Civ of the Week: Aztecs

[acluewithout]

AZTEC​

• Leader: Montezuma.
  
  
• Leader Ability: Gifts for the Tlatoani. Improved Luxury Resources provide Amenity to 2 extra Cities. Military Units receive +1 Combat Strength for each improved Luxury Resource in Aztec Territory.
  
  
• Civ Ability: Legend of the Five Suns. Can spend Builder charges to complete 20% of a district's Production cost.
  
  
• Unique Unit: Eagle Warrior. Replaces the Warrior. Higher Production Cost (65 vs. 40). Higher Combat Strength (28 vs. 20). May capture defeated units, turning them into Builders.
  
  
• Unique Infrastructure: Tlachtli. Replaces the Arena Building. Provides +2 Faith, +1 Culture, +1 Amenity from Entertainment, + Great General Point per turn. Production Cost 135, Maintenance 1, unlocks at Games and Recreations Civic.
  
  
• Leader Agenda: Tlatoani. Monty likes Civilizations who have the same Luxury Resources as he does, and will try to collect every Luxury resource available. Dislikes Civilizations who have a new Luxury resource he has not yet collected.

• Interesting links: Civ Vi Wiki, Power Ranking the Vanilla Civs (Archon_Wing), What is the most versatile civilization?, Who is the strongest in each route now? (Lily_Lancer), Civ 6 Deity Tier List. (LMK if there are any other great posts or threads you think I should add.)

 

[acluewithout]

Hi Everybody.

This is the first "Civ of the Week" post. I'm starting with Ancient Era Civs (with Eras based on Unique Units). Please let me know if you have any comments on the format, if I've got any details wrong, or you have any interesting links you think I can add.

Feel free to post about what you like or don't like about the Civ or its leader, winning strategies, interesting strategies, undocumented advantages or disadvantages or whatever else. Also, if you're interested, vote for which Civ you'd like to see next week!

Enjoy!

 

[Amrunril]

Despite a recent stealth nerf (Reyna's district buying ability makes the ability to rush a spaceport less of an advantage), the Aztecs' UU/civ ability combo makes them one of the game's stronger civs. In the early game, you're essentially getting free districts and tile improvements, and later on, once the Eagle Warrior finally becomes obsolete, district prices have increased enough and builder charges have increased enough that it constitutes a massive discount on district production. The ability is a bit tedious to use, though. Since 5 charges exactly equal a district, I often want to build a district purely with builder charges while using the city's own production for something else. Unfortunately, you can't just change production once and use your builder charges: you have to change production back and forth every turn.

The leader ability is also a strong one, though I'm less of a fan of it from a flavor perspective. I think the Aztecs would be a great choice for a civ focused on warmongering for tribute/captives/glory rather than for land. The civ abilities fit this theme well, but the leader ability's focus on owned luxuries is heavily conquest focused, undermining this opportunity. This isn't to say the Aztec is badly designed, just that it lacks the focus I wish it had (giving the Aztecs Gorgo's leader ability- the Civ V Aztec ability, would actually solve this perpectly in my view, another reason the game really should allow interchangeable leaders).

The Aztec unique building, to be honest, I often forget about. The Aztec leader ability means less need for entertainment districts and therefore fewer opportunities to build arena replacements. My initial impulse is to say this is a relatively weak bonus (even the strongest civs generally have one or two weak links), but I' be interested to hear if others have found good uses for these.

 

[Stringer1313]

i do wish some of the unique buildings were strengthened in general. I think the Unique Building should get tourism points at some point.

 

[liv]

I saw in the other thread that people talked about playing a game while discussing. Maybe a starts on different difficulty levels could be posted?

Maybe we could try different victory conditions with them and see what happens

 

[MaryKB]

Ooooh thank you so very kindly, I will try Aztecs tomorrow, I've never played as them before. I'll play King, down one level from my normal for experimentation. Does anyone know if I'll get free builders for defeating barbarians, or do I just get them from rival civilizations? I'm so looking forward to trying out going to war just to capture soldiers and sacrifice them for my districts.

 

[Forster]

Not from barbarians, be nice if we could. I mean, sometimes it seems the barbs are the toughest opponents out there.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Still one of the best civs in the game. Aztec can go for almost any victory condition or play any style they desire since they can create districts on demand, and bypass district scaling costs with builders. The Eagle Warrior has perfect synergy with this as they can capture even more builders, and despite other civs catching up with Royal Society and Reyna, Aztecs are still one of the best at science victories thanks to their ability to speed build a spaceport and now that multiple spaceports can be useful, they can take advantage of that.

Rise and Fall does weaken them a little since CS bonuses are now moved to the t1 building, as well as trade routes, so they can't just spam districts and ignore them anymore. In addition anyone can Magnus chop out districts, however, Aztecs maintain the edge in any case.

Their combat bonus from luxury allows them to continue to snow ball and also provides an advantage in theological comcat too. But you don't even need to go to war, since their luxuries work further than anyone else's.

Eagle warriors show up from turn 1 and provide excellent early defense and offense. Basically they just start out strong and get even stronger. Even if their unique building is subpar, they really have no real weakness and in R&F you'll be building one to get Colosseum anyways.

You'll probably want stuff that boosts builders quick, such as the Pyramids, Liang, and Feudalism.

 

[acluewithout]

To my mind, Aztecs are one of the best designed Civs in the game - up there with Rome. The Leader Ability and Eagle Warriors give you a reason for conquest; and at the same time help you with that objective; the UA gives you something to do with all your extra builders, but also gives you builders to improve luxuries so circles back to the LA again. The additional luxes also help with war weariness and loyalty, which are potential issues for Monty.

The only thing which is a bit odd is the unique building given Monty had less need for an Entertainment district than others. But it has been buffed in R&F (both because the Arena has been directly buffed, but also because an Arena is also a pre-req for the colloseum).

Does Monty still get his combat bonus if he sells all his luxuries? If he does, then Monty’s ability is also a real money spinner ... and his unique building makes more sense.

Monty is also a beast when played by the AI. The AI does early warrior rushes best, so the AI can effectively use his Eagle Warriors. Monty is also easy to annoy, either because he coverts your luxes or just has more military than you. I’ve tried pillaging his luxes to slow him down in wars, but it never seems to make a difference...

Monty seems very powerful to me. That power level is a reason I personally don’t like playing him. But i’d never say he’s OP. He (and his Civ) are just really well designed, and are perfect for players wanting to steam roll, wanting a leg up for higher difficulties, or wanting to chase super low victory times.

 

[Amrunril]

Ooooh thank you so very kindly, I will try Aztecs tomorrow, I've never played as them before. I'll play King, down one level from my normal for experimentation. Does anyone know if I'll get free builders for defeating barbarians, or do I just get them from rival civilizations? I'm so looking forward to trying out going to war just to capture soldiers and sacrifice them for my districts.

Not from barbarians, be nice if we could. I mean, sometimes it seems the barbs are the toughest opponents out there.

Barbarians don't give builders when defeated, but city states units can (in addition to full civ units, of course). It can often be worth declaring war on a nearby CS to farm builders, especially if you didn't get an early envoy there and don't care about the suzerain bonus.

 

[criZp]

All the OP info is right there in the in-game civ selection screen. What's the point of the thread?

 

[Disgustipated]

What's the point of the thread

To share any unique perspective strategy that may not be apparent on the civ description. Personally I feel I'm not getting the most bang out of the Aztecs and I wonder why.

For instance, does anyone know if the eagle warrior ability works on free city units? This would be an indirect buff to the Aztecs in R&F. Unfortunately you are unlikely to have free cities that early in the game.

As I mentioned above, I never felt the Aztecs are top tiered as most people rank them. I've only gotten one builder out of the eagle warrior ability. One problem is I may have been playing too low a difficulty (prince). This is a civ that shines more at the highest difficulties. You have more units to take out with eagle warriors and the combat bonus is more significant. At Prince and King levels the combat bonus I find is unnecessary. I also sometimes have problems with not enough nearby neighbors.

Another problem with Rise and Fall is I've all but confirmed (circumstancually) in my Rome game that early conquering makes it nearly impossible to forge alliances for several eras even after you stop taking cities. Even if you don't completely eliminate civs. I'm still in the middle of my Rome game, and I still can't form an alliance, and I only took 4 cities (and liberated one city state) in the classical era. This is despite having 5 happy faces and mostly positive modifiers and no warmongering penalty. Point is this is a knock against early warfare civs like the Aztecs if you are a player like me who likes alliances.

I will start up a game today and see if I can do better with them. I normally play King and I'll play that difficulty. I will put my Rome game on ho!d. I may post screenshots if I see something interesting.

 

[Sylfea]

I've been lurking on these forums for months, but made an account just to be able to comment here - I love these kind of threads since someone else's point of view often opens up new ways to play for me - the reddit thread usually has a few good comments but then peters out quite quickly...

More on topic: the last time I played a game with the Aztecs was back when they were available only to those who prepurchased I think? and I didn't really like them. However since then I've upgraded two difficulty settings and developed a more early warmongering style, so I'm going to fire up a game when I get home (and will report back if there's anything interesting that follows).

One question - on emperor, marathon speed I usually have a starting army of around 4 archers and 2 warriors to take out that pesky neighbour who tries to steal all the good settling spots from me - with this UU would it make more sense to go warrior heavy, eg 3-4 warriors with 2 archers?

Edit- spelling.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

One question - on emperor, marathon speed I usually have a starting army of around 4 archers and 2 warriors to take out that pesky neighbour who tries to steal all the good settling spotsspots me - with this UU would it make more sense to go warrior heavy, eg 3-4 warriors with 2 archers?

It often makes sense to go warrior heavy even without the Aztecs. With the Aztecs, yes, absolutely.

 

[Disgustipated]

Yeah I plan on going eagle warrior heavy. I think in the past I built too many archers, it's hard not to, because even as bad as the ai can be, they often perch atop a hill and it can take you one or two turns to get next to him, in which case he takes over half your health making you unable to take him out. With overwhelming numbers, however, I should be able to do it. Assuming I don't run into bottlenecks.

 

[Duuk]

One thing that some people know and some people don't is that the Aztec combat bonus from luxuries also applies in theological combat, which means that the Aztecs are actually an EXTREMELY strong civ for a religious victory.

That's right. You can conquer the world and win the game without ever once firing a shot in anger.

 

[Karpius]

This is a terrific thread for someone like me who does very little investigating on my own. About all I ever knew of the Aztecs was the Eagle Warrior, but little else. Might be time to give them a try and go for a peaceful Religious Victory as suggested by @Duuk.

If I am understanding correctly, some of their advantages would allow good production for Water Parks later? I'm thinking it might be interesting to limit myself to ten Aztec cities and see how much culture I can rack up from just that. Its the sort o challenge I like to set for myself that doesn't necessarily result in meeting any Victory Condition. But I'm weird that way.

 

[Archon_Wing]

All the OP info is right there in the in-game civ selection screen. What's the point of the thread?

An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_forum

dis·cus·sion
dəˈskəSH(ə)n/
noun
noun: discussion
the action or process of talking about something, typically in order to reach a decision or to exchange ideas.

To explain more clearly, a discussion requires a starting point. Thus it is rather efficient to use the first post to present well known facts or observations so that all people that participate in this discussion will be approaching the topic from a similar point of reference. The entirety of the relevant discussion is not going to be the entirety of the original post. One possible topic of discussion is not merely the civ description, but rather the implications they have on gameplay. I really doubt that everything in this thread can be found in Civopedia.

Hope this helps.

 

[BenitoChavez]

Something I've always wondered about the Aztecs, but never tested myself, is how production overflow works with the civ ability. Say a district normally takes 100 production and there is 10 production left to complete the district. Instead of waiting for the city to finish you use a builder charge instead. Since a builder charge is 20 production in this scenario, will the city end up with an overflow of 10 production or would that production be lost?

 

[Archon_Wing]

This is a terrific thread for someone like me who does very little investigating on my own. About all I ever knew of the Aztecs was the Eagle Warrior, but little else. Might be time to give them a try and go for a peaceful Religious Victory as suggested by @Duuk.

If I am understanding correctly, some of their advantages would allow good production for Water Parks later? I'm thinking it might be interesting to limit myself to ten Aztec cities and see how much culture I can rack up from just that. Its the sort o challenge I like to set for myself that doesn't necessarily result in meeting any Victory Condition. But I'm weird that way.

I don't think you'll be hitting any amenity issues with that but then again I think Aztecs are probably the only ones to be willing to build Water Parks with builders. They're not really that much better than entertainment complexes which come a lot sooner but Water Parks have the advantage of being able to be built in the water, which is a better use of space since not much else can be built there.