only sent one more attack to avenge the previous defeat and get their slaves back. They did manage to do that and escape with their once Jaguar Warriors now Workers, but the Jaguar Warriors who did this were promptly killed by some of the Aztec Jaguar Warriors still remaining. The third and final Aztec Jaguar Warrior unit just destroyed some roads.
The Mayans that had arrived in the area in 1315 tried to ensure that the Aztec Jaguar Warriors wouldn't get out of Mayan territory alive. The first Silent Hunter unit to attempt this did exactly as well as the Olmec Jaguar Warriors 3 years previously, even getting enslaved when they lost. Luckily, Silent Hunters aren't weak enough to get beaten by Jaguar Warriors very often, and another unit killed those Jaguar Warriors and got the Mayans the formerly Hunter Workers back. Javelin Throwers took care of the other unit of Jaguar Warriors, first making them retreat and then finishing them off, taking some as slaves as an added bonus.
Back on the Toltec front, some Silent Hunters were surprised to run into an Aztec Settler and some Spearmen defending them. They had likely come through this area a while ago and had turned around to head towards the ruins of Tonina. They'd never get there, since the Silent Hunters killed the Spearmen and Enslaved the Settlers with little effort. In fact, nobody but the Mayans would get there. That was certain, since they already had gotten there, and built the city of Calakmul a bit to the North of where Tonina once stood.
The Aztec War saw little action in 1317- if the Olmecs and Aztecs were fighting, the Mayans couldn't see it. In fact, the Aztecs even asked for peace with the Mayans. The Mayans might have agreed if not for the alliance with the Olmecs they had just signed.
In far more interesting news, the Moche, perhaps sensing Mayan weakness from wars, demanded to know what the Mayans knew about the stars, probably because they thought the world was going to end in 700 years, or something. The Mayans, seeing how far away from the Moche they were and how strong they were compared to the Moche, told the Moche to come and get the technology if they wanted it that badly.
Clearly, the Moche interpreted this as a challenge.
Obviously, if the Moche and Mayans ever fought, they weren't going to do so for a while. The Moche had a long way to send their units, and the Mayans still had some Toltec cities to fight their way through. They couldn't really do much of that, since the high elevation near Chinkultic was slowing them down a lot. They were outside the city in 1320, but unable to attack it yet. They couldn't really do much to the Aztecs either, due to the similar elevation outside the Aztec border city of Tlatelolco and poor Olmec roads. Not that they really had any interest in attacking the Aztecs, but it was something to do with their units as long as they were at war anyway.
The Aztecs responded to the Mayan units that were occupying a hill just inside their border with Silent Hunters in 1322. Result of the Silent Hunter Battles that ensued: One unit of dead Silent Hunters for both sides.
In 1325, A unit of Mayan Javelin Throwers tried to finish off the Aztec Silent Hunters that hadn't died in 1322, but only managed to make them retreat. In only slightly more interesting news, the Great Acali had found another Jungle island just to the south of the last one (Also the Galapagos?), this one with Fish as the defining thing of the nearby ocean. It also had a sizable amount of Rubber, but that was pretty useless- there was no way to ship it back to the mainland without a way to cross the more deep and dangerous ocean stretches, which no current ship could do. You could maybe get it to the other islands, but what was the point of that?
(I still don't get this- it's impossible to trade across Ocean tiles in this scenario, yet the developers put this Rubber here, when there's no way you can get it anywhere other than other islands, as there's no route that has no Ocean tiles in the way. There's another source on Cuba that's only marginally more useful than this one.)
The Mayans had 2 units of Silent Hunters and Eighteen-Rabbit's Army outside of Chinkultic ready to attack in 1325. For defense, the Toltecs had much less than this- 2 units of Spearmen and 1 of Temple Guards. In the hope that the Hunters could either generate leaders or let the Army move forward farther, they went in first stealthily to kill the Spearmen. The hunters killed one of the Spearmen units, but the other, maybe now aware of their presence or maybe just lucky, made the 2nd Hunter attack retreat. Eighteen-Rabbit's Army again faced the daunting task of doing something that nobody else could do right, and did, killing the remaining Spearmen and the Temple Guards to take the city and burn it to the ground to make room for a canal.
The Toltec government again was able to escape the city, this time creating a new government in, somewhat appropriately, New Chinkultic in Northwestern South America. The Mayans decided to enter into negotiations with this government, as they no longer really had any reason to fight them, and being at war with everyone in the world but the Olmecs wasn't really a good thing. The Mayans were shocked to find the sheer level of gold they still had with only 6 cities in their empire, and they weren't even good cities... magic, or something? They could have gotten all of their gold and as much as a 27 gold payment every few years. In the end, they decided to shrink this payment a bit so that they could get the city of Cotzumalguapa. It was a nice place to have, right where North America and South America met each other, albeit corrupt to the point of near-uselessness and threatened by the Moche. Still probably worth it. The Mayans immediately ordered a lot of their slaves, both from fighting the Toltecs and from fighting the Aztecs, and one they'd gotten from the Olmecs in trade a long time ago, to Chichen Itza, telling them "We're totally not going to sacrifice you all to the Gods. No really, we mean it."
Of course, they probably were, but for some reason, this totally convinced all the slaves to go to Chichen Itza. The promise of force if they didn't comply and nice things if they did was probably helpful.
It is fairly well known that the Mayans, like all Mesoamericans around this time, liked sacrificing a lot of captives taken in war. It is also wondered why they had done barely any sacrificing at all for hundreds of years.
In 1280, the High Priest of Chichen Itza told Smoke-Jaguar to hurry up and get some sacrificing done, as the gods seemed to be getting either pissed or bored at the lack of sacrificing.
"Oh, right... I'll get to that eventually, it's just that these slaves are right now way more useful for building stuff than they are for sacrificing, and I probably need some more... you know what, go tell the Gods I'll start burning some Toltec cities and get even more sacrifices. That will probably please them. Tell them they'll get plenty of sacrifices after the Toltec War is over."
The Priest went off to do that, somehow.
To be fair, Smoke-Jaguar hadn't just been planning on razing Toltec cities for that reason. Some of them were horribly placed away from rivers, Chinkultic was too far South to take advantage of the point where the isthmus between the two Oceans narrowed to its thinnest, and Iximche was next to a dormant volcano that could easily become active at any time. To be fair, there wasn't really a better place to put some of them. Teotihuacan couldn't really be both on the river and the sea at the same time, for instance.
The Mayan force outside the city hadn't yet decided whether to keep Teotihuacan or not when they attacked it in 1285. The Silent Hunters outside the city, sneaky as ever, killed a newly-created Silent Hunter in Teotihuacan before it could be a threat, and one of the Temple Guard units in the city. Eighteen-Rabbit's Army moved in to do some more, but were only able to kill one of the two remaining Guard units that year. Soon, this city will fall.
On another note, the workers that had gone to improve the area around Tula finished a road to connect the city to the rest of the Mayan Empire, which also got the Llamas in the mountains accessible for building Tambos.
The Toltecs didn't seem to have the ability to counter-attack any more in 1287, and, in fact, nothing at all of note happened that year. The Mayans happily took this easy pass to Teotihuacan, and a Silent Hunter killed the Temple Guard in the city in 1290. It remained in Toltec hands, though, since they had managed to get one more unit in the city. No problem: The other Silent Hunters would just deal with them. This didn't really work as intended, and the Silent Hunters were forced to retreat. They did manage to damage the guards, though, and damage them enough that the Mayans thought they'd be able to finish the job with some lightly injured Javelin Throwers. They thought wrong, and "lightly injured" became "lightly dead." Sigh, thought Eighteen-Rabbit. Looks like nothing will get done unless I do it... and he proceeded to completely destroy the Guards and take the city, as well as the two workers inside.
The Mayans decision of what to do with it was made easy by something completely unrelated to the war: The Aztecs had a Settler and some Jaguar Warrior defenders of a Settler right outside the city. If it was razed, the Aztecs would get the spot. The Mayans certainly weren't going to allow that, so they went with "capture."
The Toltec Government, having long ago fled the city, set up a new capital in Chinkultic.
The Mayans didn't like that the Aztec Settlers had forced them to make that decision about keeping the city. They wished to be able to freely decide, but if the Aztecs continued heading Southeast, they would likely run into the same problem in the future.
So they gave the Aztecs an ultimatum: Get that Settler pair, and the other one they had near Lagartero, the hell out of Mayan territory, or there would be trouble.
You can imagine the surprised look on Smoke-Jaguar's face when he learned that Montezuma had chosen the second option.
"Well, I guess we get some free slaves now..."
The Mayans' first reaction was to try for the chance of even more by once again sending Javelin Throwers to kill the Jaguar Warriors near Teotihuacan. They failed, and once again Eighteen-Rabbit's Army would have to finish the job and grab the Settler. Farther to the west, the Jaguar Warriors near Lagartero were killed by Quetzal Bowmen and that Settler captured as well.
Meanwhile, the Great Acali in the Northeastern Ocean reached what they called the Northern Edge of the world to the East of the Aztecs. Everyone wondered what, exactly was keeping them from going North, but whatever. They decided to head East into the dangerous Sea to see what they could see. They saw a coastline just to the East.
Realizing that they needed a way to fight the Aztecs more easily, the Mayans signed a Right of Passage with the Olmecs. This would benefit both: The Mayans could more easily fight the Aztecs, and the Olmecs could send their units Southeast faster.
The Olmecs strangely chose not to do this, however, instead sending their units back West into their own territory in 1292. What, did they not want to fight the Inca or something?
The Moche clearly didn't want to fight the Inca either, since they signed a peace treaty.
So, the Inca aren't dead after all, thought Smoke-Jaguar. Perhaps I should make peace with them at some point...
The crew of the Great Acali never got to see what exactly the coastline they had discovered was, as they were sunk by a giant magic triangle. They weren't actually in the triangle, but it somehow still sunk them anyway.
Not much happened for a while after this, due to the fact that the Mayan units were all healing. Eighteen-Rabbit's Army was still in decent shape in 1295, though, so it started heading south in the general direction of Tonina and Iximche. It killed some Toltec Javelin Throwers that seemed to be heading Northwest.
From their new position on a hill, Eighteen-Rabbit's Army saw some more to the South. The Toltecs didn't attack the Army in 1297, but they did head west. There was only one possible location they were heading: They were heading for Tula, which was completely undefended.
The Army tried to deal with the threat as best as they could in 1300, killing another unit of Javelin Throwers to the South of the hill they were on, and another unit of Silent Hunters to the West of that hill. As nice as this was, they didn't have any way of dealing with the one remaining unit of Silent Hunters, who would be able to reach either Tula or the workers on the nearby Mountain in 1302.
But luckily, the city wasn't so far away from Lagartero and Teotihuacan that it couldn't be reinforced with some units from those cities. They'd be able to hold out from an attack long enough for some Mayan Silent Hunters to kill the Toltec ones. In fact, the Mayans could have sent even more Silent Hunters than they did, but they wanted to send some of the ones in Teotihuacan to attack Tonina.
Speaking of Silent Hunters, a battle in the Olmec Empire between Mayan and Aztec Silent Hunters at around the same time resulted in a victory for the Mayans and a bunch of corpses for the Aztecs.
Far to the South of all of this, the Great Acali in the Southern Ocean had continued exploring after finding the tiny island with the Salt decades ago, and now found another tiny island (The Galapagos?), with exactly as much jungle on it. There wasn't any Salt that could be taken in the water surrounding this island, but there were some Whales to the Southwest of it.
Not at all surprising in 1302 was the Toltec Silent Hunters choosing to attack Tula, nor was the victory they managed to get over the Mayan Silent Hunters that had come to defend the city. Slightly more surprising was the Aztecs not liking having lost the battle of That Jungle Near Potonchan, and sending in some Silent Hunters to avenge the loss. They did this successfully, and the Mayan winners of the first battle were the losers of the second battle.
Luckily, despite the loss in Tula, there were still some more Mayan Silent Hunters on the Mountain defending the workers in 1305. They charged down and wiped out the Toltec Silent Hunters that had survived attacking Tula, ending the small threat they posed.
To the East, the Silent Hunters reached Tonina, and found the city poorly defended by just a unit of Temple Guards and a unit of Spearmen- not nearly enough. The two units of them could even take the city this year, and were that much happier to attack. They did indeed manage to take the city in 1305, easily crushing all of the city's defenders. And this time, there were no Settlers in the area, nothing at all to stop them from burning this large city to the ground to be replaced with a city on the river to the North.
A large number of the city's residents died from either the battle or the burning of the city, but enough remained to form two slave worker groups. They, combined with a third slave group captured during the battle, were tasked with building a road through Tonina's rubble so that the Mayans could continue their advance.
To the Southwest, Eighteen Rabbit's Army, being free from saving Tula, reached the gates of Iximche and killed some newly trained Silent Hunters before they could become a problem. The Army also killed a unit of Spearmen in the city, just because.
The Toltecs continued being unable to mount anything effective to fight the Mayans with in 1307... but it wasn't them the Mayans had to be worried about. The Aztecs started pouring through the Olmec border, clearly also having a Right-Of-Passage with the Olmecs. Several units of Jaguars started camping in the area to the South of Yaxchilan, and a Silent Hunter unit died attacking the Temple Guard in the city. The Mayans thanked their lucky stars the Aztecs had lost their Silent Hunters in the attack, and that they hadn't attacked with the Jaguar Warriors. The city was only defended by those Temple Guard and a unit of Spearmen- any more attacks, and the city would probably now be in the hands of the Aztecs. Yaxchilanians were basically thanking the Gods that the Aztecs were stupid.
The Mayan scientists were not stupid, though, and they continued researching at a pace far ahead of the rest of the world. Specifically, they finished work on the research of Currency, which would let them build some nice Markets for the trading of money and goods as soon as they got their Tamboes finished, if they ever did.
Iximche hadn't managed to put up much in the way of new defense in 1310, and was now only defended by a lone unit of Spearmen. Eighteen-Rabbit's Army found that the skulls of these Spearmen made nice decorations.
They thought about destroying the city and sparing the Volcano nearby the trouble, but decided that there wasn't really a better place to put it with the location of the volcano and the Ocean being where they were.
Now came the problem of how the hell the Mayans would deal with the Aztecs. They couldn't really fight both them and the Toltecs at the same time without really straining their forces or preventing necessary infrastructure from being built, and the Aztecs' ability to strike them through Olmec territory was a big pain in the neck. They needed a solution. They also needed a short-term solution to the problem of 3 units of Aztec Jaguar Warriors dangerously close to Yaxchilan. The Mayan military and government leaders met to discuss a solution.
After a bit of discussion, Eighteen-Rabbit had one. "I have a solution," he said. "Get the Olmecs to fight the Aztecs for us."
This was thought to be a bit of a strange solution at first. The Olmecs were far weaker than the Aztecs were, and even with Mayan help, would have difficulty fighting them off. Furthermore, the Mayans planned to declare war on them eventually anyway, didn't they?
But it was a solution to all of their problems, at least in the short-term. It didn't even seem to hurt them much in the long term: The Olmecs hadn't proved to be very trustworthy in keeping deals, and the Mayans might not even need to fight the Olmecs anyway if some plan that the High Priest had involving "Sacrifice Slaves until the Gods grant us victory" or something like that worked.
So it was the solution they picked. The Olmecs, understandably, weren't terribly willing to fight the Aztecs... but the promise of some Mayan Jade and new technology not only made them willing to join the war, but willing to give the Mayans a good amount of money. Not a bad deal, really.
The Olmecs got to work in 1312, fighting the Aztec Jaguar Warriors near Yaxchilan with some of their own. They weren't terribly good at it- the first Jaguar Warriors they sent were crushed and enslaved by the Aztec Jaguar Warriors, and they only sent one more attack to avenge the previous defeat and get their slaves back. They did manage to do that and escape with their once Jaguar Warriors now Workers, but the Jaguar Warriors who did this were promptly killed by some of the Aztec Jaguar Warriors still remaining. The third and final Aztec Jaguar Warrior unit just destroyed some roads.
The Mayans that had arrived in the area in 1315 tried to ensure that the Aztec Jaguar Warriors wouldn't get out of Mayan territory alive. The first Silent Hunter unit to attempt this did exactly as well as the Olmec Jaguar Warriors 3 years previously, even getting enslaved when they lost. Luckily, Silent Hunters aren't weak enough to get beaten by Jaguar Warriors very often, and another unit killed those Jaguar Warriors and got the Mayans the formerly Hunter Workers back. Javelin Throwers took care of the other unit of Jaguar Warriors, first making them retreat and then finishing them off, taking some as slaves as an added bonus.
Back on the Toltec front, some Silent Hunters were surprised to run into an Aztec Settler and some Spearmen defending them. They had likely come through this area a while ago and had turned around to head towards the ruins of Tonina. They'd never get there, since the Silent Hunters killed the Spearmen and Enslaved the Settlers with little effort. In fact, nobody but the Mayans would get there. That was certain, since they already had gotten there, and built the city of Calakmul a bit to the North of where Tonina once stood.
The Aztec War saw little action in 1317- if the Olmecs and Aztecs were fighting, the Mayans couldn't see it. In fact, the Aztecs even asked for peace with the Mayans. The Mayans might have agreed if not for the alliance with the Olmecs they had just signed.
In far more interesting news, the Moche, perhaps sensing Mayan weakness from wars, demanded to know what the Mayans knew about the stars, probably because they thought the world was going to end in 700 years, or something. The Mayans, seeing how far away from the Moche they were and how strong they were compared to the Moche, told the Moche to come and get the technology if they wanted it that badly.
Clearly, the Moche interpreted this as a challenge.
Obviously, if the Moche and Mayans ever fought, they weren't going to do so for a while. The Moche had a long way to send their units, and the Mayans still had some Toltec cities to fight their way through. They couldn't really do much of that, since the high elevation near Chinkultic was slowing them down a lot. They were outside the city in 1320, but unable to attack it yet. They couldn't really do much to the Aztecs either, due to the similar elevation outside the Aztec border city of Tlatelolco and poor Olmec roads. Not that they really had any interest in attacking the Aztecs, but it was something to do with their units as long as they were at war anyway.
The Aztecs responded to the Mayan units that were occupying a hill just inside their border with Silent Hunters in 1322. Result of the Silent Hunter Battles that ensued: One unit of dead Silent Hunters for both sides.
In 1325, A unit of Mayan Javelin Throwers tried to finish off the Aztec Silent Hunters that hadn't died in 1322, but only managed to make them retreat. In only slightly more interesting news, the Great Acali had found another Jungle island just to the south of the last one (Also the Galapagos?), this one with Fish as the defining thing of the nearby ocean. It also had a sizable amount of Rubber, but that was pretty useless- there was no way to ship it back to the mainland without a way to cross the more deep and dangerous ocean stretches, which no current ship could do. You could maybe get it to the other islands, but what was the point of that?
(I still don't get this- it's impossible to trade across Ocean tiles in this scenario, yet the developers put this Rubber here, when there's no way you can get it anywhere other than other islands, as there's no route that has no Ocean tiles in the way. There's another source on Cuba that's only marginally more useful than this one.)
The Mayans had 2 units of Silent Hunters and Eighteen-Rabbit's Army outside of Chinkultic ready to attack in 1325. For defense, the Toltecs had much less than this- 2 units of Spearmen and 1 of Temple Guards. In the hope that the Hunters could either generate leaders or let the Army move forward farther, they went in first stealthily to kill the Spearmen. The hunters killed one of the Spearmen units, but the other, maybe now aware of their presence or maybe just lucky, made the 2nd Hunter attack retreat. Eighteen-Rabbit's Army again faced the daunting task of doing something that nobody else could do right, and did, killing the remaining Spearmen and the Temple Guards to take the city and burn it to the ground to make room for a canal.
The Toltec government again was able to escape the city, this time creating a new government in, somewhat appropriately, New Chinkultic in Northwestern South America. The Mayans decided to enter into negotiations with this government, as they no longer really had any reason to fight them, and being at war with everyone in the world but the Olmecs wasn't really a good thing. The Mayans were shocked to find the sheer level of gold they still had with only 6 cities in their empire, and they weren't even good cities... magic, or something? They could have gotten all of their gold and as much as a 27 gold payment every few years. In the end, they decided to shrink this payment a bit so that they could get the city of Cotzumalguapa. It was a nice place to have, right where North America and South America met each other, albeit corrupt to the point of near-uselessness and threatened by the Moche. Still probably worth it. The Mayans immediately ordered a lot of their slaves, both from fighting the Toltecs and from fighting the Aztecs, and one they'd gotten from the Olmecs in trade a long time ago, to Chichen Itza, telling them "We're totally not going to sacrifice you all to the Gods. No really, we mean it."
Of course, they probably were, but for some reason, this totally convinced all the slaves to go to Chichen Itza. The promise of force if they didn't comply and nice things if they did was probably helpful.
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Chapter 41: The Sacrifices
The sacrifices that would happen when all the many slaves finally reached Chichen Itza would perhaps be the bloodiest period in Mayan history, or perhaps even the history of all of Mesoamerica. So much, that the period came to be known simply as "The Days of the Sacrifices," or even just "The Sacrifices."
But it hadn't begun yet, and the Mayans had many more things to deal with in the short term than Sacrificing slaves to the Gods.
Somewhat interestingly, the Toltec-Mayan Peace Treaty and the ceding of Cotzumalguapa to the Mayans meant that all 5 of the Toltecs remaining cities were "New" something, and meant that the Toltecs were not the most creative people in the world when it came to coming up with original city names.
This, understandably, left them wanting more, and a Toltec Settler pair was spotted in the vicinity of Cotzumalguapa in 1327. This instantly made the boost granted by Cotzumalguapa noticeable and big: Eighteen-Rabbit's Army was able to move in front of them in 1330. They couldn't move through Cotzumalguapa or the army, meaning the Settlers were effectively barricaded on the Isthmus and couldn't move into the large empty space there now was between Iximche and Cotzumalguapa. Barring anything unusual, the Mayans should easily be able to fill it up with their own cities.
Not much happened on the Aztec front for a while. The Mayans amassed another force somewhat near Tlatelolco. The Aztec Silent Hunters continued attacking any Olmecs and Mayans that got near them, failing to kill some Olmec Silent Hunters in 1332 and succeeding to kill some Mayan Silent Hunters and Javelin Throwers in 1337.
But that wasn't the most interesting news in 1337. Not even close. The most interesting news was something about the year 1337 being cool or something. But the close second was that the Mayans' attempts to fill in the hole in former Toltec territory were being contested. Not by the Toltecs, who were still confined at Cotzumalguapa by Eighteen-Rabbit, but by the Olmecs, who had sent settlers and Guards on a Great Acali to the area- right where the Mayans wanted to build a canal, 3 years before the Mayans could get their own Settlers there. This could be trouble... or not, but it could be.
In other news, some 1337 scientists in 1337 (this apparently was a joke about elites or something, which only made sense to the scientists) finished some work on 1337 research they'd been doing for a while, on how to 1337ly preserve dead bodies for the afterlife with something called "1337ification," which the more serious members said was actually called "Mummification," but in a 1337 way.
Back on the Aztec war front, the Mayan Quetzal Bowmen and Javelin Throwers tried to avenge the earlier losses by killing the 2 units of Aztec Silent Hunters responsible in 1340. They achieved exactly the opposite, adding two more Mayan units to the casualties of the war, and keeping the Aztec casualty number constant.
The government of Chichen Itza was determined to not see a year with no Aztec deaths, though, and decided to add a few with some sacrifices. 3 of the Aztec slave worker groups had arrived in the city that year, and well, it wasn't like they were going to do anything but sacrifice them. They weren't sure which war these guys had been captured in, the first or the second, but that didn't matter. All that mattered was they were going to die. In a day-long festival in Chichen Itza, all of the former Aztec workers were sacrificed to the Gods.
The Gods seemed pleased with this, and granted the Chichen Itzians more "culture," which was good for something, though they weren't really sure what.
They also appeared to bless the Mayans with not letting the Olmecs settle in the canal zone, since the Olmecs didn't settle where the Great Acali had dropped them off, but rather, kept heading Southeast in 1342.
Or maybe they just wanted to make up for what was about to happen to them: An Aztec Silent Hunter unit killed another of their Javelin Thrower units a bit later, and worse, the Moche unleashed a surprise attack. Eighteen-Rabbit's Army couldn't block the Toltecs and defend Cotzumalguapa simultaneously, but it was thought that they didn't need to- the city could easily see far beyond the city, and the hilly terrain would stop any attacker anyway. They were wrong. The Speedy Moche Chasqui Scouts could reach them. The scouts, on the surface, didn't seem to be any faster than any other units- in fact, on a road, they were slower than Silent Hunters (They only have 1 move in this scenario). But running around all the time in Hilly and Jungly areas had made them get used to it, and they were capable of not being slowed down by it the way others were. They could even find natural-road like paths where there were no roads, letting them run far faster than anyone else when there weren't any roads- fast enough to go from a hill just out of Cotzumalguapa's vision to the city before the Mayans could react. In 1342, they did exactly this, and burned the city to the ground before Eighteen-Rabbit's Army even knew what was happening.
"They must pay for this!" said Smoke-Jaguar's Military Advisor. "And pay they will," replied Smoke-Jaguar. "Leave it to Eighteen-Rabbit..."
The Chasqui Scouts weren't fast enough to run away before Eighteen-Rabbit's Army could get them. In 1345, The Army attacked them with a crushing revenge for what they did to Cotzumalguapa. It's not known exactly what they did to the Scouts, but it was disturbing, whatever it was.
But that wasn't the end of their revenge. The Mayans still didn't want to fight a two-front war, whether the Southern front was against the Toltecs or against the Moche. They decided they'd try to alleviate that problem a bit by getting the Toltecs to help them. At the very least, they'd be a distraction. The Toltecs still had plenty of gold even with what they were paying for the peace treaty, and were more than happy to give it all and the alliance to the Mayans if they got some celestial knowledge out of it.
But why take one distraction when you could have two? The Inca were also a perfectly good distraction for the Moche to kill. Problem: The Mayans and Inca were still at war, and they didn't have an embassy with which to conduct alliances anyway. Solution: Make peace with the Inca and establish an embassy in Ollantaytambo. After that, a couple of techs were all that was needed for the Inca to re-declare war on the Moche. Heck, the addition of these techs could even give the Inca slightly more ability to avoid getting completely destroyed.
That would at the very least keep the Moche occupied long enough to accomplish Operation "Sacrifice a Bunch of Slaves to the Gods."
On the Aztec War Front, some Mayan Silent Hunters killed some Aztec ones. That hasn't happened enough times, has it?
The Moche didn't seem to be particularly scared by the new enemies they had, due to how weak their new enemies were. They just acted like they now had some new targets to kill. In 1347, they did that rather successfully, sending Silent Hunters to kill the Toltec Settler Pair where Cotzumalguapa used to be, and capturing the Toltec city of New Teotihuacan. This had the dual benefits of giving them another city and un-isolating the northern Moche city of Huancaco, which previously was completely surrounded by Toltec cities.
A bit later, some Aztec Silent Hunters killed some Mayan Javelin Throwers. Why are we still fighting this war, exactly?
The Olmecs, meanwhile, signed a peace treaty with the Inca, ending a war that had never been fought to begin with.
They also continued acting like they were influenced by the Gods to not settle where the Mayans wanted to, and continued moving Southeast. This would let the Mayans build a city and canal on the isthmus in the area that they wanted to. In 1350, the Mayans did just that, and the Lazapa Canal was quickly open for business, providing easy transportation between the two Oceans.
In war news, Eighteen-Rabbit's Army killed the Moche Silent Hunter in what used to be Cotzumalguapa and took the slaves they'd taken from the Toltec Settlers, and the Mayan Silent Hunters died trying to kill the Aztec Silent Hunters that had killed the Javelin Throwers in 1347.
The Olmecs avenged all of the Mayan deaths in 1352 by killing those Aztec Silent Hunters with some of their own.
With Lazapa built and all the apparent blessings the Gods had granted on the Mayans taken, the Mayans were pretty happy. The Gods, however, were not nearly as happy, since the Mayans hadn't given them any sacrifices since then. So angry, in fact, that the Volcano near Iximche started spouting smoke. They figured that that could serve as a nice reminder to the Mayans to give them more sacrifices. And if not... well, then maybe that volcano would destroy Iximche and give them another reminder.
But the Mayans got the message... and then some. They got the message far more than even the most hopeful of Gods and hoped. In a brief span in 1355, no less than 16 slave groups were sacrificed to them. 8 were Aztec, 7 were Toltec, and 1 was Olmec. This made the Gods very, very happy, and they decided they would not destroy Iximche, or even let the volcano erupt for a while. They could not really stop it though, and it would continue to spout smoke, but not erupt, for several decades.
In reality, the Mayans didn't care much about this, but just saw this as a nice side-effect. What they wanted was the boost it gave to the culture of Chichen Itza- all this got it to a "1902," which was probably good, or something. And it was making plenty more every few years, and that value would only rise as they built buildings like the Codex they were currently working on. Victory was at hand. They calculated it would occur in about 20 years... but why wait that long when they could sacrifice even more workers to the Gods when they came?
And they could still fight wars against the Moche in the meantime. The Moche had a fairly large number of Silent Hunters heading towards New Chinkultic. While the Mayans had no real interest in saving the Toltecs, they had even less interest in letting the Moche grow even stronger. So Eighteen Rabbit went to go take their numbers down a bit, and his army killed 3 units of Moche Silent Hunters before becoming too tired to continue killing Moche Silent Hunters.
This wasn't all, and it didn't keep them from attacking New Chinkultic, but it weakened them enough that the Mayans might have saved the city right there. Only one Moche Silent Hunter unit was able to attack the city in 1357, and it was forced to retreat by the defenders of the city.
While we're on the topic of cities, it should probably be mentioned that the Olmecs finally built one with that settler they'd sent by boat to the empty region all those years ago, near where Cotzumalguapa used to be. Maybe not where they were intending to build it, but useful to the Olmecs nonetheless. Much less useful was the Aztec city that was built in Northeastern South America. How did they even get there, anyway?
Back to war, the Aztecs sent many Silent Hunters to fight enemy Silent Hunters. They killed 2 units of Olmec Silent Hunters, but the Silent Hunters they sent to kill Mayan Silent Hunters came up short, and also came up with a bad case of Head-not-attached-to-body-itis.
In 1360, the Mayans decided to reverse the long trend of Olmecs avenging Mayan deaths by having the Mayans avenge Olmec deaths for a change. The Aztec Silent Hunters from 1357 were still alive and dangerous. The Mayans didn't have much to attack one of them with but the Silent Hunters they had that had made it out of 1357 alive- and them only barely. But the Aztec Silent Hunters they could attack were in no better shape. It was a risky move, but they didn't have any better ideas, and it paid off when the Mayan Silent Hunters emerged victorious, just slightly more lucky. Javelin Throwers killed the other, slightly-less-injured Aztec Silent Hunter unit, which was about equally risky. That they had succeeded was probably a sign that the Gods decided to reward the Mayans with good battle luck in addition to not destroying Iximche.
If that was the case, then they were granting them luck against both the Aztecs and the Moche- near Huancaco, Mayan Silent Hunters were easily able to kill some Moche Silent Hunters.
But it also clearly wasn't applying to the Olmecs, who lost another unit of Silent Hunters to Aztec Silent Hunters in 1362.
Whether it was applying to the Mayan scientists, or whether they were just that awesome, was up for debate. What was certain, though, was that they had finished researching how to honor stuff with Body Ornamentation. They curiously didn't really want to test any of that on their own bodies, though Smoke-Jaguar was more than happy to put some Body Ornamentation in his ears.
Just because they could, the two Silent Hunter units in South America decided to check out what the defense of Huancaco was in 1365. They were highly surprised to find only 2 units of Spearmen in the city. That was a mistake, and a mistake that they could make the Moche pay for. But they didn't manage to do so, as the first Hunters to attack were killed by the Spearmen defending Huancaco, making the city impossible to capture. Maybe the Gods weren't pleased enough with the Mayan sacrifices to outweigh the sacrifices the Moche had also done (which I know about, because they did things like get a city's cultural borders to expand the turn they captured it), not enough to let the Mayans have Huancaco. They did at least make up for it by letting the other Silent Hunters kill some Moche Chasqui Scouts outside the city.
The Mayans decided to rectify this with some more good-old-fashioned sacrifices. They sacrificed one group of Aztec slaves in Chichen Itza.
They would have sacrificed some more- had this not boosted the culture score of the city to exactly 2000. And that was all they needed.
It was all they needed to finally please the Gods enough with their many sacrifices- 20 slave groups in about 25 years, to be exact. The Gods didn't take note immediately, and the wars still continued a bit in 1367, with a Toltec Silent Hunter unit dying in an attack on Moche Silent Hunters, and an Olmec Silent Hunter unit killing something that was defending Tlatelolco. But by 1370, they had noticed, and deemed the Mayans worthy.
The Mayans all knew that the city of Chichen Itza was now so awesome that they had won the Gods' contest of sacrifice, and would be rewarded with a win. Some assumed the celebration would be in the form of a 642-year-long party. In fact, the Gods' acknowledgement of the Mayans win was in the form of this:
How, exactly, they did this, and what it meant, is something that would be debated for a long time to come.
The sacrifices that would happen when all the many slaves finally reached Chichen Itza would perhaps be the bloodiest period in Mayan history, or perhaps even the history of all of Mesoamerica. So much, that the period came to be known simply as "The Days of the Sacrifices," or even just "The Sacrifices."
But it hadn't begun yet, and the Mayans had many more things to deal with in the short term than Sacrificing slaves to the Gods.
Somewhat interestingly, the Toltec-Mayan Peace Treaty and the ceding of Cotzumalguapa to the Mayans meant that all 5 of the Toltecs remaining cities were "New" something, and meant that the Toltecs were not the most creative people in the world when it came to coming up with original city names.
This, understandably, left them wanting more, and a Toltec Settler pair was spotted in the vicinity of Cotzumalguapa in 1327. This instantly made the boost granted by Cotzumalguapa noticeable and big: Eighteen-Rabbit's Army was able to move in front of them in 1330. They couldn't move through Cotzumalguapa or the army, meaning the Settlers were effectively barricaded on the Isthmus and couldn't move into the large empty space there now was between Iximche and Cotzumalguapa. Barring anything unusual, the Mayans should easily be able to fill it up with their own cities.
Not much happened on the Aztec front for a while. The Mayans amassed another force somewhat near Tlatelolco. The Aztec Silent Hunters continued attacking any Olmecs and Mayans that got near them, failing to kill some Olmec Silent Hunters in 1332 and succeeding to kill some Mayan Silent Hunters and Javelin Throwers in 1337.
But that wasn't the most interesting news in 1337. Not even close. The most interesting news was something about the year 1337 being cool or something. But the close second was that the Mayans' attempts to fill in the hole in former Toltec territory were being contested. Not by the Toltecs, who were still confined at Cotzumalguapa by Eighteen-Rabbit, but by the Olmecs, who had sent settlers and Guards on a Great Acali to the area- right where the Mayans wanted to build a canal, 3 years before the Mayans could get their own Settlers there. This could be trouble... or not, but it could be.
In other news, some 1337 scientists in 1337 (this apparently was a joke about elites or something, which only made sense to the scientists) finished some work on 1337 research they'd been doing for a while, on how to 1337ly preserve dead bodies for the afterlife with something called "1337ification," which the more serious members said was actually called "Mummification," but in a 1337 way.
Back on the Aztec war front, the Mayan Quetzal Bowmen and Javelin Throwers tried to avenge the earlier losses by killing the 2 units of Aztec Silent Hunters responsible in 1340. They achieved exactly the opposite, adding two more Mayan units to the casualties of the war, and keeping the Aztec casualty number constant.
The government of Chichen Itza was determined to not see a year with no Aztec deaths, though, and decided to add a few with some sacrifices. 3 of the Aztec slave worker groups had arrived in the city that year, and well, it wasn't like they were going to do anything but sacrifice them. They weren't sure which war these guys had been captured in, the first or the second, but that didn't matter. All that mattered was they were going to die. In a day-long festival in Chichen Itza, all of the former Aztec workers were sacrificed to the Gods.
The Gods seemed pleased with this, and granted the Chichen Itzians more "culture," which was good for something, though they weren't really sure what.
They also appeared to bless the Mayans with not letting the Olmecs settle in the canal zone, since the Olmecs didn't settle where the Great Acali had dropped them off, but rather, kept heading Southeast in 1342.
Or maybe they just wanted to make up for what was about to happen to them: An Aztec Silent Hunter unit killed another of their Javelin Thrower units a bit later, and worse, the Moche unleashed a surprise attack. Eighteen-Rabbit's Army couldn't block the Toltecs and defend Cotzumalguapa simultaneously, but it was thought that they didn't need to- the city could easily see far beyond the city, and the hilly terrain would stop any attacker anyway. They were wrong. The Speedy Moche Chasqui Scouts could reach them. The scouts, on the surface, didn't seem to be any faster than any other units- in fact, on a road, they were slower than Silent Hunters (They only have 1 move in this scenario). But running around all the time in Hilly and Jungly areas had made them get used to it, and they were capable of not being slowed down by it the way others were. They could even find natural-road like paths where there were no roads, letting them run far faster than anyone else when there weren't any roads- fast enough to go from a hill just out of Cotzumalguapa's vision to the city before the Mayans could react. In 1342, they did exactly this, and burned the city to the ground before Eighteen-Rabbit's Army even knew what was happening.
"They must pay for this!" said Smoke-Jaguar's Military Advisor. "And pay they will," replied Smoke-Jaguar. "Leave it to Eighteen-Rabbit..."
The Chasqui Scouts weren't fast enough to run away before Eighteen-Rabbit's Army could get them. In 1345, The Army attacked them with a crushing revenge for what they did to Cotzumalguapa. It's not known exactly what they did to the Scouts, but it was disturbing, whatever it was.
But that wasn't the end of their revenge. The Mayans still didn't want to fight a two-front war, whether the Southern front was against the Toltecs or against the Moche. They decided they'd try to alleviate that problem a bit by getting the Toltecs to help them. At the very least, they'd be a distraction. The Toltecs still had plenty of gold even with what they were paying for the peace treaty, and were more than happy to give it all and the alliance to the Mayans if they got some celestial knowledge out of it.
But why take one distraction when you could have two? The Inca were also a perfectly good distraction for the Moche to kill. Problem: The Mayans and Inca were still at war, and they didn't have an embassy with which to conduct alliances anyway. Solution: Make peace with the Inca and establish an embassy in Ollantaytambo. After that, a couple of techs were all that was needed for the Inca to re-declare war on the Moche. Heck, the addition of these techs could even give the Inca slightly more ability to avoid getting completely destroyed.
That would at the very least keep the Moche occupied long enough to accomplish Operation "Sacrifice a Bunch of Slaves to the Gods."
On the Aztec War Front, some Mayan Silent Hunters killed some Aztec ones. That hasn't happened enough times, has it?
The Moche didn't seem to be particularly scared by the new enemies they had, due to how weak their new enemies were. They just acted like they now had some new targets to kill. In 1347, they did that rather successfully, sending Silent Hunters to kill the Toltec Settler Pair where Cotzumalguapa used to be, and capturing the Toltec city of New Teotihuacan. This had the dual benefits of giving them another city and un-isolating the northern Moche city of Huancaco, which previously was completely surrounded by Toltec cities.
A bit later, some Aztec Silent Hunters killed some Mayan Javelin Throwers. Why are we still fighting this war, exactly?
The Olmecs, meanwhile, signed a peace treaty with the Inca, ending a war that had never been fought to begin with.
They also continued acting like they were influenced by the Gods to not settle where the Mayans wanted to, and continued moving Southeast. This would let the Mayans build a city and canal on the isthmus in the area that they wanted to. In 1350, the Mayans did just that, and the Lazapa Canal was quickly open for business, providing easy transportation between the two Oceans.
In war news, Eighteen-Rabbit's Army killed the Moche Silent Hunter in what used to be Cotzumalguapa and took the slaves they'd taken from the Toltec Settlers, and the Mayan Silent Hunters died trying to kill the Aztec Silent Hunters that had killed the Javelin Throwers in 1347.
The Olmecs avenged all of the Mayan deaths in 1352 by killing those Aztec Silent Hunters with some of their own.
With Lazapa built and all the apparent blessings the Gods had granted on the Mayans taken, the Mayans were pretty happy. The Gods, however, were not nearly as happy, since the Mayans hadn't given them any sacrifices since then. So angry, in fact, that the Volcano near Iximche started spouting smoke. They figured that that could serve as a nice reminder to the Mayans to give them more sacrifices. And if not... well, then maybe that volcano would destroy Iximche and give them another reminder.
But the Mayans got the message... and then some. They got the message far more than even the most hopeful of Gods and hoped. In a brief span in 1355, no less than 16 slave groups were sacrificed to them. 8 were Aztec, 7 were Toltec, and 1 was Olmec. This made the Gods very, very happy, and they decided they would not destroy Iximche, or even let the volcano erupt for a while. They could not really stop it though, and it would continue to spout smoke, but not erupt, for several decades.
In reality, the Mayans didn't care much about this, but just saw this as a nice side-effect. What they wanted was the boost it gave to the culture of Chichen Itza- all this got it to a "1902," which was probably good, or something. And it was making plenty more every few years, and that value would only rise as they built buildings like the Codex they were currently working on. Victory was at hand. They calculated it would occur in about 20 years... but why wait that long when they could sacrifice even more workers to the Gods when they came?
And they could still fight wars against the Moche in the meantime. The Moche had a fairly large number of Silent Hunters heading towards New Chinkultic. While the Mayans had no real interest in saving the Toltecs, they had even less interest in letting the Moche grow even stronger. So Eighteen Rabbit went to go take their numbers down a bit, and his army killed 3 units of Moche Silent Hunters before becoming too tired to continue killing Moche Silent Hunters.
This wasn't all, and it didn't keep them from attacking New Chinkultic, but it weakened them enough that the Mayans might have saved the city right there. Only one Moche Silent Hunter unit was able to attack the city in 1357, and it was forced to retreat by the defenders of the city.
While we're on the topic of cities, it should probably be mentioned that the Olmecs finally built one with that settler they'd sent by boat to the empty region all those years ago, near where Cotzumalguapa used to be. Maybe not where they were intending to build it, but useful to the Olmecs nonetheless. Much less useful was the Aztec city that was built in Northeastern South America. How did they even get there, anyway?
Back to war, the Aztecs sent many Silent Hunters to fight enemy Silent Hunters. They killed 2 units of Olmec Silent Hunters, but the Silent Hunters they sent to kill Mayan Silent Hunters came up short, and also came up with a bad case of Head-not-attached-to-body-itis.
In 1360, the Mayans decided to reverse the long trend of Olmecs avenging Mayan deaths by having the Mayans avenge Olmec deaths for a change. The Aztec Silent Hunters from 1357 were still alive and dangerous. The Mayans didn't have much to attack one of them with but the Silent Hunters they had that had made it out of 1357 alive- and them only barely. But the Aztec Silent Hunters they could attack were in no better shape. It was a risky move, but they didn't have any better ideas, and it paid off when the Mayan Silent Hunters emerged victorious, just slightly more lucky. Javelin Throwers killed the other, slightly-less-injured Aztec Silent Hunter unit, which was about equally risky. That they had succeeded was probably a sign that the Gods decided to reward the Mayans with good battle luck in addition to not destroying Iximche.
If that was the case, then they were granting them luck against both the Aztecs and the Moche- near Huancaco, Mayan Silent Hunters were easily able to kill some Moche Silent Hunters.
But it also clearly wasn't applying to the Olmecs, who lost another unit of Silent Hunters to Aztec Silent Hunters in 1362.
Whether it was applying to the Mayan scientists, or whether they were just that awesome, was up for debate. What was certain, though, was that they had finished researching how to honor stuff with Body Ornamentation. They curiously didn't really want to test any of that on their own bodies, though Smoke-Jaguar was more than happy to put some Body Ornamentation in his ears.
Just because they could, the two Silent Hunter units in South America decided to check out what the defense of Huancaco was in 1365. They were highly surprised to find only 2 units of Spearmen in the city. That was a mistake, and a mistake that they could make the Moche pay for. But they didn't manage to do so, as the first Hunters to attack were killed by the Spearmen defending Huancaco, making the city impossible to capture. Maybe the Gods weren't pleased enough with the Mayan sacrifices to outweigh the sacrifices the Moche had also done (which I know about, because they did things like get a city's cultural borders to expand the turn they captured it), not enough to let the Mayans have Huancaco. They did at least make up for it by letting the other Silent Hunters kill some Moche Chasqui Scouts outside the city.
The Mayans decided to rectify this with some more good-old-fashioned sacrifices. They sacrificed one group of Aztec slaves in Chichen Itza.
They would have sacrificed some more- had this not boosted the culture score of the city to exactly 2000. And that was all they needed.
It was all they needed to finally please the Gods enough with their many sacrifices- 20 slave groups in about 25 years, to be exact. The Gods didn't take note immediately, and the wars still continued a bit in 1367, with a Toltec Silent Hunter unit dying in an attack on Moche Silent Hunters, and an Olmec Silent Hunter unit killing something that was defending Tlatelolco. But by 1370, they had noticed, and deemed the Mayans worthy.
The Mayans all knew that the city of Chichen Itza was now so awesome that they had won the Gods' contest of sacrifice, and would be rewarded with a win. Some assumed the celebration would be in the form of a 642-year-long party. In fact, the Gods' acknowledgement of the Mayans win was in the form of this:
How, exactly, they did this, and what it meant, is something that would be debated for a long time to come.
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Toxicman007
Custom User Title
Nicely done, Chox. Can I just ask, how much culture per turn was Chichen Itza making at the end? Mine was making 26cpt 
To answer your question about why I chose the same civs as you;
I chose the Egyptians because I had lost as them once before, and I had already won as Babylon, Phoenicia and the Medes. Also because you inspired me <3
I chose Persia because I've won as Rome (impossible to lose) and Carthage, and have tired Greece at least four times in the past, each time losing. Persia I had also lost as several times before, and figured they'd be a challenge. To be honest, Persia was just as easy as Rome, and I even wiped out Greece, Egypt, Goth and Scythia.
I chose the Vandals because (in my opinion), they have the best location. I wouldn't have won that one if my early war with the Anglo-Saxons didn't grant me four leaders (thank you RNG gods) to create Warlord armies with.
I chose Cordova because they've got a good location and because I was inspired by you. I had previously won as Denmark, the Byzantines and the Turks. Again, the RNG gods were very kind to me, and I ended up with a total of 9 Ansar Warrior armies. Three fell in battle. I also ended up at war with half the known world because of my poor Assassin placement, as the stupid AI would walk right into them and declare war on me (like the Byzantines, the French [I had already raped France pretty hard anyway, so killing them off was easy], the Germans and the Rus.
In Mesoamerica, I usually play as the Maya. I have tried the Inca and the Aztecs, but I have only won with the Maya. I didn't get any leaders, though, so you were pretty lucky there.
I'd like to ask who you plan to play as for Age of Discovery. I've won as France (I conquered all of Europe ) and England, but I've never even tried playing as one of the native American tribes. I was planning to either play as France again, or the Inca.
To answer your question about why I chose the same civs as you;
I chose the Egyptians because I had lost as them once before, and I had already won as Babylon, Phoenicia and the Medes. Also because you inspired me <3
I chose Persia because I've won as Rome (impossible to lose) and Carthage, and have tired Greece at least four times in the past, each time losing. Persia I had also lost as several times before, and figured they'd be a challenge. To be honest, Persia was just as easy as Rome, and I even wiped out Greece, Egypt, Goth and Scythia.
I chose the Vandals because (in my opinion), they have the best location. I wouldn't have won that one if my early war with the Anglo-Saxons didn't grant me four leaders (thank you RNG gods) to create Warlord armies with.
I chose Cordova because they've got a good location and because I was inspired by you. I had previously won as Denmark, the Byzantines and the Turks. Again, the RNG gods were very kind to me, and I ended up with a total of 9 Ansar Warrior armies. Three fell in battle. I also ended up at war with half the known world because of my poor Assassin placement, as the stupid AI would walk right into them and declare war on me (like the Byzantines, the French [I had already raped France pretty hard anyway, so killing them off was easy], the Germans and the Rus.
In Mesoamerica, I usually play as the Maya. I have tried the Inca and the Aztecs, but I have only won with the Maya. I didn't get any leaders, though, so you were pretty lucky there.
I'd like to ask who you plan to play as for Age of Discovery. I've won as France (I conquered all of Europe
) and England, but I've never even tried playing as one of the native American tribes. I was planning to either play as France again, or the Inca.
Verarde
Pondering Wearing A Hat
Chichen Itza was making 29 cpt.
Very nice job Chox! Looking forward to the next one, as I've never really played that one.
Very nice job Chox! Looking forward to the next one, as I've never really played that one.
Princeof Persia
Emperor
Is it AoD? PLAY AS THE DUTCH!!! On second thought, maybe do a challenge and be the Iroquois.
Toxicman007
Custom User Title
Sadly, they're AI-only. But I'm all for Chox being the Dutch!
Princeof Persia
Emperor
Wait: I thought only the Maya and Inca were AI-only New World Civs.
CELTICEMPIRE
Zulu Conqueror
Good Job!
My I recommend the Dutch for the next game.
EDIT: Ninja'd
My I recommend the Dutch for the next game.
EDIT: Ninja'd
Princeof Persia
Emperor
Look at the third to last picture. Chichen Itza has pollution.
MaxaTheGreat
Feel Prussian Iron!
Nice! I thought the win would be a bit farther away.
Iroquois is in there, but you can't play as them unless you mess with the scenario. And then the Maya and Inca are playable (I know the Maya are for sure, not so sure with the Inca).
Iroquois is in there, but you can't play as them unless you mess with the scenario. And then the Maya and Inca are playable (I know the Maya are for sure, not so sure with the Inca).
CELTICEMPIRE
Zulu Conqueror
Nicely done, Chox. Can I just ask, how much culture per turn was Chichen Itza making at the end? Mine was making 26cpt
It says in that picture I posted of Chichen Itza...
Yeah, this. Well, technically, It boosted to 31 on the final turn when that Stela was completed.
Yeah, Persia's way easier than Greece.
In my play as them, I found that they're a bit too far away from the Romans, and as such have to fight other people to get to the Romans. Which is bad, I'd rather play as the Visigoths or the Franks or something. Or heck, the Celts- they have nowhere to expand to, but that just means I get to kill the Romans faster.
Try it as one of the Western Christian civs now, you've already tried the other 3 flavors.
You have no idea how jealous I am of your epic RNG.
The AI doesn't know where invisible units are, so it walks into them and is too stupid not to declare war, kind of like how they run into Submarines in the unmodded game.
I'd like to ask who you plan to play as for Age of Discovery. I've won as France (I conquered all of Europe
I've won it as Spain and the Aztecs.
It's certainly different to play as a Native American civ in that instead of a European. More challenging in some ways, but you have the advantage of shorter supply lines and less corruption in the areas you're fighting in.
In answer to all of this: The playable civs in Age of Discovery are the European France, Spain, England, Portugal, and Dutch, and the New World Aztecs, Inca, and Maya. The Iroquois are also in the game, and are indeed unplayable.
How did that happen?
It doesn't have pollution yet, just the possibility to generate it. It reached size 13, and any city above size 12 can generate pollution in the surrounding area.
There seems to be wide support for the Dutch. I'm certainly fine with that, although one of the others might be a little easier.
Toxicman007
Custom User Title
Chox, I thought you won Mesopotamia and Middle Ages already?
In response to your comments, I probably should try a European power. France, I guess, for Middle Ages and AoD. In Fall of Rome, you have to be able to take out both the western and eastern empires, so the Celts aren't very good. I didn't even manage to win as them on Chieftain. In my game, I ended up taking out (in this order) the Anglo-Saxons, Western Rome, Eastern Rome, the Franks and Visigoths in the same turn, the Ostrogoths and the Huns. I was also at war with the Sassanids, and they would've been next had I not won.
In response to your comments, I probably should try a European power. France, I guess, for Middle Ages and AoD. In Fall of Rome, you have to be able to take out both the western and eastern empires, so the Celts aren't very good. I didn't even manage to win as them on Chieftain. In my game, I ended up taking out (in this order) the Anglo-Saxons, Western Rome, Eastern Rome, the Franks and Visigoths in the same turn, the Ostrogoths and the Huns. I was also at war with the Sassanids, and they would've been next had I not won.
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