Aztecs Immortal Photojournal

[yamyam]

Hello civvies. I never got around to posting here but I've been lurking this forum for years.

Aztecs is one of my favourite VP civs. This game is with 4UC which I haven't played much. Looks like it changes them significantly: the Otomi is the new warrior replacement and Jaguar now replaces longswords. The longsword jaguar looks strong. The Otomi gets survivalism but lacks self healing.

4UC also drops the unique water mill for library and grand temple replacements:

Looks interesting. Gotta get those GAs.

Spoiler Settings :

This game is on mostly standard Communitas/Immortal, with some extra settings:

• I added one civ and one CS and set water level to High. I find that Communitas has too much land for my tastes.
• I removed Venice because the AI can't play it.
• I haven't tried Passive Espionage before. Nothing against the non-passive system, but I wanted to give it a try.

Spoiler Start :

After moving my units, settling south-west is the obvious choice.

Spoiler Turn 1 :

I start with a monument. This will be followed by Otomi spam. You don't need a shrine with Aztecs. Improving silk is not a priority (the plantation adds very little yields, the monopoly won't do much early game). But I decide to go for calendar anyway to get archers. With Uluru I can easily get a religion combined with faith on kill. I don't plan on building too many early cities since Aztecs don't need the faith. Instead I'll make a strong army and bully whatever crosses my path.

I'm not sure which tree I will choose. Authority is good but it can stall out early game. Progress or tradition first and authority later is a possibility. Then again my capital is rather weak in both food and production so it might be nice to rely on authority's instant yields.

 

[yamyam]

Spoiler Turn 9 :

Pathfinder had to circle back which is unlucky for huts. But I do get a nice gold hut. I buy another otomi who finds another hut to camp. Already got some barbs which is perfect, looking good for an Authority start.

Spoiler Turn 11 :

Even more barbs. Attacking barbs with your pathfinder is nice to boost his XP (until the cap of 45?)

Spoiler Turn 20 :

Get authority, immediately get a barb camp kill. Five otomi now. The future is bright.

Spoiler Turn 26 :

I go God of War. Many pantheons will be very slow to kick in since I'm not planning to do much settling/improving early. Alternatives would be Tutelary Gods, and Goddess of Nature which would be pretty decent with two natural wonders. God of War is just more fun though.

Japan has a couple of vulnerable units so I just DoW him. I want to get a couple of archers instead of more Otomi so I make a shrine for now. The new patch seems to have increased early game supply which is quite a boost to Aztecs. In older patches I would already be capped at 6 or 7.

Spoiler Turn 38 :

I got a couple of lucky barb camp spawns and hit Tribute fast. I will now make peace with Melbourne and get tribute. Japan is in the dumpster so I will let him regenerate while maybe sniping a few units. I want to fight him more later. I'm teching fishing to reach the hut and barb camp to the southeast, and hopefully unlock additional land. There's not a lot for my army to do so I will probably send them down to Florence...

 

[yamyam]

Spoiler Turn 44 :

This is turning into a very strong start. Even more barbs to the southeast, and I just got fishing. I'm going to settle both natural wonders but stop there for now. Declared war on Florence. Japan is offering peace but I'm toying with him for now. I could potentially circle back after getting tribute from Florence and try for warscore 25+ to get a GA.

Most techs don't look very useful as my army is complete for now and I have very little production. I want to settle my two cities, buy workers/tiles and build up some economy.

Spoiler Turn 57 :

Melbourne just got a barb horde which is perfect for me. I have killed so many barbs this game, close to 10 camps I think. Lucky spawns. I decide to go for Trade/Writing instead of Military Strategy. I don't need more army yet and I can potentially get Petra. The upgraded libraries (Telpochchallis) don't get any immediate bonuses but I really need science.

Spoiler Turn 63 :

I like to give my religions whatever silly name pops into my head... Hero Worship, Revelation or Holy Law would be good, but I want to try keeping my empire small while bullying people and getting GAs, so I pick Divine Inheritance. It's usually a hard one to get because it's the AI's favourite but I've founded super early. I'm going to beeline another prophet. For follower beliefs there are a lot of interesting options, but it's hard to beat Asceticism in this situation. I'm tempted to go Tradition after Authority this game, which I've never done before. Don't know if it's optimal but it sounds fun. I plan to let Japan grow, and fight repeated wars for more GAs. As long as I keep killing his units, hopefully he won't become unmanageable.

Spoiler Turn 73 :

Barbs keep spawning. I need more army.

About to get Petra with some chopping. I just can't say no to Petra, and the AI is usually really slow to get it.

Spoiler Turn 86 :

Japan is getting feisty. More barbs are spawning and the human sacrifice economy keeps rolling. I'm going straight for Steel to get jags.

 

[yamyam]

Spoiler Turn 99 - Enhancing :

I want to do an aggressive culture victory, fueled by a lot of naval bullying. Went with Teocallis and Sacred Calendar.

Spoiler Turn 121 :

Beefed up my army and kept fighting Japan. Eventually got 25+ war score, killed a few more units, and made peace. I will probably start another war with him asap though, sorry Toku.

I have 6 Authority

 

[yamyam]

Spoiler Turn 194 :

Skipping ahead a bit. I've had about 5 wars with Japan now. It feels slightly unethical. This time I'd just hit gunpowder so he got absolutely rolled by my heavily upgraded tercios. The question is whether I want to take any of his cities. I could use more supply cap but I want to try staying small even if it's not optimal. He doesn't have any wonders so although kyoto and gold monopoly sounds attractive, I can do without them. There's time for at least one more war cycle with Japan, since I really need a large amount of frigates and corvettes to start an overseas war.

I met all the AIs about 25 turns ago. They aren't too far ahead, so my human sacrifice economy has performed reasonably well.

Spoiler Turn 194 part 2 :

Brazil is a very attractive target with nice wonders. Plus Shaka will no doubt attack him from the other side. The only problem is that Shaka is becoming extremely strong. I will probably need to fight a massive war with him after taking over Brazil. Could be profitable if he doesn't overwhelm me. I was just barely able to reform and get TTGOG, which will be great with all the faith I'm going to get fighting Shaka. I'm planning to go for CV. Hopefully beating shaka in a war will let me make enough musicians to overwhelm china, but I might have to fight her too later.

In fact it looks like Shaka is close to taking Salvador already. So I will make peace with Japan immediately and try to snipe what I can from Brazil.

Spoiler Turn 197 :

It looks to be over for Brazil. Even if I snipe one of the cities with a boat, it's likely Shaka will take it soon. Not sure if I will ever be able to beat Shaka now, but maybe I can get enough tourism against his huge empire. At least I can keep farming the poor Japanese. Big naval wars are coming. There are lots of options for policies. Straight rationalism would be pretty good, but I could also mix and match since I have glory of god for great scientists.

 

[yamyam]

Spoiler Turn 211 :

I've had my spy (with Passive Diplomacy) in Rio for a while, basically forgot about it. The science bonus is a nice simple bonus.

Tenochtitlan is getting nice and big, pumping out +64 xp ships. Shaka is at war with his eastern neighbours so if I join in it might be possible to beat him.

I'm taking over most of Japan but I'm going to leave one city to spam more wars with. With his gold, I'll be able to hopefully get Civilized Jewelers. I DOWed him while he was my vassal which made some people dislike me, oops. I will probably not vassal him again for now, but it actually worked in my favour because China started to like me (probably because the others stopped being friends with me). Now I have a defensive pact with China, which is ideal if I can get Shaka to DOW me. This army will soon be upgraded to fusiliers and sent to mess with Shaka. Japan got converted by Morocco's religion, which is amazing for me since I can buy all my GPs with it and get huge conversions, and I have TTGOG and a lot of faith.

Spoiler Turn 229 - Invasion Plans :

Might as well attack Shaka ASAP! Not sure I can beat him on land so I'm considering taking Ondini and Nongoma, then going back for the nice wonders in Rio. He has a lot of fat fusiliers but I do have more ships for now.

He has tons of these things. Not sure if it would be smarter to sit back and try to tourism bomb him, but I gotta have my yields on kill.

 

[yamyam]

Unfortunately I had a CTD and ended up upgrading so I didn't finish this game. Open to suggestions for another one.

 

[K_away_0514]

Unfortunately I had a CTD and ended up upgrading so I didn't finish this game. Open to suggestions for another one.

how about Japan? Recent games I've been in they haven't fared well at all, interesting if they'll do better with a human

 

[chicorbeef]

Good job, this was nice to read.

I've always kind of struggled to find a nice balance between full warmongering/standard peaceful things when playing civs like the Aztecs.

With super early warmongers I like to sometimes cripple my neighbor right at the start, and since you probably don't need more than say 3 Otomi to hunt barbs, do you think it would be worth it to be more aggressive early at the expense of maybe less barb kills/tributes?

 

[chicorbeef]

Unfortunately I had a CTD and ended up upgrading so I didn't finish this game. Open to suggestions for another one.

How about a diplo focused civ? I'm playing Germany now, 4UC, Turn 210 and I'm just realizing this civ has pretty monstrous mid-late game potential.