The legendary Montezuma

[RulerOfDaPeople]

I've read hints and mentionings about the legendary Montezuma in my travels through War Acadamy and the CivIV forum, but I didn't know exactly what the big deal was all about... until now.

I had just finished my first and only game on cheiftan against only 5 other civs. I won by conquest and I thought it was too easy and I was bored by it. So I upped the anti to Prince and played the 18civ Earth scenerio. Boy was I in for something.

I played 2 games in this scenerio, both as America. My strategy was to do a small REX & try and seal off the Central American pass so I could have all that land in North America for myself. Big mistake.

Both times Montezuma declared war on me and wiped me off the map before I could make my first maceman. And the real sad thing is, the 2nd game actually lasted all the way to the year 1680. I put up a good fight but I couldn't hold off the quantity of his Jaquar Warriors. They cut off my iron supply and from there I was dead in the water.

And so I was thinking... THAT's the legendary Montezuma every body was talking about!

Needless to say, Montezuma is now may immortal enemy my entire CivIV career.

You guys got some stories about Montezuma?

[pieman11]

Just wait till he attacks you with warriors while you have mech infantry

[Rotty]

I learned how to treat Monty by playing a game on the Earth18 map where I was still putting too much emphasis on wonders. I established a junk city next to the stone in the US Southwest as part of making a swath of cultural border across the continent to box him in. I hook up the stone, and on the same turn Monty demands my one stone resource as tribute. I told him "We never pay any-one Dane-geld, no matter how trifling the cost; for the end of that game is oppression and shame, And the nation that pays it is lost!"

... next turn, he declared war with all the Jaguars he could muster. Since then, I've always axe rushed him when he's a neighbor.

[Light-Giver]

ya just make a bunch of axemen as fast as posible, i surprisingly defeated him on my secound try.

[6K Man]

Monty is legendary because he'll DOW on you at any time, for no reason, no matter where he is on the powergraph. He's more crazy than effective. Still, he's usually worth taking out for the nuisance value he amounts to.

[Still_Asleep]

The lesson I learned in my 18 civ immortal games is:

If someone demands tribute, pay it unless it will hurt you incredibly hard. And thats rarely the case, since the AI does normally not ask for ressources you only have once, and you can cancel the deal after 10 turns.

In fact I am HAPPY when I am not ready to fight and someone asks for tribute, because paying it means a 10 turn peace treaty. And someone really bloodthirsty like Monty will probably attack someone else during that time.

[bestbrian]

Make the deal, then cottage the quarry to spite the bastard.

[6K Man]

Originally Posted by bestbrian

Make the deal, then cottage the quarry to spite the bastard.

I never thought of doing that.

[RulerOfDaPeople]

Originally Posted by bestbrian

Make the deal, then cottage the quarry to spite the bastard.

What deal are you speaking of?

[Milly]

Originally Posted by RulerOfDaPeople

What deal are you speaking of?

He's saying to accept Montezuma's demand for tribute - to give him the stone.

[RulerOfDaPeople]

Got ya.

[Rotty]

Originally Posted by bestbrian

Make the deal, then cottage the quarry to spite the bastard.

... that's absolutely brilliant. I'm so going to follow the thoroughly passive-aggressive route in my next game.

[lovetramy]

monty sux in all my game really
if I found out he is my neighbour I axe rush him anway

[Feanor01]

I was playing a game on Noble Fractal standard sized map. I had destroyers and infantry and artillery. Out of the blue Montazuma declares war on me. Launches a fleet of galleons (no frigates to protect of course!) with knights and spearmen and trebuches. I was able to destroy the fleet with the destroyers prior to the units landing. Still, it was a wild move and completely unpredicted. Montazuma was last, I was first in power graph and research. He is completely unpredictable! Kind of fun to play against!

[RulerOfDaPeople]

If there was a psych ward in civ for leaders, Montezuma would definately get put in it. What a socialpath!!

You know I'm also finding that Rome is a bit like Montezuma too. Not quite as agressive and unpredictable, but definately within the conversation. And it doesn't seem to matter which Ceasar either.

[bestbrian]

Once had Monty surrounded by my Civ (I think I was HC) and was eroding him through great cultural pressure. I had rifles and he had just gotten maces; most of the other civs were without gunpowder as well. I was at war with someone else, and I figured as soon as that was over I'd just put Monty out of his misery. Well, the crazy bastard DOWS me; no big deal I've got plenty of troops to smash his stacks. He then proceeds to move a couple fair sized stacks (20 something units apiece) into my territory. but he doesn't attack my cities or pillage my improvements. He just marches straight across my territory and attacks Toku on the other side of the continent. He only declared war to open the borders; so I let him march across. After he did most of the damage, I declared on Toku myself and swallowed him up and vassaled Monty. By end game I'd culture flipped all but one of his cities.

[RulerOfDaPeople]

That's something I'd like to do. I think Montezuma would make a very nice vassal.

My thing is I just can't seem to keep the sorry turd from declaring war on me. He never even waits beyond the classical era.

[bestbrian]

Not a bad vassal, but I've had best results with Hannibal, and especially Sal. For some reason, Sal always goes where you want him to go and is effective when he gets there; good vassal.

[6K Man]

In my last game, Monty DOWed on me very early and sent in a lovely stack of about 8 Axemen, Archers, and Spearmen. I was playing Boudica, and just sat back and let his stack demolish itself against my defenses (I had 5 or 6 Combat 1 Axes in my capital, at minimum). Ironically, I was building up a stack to take him out. Nice of him to expend all his units in a fruitless assault, hand me a bunch of promotions (CR2 for the most part) and make it easy for me to raze all of his cities save Tenochtitlan, which I kept.

[mattkaru]

Hey, new forum-goer here..

It's been a long time since I played Civ IV so I'm trying to get back into the hang of it and I've been doing okay for the past week or so. Still playing at the Chieftain/Warlord level.

But Monty isn't TOO bad when he's on a map when I play, maybe because of the difficulty level setting. He's very easily agitated but I just do what I can to please him like shove non-military technologies and payments of gold anytime he gets "Annoyed". It usually works if I'm #1 in military power.

I was playing Hatshepsut to try for a cultural victory last night and Monty decided to go nuts on me at the same time as the Chinese and one other civ. I was able to hold them all off but obviously I couldn't recover from the lost time and ended up losing.

I think he's just a nuisance that *could* be dealt with early but I'm not big on the military aspect. :P