hints for aztec start (prince)

[Don Promillo]

Hi there,

any advise how to get a good start out of the aztecs (prince, continents, rainy climate? )

1) What's better: tall or wide? tall --> ua in order to amass culture // wide: to early produce a bunch of jagy warriors? up to ics?

2) Teching? go for iron? Many people around suggest to skip it because it's a dead end. But you could upgrade your almighty jagy host with it!? -> is it worth?
What is your prefered tech path / key techs as monty?

3) early war? is it wise to spam out 5-6 jagys and attack one of your miserable close neighbours without an early (especially defensive) UU?

Thanks in advance!

 

[nanomage]

Don't attack with Jags. Forget they're warriors altogether and think of them as scout replacements.

Tall or wide i think is more dependent on surroundings but aztec UB imho favours tall a bit.
Iron still not worth it because even Swordsjags just don't do against cities, so no. Your best hope is that one of your first 2-3 scounting Jags become SpearJags, and later PikeJags and LanceJags.

For early wars, use archers, CA and CB. Seriously, melee units are not for fighting - they just capture cities after they're bombed to 0HP, is all.

 

[AlcatrazUK]

Monty is one of my favourites.

I tend to get a bunch of Jaguars and the Honor branch (up to military tradition) and go exploring/barbarian hunting.

This will get you lots of culture (as long as there are barbarians to kill) and a load of experience for your troops (which you can promote whilst keeping the fast movement in woods/forrest).

Depending on what's nearby, you can then plan the next phase of your game:

> If you have a few cultural city states nearby and good number of available luxuries, go tall (max 3 cities) and aim for cultural victory. Complete Tradition and Patronage branches. Sell luxuries for cash (200-240 gold per lux), give gifts to city states and puppet any additional cities you happen to take over. Keep a few roaming troops to get culture off barbarians and explore to find extra natural wonders and other civs to trade with.

> If you're cornered with other civs encroaching on your space or you have militaristic civs on your doorstep (or a lack of cultural CSs nearby), you might be better jumping into Liberty and at some point finishing that and Tradition before going into Autocracy. Go for ICS growth, picking off opposing cities on your way to a domination victory.

My main bit of advice...don't choose a victory condition/path until you've had a look around!

Tech routes obviously depend on your end goal with domination focusing on the bottom half of the tech tree (I personally like Iron Working) and culture the top/middle (Philosophy and the Oracle to get your extra policy).

I'd not go too early to war unless you have a very weak neighbour or have had a few lucky breaks and a crack squad of troops. Monty is good early on, but there are stronger civs out there who could wipe you off the map.

Good luck, let us know how you get on.

 

[Don Promillo]

thanks a lot for your quick opinions!

I will keep you on track ;-)

 

[anthropophage]

Pump out jags non-stop, open honour and grab the GG/extra mellee production. Get out to 6 or 7 and then change production to archers. DOW your nearest neighbour and strangle their city, steal their workers, capture their settlers, kill any military that steps out range of the city. Bully gold and workers out of citystates. Build your first city on top of the civ you're at war with so you'll have someplace to promote your army when you tech metal working and get yourself some iron. Once you've got a half dozen jagswords capture and puppet the enemy capitol and move on to the next target.

 

[milk steak]

You could skip Jags altogether (except maybe 1-2 for scouting) and just do a standard CB rush though.

 

[Maxym]

Pump out jags non-stop, open honour and grab the GG/extra mellee production. Get out to 6 or 7 and then change production to archers. DOW your nearest neighbour and strangle their city, steal their workers, capture their settlers, kill any military that steps out range of the city. Bully gold and workers out of citystates. Build your first city on top of the civ you're at war with so you'll have someplace to promote your army when you tech metal working and get yourself some iron. Once you've got a half dozen jagswords capture and puppet the enemy capitol and move on to the next target.

If you do go with jags, you can get first cap with them and few archers, next with SM, and another with LSM. Don't dawdle, still get CB to work cities over. Jags clear units.