Nobles' Club LXI: Montezuma of the Aztecs

Arboria, standard size, normal sea level. Arboria has a single heavily-forested continent -- ideal for Monty. Most of the food is deer, with occasional corn, rice, pigs, or seafood. We had an Arboria map with Ghengis in NC XXXVIII.

OK, wow that sucks. Starting location has damn close to zero commerce potential, so it takes for 'effin ever to tech to IW. Crap production because only two hills in the BFC, and one of those is under Jungle, so while you can chop and whip out a decent army, it is only doable by basically gutting the capital until it is really only worthwhile as a commerce site. Meanwhile, there are so many AIs and they are so close together that by the time I had an army I was completely penned it. On the plus side, Cyrus had no metal, but give him enough Archers and walls and his cities are still impossible to take. Well, it seemed like a good idea...

Fishing is probably a good idea here simply to work the lake some for extra commerce. Do a little binary at times. Prioritize getting that gem city up an running asap. yep, this is definitely an early rush must game (well, relatively early considering IW) considering the IMP sandwich. At least it's IW without needing to hook up iron.

Use that double woody too for speed. Speed and surprise can be more effective here than CR out the gate.

Also arboreal seems to nerf the AI - relatively - just as much as the human, barring luck huts or lucky gems.

Pretty much without question I bee-lined IW with the intention of introducing anyone I meet to the Aztec holocaust. Due to the extreme lack of commerce on this map, I had to get fishing in to work the lake for a little boost.

I chose to settle on the deer 1E for a little extra boost to the worker first thing. Shortly ran into BK and Cyrus, realizing instantly that I'm in an IMP sandwich. Yep, we be rushing.

I ended up building probably too many cities before IW arrived. The gem/marble city to the SW was obvious, but I felt that I need to rush out a couple of more cities simply to keep Cyrus/BK from settling more cities I have to conquer.

Chopped and whipped about 10 Jags all promoted to Woody2 and an axe (just in case). Parked them on my SW borders and on next turn I DOW on Cyrus. The W2 Jags used a forest to jump right next to Parsagardae in 1 turn and take it the next. Cyrus had 2 archers but, of course, a 3rd magically appears next turn. Proceeded SW instead of his cap to take his iron city (iron surprisingly not hooked up - he may not have IW yet) just to prevent advanced units. He doesn't appear to have horses, HRE does though.

Picked off stray archers here and there and stole lots of workers - many by surprise simply via the W2 promo. I actually and painfully deleted some workers simply for fear of the deficit.

As a I encircled Persopolis, Cyrus surprisingly pulled 2 of his archers out of the city and I took it easily that turn.

I'm still at war and probably will just take Cyrus out. I'll grab peace if absolutely necessary.

I could finish Writing in 4 turns, but I really need to keep the gold as I'm running a fairly large deficit at moment. I do have Pot and I'm starting to get some cottages up. This is definitely a cottage spam game for sure. Just wish I had more river.

Man, this is some slow teching, but the AI is slow too. I mean it is 875BC and no AI has Writing but DeGaulle, and he obviously lucky hutted I think several techs including Alpha. DeG of all people has Alpha and no one else has Writing. I wish I turned off huts this game. All it got me was another scout and a bunch of maps.

So the big mystery is whether I can get through this war and rapid expansion via conquest and get my economy up.

Maths, Currency and Calender are some key techs here IMO. Alpha too of course. I have my sites on HRE, but we have a nice Jewish bloc going so I may not want to mess with that and just turtle a bit.



The World of Aztekia:

I'll play this. I've tried a NC game or two before and didn't fare too bad (never finished these games though, for some reason I tend to play maps until renaissance and then decide I want to try something new), but then I played a couple of bad Noble games so I went back to Warlord and solidified there. Time to try Noble again.

So, I looked at the start and decided to settle 1NE. I hate having my cities missing rivers.

One turn later, I regretted my decision. 1 off the coast! Ugh...

Not much later, I found a really close neighbor: Persia. And for once, I would have enjoyed Persia being Darius.

And then, to my west I had to find this yellow border, belonging to Charlemagne. Now, this is one uncomfortable situation. Two warlike (thankfully none of them is a backstabber) IMP civs so close... Ah well, better than Shaka and Gilgamesh.

I founded Teotihuacan in this juicy spot. Meanwhile, Cy founded Pasargadae somewhere northeast of Persepolis.

The same turn, in a distant land, Bull founded Poverty Point... and trapped my Scout

I found Tlate uncomfortably close to Burger King's second city. The good part is that I managed to get my Monument up first. The bad part that Prague later got Hinduism (at least that will hopefully prevent it from becoming a holy city if BK snags another religion, which is likely) for an extra point. Not sure if I'll win this culture war.

I got the herbalist event, and went for the third option. And I got both: The -pop (Teoti and Tlate were at size 1, so it didn't hurt that much) and the +2 Was probably a bad decision, the severely hampered me.

I managed to grab this wonderful spot. Will probably move my capital here fairly soon. If Tex just wasn't on the Mongolian border...

And I founded this last city and noticed my research was already at 0%.

The Henge was still availiable at a fairly late date, and I decided I might use that fact to convert some of my forests into Gold to help my crap economy. And I failed.
And I built it in Teno... I should have chopped it in Tlate instead, to give Burger King some culture pressure.

Iron working finally came in, and I set research to the obvious Writing. And I have Iron in Teno's third ring, so I can finally get some axes and Jags to boost my horrible power rating and maybe even go kill one of my neighbors (if just Burger King just wasn't pro... I want that holy capital). Also, looking at this screenshot, I think I should do some more micromanagement, Teno is hating me, but working the Deer instead of cottages.

The Aztec empire at this point. Backwards, weak, long and thin, and with warlike neighbors. Quite uncomfortable.

Plans how to continue:
- Writing-> Monarchy beeline because i only have 3 resources
- move Palace to Texcoco (and heavily garrison it because it borders Genghis) for an awesome bureaucracy capital
- Hook up iron and get some military units that aren't warriors.
- Avoid wars for now and wait for Catas instead.
- continue regretting settling 1NE

Try to be observant of what is in the fog in relation to your start position. There is clearly coastline to the north at 4000BC. Your cap is in a fairly bad spot - with useless coastal tiles. Try to avoid this if possible. You have missed out on a coastal city and/or a decent coastal city to the north. You can get away from this on Noble and your cap is still functional, but it is just not advised to do this. You might as well take another turn and settle on the coast.

At first glance I really thought that this is gonna be a tough game. I hate these forest-heavy maps as it's difficult to get some commerce going. However, I was lucky this time. I didn't rex instead I built a relatively squeezed-in 6 city empire. As soon as I saw the Marble I knew I was going for the Oracle. I ended up building it pretty early (1760) and I took monarchy simply because I couldn't take anything better. CoL might have been a lot better (and I was 4 turns from writing), but Hereditary Rule worked very well. I spammed workers, settlers, warriors and ended up with what you can see on the picture. The second most important thing were the Pyramids. I was unsure whether i can build them, especially with IND leader in game, but I chopped heavily and ended up getting them. Representation specialist helped me a lot and I quickly established a decent tech lead.
Now, I haven't won a Cultural victory in a while and Monty seems like a right leader to do it so I'll probably try that, with Tlatelolco, Tlaxcala and Texcoco being the legendary cities (cottage spam) and Tenochtitlan being the great artist farm.

So, Khan had enough on his hands soon after I continued to play. He declared on Gandhi, and because of Gandhi's only friend being Sitting Bull and his power level being pathetic, I declared as well. No regrets so far.

Meanwhile, I finish my new Palace in Texcoco. No regrets so far.

A few centuries later, India dies. I had not contributed even one unit kill to the war, and still got some nice +diplo with Genghis.

I built a late Oracle in Teotihuacan and chose COL. Teotihuacan also became the holy city. Certainly helping its two-front culture war.

I got a minority scientist and constructed an Academy in Texcoco.

Not long after killing Gandhi, Genghis declared war on Sitting Bull. I also joined in at some point, making meany faces from Tlaxcala across the Mongolian border.

Speaking of war, my western neighbor Charlie declared on me because he hated me for joining the Buddhist lovefest that's going on outside of the HRE.

A few turns later, after watching his stack hiding in a deer forest near Tlatelolco and not doing anything, and dislodging a pillaging Chariot or two near Teoti, I took peace again.

I got this wonderful event, getting Genghis up to friendly.

Gordium flipped to me, and I kept it. It's not the best city, but it's going to pay for itself.

Sardis flipped as well. Kept it. The unforested tile turned out to be Cyrus' last source of Horse. His other one, near Tarsus, got taken over by Teotihuacan's culture spam.

I got another scientist and built an Academy in Tlaxcala with it.

A while later, Burger King declared war AGAIN, and this time even while having a worse power level. Too bad I had already massed troops in Tlatelolco to deal with his stack. The damned forest deer between Tlate and the yellow border made the whole thing a bit more difficult though.

I got Philo, and founded Taoism. Once again, in Teotihuacan.

I also got a GG from the battles around Tlatelolco. Not sure what to do with him yet. A Supermedic Jaguar? Settle him in Teotihuacan (my best prod city at this point, but it's still pretty bad at that)? Save him for later?

The Aztec empire at this point. Didn't change much, apart from the two flipped persian cities and having MUCH better infrastructure (and, in maybe 10 turns, quite a lot of idle workers)

So, what should I do about that annoying Charlemagne? Quickly get a ton of Catapults by Sac Alt abuse and rearrange my garrison troops to start a counterattack (Cats+stuff vs PRO Archers should be doable, shouldn't it?) and maybe even grab that Hindu shrine he built at some point, or just defend and do the very Monty thing that is teching away with a compact empire? Then again, I have the workforce to quickly develop HRE lands if they aren't already, so the answer is obvious.

The hilarious power graph. Apparenly Genghis' attempt to kill SB without siege went decently Also, I swear I only lost like 4 barrage catapults when killing Burger's stack, how is that such a big dent in my graph? Maybe he DID attack Tlate with the few units he had left and actually managed to kill a few units (but not that many) while I was busy watching the video of me founding Taoism? Then again, that's not very likely with the colleteral damage his stack suffered the turn before.

The tech situation is in my favor: Only De Gaulle has Alphabet, and he lacks 3 or 4 of my expensive techs.
Diplomatically, Khan, Cyrus and De Gaulle love me for being a Buddhist and, in Khan's case, phony wars, Sitting Bull I am not too sure about but he's busy anyways fighting off Genghis and De Gaulle (and probably hates them more too, since he borders them) and Charlemagne hates my guts. I can live with that.

While lurking around I've seen people knowing their capitals entire BFC on turn one, but I'm just not experiences enough to do that yet. I'll have to try it out and get some practice though, might come in handy at times. At least Teno will only be bad at size 16 or so. It does lose the ability to have something work the Clam and makes the Crab/Iron spot almost worthless though, yes.
Ah well, making mistakes is the best way to learn.

SIP; worker->warrior->Stonehenge; mining->BW->Wheel->some other worker techs->setup to oracle CoL

While my initial thoughts were to go for early IW and a jag rush, between charly's PRO archers and cyrus's immortals I didn't want to risk it. That combined with the fact that spawnbusting shouldn't be an issue with two close AIs, I decided to go for SH to secure my borders.

BW allowed me to start chopping early and by using 'checkerboard' chopping I was able to pick up a couple extra chops before clearcutting (during war prep). My second city settled the gems and a bit later I settled two more cities on the coast by each of the seafood sources. Oracle->CoL was pretty easy and was built just prior to settling my fourth city (even took the time to hook up the marble). Now time to abuse monty's best trait...1/2 slaves.

IW came next and I soon had the gems and iron hooked up and picked up Monarchy from Gandhi for CoL+Agri. From that point I pumped some infra (especially those cheap temples) and as I finished teching math and started constr. I began building axes/spears/jags. The extra troops allowed me to grow all my cities and upon reaching constr. I whipped ~8 cats within 4-5 turns and amassed my troops on cyrus's border.

He was nice enough to build the GLH in my first target city, although I was disappointed to find nothing significant in his capital. After a second round of whipping I have enough of a stack to start attacking his western city while my main stack pushes south. It looks like I'll also have a couple W3 medics which will be nice for later wars.

Economically it hasn't been the prettiest game. Liberal use of the whip for production and pretty much cottage spamming all of my core cities while effective isn't exactly a groundbreaking strategy. I was conscious enough to run some specs in my cap early popping first a GS then a GProphet. Settled them both in my cap even though I could have built the Confu shrine and I probably should have chosen the academy, because I'm struggling now to get a second GS. Still by settling them early I was able to push through the early techs to get the jump on cyrus. I also automated all my workers after my first four cities had been fully improved. Will use the governor to improve my new acquisitions.

My initial SoD that has taken two cities and is moving towards a third having taken minimal (1-2 cats) loses.


I hope I can finish wiping out cyrus this war b/c everyone except genghis is buddhist (including me) and I don't want to pick up another diplo demerit for DoWing a second time against cyrus. After this war I'll probably turtle again and look to pick up some marble wonders (GLib hopefully) and setup to lib->Democracy. I have been putting my esp towards charly so a spy supported cavalry war may also be in the offing.

After looking at the map, I couldn't think of anything meaningful to do with the scout, the water S looks like a lake, so I didn't check for sea cos its probably not.
Think I'll SIP - got fresh water and loads of grassland, maybe good for a food/commerce capital? But maybe I haven't thought of all the options...

Decided against religion, and go for BW so I can chop, and get slavery on the go - build a warrior so I can grow and get a settler out, so the worker can do something meaningful by the time I've got the techs..
oh man cyrus is close... and charlemagne..
soon discovered the ocean, N a few tiles. hm

second city - for some production.. sort of.


Now got all start techs except fishing, and BW. Decided to do pottery to get the economy going, then IW to get jags.
Building henge in second city, while building mines and chopping.
Founded third city

Built henge shortly afterwards. huzzah.
And built 4th city. just need to connect them.. forgot


Genghis khan declared war on Gandhi, who was destroyed pretty swiftly lol


My tech paths been a bit random, but I got masonry and fishing etc, got the marble and built the oracle (for metal casting). Chopping furiously to get the mids too.
Traded metal casting + priesthood with charlemagne for all his techs: alphabet, archery and animal husbandry. maybe was a bit rash.. but hey I found horse now and I can get the sheep in Tlatelolco.
Meanwhile, I've been building up my jags to DOW on cyrus.
I've gotta stop now and get some work done

I first tried to do a Jag rush using just my capital. I was able to eat most of Cyrus doing that, but found it a very slow and frustrating process because of the slow tech rate.

I tried again, teching fishing early to work the lake tiles and building a couple more cities (the marble/gems location and the iron/clam location) before getting IW and taking the war to Cyrus. That game went a lot more smoothly, and I was just getting ready to take Cyrus' last city when Charlie hit me from behind. I had no troops over that way so I gave up. I should have seen it coming, and started to build up that front a few turns before. I could reload from an earlier autosave, and still may.

In general, it is very challenging to play a different map type like this. The global highlands Boudica map is a similar challenge, and I think trying games like this is going to help out my basic game.