Aztecs

Txurce

Deity
Joined
Jan 4, 2002
Messages
8,285
Location
Venice, California
I played a fast, relatively sloppy game using 7.21 on Emperor level, using a war strategy to win by culture. I was on a five-civ continent with Babylon, Japan, Greece and the Inca.

The layout of the nearby luxuries led me to build only one city, despite starting with Liberty and then spilling into Tradition and Honor. My early game developed infrastructure as I sized up my neighbor, continent-leading Babylon. As a result I failed to get Stonehenge and the Sistine Chapel as well. Saving Aristocracy for Opera Houses also resulted in a wasted SP.

I attacked once I had a couple of longswords and four trebs, taking Babylon with its six (!) Wonders and Akkad before making peace. This established me as the continental leader, with all the local Cultural CS alliances. From there I declared war on Japan, taking Dublin from him before making peace. At this point I was awash in gold and bought every single building available for all five of my cities.

This did not seem right.

I soon declared war on Greece without a targeted city, just to keep killing for culture. With my forces shifted to the CS that was our battleground, Japan attacked and took Dublin. I eventually took it back, but liberated it now that I had a warship. (None of my cities faced the open sea.) A second peace with Japan had me swimming in gold again. From there I coasted to the end in one never-ending GA, filling out Commerce, Piety and Freedom as well, winning a Cultural victory in 1715 (turn 253).

At this point I was second in tech (after having been first), second in land, fourth in pop (having been first), fourth in military, and had 107 happiness.

That last did not seem right, either.

While I don't view this game as definitive - in different circumstances I would have built more cities, explored earlier for more cultural allies, and most importantly focused on the Chapel - I still won in very good time with top-tier science while essentially playing a war game. I think it's fair to say that more conquests would only have made my progress faster, because I could always buy the cultural buildings that more than negated the new-city handicap. So again - too much gold, too much happiness, and plenty of science while producing a very good Cultural win.

That bottom line also doesn't feel right.

Oddly, I think the cultural loot from SOW could be higher, but the gold may still be too high. Part of this is that getting gold from the AI after a successful war (and most are) already gives a lot of gold. Thal mentioned recently that gold is much more powerful than hammers, and I think that perhaps it's too much so. The answer to the "have your cake and eat it too" warmonger approach may be to scale down available gold - without unduly penalizing the peaceful player who isn't raking it in with warfare.
 
I stopped liking Aztecs when the Jaguar lost it's Woodsman promotion. It makes so much sense for them to move faster in forest and jungle.
 
What was your final score?

@black213
You're right that Jaguars moving fast in vegetation was fun, but I felt it overlapped too much with Hiawatha's trait. Montezuma defining characteristic is he's the jack-of-all-trades: decent at warfare, culture, and population growth, but not particularly the best at a single one. His trait does make him ideally suited for a cultural warmonger game, but it's not a problem since he's unique in that regard.
 
What was your final score?

2030. I checked, and this is my highest CV score. In my fastest game - 221 turns with the super-SS Ghandi - I scored 1720.

Clarification: when I said I built one city above, I meant one city in addition to the capital, for a total of two.

After playing a less successful warring/culture game with another civ, I think that the problem gold creates has a strong snowball effect. The quicker you start conquering, and the bigger your capture/haul, obviously the bigger the problem. My game may have been unusual (and a blast) in that I took two size 20+ cities, including by far the greatest city in the world. After that, generous Japanese settlements (something you can't count on) financed my cultural building.

There's nothing wrong with a warmongering civ deciding to focus on culture as well with its newfound riches, and building enough culture buildings to eventually win a CV. If there's a problem -and I'm not sure there is - it would be that warmongering is just as good an approach as going tall and small. For all I know, the Aztecs are the perfect civ to do this, and there is no war/culture problem.

My real point is about the power of gold once a civ is on a roll. Again, this may be unavoidable - the tipping point when a civ game is effectively (and prematurely) over.
 
Score isn't an exact measure of the success of a game, but I think it's safe to compare similar victory types. A peaceful Arabian game with 8 cities reached a cultural victory score of 2700 for me. I feel warfare drains too much production and gold from the economy to be a net gain for cultural victories, even as Montezuma. I think that he's stronger as a large-empire conqueror that also can get decent policies, rather than a small-empire cultural leader who can do warfare on the side... if that makes sense. :)
 
I feel warfare drains too much production and gold from the economy to be a net gain for cultural victories, even as Montezuma. I think that he's stronger as a large-empire conqueror that also can get decent policies, rather than a small-empire cultural leader who can do warfare on the side... if that makes sense. :)

I agree. You called Montezuma a jack of all trades, and he is. It was a 253-turn Science win with the Aztecs (tall empire) that led me to focus on population with Babylon in my next game, leading to my personal best 244-turn Science win.
 
Top Bottom