Pantheon choice

I'm playing Aztecs on King/Marathon/huge/continents/15 other civs and 32 city states. I'm surrounded by lots of jungle and 3 bananas, cotton, and spices. It comes out to 5 plantation hexes to 7 jungle hexes. Surrounding area for future cities has plenty of jungles and plantation resources. I pop an ancient ruin and get a pantheon early, now the decision.

+1 culture for jungle or +1 culture for plantations.

It would be great to go for a science victory a Aztecs, but that not really how I want to play Montezuma. Lets base this decision assuming I'm going to be playing a very militaristic game hoping for domination.

Other than bananas, I don't have good food tiles. Should I leave the jungle tiles for the science boost anyway and go +1 culture for jungles. Or do I cut them down for farms and go for plantation pantheon. I'm curious as to what you guys think as I'm sure there are some incredibly experienced players here and this could only improve my game.

Also I saved a screenshot of my capital on my steam account, but don't know how to get it on here .

Also I'm new to the site and hopefully this question belongs here, and not the strategy section. I have seen similar questions here so I assume I'm in the right spot.

Sacred Path, since you shouldn't plantation the bananas, but will work them pretty continuously (initially for food and after universities for science).

You want to keep the Jungle if you're able to do so without crippling your early game. A farm tile provides 3 food, 4 if alongside river with Civil Service or with Fertilizer. A jungle tile provides 2 food, 2 gold, and 3 science once you have Economics and Free Thought in Rationalism. Technically 3 gold if you then finish Commerce.

Since we're talking about culture and not faith, getting more of it as soon as possible is less important -- I'd look at your planned expansion sites and figure out whether you'll wind up with far more plantation or jungle hexes.

Bananas you should cut down if you can do it relatively early. Once you have a Library and Public School a single population is equivalent to the science (while also allowing you to work another tile or specialist slot) -- but if you're like 50 turns away from winning then there's no real point since it takes time for the food to make a difference.

Technically, the BEST value for the bananas is to plop an academy from a great scientist on them -- you still get the base tile of 3 total "points" plus one from granary plus the 8 science. That's a 12 yield tile instead of 10 like if you planted it on grassland.

Not to create more complication. But I just thought of this. Libraries and public schools add a science for every 2 population. Would the extra growth from plantations and farms come close in overall science output throughout the course of the game?

That being said, I'm going to be making quite a few Jaguars and hopefully upgrade them deep into the game. Plus I would be harder to invade. I like the idea of keeping my cities in the jungle. I think Sacred path wins over oral tradition.

For plantations, yes. For farms that are along rivers or lakes, probably, but the gold from those trading posts is also quite useful.

Plantations are trading 2 food for 2 science, and the 2 food is better.

Farms are trading 2 food for 2-3 gold and 3 science. That's probably not worth it unless you really need more food early on (which is entirely possible, especially alongside rivers).

Plantations are not trading 2 food for 2 science. With a granary, unimproved jungle bananas tiles will yield 4 food and, once a university is up, 2 science (before city multipliers). With a granary, a bananas plantation will yield 5 food. It is not until you research Fertilizer (usually well after turn 200) that the plantation food yield increases by 1.

You're not going to have Universities up until well after turn 100 (the "ideal" perfect scenario with a science victory around turn 225ish gets Education at 105ish).

Which would mean you'd have that one extra food for a long time prior to getting the 2 science at all. Which means more early growth prior to Civil Service, let alone Fertilizer.

So if we're assuming your tech timing, then you likely have 100+ turns of the 1 extra food, then another 100 or so turns where you would get the 2 science from eduction if you didn't improve it. Which is basically 200 turns of 1 extra food (200 food total) versus 100 turns of 2 extra science (200 science total).

Which basically equates to an average tradeoff of 2 food for 2 science prior to fertilizer and then an exact trade afterward -- except that early food is much more beneficial unless you have happiness issues.

Of course, like I said, your ideal situation is a banana academy regardless (or Manufactury/Customs House/Holy Site). Then you get a 4 resource tile PLUS the great person improvement.

With 3 Bananas i'd also consider Sun God.

I really should have considered sun god, +3 food would have been excellent. Anyway I went sacred path. First social policy went towards honor and I spit out two jaguars before anything else. Started barb farming like crazy. Creating lot of city state friends, a few of them culture ones. Plus the culture bonus from my jungle tiles. It was crazy. One point into Honor AND completely finished Tradition before my 5th technology was complete.

Tech order was
1. Pottery
2. Calendar
3. Mining
4. Bronze working
5. Animal Husbandry

Yes I had 7 policy points to spend before animal husbandry competed.

Keep in mind this was on marathon. So I have a lot more time with my individual units before my techs get researched. Of course policies do cost more on marathon to balance it out. Idk I don't think you can fill tradition out that fast on normal length, just not enough time. Regardless the combination of faith hub into pantheon/monty/city states. So its been one of those games where everything has been so perfect.

SecretAgent said:

Keep in mind this was on marathon. So I have a lot more time with my individual units before my techs get researched. Of course policies do cost more on marathon to balance it out. Idk I don't think you can fill tradition out that fast on normal length, just not enough time.

Click to expand...

Something like 2x further down the tech tree before you finish tradition, I would guesstimate.

With all that bonus culture to invest into Rationalism (assuming policy saving), Montezuma can into space!