Are the Aztecs overbuffed?

Ontolog

Chieftain
Joined
Oct 2, 2008
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Starting: Aztecs begin with a wealth of gold
Ancient: Units heal after winning in combat
Medieval: Temples provide +3 science
Industrial: Half-price roads
Modern: +50% gold production

Aztecs get a huge advantage, especially at the start of the game where the ultimate result of the game can easily be determined. I find that when I play as Aztecs I usually do much better than when playing as the other Civs.

Do you think they should be nerfed? In particular, the auto-healing. It basically gives you extra turns at the beginning of a game.
 
Well isn't that a logical fallacy? Civs are only powerful relative to each other so they can't all be be "overpowered". My point is, in my opinion, the Aztecs have an advantage over all the other Civs.
 
Yes, I believe they are overpowered relative to the other civs. I think healing after winning in combat is the most powerful civ bonus in the game, with +50% gold the next most powerful. They have both.
 
No, I don't think they are overpowered at all. Even for rushes go, I'd much prefer the Zulus or Arabs.
 
But assume you rush, and they attack you as soon as you leave your city. Instead of having to waste 2 turns after they beat you to attack your capital at full strength, they go right ahead next turn, saving 2 turns. I believe all civs are balanced. Certain bonuses tie together with a lot of civs, that's why some civs are good for economical victories (Spain and Aztecs, to name a couple), while others are better for domination (Arabs and Zulu).
 
They don't heal if they die. There is your strategy. Defense has the advantage(*) and in fact the Aztec trait is far more powerful on defense because of that.


* Sea power makes a difference and is a different equation which no trait really affects.
 
and in fact the Aztec trait is far more powerful on defense because of that.

Yes, I definitely agree. With the Aztecs you can defend a city or a choke-point against 20 attacking armies with just a single good defensive army. And since that defensive army keeps winning OVER and OVER again, it's a guarantee that it will get a great general, making it even more powerful.

Wall-off two or three civs at a choke point with archers early in the game and watch what happens. Stay at war with them and they will waste their entire civ's resources sending armies to get massacred against your triple-elite, great-general archers. Replace them with better defensive units as you get the tech, and the other civs will never make it past the little prison you have them locked in. And you get to expand throughout the rest of the continent unopposed.

It's almost too easy with the Aztecs (against the AI at least). It's because they start out with this (most powerful) advantage at the beginning of the game. That greatly multiplies how effective it is, because the earlier you gain advantage in this game, the faster you surpass your competitors (exponentially). It is like compounding interest.
 
Yes, they seem overbuffed to me, too. :(
 
Humans are not as easily fooled, and there are other Civ traits that can just as easily overcome the AI. But how do they fare versus humans?

The real down side to Aztec is that you need two participants, you must attack or be attacked with these units. And despite the healing, the Aztec early units are no better off versus defensive units, and will most likely die a lot just as any other unit. Traits like Japanese food bonus and Spain (effectively the same but better) are far more powerful because they apply generally to all strategies and win conditions.


Also, the best early unit (catapults) get much of this benefit themselves, that is any army of them. Unless they all die, they are ready the following turn to reattack.
 
Humans are not as easily fooled, and there are other Civ traits that can just as easily overcome the AI. But how do they fare versus humans?

The real down side to Aztec is that you need two participants, you must attack or be attacked with these units. And despite the healing, the Aztec early units are no better off versus defensive units, and will most likely die a lot just as any other unit. Traits like Japanese food bonus and Spain (effectively the same but better) are far more powerful because they apply generally to all strategies and win conditions.


Also, the best early unit (catapults) get much of this benefit themselves, that is any army of them. Unless they all die, they are ready the following turn to reattack.

They do have a benefit against defensive units because they can attack again right away instead of having to wait a turn or two to fully heal their army.
 
On offense, Aztecs can bring fewer units or even spread their units (fight two wars at once). For one, they don't waste turns healing, which also means less time for defenders to recoup. Secondly, if they stack defensive units with their offensive units, eg catapults and archers in same tile, defenders also need more units for counter-attacks to be able to wipe out the stack.

On defense, Aztecs need much fewer units and the attacker needs much more units before their city can be taken. Furthermore, as above, if Aztecs have skirmish stack, eg catapult and archer outside their city, they can stay in forest or hill tiles outside the city and pick off attackers before they reach their cities.

Defending outside the city has trade-offs. You don't get city defense bonus. OTOH, attackers don't get infiltration bonus.

The end result is that they need much fewer units for offense and defense, while the opponent needs more units to overwhelm the Aztecs. It comes down who has spent more hammers to achieve the same results. Aztecs don't need to spend that many hammers on units, but still can achieve domination or play turtle as well as any other civ. That is, they can spend more hammers on buildings and wonders.
 
First, I don't believe that the Aztecs are overbuffed. Two reasons for that:
1) They still need to win the battle to get the bonus. The most important thing to win a battle is to have the strongest unit/army not the one that heals after battle. Aztecs are not particularly strong on science, and thus does not have the best units easily.
2) As someone else said earlier (sorry for not remembering), later in the game when you have skirmish units like catapults or tanks you have this effect with all Civilizations, i.e. an army that loose one or two of the units is back at three units directly after the fight so the benefit is partly "lost" after the initial parts of the game.

Don't get me wrong, it is a strong bonus to "autoheal", I don't dispute that but it is not overbuffed. The civ is particularly strong with a strat to scout alot in the beginning with single warrior units and for winning a quick domination victory with horsemen (or even knigths if you are the english), but the point is that all Civs have a strategy that they are particularly strong at, the aztecs are not unique in that sense.
 
I agree with everything you said Hertsh, execpt for this:

1) They still need to win the battle to get the bonus. The most important thing to win a battle is to have the strongest unit/army not the one that heals after battle. Aztecs are not particularly strong on science, and thus does not have the best units easily.

All civs are pretty much equal in science, as it all depends on where you place your cities. Unlike most civs though, the Aztecs get a bonus specifically for science. Building a temple gives you science and culture.

Temple Produces Science= Culture and Science
+50% Gold Production= Gold
Auto-Heal after battle= Less Hammers needed

The Aztecs do seem pretty strong, but they aren't over buffed in my opinion. Id say that civs like the Romans and Zulus are right up there with the Aztecs. Those three seem to be a little ahead of the pack though, but it all depends on how you play them.
 
Temple Produces Science= Culture and Science

Thanks for the nice words. However, my question back to you is how temples produce science? I have never seen that effect from Temples, I though they only increase the culture output from the population.

And yes, some civilizations are better for science, not directly but indirectly, e.g., india can use resources from day one. Japan can get food from sea squares and thus place their cities on single islands and get massive science (or gold for that matter). And these are only two examples.
 
One of the Aztec's traits is that their temples produce science, giving them a good cultural and scientific boost.

In my opinion, Egypt, India and Japan are the best civs for science.
 
One of the Aztec's traits is that their temples produce science, giving them a good cultural and scientific boost.

:lol: How could I have missed that. It had just passed me by. Thanks for the clarification. :goodjob:
 
I never build temples except for a cultural victory, and then only late game. I can imagine that little bonus (+3?) might be nice for a specialized science city due to the multiplicative effect of library/university and leaders but I can't imagine its worth the 40 hammers for just a few extra beakers.
 
Culture can expand your border, convert cities and generates great people. I don't see that, plus the extra science that you'll need to get to that tech first, to both worth less than 40 beakers.
 
Culture victory is very slow and usually late game (eg using spies.) However, the temple + science bonus encourages you to build culture very early, while not hindering your science output. In fact, it boosts science, so that you can put workers on other tiles for extra food and hammers, not unlike Japanese or Indian bonus. It may seem trivial on the surface, nonetheless, it allows Aztecs to become one of the two best civs for one-city challenge (the other being Romans, who are also overpowered in their own ways.) I explained in my OCC strategy article why early culture is vital to a timely OCC peaceful victory.

Of course, it's also very effective when you have many cities and they all have temples (mostly rushed, but they're cheap.) Not only can they overrun you with undying horsemen armies and take over your cities, now they become science and cultural leaders by building a temple in every city. Horsemen alone may not be enough to conquer the entire world, but they could take over half of it easily. And by then, they should have the upper hand in research and attracting great people.
 
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