Aztec Strategy

[robvollman]

I played the Aztecs for the first time, and being a bit of a wargamer, it was really fun. You see, the Aztecs get culture for killing units. So I basically romped around from war to war, which is really the best part of Civ 5, on my way to a cultural victory.

You need a small home base, because too many cities make it too expensive to get social policies. You also need to build all the culture buildings in there, and make sure they're being worked. If you get Great Artists, that helps too.

Meanwhile you can use your cash to align both cultural city states, and military city states (you'll need their units!). You'll also want to use some to upgrade your most experienced units, because after all those wars you'll have some incredibly powerful dudes.

Generally you focus on killing units, not taking cities. When I took a city I usually sold it to someone else, to help pay for my army, and keep happiness in check. I occasionally kept puppet cities which were strategically located and had lots of luxuries which could be converted into cash or happiness.

The only tricky part is that you'll be denounced by everyone, because you will unavoidably make quite a few declarations of war. The best way to declare war is to find out who is at war with your intended target, and to get them to pay you to join the war. I usually went to war with whoever was in first (or in second, if I was in first). They'll have the most units, and obviously slowing them down gives you more time to get your cultural victory.

Don't worry about anyone attacking you, because pretty soon you'll have the biggest and most powerful army and no one will dare. But if they do, that's great, because you can kill units without having to declare war and get denounced.

It's also a great way to really learn the tactics of warfare in Civ 5, which is a lot different than previous versions of this game. For instance, you want to focus upgrades on either open terrain or rough terrain, and use the units appropriately. Once you've got all three open or rough upgrades, you can get some really great upgrades, so protect those units.

I'll probably play the Aztecs again. Any other tips?

 

[snarzberry]

Generally you focus on killing units, not taking cities. When I took a city I usually sold it to someone else, to help pay for my army, and keep happiness in check. I occasionally kept puppet cities which were strategically located and had lots of luxuries which could be converted into cash or happiness.

Can you sell puppeted cities? I don't sell cities normally, but I thought not.

If so then it's not worth doing anything other than puppeting or razing the cities that you conquer. If you annex the city, even for one turn and sell it immediately, it increases your future social policy costs and will add a very large amount of total culture that you'll need to accumulate. Once you've added a non-puppet city to your empire, even for one turn, your SP costs can never decrease, even if you give cities away.

I do agree with you, however, it's a very fun way to play Monty! Who knew culture victories could be so violent? I think rushing jaguar upgraded swords from just one city, or two if you need to settle iron, and then never annexing any more cities is the best way to go.