Inca, Aztec, or Iroquios?

I love all of them, they're pretty potent turtles in the right settings.

Huge map? Go wide with the Incas, turtle down, then grow your cities. Mid/Late game you will have wonderful food+produciton cities.

The Inca are strong, if a little generic. Extra production from hill bias, extra food from terrace farms. Fast movement on hills is surprisingly cute and useful. One of my first "favorite" civs in the game but I don't play them quite as much anymore since I don't care for the yellow/green colors (yes this matters to me).

The Maya are also a strong civ. Good science/faith combination which I enjoy. Getting free Great People is just fun. I sort of think of it like, at some (semi-random) point in the game I will get to start a religion for free (Great Prophet), get a free tech (Great Scientist), a free Wonder (Great Engineer), a free Golden age, etc, etc. Obviously you can build tile improvements instead, and that might even be a more effective strategy, but it's not as fun to think about IMHO. The civ is also a very nice orange/clay sort of color which I like.

FYI, I love the Shoshone as well. Great boost to start the game if you find enough ancient ruins, extra population, free pantheon and composite bow. Also probably my favorite civ colors in the game.

Incas and Aztecs are both pretty powerful, in my experience. They are both growth-oriented, but the Incas are more expansionist (yet defensive), while the Aztecs are more war-friendly.

The Incas should stick to mountain-y spots. Terrace Farms brings you insane food, and their UA guarantees that your expansion isn't slow (in fact, the Incas are good for following either Liberty or Tradition). Furthermore, their roads are free if you stick them on hills. Their UU, as cool as it looks, isn't useful. Finally, the UA is actually better than it sounds, providing better gold, better mobility all around, and some good defensive strategies in combat.

The Aztecs are amazing near lakes, but the Floating Gardens are also good if rivers are all you have. Jungle start is a tad rough, but Aztecs have a surprisingly slow start, anyway (you'll want to build at least 5 Jaguars before Metal Casting). The population growth kicks in once you have Floating Gardens up and running, at mid-game (I once founded a city near a lake, on a desert, insta-built Petra and paid 400 Gold for instant Gardens. "Insane" barely describes how fast that city grew). Furthermore, you can actually profit from every war, while the Inca don't.

One weird thing they both have in common: both Jaguars and Inca Warriors can freely move in forested hills.

brasswire said:

The Maya are also a strong civ. Good science/faith combination which I enjoy. Getting free Great People is just fun. I sort of think of it like, at some (semi-random) point in the game I will get to start a religion for free (Great Prophet), get a free tech (Great Scientist), a free Wonder (Great Engineer), a free Golden age, etc, etc. Obviously you can build tile improvements instead, and that might even be a more effective strategy, but it's not as fun to think about IMHO. The civ is also a very nice orange/clay sort of color which I like.

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But the problem is, they are not really 'free'.. They do add up to the cost of your GP generation, so I would say that an early academy and pretty soon after a free wonder due to a GE are very nice, but later on I don't want to pick another GP which delays my generation of GS. Although it's good the developers did it this way because otherwise they would be really OP, certainly in combination with the Pyramid which is one of the best UB's in the game, imo.

Nevertheless, very fun civ to play with and absolutely one of the best civs after the God-tier Civs.

Peter Sagan said:

But the problem is, they are not really 'free'.. They do add up to the cost of your GP generation, so I would say that an early academy and pretty soon after a free wonder due to a GE are very nice, but later on I don't want to pick another GP which delays my generation of GS. Although it's good the developers did it this way because otherwise they would be really OP, certainly in combination with the Pyramid which is one of the best UB's in the game, imo.

Nevertheless, very fun civ to play with and absolutely one of the best civs after the God-tier Civs.

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Honor with maya could be fun.. if you start out with primitive atlalists, you can eventually upgrade them for cheap into CB and then XB if you use professional army.