The Immortal Aztec – Walkthrough

After reading many good reports in the past I thought I’d try to contribute and hopefully shed some light on how to play the Aztec civilization, my favourite civilization in every way. There have been many sample games on immortal difficulty from for instance the Immortal University recently, but these games aren’t very detailed and more for comparison between players than strategic insight (most of the time). With that in mind I’ll do my best to highlight “how to play the Aztec” and not just “how to beat immortal” which has been covered excellently many times before. My approach will obviously not be the only one; you’ll usually have several paths leading to victory on Immortal, but more of a suggestion on how to leverage the Aztec in the following scenario. I'll try to write down my thought process where possible.

Hopefully people will find it interesting and feel free to ask about or suggest pretty much anything. Feel free to shadow as well, just don’t spoil what's ahead, use the tags. What I hope to achieve is discussion on immortal gameplay but also the Aztec civlilation.

Why Immortal?

It’s a difficulty I enjoy playing when I want a more relaxed game and focus on trying new things rather than the tense deity level. If you want to see the Aztec civilization on deity level then go read “Monty the Deity Diplomat”, a thread hosted by ABigCivFan where several players (myself included) played.

Further I think readers have more fun reading Immortal games as they’re easier to relate to. Deity makes for a very different game much due to the extra starting settler whereas on immortal you can follow the AI with some good play and make your move according to the map type, available resources and such. It would also be embarrassing to lose to a random axe rush ~1500 BC.


The Aztec Civilization:

- Agg/Spi
- mysticism/hunting

Our UB is the sacrificial altar which halves the unhappiness penalty for whipping. This is an amazing building, once it comes into play you won’t feel whipping unhappiness at all; you have to focus more on not whipping away your entire population rather than keeping it happy. To top it off it even costs 30 hammers less than a regular courthouse.

The UU is the Jaguar warrior which has a very bad rep. Some people love it, others hate it and would rather take the normal swordsman. I’m in the people that love it crowd; the free woodsman coupled with the free C1 allow awesome healers early in the game. Knowing that you can rush without a strategic resource is also very underrated, the decision should be made as early as possible and not when you see whether iron pops up within your borders or not.

Settings:
- Fractal
- everything standard "play now"

Here’s the starting position, the first one I got. It seems to be quite good, nothing amazing but above average with two good food resources already in addition to a river.



I have played a little bit into the game just to make sure there was no barbarian uprising and an early exit.

Thoughts welcome.

Nice! I have no time to play right now (MA thesis defense next Thursday ) so I will be following this in my free moments. I don't use the Aztecs a whole lot but love the UU. I'll be looking forward to the reports.

On the start: Looks pretty good, though the size of the screen shot makes it a bit hard to see. Maybe move scout 1SW, then perhaps to what looks like the coast in the South. Unless you see fish or something crazy I would probably settle in place. Would hate to lose any riverside hills.

Good Luck!

The barb archers are the most broken event in the game. If they spawn on your borders there's not much you can do...and I've seen them at 3000 BC .

I'll be following of course...may or may not play it depending on how quickly APG I goes for me. I'd love to see some sac. altar whipping. Looks fun.

- I decided to settle in place trusting the map generator. Turned out to be sub-par as you'll see soon, but I’ll have to live with that. I decided to settle before moving the scout hoping to pop a tech right away, but still got gold. If I had moved my scout first I’d notice the riverside silver and probably move 1 north.

Here’s the updated nearby terrain.



Location:
- We seem to be far north which could often mean an isolated start with a fractal map, but there seems to be a lot of land here so I’m guessing there’ll be at least 1 AI nearby.

- There’s a long chain of mountains, especially to the west and quite a lot of coast, so barbarians won’t be a big problem here. I probably could’ve gone with warriors for quite some time here as I have easy access to cover and plenty of forests for defense.

Resources:
- AH (first tech) revealed horses, so I quickly scrap the warrior idea, chariots are safer and able to keep up with settlers in movement. As they can move swiftly across the empire I’ll also need less and perhaps avoid unit upkeep.

- Silver and fur; 2 early happiness resources is a very good thing and they’re easily obtainable, I don’t have to compete with anyone in grabbing them. The silver will be unlocked at turn 50 when I get my 3rd border pop in the capital, but the furs need another city. I’ll probably put a city 2S of the fish. Silver is usually not a very good tile as it’s mostly located on ice/tundra, but here it has been improved due to the map script making it plains instead – I definitely want to be working that tile.

- Didn’t greet anyone as of yet, so it seems I’ll have some time to expand. I’ll probably avoid an early axe rush.

Research:
- Started with mysticism and hunting. Teched AH -> wheel to hook up horses and while it is tempting to get pottery early for that flood plains it’s not a good idea here. The capital is surrounded by trees so I head for BW after the wheel skipping agriculture for now as there’s not much to irrigate.

Turn 31 / 2760BC:
- Already met 4 AIs, so this fractal map might be a pangea-ish version. If so it seems to be snaky as there’s a pretty tight pass here between me and Egypt. Won’t add a screenshot for every leader as you all know their face by now anyway, the leaders I’ve met are:
- Frederick (came from the west)
- Zara (from the east at the pass)
- Darius (south-west)
- Hatty (can see on the map)



Given the abundance of food I decided to let my capital grow to size 5 before making any additional workers or a settler. As there was a predicted lack of barbarian activity I made a barracks before any chariots to increase my odds of unlocking the HE early. This proved futile as they settled cities very early instead of harassing civilizations, too bad.

Turn 43 / 2280 BC

I’ve now grown to size 5 and will have 2 chariots the coming turn. My settler just completed and I’m deciding where to settle first. BW is in and as you’ll see there is no bronze anywhere, I’d usually have to rely on iron but I know I’ll get Jaguars regardless.

~2200 is when immortal barbarians start moving on your territory/cities so you need to have your defense up.

You can see a green wine tile to the east on the screenshot below, that's Zara's territory. We're divided by coast but not on different islands, we can reach each other through that pass in the middle.

I’ve met another civilization, and it seems to be the closest one as well – Spain/Isabella, how fitting! She is to the south so settling the silver/furs is probably not a good idea as of yet, I need to secure more land first, I’ll be heading south.



Closer look at the south.



You can see Isabella's culture right there and it’s going to be annoying. I’d really like to claim the river that she's settled already, my starting area isn’t that good other than the early happiness. The prime estate is definitely to the south. I’ve already decided where to settle the city, but stopping the report a couple of turns short. There are several alternatives and I based my decision on a more long-term plan. You can try to make a decision, it’s very good practice, try to settle according to your game plan, I’ll get back to that in the next set.

Didn't pop any techs from huts despite starting with hunting, but at least I got gold 3 times (99) before the scout died to a barbarian warrior.

JBossch said:

Nice! I have no time to play right now (MA thesis defense next Thursday ) so I will be following this in my free moments. I don't use the Aztecs a whole lot but love the UU. I'll be looking forward to the reports.

Good Luck!

Click to expand...

Good luck to you too.

TheMeInTeam said:

The barb archers are the most broken event in the game. If they spawn on your borders there's not much you can do...and I've seen them at 3000 BC.

Click to expand...

On normal speed they can spawn from turn 20, truly broken indeed. I had them spawn on me on turn 21 less than a week ago, but fortunately they got distracted by an AI scout and moved away from my territory.

An interesting game. Will you be able to take advantage of the jaguars/axes in the early game considering no opponent is that close to you for a rush?

Also, I'm assuming you'll settle by those floodplains for your second city as a lot of food for second city is good for fast starts...am I right?

DMOC said:

An interesting game. Will you be able to take advantage of the jaguars/axes in the early game considering no opponent is that close to you for a rush?

Click to expand...

I thought I wasn't going to be able to use the Jaguars, but meeting Izzy changed that completely, she is close, look at the image at the bottom. That culture is expanded which means that it's one of her starting cities, that means a rush is very valid. What can be more fitting for a game dedicated to the Aztec than to rush Izzy with Jaguars, amusing how I drew that one at random.

Also, I'm assuming you'll settle by those floodplains for your second city as a lot of food for second city is good for fast starts...am I right?

Click to expand...

Correct, I stayed clear of the gold for now, will get back to that in the next set.

You picked a great spot to stop, IMO, because I have tons of Q's:

So you steered clear of the gold? Maybe I am still a noob on Immortal but my instincts are screaming "rush a settler to 1SW of corn!" The land south of you is ridiculously good in general but that spot screams for an early settler IMO. Even before bureaucracy (and even before border pops) you can run all 3 gold. Yeah, Izzy culture will be problematic but aren't you rushing her anyway? (Which, BTW, I fully support.) The spot is not only immediately commerce rich but will be a good base for the attack. The flood pains? Good for a filler cottage city, IMO, after you grab fish/stone.
As for the other two Southern spots, I am interested to see where you settle. Does early stone effect your planning at all? I have a hard time resisting pyramids gambits for a little early SE action.

No criticism, of course. Early settling is always one of my trouble spots.

(Wish I could shadow, still have about 10 pages to write. So close!)

Ohh ohh, I haven't even started reading this and I'm very excited! There have been tons of threads with user submitted saves etc, and I always read Rusten's stuff. That he's apparently a countryman doesn't hurt either. Heia Norge!

Now to read...

Edit: Nice read I agree completely with Jbossch, gogogog on that gold city.

i reckon you went for 1NW of the horse. am i right?

JBossch said:

You picked a great spot to stop, IMO, because I have tons of Q's:

So you steered clear of the gold? Maybe I am still a noob on Immortal but my instincts are screaming "rush a settler to 1SW of corn!" The land south of you is ridiculously good in general but that spot screams for an early settler IMO. Even before bureaucracy (and even before border pops) you can run all 3 gold. Yeah, Izzy culture will be problematic but aren't you rushing her anyway? (Which, BTW, I fully support.) The spot is not only immediately commerce rich but will be a good base for the attack. The flood pains? Good for a filler cottage city, IMO, after you grab fish/stone.
As for the other two Southern spots, I am interested to see where you settle. Does early stone effect your planning at all? I have a hard time resisting pyramids gambits for a little early SE action.

No criticism, of course. Early settling is always one of my trouble spots.

(Wish I could shadow, still have about 10 pages to write. So close!)

Click to expand...

Happy to arouse some discussion already, and feel free to criticise. After a good nights sleep I started having second thoughts as well. I left the game off with a settler in place between the corn and the pigs ready to push "b", but I'm starting to prefer settling the gold instead.

Why?
- I'm usually advocating axe rushes between 1000-500 BC as they work the best for me with a general civ. However, in this game I will attack considerabely later given the distance and the fact that I have space to settle thus I'll probably get catapult support, so a commerce rich second city might be more beneficial than a food-rich second city. Settling the corn/fp/pigs is probably the axe rusher screaming inside of me, with a later attack I'll get more cities. So yea, it was an excellent place to pause the game, I had time to do some more thinking before rushing into it.

I did notice the stone, but I'm not going to pursue the Pyramids very actively. If they're still up for grabs at a suitable time I'll give them a go, but I usually don't revolve my strategy around getting them. The UoS is very interesting with stone though as I have a spiritual civ, those temples will be very cheap and I can whip anything I want.

I'll probably play and post the next round tonight.

tycoonist said:

i reckon you went for 1NW of the horse. am i right?

Click to expand...

That was my initial idea, but I'm having second thoughts.

BornSlippy said:

Ohh ohh, I haven't even started reading this and I'm very excited! There have been tons of threads with user submitted saves etc, and I always read Rusten's stuff. That he's apparently a countryman doesn't hurt either. Heia Norge!

Click to expand...

Thanks, nice to know I have some readers.

Rusten said:

Happy to arouse some discussion already, and feel free to criticise. After a good nights sleep I started having second thoughts as well. I left the game off with a settler in place between the corn and the pigs ready to push "b", but I'm starting to prefer settling the gold instead.

Why?
- I'm usually advocating axe rushes between 1000-500 BC as they work the best for me with a general civ. However, in this game I will attack considerabely later given the distance and the fact that I have space to settle thus I'll probably get catapult support, so a commerce rich second city might be more beneficial than a food-rich second city. Settling the corn/fp/pigs is probably the axe rusher screaming inside of me, with a later attack I'll get more cities. So yea, it was an excellent place to pause the game, I had time to do some more thinking before rushing into it.

Click to expand...

Interesting thoughts. If playing for a jaguar rush, I'd have settled my first city 1NE of the horse and my 2nd 1NE of the stone. They could both whip out big piles of jags right on Spain's doorstep and have reasonable long-term potential.

That cluster of gold is very tempting, but it's difficult to see where the food to work it all will come from until Isabella's city is captured/razed.

Looking forward to seeing how this one plays out

Due to popular demand and some more thinking I decided to settle for the cluster of gold. Hopefully it will work out okay and I’ll be able to fend off Spanish culture early on. But before all that I decide to 2 pop whip another worker. My cities won’t do much if I can’t improve the land and working a grassland forest doesn’t do me much good anyway, better to get a worker out early. Whipping workers and settlers is very effective early in the game when your production might not be the best—you get a lot of overflow into some defenders (in this case chariots) with the surplus food. Got 2 more chariots while regrowing to size 4.



I ended up with this location for Teotihuacán.



If I’m lucky I’ll get enough culture to be working that flood plain down there (irrigate) because the corn isn’t enough for all 3 gold mines. My initial plan was to settle for the Corn, flood plains and pigs, the idea there would probably be an early rush focusing on haste. A 3rd idea would be to settle for the stone first and aim for the Pyramids and a defensive early game letting Spain grab the gold and rather settle nearby the seafood for representation specialists. It’s usually at this stage games start to spin off in different directions. By settling the gold teching towards catapults makes more sense for a rush.

Set a chariot on scouting duty to avoid any nasty pillage surprises from the peninsula.



After doing some more scouting I find the Germans very close as well. Their land doesn’t look as tasty as the Spanish though.



I move away from my next city’s location for 2 lousy turns and this happens.



That barbarian city is going to be an annoyance. Any plan of early stone and the Pyramids (I didn’t want to do this anyway, but it’s an option) is scrapped. This might turn out well though as it means I’ll have 1 less blocking city to prioritize. While I would’ve built it 1 SE I’m very happy the barbarians didn’t. My next city is likely to be placed 1W of the pigs which means I can take out that barbarian city once I get 100 culture there—hopefully I’ll obtain that before somebody takes it by force.

I started on another settler for the pigs spot after the 3rd worker. After finishing agriculture I started making my way towards pottery for granaries and a couple of cottages (with a slight detour via fishing for cheaper pottery). I’ve whipped a monument in Teotihuacán and started mining the gold resource within its 1st ring.

Was a little torn on what to get after the 3rd settler. I wasn’t in need of any chariots though, so the choice was between another settler, a granary and another worker—I picked another worker. As expected this caused me to lose a pretty good city spot to Germany, but I just didn’t feel like it was worth it. The city location I’m thinking about is 2S of the corn west of Tenochtitlan.



I stayed clear of it because:
It won’t be of any immediate benefit, and as my plan is to do an early attack on Izzy I can’t spend worker turns and production on cities that are useless until much later. As you can see it won’t have anything within its 1st ring making the monument slow in addition to having to wait 10 more turns after the monument to start irrigating the corn. By the time it would be able to do anything I could’ve captured a much better Spanish city. Now I might lose the wine and 2 river tiles, but that city would’ve slowed me down too much temporarily with its maintenance.

Turn 60 / 1600 BC
Settle Tlatelolco as planned (1W of pigs). There’s some overlap with Teotihuacán and desert/mountain squares, but that doesn’t matter, I’d rather have many great tiles early than a late game powerhouse.

Turn 64 / 1440 BC
Judaism spreads to Teotihuacán. That’s going to be useful as it gets me 1 extra culture per tun and speeds up my second border pop.

Turn 65 / 1400 BC
Oracle built in Egypt. I was hoping Izzy would make it for shrines but you can’t have it all I guess (Stonehenge – Zara).

Turn 68 / 1280 BC
Writing is in (selected after pottery) and I immediately open borders with Izzy knowing she’ll start spreading religion to me and for trade routes.

I also set research to 0% while awaiting libraries. This is something I always do for several reasons. For starters it means you get more out of your commerce by doing deficit research once you get amplifiers but also it comes at a time when you have a lot of options as to what your next tech is going to be. You’ll usually want to research something the AI doesn’t have to be able to trade once Alphabet comes into play. By halting your research you can see what the AI chooses and then make your decision. By doing deficit research you can complete Alphabet in a matter of 6-8 turns instead of slowly getting it for 20-25. If you’re doing it the slow way you can get messed up by several AIs completing it while you’re halfway through. The less turns you spend researching Alphabet the less turns you’re risking losing the benefit of it. If you’ve halted your research and suddenly find half of the AIs with knowledge of the alphabet it’s much better to research something else such as aesthetics or mathematics and then trade for it.

You could just go for aesthetics right away as that’s usually pretty safe, but there’s always the risk of AIs delaying alphabet which means you’re stuck with aesthetics and can’t do anything with it for centuries. You won’t be able to clear jungle or know where iron is. It might be okay if you have marble, as that means the GL is a good wonder, but as I’m lacking marble here I won’t bother going through Aesthetics.

Turn 69 / 1240 BC
Complete my 3rd settler and as you can see below Germany has settled a city for the corn/fp/wine so I decide to get the fish/furs/silver city up and running. I’ve pre-mined the silver so it will be an asset immediately unlike what a city where Essen is located would be. Start on a granary in my capital now—going to whip it. My southern cities are doing monument -> granary -> library.



Turn 70/71 / 1200 BC
Darius and Frederick convert to Judaism (also founded by Izzy). Here’s a closer look at the city I’m competing with culture-wise.



As you can see it’s a holy city, but that doesn’t matter much for now as Izzy is Buddhist. I’ll be in trouble if she ever changes religion though, but I don’t see that happening. I Settle silver city (Texcoco) 2S of the fish. Also note that I can’t see that city to the south yet it has a lot of culture, I’m guessing that’s Madrid, but I’ll need to scout to be sure. If so that’s going to make a war very pleasant, I can walk right into her capital as she has emphasized expanding in other directions than north.

Turn 77 / 950 BC
Izzy asks me to join Buddhism. As I’m spiritual goodjob I see no reason not to revolt; I can just change back in 5 turns if I get into intricate diplomacy. Darius isn’t that close to me (west of Izzy, south of Germany) and Frederick is quite peaceful so I’m not worried about either one of them getting enough on their hands atm.

Turn 78 925 BC
Barcelona expands (100 culture). My irrigated flood plains is in great danger and I’ll probably lose it for now (69%/30% after just 1 or 2 turns). Fortunately I’ll be able to whip my library soon so I’ll be able to reclaim it soon enough once I get 100 culture due to game mechanics. At this point I also start doing deficit research into the alphabet as Tenochtitlan has completed its library and because no AIs have it yet.

Turn 84 / 775 BC
I’ve just completed another settler and my plan was to settle the wheat/fish to the east, but something made me change my mind. Look at the stack 1S of Essen, I’m guessing it’s headed where that archer is standing (been camping that spot for many turns). I don’ think the AI would settle there this early just for the clams as there is an idle spot next to the western pigs so there is probably something else there, but I can’t see it, thus it might be iron.



Normally I wouldn’t commit to this hunch and settle there, but as you can see I have 2 turns left on the alphabet, so I decide to move towards the spot as I’ll have time to know if there’s iron there before Germany has time to settle a city.

2 turns later I claim knowledge of the alphabet and start looking at the diplomatic situation to decide who I want to trade it with. Unfortunately nobody is stingy with their techs here so it will spread quickly. Here’s the tech screen after obtaining alphabet.



Glance screen.



Notes;
Strangely enough nobody researched mathematics yet, that leads me to the suspicion that several AIs are half-way through alphabet which is good for me--that means it won’t be traded around vigorously. A quick test shows that I’m right, IIRC Frederick, Darius and Zara did not accept alphabet for IW which means they are far into the tech already. On the other hand Izzy and Hatty are willing to give me both IW and polytheism for it—I decide to make the deal with Hatty as Izzy is my target. Polytheism isn’t the most expensive tech, but big enough to make my WFYABTA concerns non-existent. Further it will speed up my path to CoL and the UB as I can now research priesthood next for cheap Buddhist temples.

Knowledge of IW reveals iron,



but not within my borders yet. I will get it with Teotihuacán’s 100 culture pop, but that might be risky as Germany is right next to it as well. There’s iron to the far east, but not in a very good location, I don’t want to settle there pre-rush. Now it seems my suspicion was valid, there is iron south of Tenochtitlan and I settle a city there (Tlaxcala 1N of iron) before Germany can get there. It’s a decent city and for now it can mature that flood plain for Tenochtitlan but once it gets the seafood and iron it can be a great city to whip Jags in. I’m going to skip a monument there and wait for Izzy to send a missionary (or just get natural spread).

Future:
Planning to research CoL and if I’m lucky I’ll be able to trade for mathematics to speed up my catapults. I am going to start preparing for the war soon, but I’ll settle 1 more city first (wheat+fish). There’s no way Izzy will be able to stop the Aztec invasion supported by the UB, you’re not going to get our gold this time Spain!

Hatty has adopted Hinduism, but is not the founder. This means that there’s either another civ on the continent or that Izzy grabbed all 3 religions!

Settling the gold seems to have worked out great for me although it had its risks. Good thing I didn't finish the game before I started reporting else I wouldn't have made that move I think.

Save is attached and comments welcome if you actually made it through this gigantic post. >_<

Don't worry about the length of the post. I love detailed write-ups.

It looks like the gold mines are really helping the tech rate. Also, the turning off research trick is a great one and had never occurred to me before. Thanks for the new tip!

A couple Q's:
Will you capture the barb city first before attacking Izzy? (Grab some gold and exp.)
It looks like you saved a lot more forests than I usually do. I assume chopping out jags and cats?
You have open b's with Izzy right? Will you be scouting her lands pretty soon?
When do you estimate the start of the war will be?

Thanks.

great thread, great play, and great writeup.

I'm a big fan of the Aztecs and I also really like the 'post writing' swtichoff trick. Never heard of that before but it does make a lot of sense.

Anyway Immortal is way too high for me but I'll still be following the thread with great interest.

You are

The game save seems to be corrupted.

It keeps saying Runtime requested it terminate in an unusual way?

I've tried downloading twice and running directly as well.

Great write up, I really enjoy reading about higher level games, sometimes more so than playing myself, as I'm too easily frustrated.

Kudo's for explaining some of your stratergy/thinking as well, makes for a much better read.

Yes, thanks for a good read!

In fact, if you weren't as detailed, I would probably have skipped the thread entirely, as I can't learn if I can't follow the decisions!

Now instead I need to go practice my making-sure-I-only-tech-what-I-can-trade skills!

You seem to have got some awesome land there, especially considering the fact Isabella expanded away from you even though I would have expected the immortal AI to be able to expand in all directions at once... Her lands must be spectacular indeed!! (And three shrines perhaps?)

So nice of her to work them for you until you're ready to take them from her!

I don't think Izzy will be a pushover, she has iron and has founded her religion.
normally I find she is most vulnerable very early when she has been putting her beakers into religion grabbing and doesn't have any decent military techs

Already been said but a very nice write up, detail on your reasoning is a very good idea for a walkthrough

Good writing Rusten . I often use that research trick of yours setting the slider to 0% especially when i plan a rush.