aztec advantage: what's the point?

[AfterShafter]

What's really bad is that it doesn't scale with game speed. The kills should be worth more on marathon speed than standard. The unit costs are increased as well so it's not as if your opponents are pumping out 3x as many units for you to kill. The policy costs, however, are much higher so the amount of culture points you can rack up a game this way normally won't even put a dent in policy acquisition. I tried playing a game with them today - killed a spanish archer and got 4 culture, looked at how much culture I'd need to get to the next policy and it was more than 1,000. I was still in the ancient era and quit.

Yikes, they haven't fixed this? I play marathon or epic only, so... Yeah.

 

[Uniform Sierra]

If Tenochtitlan has a population of under 40 when you enter the industrial era you've made some big mistakes.

FORTY?!!

I never let my cities get past 20-25 because it's too hard to compensate with unhappiness. Are you flat broke from happiness building maintenance and buying cities states for their luxury resources?!

 

[GoodSarmatian]

FORTY?!!

I never let my cities get past 20-25 because it's too hard to compensate with unhappiness. Are you flat broke from happiness building maintenance and buying cities states for their luxury resources?!

We're talking about the capital here, my other cities are usually quote a bit smaller.
In my last game Tenochtitlan had over 50 population by the time I won. It's not a big burden on your happiness with the right policies:
Monarchy halves unhappiness from population in your capital, Theocracy reduces general unhappiness from population by 1/4 and Freedom halves unhappiness from specialists. Every normal citizen in your capital will only contribute 0,375 unhappiness, and every specialist only 0,1875.
A size 50 capital with 20 specialists will only produce 15 unhappiness from population.

Edit: Also Monarchy gives +1 gold for every two citizens in the capital, so the happines buildings there pay for themselves and then some.

 

[TheHarshax]

Aztecs are my favorite Civ in this version of the game. I've won many, many Cultural victories with this civ. It's far more fun than doing the passive bollywood style of cultural victory.

Aztecs can crank out more science and great people with the UB than any other Civ. By the Renaissance era, I've always got every building specialist deployed and still growing astronomically.

And yeah, the food bonus works on river and lake tiles.

Rush buying the floating garden in a new city guarantees you'll have a big settlement very, very fast.

Furthermore, you never need a Maritime CS Ally. Get the policy that gives you +2 growth and you'll always have the largest cities in the game.

 

[wcbarney]

Aztecs are my favorite Civ in this version of the game. I've won many, many Cultural victories with this civ. It's far more fun than doing the passive bollywood style of cultural victory.

Aztecs can crank out more science and great people with the UB than any other Civ. By the Renaissance era, I've always got every building specialist deployed and still growing astronomically.

And yeah, the food bonus works on river and lake tiles.

Rush buying the floating garden in a new city guarantees you'll have a big settlement very, very fast.

Furthermore, you never need a Maritime CS Ally. Get the policy that gives you +2 growth and you'll always have the largest cities in the game.

Wow! I currently have an Aztec game going, but have been losing interest in it rapidly. I have been going for the culture points by having my jags & archers hang out at a couple of barb camps and racking up 10-20 cultures per turn by killing the new barbs that keep being hatched ("Raging Barbarians" chosen). At this stage of the game most of the new barbs are pikemen (10 strength = 10 cultures); my jags are now swordsmen and my archers are now crossbowmen.

So, anyway, I think I'll just abandon this game -- or maybe restart it 'cause my start position was pretty good. Then I'll start a new Aztec game & concentrate on city growth. I don't think I've even built the Floating Gardens UB in my capitol yet!

-- Cliff in Virginia

 

[jagdtigerciv]

Like has been said, the Aztecs are NOT cultural civ. Their UA, at least the way I understood it, allows the Aztecs to pick up some extra culture and therefore put off a few cultural buildings to allow them to focus on their chosen victory.

Considering that they have one of the best unique buildings in the game, especially for a science victory, means you should be trying to focus on putting those UBs out, and not grinding for an extra social policy.

Hell, I consider the Aztecs one of the best civs in the game. Certainly better than so many other UA/UB/UU "synergies".

 

[Enkidu Warrior]

Even before the patch the Aztecs were my favourite civ. They might not have been all that powerful, but they were and are great fun. Being able to grab several early policies quickly by focusing on war instead of a conventional cultural focus gives them a noticable boost, and makes them feel suitably unique. The bonus is mostly irrelevant later on, but a boost early in the game can be much more beneficial than one spread throughout the game. Plus trying to win a cultural victory by putting the rest of the world to the sword is a fun challenge, and leads to a very different kind of warmongering, since you want your enemies to feed you lots of high strength units rather than just blitzing their cities. If you want to go for a straight conquest victory you can just immediately go for a pure military build and get all the honour policies without having to divert production away from your armies. You can also switch to a conventional puppet empire cultural victory once your military has achieved local dominance.

 

[cman2010]

Really? I've actually never played the Aztec's more than a little bit, but, aren't lakes just far too rare on most map scripts to make much use out of that UB?

I played one game as aztec and I got a lake next to my starting position so I guess I was lucky nice ub though.

 

[Uniform Sierra]

I started an Aztec game a few days ago and I must say that in the early stages of the game you can adopt policies quite rapidly thanks to their advantage. Later on in the game it's not very useful unless you're doing a lot of domination.

 

[slobberinbear]

Even before the patch the Aztecs were my favourite civ. They might not have been all that powerful, but they were and are great fun. Being able to grab several early policies quickly by focusing on war instead of a conventional cultural focus gives them a noticable boost, and makes them feel suitably unique. The bonus is mostly irrelevant later on, but a boost early in the game can be much more beneficial than one spread throughout the game. Plus trying to win a cultural victory by putting the rest of the world to the sword is a fun challenge, and leads to a very different kind of warmongering, since you want your enemies to feed you lots of high strength units rather than just blitzing their cities. If you want to go for a straight conquest victory you can just immediately go for a pure military build and get all the honour policies without having to divert production away from your armies. You can also switch to a conventional puppet empire cultural victory once your military has achieved local dominance.

I completely agree, particularly with going straight to Honor. Once you conquer and puppet some cities, they will take care of building those pesky culture buildings for you ... heh ...

 

[_hero_]

The Aztec UA can be really big or really small depending on how you play. If you play a 1 vs All AI on Diety with raging barbs and focus almost purely on military, you'll get a lot more culture than if you play a King game where you sit around building wonders.

The UA isn't really meant for cultural victory, but rather to let you crank through the early SPs at an epic rate. A good Aztec player can probably out pace even France to Meritocracy in ideal circumstances.

 

[Renner]

Currently playing a OCC game as the Aztecs, going for a culture win. I must say that the UA is quite decent, clearing the barbs early on gave me a few "free" policies. Getting 25 culture a pop from Rome's riflemen during a later war isn't too bad either, probably shaved a few turns off.

 

[RuntimeError]

Aztec's UA is pretty good in the early stages, but the best part is that it's fun. I wish there was more UAs like that

 

[PimpmyCiv]

The nice thing about the Aztec's is they their UU, UB and UA allow for alot of diversity in a game. Their biggest challenge is maintaining happiness do to the (potential) growth.

Their UU is great to start with (helps with Barbs and early wars), but most importantly stays with the unit while they upgrade. Its also one of the few civs that make sense with the honour tree. Making them, at the very least, an average to above average warmongering Civ.

Their UA allows you to build or annex more cities without as much concern over the social policy hit. And therefore more control over your empire.

Their unique building screams science victory, but if thats not what you want it compensates by needing to use less food tiles and use more production/gold tiles or specialists instead. It allows for quicker early growth (if near a lake) but is most valuable when a city is in the 10+ range. The biggest draw back is the happiness hit you take due to puppets building it (assuming you want your puppets small)

Almost anyway you want to play, Aztec's make sense with it.

 

[MadDjinn]

Aztecs are just fine for cultural VCs.

"Hey look, I just mulched an elephant!" +22 culture. In medieval. How much cash did it cost you to get how much culture at that point from a CS? You can get a lot of culture/turn by letting the AI come to you with their units. Oh yeah, CS allies are ok for the Aztecs as well. so.. The aztecs can do what other civs do, generally for the Cultural VC, AND get bonus culture for eating units? hmm, that doesn't sound good at all for culture games...

What you do -

No new cities. Keep it capital only for the lower SP cost.

rush your neighbours. killing their units first if you can take the time. Piss off everyone else and let them send their carpet salesmen to you. don't tip the delivery guy and ensure to pick up a few good wonders. (HC, Kremlin and the great wall if you really want it) Sit back and hyper upgrade those original jags to maxed promotions as you go up the tech tree. Don't forget ranged units. Cities get the culture bonus as well for killing units.

 

[Antarion]

if u mix tradition/piety/honor at start with aztecs u can easy rush a culture victory with many puppets around. later go for autocracy, u can easy fill with with free religion from piety. dont pick liberty with aztecs, because their UA is stronger with fewer cities kinda opposite of france. their building makes them very dependant of theocracy.

 

[Schalke 04]

Hm, I guess an OCC - 3CC Culture AW game on diety would make very much sense for the Aztecs...

- Never really bother with happiness (you don't have much trouble with so few cites happiness wise)
- Big Cities with a great strength and bombarding value are great for defense!
- If you don't cripple your opponents, I imagine you could get nearly as much culture per turn by killing hordes of AI units, as you got from your cities
- You certainly need a numerous and strong military for that (if you don't take AI's cities, they will keep spamming military units; hence you need many units that can replace frontline units to heal up). Therefore you need a good economy that can sustain your army costs. Big cities could deliver that economy (here we go with the UB ).
- Does the Jaguar's Ability carry over when upgrading? If so, then it PERFECTLY fits to this set up. Healing up by killing enemy units... wow. Perfect for a defensive AW game with few cities.


The more I think about it, the more I'm getting thrilled by this concept. Right now I don't dare to take this challenge, as my level is emperor, unfortunately. But it would be a great idea for a story or LP, especially as it is somewhat different from the "normal" CiV setup.

 

[seasnake]

Actually, the Aztec ability works out on slower speeds because there's more turns for barbarians to spawn, so you don't get more culture per kill but you'll likely make more kills overall.