Aztecs

[mikes61293]

The 10/9 changes have made the Aztecs the strongest civ in the game, at least in the hands of the player. The increased early spawns makes the Jaguars more useful and gives you more gold, faith and city state alliances. Combine that with one of the best UBs and you can pretty much guarantee a snowball. The only weakness is that AI Montezuma eventually gets everyone to turn on him in the later eras.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

The 10/9 changes have made the Aztecs the strongest civ in the game, at least in the hands of the player. The increased early spawns makes the Jaguars more useful and gives you more gold, faith and city state alliances. Combine that with one of the best UBs and you can pretty much guarantee a snowball. The only weakness is that AI Montezuma eventually gets everyone to turn on him in the later eras.

They're one of the strongest for sure. Not THE strongest - Polynesia gets as much production as much or more than the Aztecs while also receiving more Culture than Aztecs will ever receive Food, while also getting it earlier with an easy solution to Circumnavigate the world quest, easy finding of CS's to get quests (you are guaranteed to win Culture missions), people to sell stuff to and etc. Egypt is also stronger. Aztecs are definitely top tier for sure though, you can't discount a civ which gets a free Diligence + Ascetism in pretty much every city.

 

[Txurce]

The 10/9 changes have made the Aztecs the strongest civ in the game, at least in the hands of the player. The increased early spawns makes the Jaguars more useful and gives you more gold, faith and city state alliances. Combine that with one of the best UBs and you can pretty much guarantee a snowball. The only weakness is that AI Montezuma eventually gets everyone to turn on him in the later eras.

They were actually pretty strong in the 9/30 version, which is where I began using them inImmortal/Authority games, but my current 10/9 games confirms it. The food growth comes a little later, which makes them not OP, but definitely top-notch (and easy to play) in my estimation.

 

[IcyAngel]

Hasn't it become a truism that the Aztecs are extremely powerful, and probably the best civ in the game?

Perhaps it's confirmation bias, but I have never seen them do badly. Their ability to conquer early with their UU and gain insane benefits from it -gold, faith, golden ages, taking good cities and often wiping out civs altogether- make the civ extremely consistent in its domination. Through chain-DOWing early, they snowball almost every game into a super threatening force.

 

[CrazyG]

I think the term is "Poland Tier"

Best civ is hard to say, but I agree the Aztecs are very powerful. Very easy early game; the floating gardens is very powerful and means you don't have to play total warmonger either. If you are referring to the AI, I think on epic or marathon civs with early game bonuses and UUs always dominate. My experience on standard is the Aztec usually do well, but I've seen them get totally wiped out. I actually think Aztec matches up somewhat poorly against civs with bigger UUs, like Persia or Rome.

 

[Txurce]

I think the term is "Poland Tier"

Best civ is hard to say, but I agree the Aztecs are very powerful. Very easy early game; the floating gardens is very powerful and means you don't have to play total warmonger either. If you are referring to the AI, I think on epic or marathon civs with early game bonuses and UUs always dominate. My experience on standard is the Aztec usually do well, but I've seen them get totally wiped out. I actually think Aztec matches up somewhat poorly against civs with bigger UUs, like Persia or Rome.

Yeah, on standard, I think their AI performance averages out in the middle, as their aggressiveness is feast-or-famine.

 

[IcyAngel]

Ah! I should have known Epic speed was partly responsible. The Celts and Persia also perform very well, probably for this reason.

 

[ElliotS]

I love Aztecs, but they're not even close to the best. Denmark is MUCH stronger on immortal or Deity because of their ability to get a CRAZY amount of culture from wars. I routinely fill out 5 social trees as Denmark, in addition to all of my ideologies.

Aztecs are solid, but their UU is gone by Renaissance and you need to try and keep your veteran troops alive and their UA scales worse than most. (Faith and gold are GREAT early, but very meh mid-late.)

Not trying to claim they're anything but strong, but they've got weaknesses are are hardly OP.

 

[Owlbebach]

I play standard speed and large/huge map immortal and ~14-16 AIs (more than standard). I also do not feel Aztec is OP. They are quite a bad neighbour, you'll probably have will fight them 50% of the game, but when i randomed Aztec it felt to me that it is really hard to use their UA. However i play multiplayer so i play without barbs&ruins. Also maybe i'm not the best general, i usually try to play defensive, you just can't win a game on a huge map with war.

 

[CrazyG]

Well if you play without barbs Aztec (and many other civs) will be seriously weakened. Because their warriors are basically half scout they benefit a lot from ruins as well. I think some people make the mistake of thinking conquest means going for a domination victory, it doesn't. Just take a few cities, ideally some wonders, then shift into another victory type later on.

 

[ElliotS]

Well if you play without barbs Aztec (and many other civs) will be seriously weakened. Because their warriors are basically half scout they benefit a lot from ruins as well. I think some people make the mistake of thinking conquest means going for a domination victory, it doesn't. Just take a few cities, ideally some wonders, then shift into another victory type later on.

Yeah, also taking out other people's holy cities is always fun. You can annex/puppet, send an inquisitor, and then raze it if it's not a capital I believe. I've never bothered though, because holy cities are generally pretty sweet.

 

[emdash]

I think Monte is extremely strong at gaining faith. A Jag can also 1v1 a barb camp early game. You take authority, and just go in. The axes make for really easy barb camps. I feel like if throwing axes never spawned as barb camps (if they started as spears, then spawned axes to support), Monte would be much weaker. I've heard that faith isn't worth much, but I am not sure I agree. I'm sure that there are better ways to play, but I am fond of taking auth/piety, taking the +ranged/winfaith panth, and getting the buy units with faith religious perk. The thing is, you can buy a knight with 240 faith through medieval. If you are properly farming/warring, that's almost every turn (probably every, or more, honestly.) As well as the fact you don't need any special buildings to get it. I don't even use all of my units, I feed them to my city state buddies and let them take cities. It's hilarious to watch them just mob an AI and expand their empire.

I also play on Epic, and I would say for sure that buy units with faith + auth + gain faith panth... makes Monte almost too strong early to mid-game. Then it's just about whether you want to keep crushing people or let them catch up. I kind of think there should be a cooldown, like they put in with buying diplo units (didn't they?) for faith buying. Or make it so you can't buy any units with faith in any city. Maybe even increase the cost. That's the one OP part of Monte, for me. Otherwise, he's really good, but without that, he wouldn't be nearly as formidable.

 

[ElliotS]

I think Monte is extremely strong at gaining faith. A Jag can also 1v1 a barb camp early game. You take authority, and just go in. The axes make for really easy barb camps. I feel like if throwing axes never spawned as barb camps (if they started as spears, then spawned axes to support), Monte would be much weaker. I've heard that faith isn't worth much, but I am not sure I agree. I'm sure that there are better ways to play, but I am fond of taking auth/piety, taking the +ranged/winfaith panth, and getting the buy units with faith religious perk. The thing is, you can buy a knight with 240 faith through medieval. If you are properly farming/warring, that's almost every turn (probably every, or more, honestly.) As well as the fact you don't need any special buildings to get it. I don't even use all of my units, I feed them to my city state buddies and let them take cities. It's hilarious to watch them just mob an AI and expand their empire.

I also play on Epic, and I would say for sure that buy units with faith + auth + gain faith panth... makes Monte almost too strong early to mid-game. Then it's just about whether you want to keep crushing people or let them catch up. I kind of think there should be a cooldown, like they put in with buying diplo units (didn't they?) for faith buying. Or make it so you can't buy any units with faith in any city. Maybe even increase the cost. That's the one OP part of Monte, for me. Otherwise, he's really good, but without that, he wouldn't be nearly as formidable.

Place to discuss Zealotry is Enhancer thread. I don't think it's too much though. Especially considering how expensive everything gets as time goes on.

 

[ShadedSkies]

While it's tempting to stack unit kill bonuses and embark on a murder rampage, I always seem to do better just going Progress and sticking that 9F+5H at 4pop UB in every city, settling like crazy while stealing workers and intercepting the settlers of my closest neighbor. I'm not having much luck bullying my weakened neighbor for golden ages for the rest of the game though, despite all their cities being stuck in the antarctic they still seem able to churn out five dozen units on immortal.

 

[pineappledan]

No balance complaints, I love Aztec, but can we chang the name of the UA to ‘Flower War’/Xochiyaoyotl/‘Guerra Florida’? I think that would better reflect what the UA does

 

[ElliotS]

No balance complaints, I love Aztec, but can we chang the name of the UA to ‘Flower War’/Xochiyaoyotl/‘Guerra Florida’? I think that would better reflect what the UA does

I like the idea of changing the name to flower war.

 

[Logoncal]

How about Garland Wars?

 

[Gothic_Empire]

No balance complaints, I love Aztec, but can we chang the name of the UA to ‘Flower War’/Xochiyaoyotl/‘Guerra Florida’? I think that would better reflect what the UA does

@Gazebo

 

[Funak]

Flower war just sounds silly, but if you can come up with anything better then yeah sure.

 

[ElliotS]

Flower war just sounds silly, but if you can come up with anything better then yeah sure.

Flower war is historically accurate.