It's been a little while since I last posted a strategy discussion/guide so I wanted to create one for the civ I am currently playing- the Aztec!
Their kit, copied from the wiki:
Sacrificial Captives
Receive Gold and Faith for each enemy Unit you kill (the amount of Gold and Faith earned is equal to 150% of either the defeated enemy Unit's Combat Strength or Ranged Combat Strength). When you complete a favorable Peace Treaty, a Golden Age begins.
Jaguar, replaces the Warrior.
Special traits:
Has more Combat Strength (10 vs. 7). Obsoletes at Steel rather than Bronze Working.
Special abilities:
Starts with a promotion that grants this Unit a +33% Combat Strength boost when battling in Jungles or Forests. Starts with a promotion that heals this Unit 25 HP when it kills an enemy Unit. Starts with the Woodsman promotion.
Floating Gardens, replaces the Water Mill.
Special traits:
Provides 3 Food (up from 2) and 2 Culture. +1 Food and +1 Production for every 4 Citizens in this City, and 10% Food in this City during Golden Ages. Each Lake Tile worked by this City provides +2 Food, and nearby River Tiles produce +1 Food.
Common traits:
Provides 3 Production. Requires this City to be adjacent to a Lake. Costs 1 Maintenance.
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Quick Kit Notes:
-There is a minimum warscore or peace treaty deal that is required to get a golden age when agreeing to peace but I'm not exactly sure what it is. I believe I tried to peace at one point when my warscore was <25 and it did not trigger so my guess is that it is something like 50? I found that I usually had to take a city in the war in order to get the golden age though I imagine that with some effort you could kill/pillage your warscore high enough too.
-You get an insta-golden age from conquering CSs. I didn't want to abuse this fact too much but I couldn't help myself when nearby CSs had the "conquer that other CS" quests.
-All 3 promotions carry forward for the Jaguar
-The floating gardens have no terrain requirement (despite the wiki having text saying they require an adjacent lake) so you can build them in every city.
General Strategy:
To me, this kit just screams to stack as much on-kill benefits as you can and then war as much as possible. You also have an incentive to peace out from wars once you gain enough of an upperhand in order to gain frequent golden ages. You can just re-DoW after the peace period is over or start a war with a different neighbor so that you are killing as frequently as possible for those instant yields.
The sources of on-kill yields are:
-Aztec UA (gold and faith)
-God of War (faith)
-Authority-Opener (culture)
-Authority-Dominance (science)
-Terracotta Army (culture)
The floating gardens UB doesn't really play into this at all other than just being a really solid UB that helps you fight off distress and grow/build in your cities as you go wider and wider via conquest.
My planned win condition is probably a relatively slow science victory. Towards the late game I'll attempt to militarily target civs that are otherwise going to beat me to diplo/culture/science wins and then win via science by default unless another win condition falls into my lap.
Early Game:
The Aztec early game is all about the Jaguar. It's ideal to go monument->Jaguar and just keep pumping Jaguars until you reach your initial unit cap. There's no need for an early shrine- you'll get your pantheon just from the faith on kill from your UA and you'll usually get it well before most other civs normally do. Jaguars can solo barbarians and barbarian camps pretty much continuously without having to stop to heal due to the 25HP on kill promotion. Being able to solo so well coupled with their movement bonuses in jungle/forest means you can spread your Jaguars out and quickly reach camps more efficiently than any other civ.
The Jaguar's 10CS (only one less than a spearmen) means that you can start tributing CSs from very early on whereas other authority civs typically have to wait for spearmen to do so efficiently. Authority tributing is strong to begin with (maybe a little too strong when you get lucky with nearby CSs) but in the hands of the Aztec it can feel pretty broken at times. Heavy tributes for science can help you quickly tech toward Terracotta and a heavy tribute for production can act as a mini GE to build it ASAP. I pretty much spent the first 100ish turns hunting barbs and tributing every CS I could get to on my continent. Any CSs that were hesitant to give up their tribute were DoW'd and had their units killed for their instant yields and then tributed once they were weaker.
My general build priorities in the early game were:
#1- Military until hitting unit cap (~10+ Jaguars followed by horsemen/skirmishers/archers)
#2- Buildings that provide unit cap for more units
#3- More workers if I'm ever working an unimproved tile, More settlers if there are good nearby spots, then trade units until at trade unit cap
#4- Shrines, monuments, councils/libraries
#5- Anything else (graineries, etc)
My priorities for tech order were:
#1- unlock Terracotta as soon as I have the policy requirement met. This timing largely depends on how well my barbarian camp hunt is going and how well I'm tributing (especially culture CSs). Going the bottom half of the tech tree for Terracotta means that mine luxeries are probably ideal for Aztec since you will grab mining on the way.
#2- Pottery for Settlers (probably unlocked before going all the way to Terracotta)
#3- Military Theory and Construction for Barracks and Walls- gotta get that supply!
#4- luxery improvement tech. Improving luxeries and selling spare ones can help avoid a situation where your unit maintenance puts you negative in GPT and kills your science.
Religion:
Pantheon- God of War, of course
Founder- I went with Divine Inheritance (Holy City produces +20% of its yields during a Golden Age) for the obvious GA synergy, though it's usually more of a Tradition/Tall leaning founder. You could probably go with any Founder and do fine though, honestly.
Followers- A lot of options here as well and you can't really go wrong with anything per se. I went with Mosques (+15% Culture in the City during Golden Ages) and then Veneration (was just the best choice left at that point I think). Some other notable followers that have some synergy with Aztec would be:
Cathedrals (Farms, Pastures and Quarries near this City generate +1 Gold. Gain +10 Gold in the City when its borders expand, scaling with Era). +1 gold on a tile that might otherwise not have it means you really get +2 gold when in a golden age while the gold on city expand has synergy with Authority's Tribute and is very puppet-friendly.
Orders (+3 Faith when a Unit defeats an enemy Unit in battle, scaling with Era. +15 XP for all Military units produced in the City, and the 'Morale' promotion for land Military units produced in this city). The faith on kill is fairly small in comparison to the UA and God of War but still has obvious synergy while the XP for military units is always nice.
Enhancer-
Nothing here that necessarily screams Aztec. Zealotry is nice- you'll likely be swimming in faith and can afford to spend a bunch on units to save you from having to produce them the old fashioned way. Iconography has +15% great person rates when in golden ages. Other than that your choice here might largely depend on if your neighbors founded or not and how much you want to bother spreading via missionaries.
Reformation-
Crusader Spirit (Land Units gain +10% Combat Strength vs Land Units in enemy lands, and an additional 10% versus Land Units of players that do not follow your Religion. Receive Gold and Culture when you conquer Cities) is usually the obvious conquering choice but many others could be nice depending on your choice of win condition.
That's pretty much it! I'm about to enter the modern era in my current game. I'm slowly dominating my continent and will eventually need to invade the runaway Carthage on another continent in order to secure my win (she will otherwise get a culture victory it looks like).
Their kit, copied from the wiki:
Sacrificial Captives
Receive Gold and Faith for each enemy Unit you kill (the amount of Gold and Faith earned is equal to 150% of either the defeated enemy Unit's Combat Strength or Ranged Combat Strength). When you complete a favorable Peace Treaty, a Golden Age begins.
Jaguar, replaces the Warrior.
Special traits:
Has more Combat Strength (10 vs. 7). Obsoletes at Steel rather than Bronze Working.
Special abilities:
Starts with a promotion that grants this Unit a +33% Combat Strength boost when battling in Jungles or Forests. Starts with a promotion that heals this Unit 25 HP when it kills an enemy Unit. Starts with the Woodsman promotion.
Floating Gardens, replaces the Water Mill.
Special traits:
Provides 3 Food (up from 2) and 2 Culture. +1 Food and +1 Production for every 4 Citizens in this City, and 10% Food in this City during Golden Ages. Each Lake Tile worked by this City provides +2 Food, and nearby River Tiles produce +1 Food.
Common traits:
Provides 3 Production. Requires this City to be adjacent to a Lake. Costs 1 Maintenance.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Quick Kit Notes:
-There is a minimum warscore or peace treaty deal that is required to get a golden age when agreeing to peace but I'm not exactly sure what it is. I believe I tried to peace at one point when my warscore was <25 and it did not trigger so my guess is that it is something like 50? I found that I usually had to take a city in the war in order to get the golden age though I imagine that with some effort you could kill/pillage your warscore high enough too.
-You get an insta-golden age from conquering CSs. I didn't want to abuse this fact too much but I couldn't help myself when nearby CSs had the "conquer that other CS" quests.
-All 3 promotions carry forward for the Jaguar
-The floating gardens have no terrain requirement (despite the wiki having text saying they require an adjacent lake) so you can build them in every city.
General Strategy:
To me, this kit just screams to stack as much on-kill benefits as you can and then war as much as possible. You also have an incentive to peace out from wars once you gain enough of an upperhand in order to gain frequent golden ages. You can just re-DoW after the peace period is over or start a war with a different neighbor so that you are killing as frequently as possible for those instant yields.
The sources of on-kill yields are:
-Aztec UA (gold and faith)
-God of War (faith)
-Authority-Opener (culture)
-Authority-Dominance (science)
-Terracotta Army (culture)
The floating gardens UB doesn't really play into this at all other than just being a really solid UB that helps you fight off distress and grow/build in your cities as you go wider and wider via conquest.
My planned win condition is probably a relatively slow science victory. Towards the late game I'll attempt to militarily target civs that are otherwise going to beat me to diplo/culture/science wins and then win via science by default unless another win condition falls into my lap.
Early Game:
The Aztec early game is all about the Jaguar. It's ideal to go monument->Jaguar and just keep pumping Jaguars until you reach your initial unit cap. There's no need for an early shrine- you'll get your pantheon just from the faith on kill from your UA and you'll usually get it well before most other civs normally do. Jaguars can solo barbarians and barbarian camps pretty much continuously without having to stop to heal due to the 25HP on kill promotion. Being able to solo so well coupled with their movement bonuses in jungle/forest means you can spread your Jaguars out and quickly reach camps more efficiently than any other civ.
The Jaguar's 10CS (only one less than a spearmen) means that you can start tributing CSs from very early on whereas other authority civs typically have to wait for spearmen to do so efficiently. Authority tributing is strong to begin with (maybe a little too strong when you get lucky with nearby CSs) but in the hands of the Aztec it can feel pretty broken at times. Heavy tributes for science can help you quickly tech toward Terracotta and a heavy tribute for production can act as a mini GE to build it ASAP. I pretty much spent the first 100ish turns hunting barbs and tributing every CS I could get to on my continent. Any CSs that were hesitant to give up their tribute were DoW'd and had their units killed for their instant yields and then tributed once they were weaker.
My general build priorities in the early game were:
#1- Military until hitting unit cap (~10+ Jaguars followed by horsemen/skirmishers/archers)
#2- Buildings that provide unit cap for more units
#3- More workers if I'm ever working an unimproved tile, More settlers if there are good nearby spots, then trade units until at trade unit cap
#4- Shrines, monuments, councils/libraries
#5- Anything else (graineries, etc)
My priorities for tech order were:
#1- unlock Terracotta as soon as I have the policy requirement met. This timing largely depends on how well my barbarian camp hunt is going and how well I'm tributing (especially culture CSs). Going the bottom half of the tech tree for Terracotta means that mine luxeries are probably ideal for Aztec since you will grab mining on the way.
#2- Pottery for Settlers (probably unlocked before going all the way to Terracotta)
#3- Military Theory and Construction for Barracks and Walls- gotta get that supply!
#4- luxery improvement tech. Improving luxeries and selling spare ones can help avoid a situation where your unit maintenance puts you negative in GPT and kills your science.
Religion:
Pantheon- God of War, of course
Founder- I went with Divine Inheritance (Holy City produces +20% of its yields during a Golden Age) for the obvious GA synergy, though it's usually more of a Tradition/Tall leaning founder. You could probably go with any Founder and do fine though, honestly.
Followers- A lot of options here as well and you can't really go wrong with anything per se. I went with Mosques (+15% Culture in the City during Golden Ages) and then Veneration (was just the best choice left at that point I think). Some other notable followers that have some synergy with Aztec would be:
Cathedrals (Farms, Pastures and Quarries near this City generate +1 Gold. Gain +10 Gold in the City when its borders expand, scaling with Era). +1 gold on a tile that might otherwise not have it means you really get +2 gold when in a golden age while the gold on city expand has synergy with Authority's Tribute and is very puppet-friendly.
Orders (+3 Faith when a Unit defeats an enemy Unit in battle, scaling with Era. +15 XP for all Military units produced in the City, and the 'Morale' promotion for land Military units produced in this city). The faith on kill is fairly small in comparison to the UA and God of War but still has obvious synergy while the XP for military units is always nice.
Enhancer-
Nothing here that necessarily screams Aztec. Zealotry is nice- you'll likely be swimming in faith and can afford to spend a bunch on units to save you from having to produce them the old fashioned way. Iconography has +15% great person rates when in golden ages. Other than that your choice here might largely depend on if your neighbors founded or not and how much you want to bother spreading via missionaries.
Reformation-
Crusader Spirit (Land Units gain +10% Combat Strength vs Land Units in enemy lands, and an additional 10% versus Land Units of players that do not follow your Religion. Receive Gold and Culture when you conquer Cities) is usually the obvious conquering choice but many others could be nice depending on your choice of win condition.
That's pretty much it! I'm about to enter the modern era in my current game. I'm slowly dominating my continent and will eventually need to invade the runaway Carthage on another continent in order to secure my win (she will otherwise get a culture victory it looks like).
.
