Best Aztec start

HerrDoktor · Oct 29, 2013

So, there's no lake start bias for the Aztecs. In 99% of the games, this means their unique building is wasted. When I was playing with Poland, I stumbled on a particularly good position for Aztecs: 4 lake tiles plus lake Victoria plus mountains.

I saved the map and used the in-game editor mod to place me at the right spot. This is what it looked like by the end of my (King) game:

Spoiler :

Notice: I only had that much unhappiness at the very end of a space victory game, after some failed luxury trade renewals. I just didn't care at that point.

I've never seen a city of that size before - and this was without sending any food caravan. I also had Hanging Gardens, Temple of Artemis and Swords into Plowshares, which certainly helped.

So, did you guys had any luck with an Aztec lake start?

Kintara · Oct 29, 2013

That's a really cool start, but a Floating Garden on a river is not a waste at all.

Autoclave · Oct 29, 2013

I did something similar but i run it on a lakemap, and rushed all the growth beliefs, policies and buildings. I had a 7 tile lake within capital working distance. With floating garding i had 7 +4 :c5food:

so i could focus on production tiles improvement with my workers.

My city size reached 54 by the end game. The only problem was that at this size, you start having unemployed.

ehecatzin · Oct 29, 2013

Great start.

Honestly, I think Firaxis should have implemented a lake start bias by now, with the addition of Poland the Aztecs lost some of their uniqness, they are still fun to play tho. If we had such a thing as lake start bias it would give the Aztecs a little bit extra that they need.

arand86 · Oct 29, 2013

Autoclave said:
I did something similar but i run it on a lakemap, and rushed all the growth beliefs, policies and buildings. I had a 7 tile lake within capital working distance. With floating garding i had 7 +4 so i could focus on production tiles improvement with my workers.

My city size reached 54 by the end game. The only problem was that at this size, you start having unemployed.

God, 7 tile lake? That's insane. 7x4 food tiles.

HerrDoktor · Oct 29, 2013

Autoclave said:
I did something similar but i run it on a lakemap, and rushed all the growth beliefs, policies and buildings. I had a 7 tile lake within capital working distance. With floating garding i had 7 +4 so i could focus on production tiles improvement with my workers.

My city size reached 54 by the end game. The only problem was that at this size, you start having unemployed.

Wow, 7 would be really crazy. Mine was on continents. Yes, I had lots of unemployed too - they contribute to science and production (by making amazing pigeon skull collars, epoxy bongs and makeshift stoves?). I don't know if they're affected by Rationalism and Statue of Liberty ("homeless specialists?"). Come to think of it, it's a distopian nightmare. We just made the Sprawl into the game.

GoodSarmatian · Oct 29, 2013

You call this best Aztec start ? You don't even have a third luxury next to your capital, let alone marble.
You don't even have a natural wonder with faith inside the borders of your first two cities !

arand86 said:
God, 7 tile lake? That's insane. 7x4 food tiles.

You call seven insane ?

Behold !

By the way, I bought the settler for the second city after discovering El Dorado a few tiles southwest of the lake.

dragonxxx · Oct 29, 2013

well, start is definitely good, but you needed 370 turns to finish the game, thats around 100 too many (with average start).

HerrDoktor · Oct 29, 2013

dragonxxx said:
well, start is definitely good, but you needed 370 turns to finish the game, thats around 100 too many (with average start).

It was just a king game to test the site, so I didn't min-max anything - anyway, it wouldn't be worth a scoreboard position or achievements for being forced to use a mod to place the settler at the right spot. I did a bit of war, culture, ended with science. I'm thinking about reloading or restarting and try to see if I can rush a victory.

HerrDoktor · Oct 29, 2013

GoodSarmatian said:
You call this best Aztec start ? You don't even have a third luxury next to your capital, let alone marble.
You don't even have a natural wonder with faith inside the borders of your first two cities !

You call seven insane ?

Behold !

By the way, I bought the settler for the second city after discovering El Dorado a few tiles southwest of the lake.

I didn't say my start was the best ever, just the best I've had - that's why I asked for you guys to post your starts. That's a nice one, but you could have more lake tiles by settling one hex to the west. How did that game ended?

GoodSarmatian · Oct 29, 2013

HerrDoktor said:
I didn't say my start was the best ever, just the best I had - that's why I asked for you guys to post your starts.

I know. I just wanted an introduction before I linked to that post.

That's a nice one, but you could have more lake tiles by settling one hex to the west. How did that game ended?

All nine lake tiles were in the 3-hex radius of my capitol and I was able to work all of them eventually. The game was a couple of months ago and I don't remember the details, but I think I won a pretty early science victory. I know that I breezed through the Tradition very quickly thanks to Sacred Path and had very high population despite not expanding that much.

ahawk · Oct 29, 2013

I don't think I had taken a screen-shot, but I got an Inca city well over 50 not too long ago. As the Inca, if you get lucky with how the mountains, rivers, and hills line up, you can end up with some ridiculous food-yield with irrigated terrace farms. Ever since they added irrigation bonuses to terrace farms, I've considered the best theoretical food-yield to be the Inca's, not the Aztec's, because hill/river surrounded by mountains on 4 or 5 sides is basically a free Lake Victoria on that tile (but actually better because you get production, too). And in this fairly recent game, I had food-routes going, Tradition up, Hanging Gardens up, and several Maritime CSes allied, and Cusco became the biggest city I've ever seen hands down.

Try the Inca out. The likelihood of rolling hill/river tiles that are next to a lot of mountains isn't good, but it's surely higher than 1% of the time.

Autoclave · Oct 29, 2013

I think that the theoretical maximum would probably be achieved with Order Venice with both Colosus and Petra, Iron Curtain Tenet and all the growth wonders and religion beliefs.

Imagine sending 20 cargo ships with 15 :c5food:

each to Venice. That's 300 base :c5food:

before multipliers and even before working the city tiles themselves!

S.O.T MAHak · Oct 30, 2013

So, there's no lake start bias for the Aztecs.

Well there is a map script called "Lakes" which generate a continent with a lot of, you guessed it, lakes.

BUDISMYBUDDY · Nov 4, 2013

thats a crazy start from GoodSarmatian

tanchy · Nov 10, 2013

What religion is this?

Rakshasa72 · Nov 10, 2013

I'm not entirely convinced that Lakes starts are all that great for the Aztecs. I used to be obsessed with lake starts too but, I found that the true good bonus of the Floating Gardens is the 15% food bonus. You can get this bonus if your on a lake or a river and, I'd much rather be on a river for the other buildings you can get for being there. Also I tested out Lake Victoria and, it didn't get the +2 food bonus as far as I could tell. I'm not saying lakes are terrible. Just that I'm not too hung up on them anymore. If you want to have an interesting game, turn off the start bias and try and get a good Desert/River/Flood Plains start with the Aztecs. I know it sounds counter intuitive but, it can actually pretty decent.

PaleJackal · Nov 10, 2013

Rakshasa72 said:
I'm not entirely convinced that Lakes starts are all that great for the Aztecs.

I think they're good for rapid food growth early on, but as soon as you get Civil Service, your farms are 4 food anyways. A granary with a bunch of bananas or wheat nearby is probably a more potent start. Either way, Floating Gardens aren't trivial: they save you 1 gold on maintenance, and +15% growth is better than Fertility Rites or Temple of Artemis, both of which are nice to have.

Soffacet · Nov 10, 2013

HerrDoktor said:
So, there's no lake start bias for the Aztecs. In 99% of the games, this means their unique building is wasted.

Not true, FG still gives the %-growth boost, which is really the main point of the building. Lake tiles just are a nice bonus that sometimes jumpstarts your early game.

BrotherInJah · Nov 11, 2013

what so special about this if you used in game editor? You can make every start "the best one" with it, can't you?

Best Aztec start

Mad Scientist

Warlord

Warlord

Emperor

Warlord

Mad Scientist

Jokerfied Western Male

King

Mad Scientist

Mad Scientist

Jokerfied Western Male

King

Warlord

Warlord

Chieftain

Chieftain

Warlord

Chieftain

Warlord

60% of the time works every time

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