An Aztec Game

Nice series!

Rome UHV is also pretty cool

 

I know you called Tamils before. Not saying it's not going to a fun game, but agentxorange gave a pretty detailed guide in the 1.12 UHV challenge thread, although it was almost 200 revisions ago. My own strategy may vary now that the map is different, but there's nothing groundbreaking.

Same with Tibet. Tibet has one of the easier UHVs, but I'm not sure how many people are interested in reading a Tibet game. It's pretty straightforward.

I have been trying a Persia game. Sadly, due to lack of time to play(I'll be especially busy next week) and constant city sucessions, I'm not yet able to finish the game.

I'll try to get a game out before the end of next week, but I really can't promise anything.

 

Are conquerors unavoidable as Aztecs now? Do I have to just build an enormous stack or is there still a way around getting conquerors?
And what about plague - the Spanish met me in 1500 and the plague totally prevents first goal.

 

There's still a glitch you can utilize. Station a unit at the easternmost tip of Brazil, and if any Old World civilization discovers this unit before finding your cities, there'll be no conquerors.

And there's a bug on plague, too. Aztecs catch plague on second contact of Old World civs, not first. Not sure if it's good or bad news for the population goal.

 

In reality you absolutely NEED conquerors. Because it is hard to come up with 20 enslavements and you need every single opportunity. More European units -- more possibilities to get to magic number 20. Enslavement rates are pretty bad -- I have destroyed every single conqueror without a single lucky Slave! Just for fun I am attaching my 2/3 UHV Golden Age empire -- just 1 turn away from being met and attacked. Hit the enter and see how long would it take to get 20 euroslaves.

It is completely possible to get pop 16 city if you build Aztec wonder by the deadline. Japanese Edo is size 14 usually. So plague can kill couple of points and you will still stay as largest city.

All this is valid for 600 AD start obviously.

 

Interesting. I'll have to give Aztecs another try, although I do prefer 3000BC starts in general for the volatility and randomness.

 

Is Mexico an unconditional spawn? In that case, there is a new deadline for the third UHV: 1810. Also, Chicago is now part of the American core, so no iron after 1776.

 

Mexico spawns only if the Aztecs are dead.

 

Perfect, I couldn't find anything on it in the DoC documentation.

Anyway, the lack of iron from 1776 on means that cannons will be unavailable after that point. Which means outdated bombards must be used to soften up stacks.
An additional observation after having played to 2/3 UHV on Regent: shock-promoted jaguars. From the moment I spawned I was under siege from Dog Soldiers and Jaguars, who even took out some of my archers in the capital. This meant that city #2, Teotihuacan, was off-limits to settlement. So I switched to conquest upon spawn and immediately whipped a barracks in Tenochtitlan, followed by a few jaguars, promoted to shock. This makes them stronger than Dog Soldiers, who are str. 5 with 25% against melee, giving them str. 6.25, versus Jaguars with +35% from combat I and shock, giving them str. 8.1. It's a quick and dirty way to greatly alleviate barb problems in the early game.

 

Too much depends on lack with Aztecs. 30% enslavement rate is pretty bad, must be at least 40 for a chance to win before 1800. The truth is -- once you wipe out conquerors, you need to chase every opportunity across Americas, which is not what Aztecs did.

 

I have to agree with you. Killing 60 old world units is just way too ambitious, as well as a-historical. On regular RFC you only needed to kill 5 European units, which was entirely possible to achieve just by facing the conquerors.