How Good is the Aztec UB?

[iggymnrr]

I've been testing some things at the default prince level and gave the Aztecs a go on the Earth map. The UB replaces the water mill and also yields +15% food and something else. I drew the South American continent and due to mountains went for a 3-city empire and worked on national wonders, each city got the UB and the first two cities got cash built monuments. I didn't know what to do in SPs so filled out most of tradition before unlocking commerce and hitting rationalism.

In conjunction with the policy in tradition that gives capitol growth +33%, food output with the UB was +48%. Roughly, this means 2 maritime gets you a third for free. This setup worked pretty well. But how good is the UB overall?

 

[Soronery]

15% food
every 14 food you get one free. Kind of lackluster.
Oh and +2 food from lake tiles.

EDIT: Sorry, meant two free. Did a quick guess and 13 food gave 1.95 food free (so 14 food=2 free), wrote one by accident.

 

[Martin Alvito]

It's pretty decent as UBs go. As you start to run a lot of Maritimes, it gets pretty silly in a hurry. 120H and 1GPT for +6F is solid even with no Lake tiles.

I don't think it competes with the strongest buildings like Paper Makers, Mud Pyramid Mosques, Longhouses or Wats. But like a Bazaar, it can be powerful in the right city. And your example suggests that it could be dominating in an OCC.

 

[Izmir Stinger]

15% food
every 14 food you get one free. Kind of lackluster.

Math fail.

15% is slightly more than one free for for every 7.

 

[kuukkeli]

15% food
every 14 food you get one free. Kind of lackluster.

No comment on the UB as I haven't played Aztecs but +15% means that for every 7 food you get one for free (7 * 1.15 = 8.05).

EDIT: I'm slow.

 

[iggymnrr]

It's actually more insidious than it sounds. In addition to 15% food, it gives +2 food like a water mill PLUS 15% of that extra +2 food. Near a lake it gets even better.

 

[HarryLime]

What's annoying about it is that the lake/river has to be next to your city, not just within its borders. I'm playing a game as the Aztecs now on a map with 4 or 5 lakes nearby. I built three cities two tiles away from a lake not realizing I wasn't going to be able to build the stupid thing.

 

[tokala]

That 15% is different from most other food boni, as it applies to total food production. Farms, Granary, Maritime CSs, everything. And +2 food. And +2 from a lake tile.

It's nice to have for a small city, but it gets HUGE in the lategame. Example:
25 pop city, 60 production, 10 surplus, ~45 turns to size 26
With FG: 69 production, 19 surplus ~25 turns to size 26

With Hospital and Medical Lab those times go down to 1/2 and 1/4, respectively.

Landed Elite gives 33%, but only on the surplus.

 

[RedRover57]

When would you ever have a 25 pop city as Monty? For an OCC or cultural win game with a small number of cities there are better choices for civs (like India, Siam or Persia).

 

[Bibor]

When would you ever have a 25 pop city as Monty? For an OCC or cultural win game with a small number of cities there are better choices for civs (like India, Siam or Persia).

Why not?

 

[RedRover57]

Well I guess you could do it, but the only time I have ever had a 25 or greater pop city is in an OCC win with Siam and a Bollywood win (3 final cities, one of them very late in the game when I conquered a militaristic CS as a quest for a cultural CS) as India. My other games don't usually last much past the Industrial Age with cities around 10-15 pop max (or even less when ICSing).

 

[Vordeo]

When would you ever have a 25 pop city as Monty? For an OCC or cultural win game with a small number of cities there are better choices for civs (like India, Siam or Persia).

Actually, Monty just might be one of the best guys around for minimal city strategies, thanks solely to the UB. You can get some insane populations with Floating Gardens, and not have to pay as much for it all.

It's one of the best UBs in the game, IMO, and is almost good enough to make up for the garbage UA and the average UU.

 

[scytheavatar]

Actually, Monty just might be one of the best guys around for minimal city strategies, thanks solely to the UB. You can get some insane populations with Floating Gardens, and not have to pay as much for it all.

It's one of the best UBs in the game, IMO, and is almost good enough to make up for the garbage UA and the average UU.

But the biggest problem with the UB is that watermills are something you wouldn't want to build under any circumstances had you been playing another civ; heck whether or not granaries are worth building is already highly debatable. This by itself already makes the Floating Gardens useless because you are wasting time that could have gone into building settlers or warriors instead. The UB of Russia suffers from the same problem.

 

[Bandobras Took]

When would you ever have a 25 pop city as Monty?

Better question: who else makes it more feasible?

 

[Phrederick]

But the biggest problem with the UB is that watermills are something you wouldn't want to build under any circumstances had you been playing another civ; heck whether or not granaries are worth building is already highly debatable. This by itself already makes the Floating Gardens useless because you are wasting time that could have gone into building settlers or warriors instead. The UB of Russia suffers from the same problem.

I don't see how that's relevant. Sure, it's not a bonus to a building you'd build anyway. But if the cost-benefit analysis is good enough, then it's worth building, and it'll add a net benefit to the city, even with opportunity costs. I wouldn't build it over settlers and warriors, but once your cities hit size 10-14ish and growth begins to slow dramatically, the UB becomes increasingly attractive and beneficial.

 

[Martin Alvito]

But the biggest problem with the UB is that watermills are something you wouldn't want to build under any circumstances had you been playing another civ...

That's a very strong argument in favor of the Floating Gardens. Ordinarily, the building is terrible and you'd be crazy to build it. Now, the building is actually good and worth constructing.

Under the right circumstances, that makes the building better than an improved version of a building you were going to make anyway, because it enables otherwise impossible strategies.

 

[Danceofmasks]

Hey, I make watermills playing india.
I rarely do with any other civ, though.

 

[RedRover57]

This is interesting actually. I have been trying to win an OCC on a pangaea map and difficulty greater than King, and having a rough time. Since in this type of game you spend a lot of time defending and slaughtering waves of enemies that attack this could maybe add up to significant culture for a potential culture win with the Aztec UA? And their UB might help in situations where you have a tough time finding maritime allies (or when the ai kills off all the maritime CS). Maybe I'll give them a shot.

 

[tokala]

When would you ever have a 25 pop city as Monty?

 

[iggymnrr]

So I just tried out the longhouse for comparison, North America, and did not handle the extra hammers as well as the extra food. About a 300 beaker difference in the capitol and pop 20 instead of 28. Was isolated however, no trading partner in the South America unlike Monty who had someone in North America.

@tokala
Well, if you want to compare screens