Is Aztec UA really as bad as I think?

[Browd]

Floating Gardens replaces the Water Mill.

Differences are Floating Gardens get 15% food and have only 1 gpt maintenance cost.

 

[dopingman]

nvm, Browd was faster

 

[BenitoChavez]

So the floating gardens replace the garden or the water mill? What building do the floating gardens replace?

Replaces the water mill.

http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Floating_gardens_(Civ5)

 

[GhostSalsa]

Well....they are still interesting, and after several attempts, the problem I had was production..... Food...no surprise ...was not a problem. In one of the games, my capital, if I had kept going would have developed into a huge city.... Science was not too much of a problem...but I couldn't produce anything very fast.

Your starting build can skip scout and monument, just finish 3-4 jaguars (monument later from tradition) so that is one nice feature.

Yes, you should try your best to get some hill mines up for the capital. I also prioritize settling on a hill. Starting in jungle but with a nearby un-jungled hill is best, of course. If I've spawned in jungle and there are no hills in range after scouting... bye. One mine should be enough to make settler production decent. I have stolen settlers in two of my recent longer Aztec games because of really aggressive AI forward-settling, but also did one with no worker stealing and things worked out.

Getting the settlers out is all that is really important. Your capital can still work those mines until the other cities get on their feet. Usually I work one or two mines in a jungle capital until university is finished, at which point everything switches to river farms and jungle tps. The capital just stays low production until hydro and factory are finished..

 

[TeriXeri]

Honor farming culture (gold if you go full honor) from barbs (preferebly raging barbs on large landmass maps = more camps)

Add up Aztec they can get double culture from barbs with honor.

On wars with other civs (which is the whole UA about imo) getting culture far beyond the point barbs exist (especially on normal pangea/contintent like maps without raging barbs).

Of course the UA is useless on peace victories later on if you dont kill anything its 0 bonus.

Aztec to me can warmonger pretty well if you plan ahead with enough jaguars to promote later into regular melees. Don't underestimate the forest bonusses for 33% strength + double movement, combined with the heal on kill.

It doesn't have to be a jungle map per-se, just maps with large forests have the biggest advantage like this.

 

[PhilBowles]

Your starting build can skip scout and monument, just finish 3-4 jaguars (monument later from tradition) so that is one nice feature.

As far as I know the Aztec UA only applies to culture for social policies, it doesn't contribute to a city's cultural output for border expansion. Possibly the most important early function of the Monument is that it expands your borders quickly, so you'll still want a Monument ASAP.

 

[Hakan-i Cihan]

As far as I know the Aztec UA only applies to culture for social policies, it doesn't contribute to a city's cultural output for border expansion. Possibly the most important early function of the Monument is that it expands your borders quickly, so you'll still want a Monument ASAP.

Most people go for tradition anyway, so with some barbarian kills you will get legalism and thus monument soon.

 

[GhostSalsa]

Possibly the most important early function of the Monument is that it expands your borders quickly

Into what, that nearby 3 gold spice tile I am never going to work? Jungle starts lack good bonus tiles so border expansion doesn't usually offer high rewards, aside of course from making the tiles you will have to purchase (the ones culture expan doesn't get) a bit cheaper. I mean I acknowledge your point, border expansion is important, but on many jungle starts it can be put off just a bit until you're ready to buy that 3rd-ring hill tile.

And yeah you generally want Tradition's center policies for Aztecs after Honor open, so I'd say always get the free monument since it will be hard to build one before your fourth policy (like turn 20 with Aztecs) anyway - but supposing you didn't take Tradition, just use Honor's free GG for clutch tiles.

 

[fat_tonle]

And the civ that does so has burned a social policy that the Aztecs don't have to burn, increasing that civ's cost of every subsequent policy.

And Poland gets about 5 free policies throughout the game, still trying to figure that one out...

 

[PhilBowles]

Into what, that nearby 3 gold spice tile I am never going to work? Jungle starts lack good bonus tiles

Not a fan of bananas or sugar?

Besides which if you get jungle and nothing but jungle you're pretty unlucky - it's precisely when your initial tiles are all jungle that you're most likely to want to expand into the cow tile nearby.

Though it's a fair point about Legalism.

 

[Scirocco16V]

Speaking of bananas, what do the rest of you do with banana tiles in jungle? I never improve the bananas because the tile seems more valuable with jungle on it, but it always feels/looks weird to me that they are more valuable unimproved.

The free thought rationalism policy seems like a no brainer because of the 17% science bonus and it also gives +1 science for jungle tiles. If I'm starting in a jungle-heavy area I'll take the Sacred Path pantheon belief for +1 culture per jungle tile.

I don't have the exact numbers here, but it never seems like a good trade off, which seems wrong, because improving a tile is almost always a good thing.

 

[Koiranputki]

Speaking of bananas, what do the rest of you do with banana tiles in jungle? I never improve the bananas because the tile seems more valuable with jungle on it, but it always feels/looks weird to me that they are more valuable unimproved.

The free thought rationalism policy seems like a no brainer because of the 17% science bonus and it also gives +1 science for jungle tiles. If I'm starting in a jungle-heavy area I'll take the Sacred Path pantheon belief for +1 culture per jungle tile.

I don't have the exact numbers here, but it never seems like a good trade off, which seems wrong, because improving a tile is almost always a good thing.

I, too, never improve banana tiles...as you say, they seem more valuable, long term, as they are. Yet I always have the nagging feeling that I've left something out of the "equation". Afterall the AI always seem to improve banana tiles and they are programmed to be completely rational... Or maybe it's simply some sort of "knee-jerk" mechanic they are forced to follow...???

 

[PhilBowles]

I, too, never improve banana tiles...as you say, they seem more valuable, long term, as they are. Yet I always have the nagging feeling that I've left something out of the "equation". Afterall the AI always seem to improve banana tiles and they are programmed to be completely rational... Or maybe it's simply some sort of "knee-jerk" mechanic they are forced to follow...???

The AI can be taught to improve resources or not to improve resources - I don't think it has the ability to discriminate by resource type.

Having said that there's an argument for improved bananas - the extra food, as early as it is, will probably net you more science in terms of additional citizens in the long run than the unimproved jungle. And if you have Oral Tradition you get the culture boost as well.

 

[Koiranputki]

Well...I started another Aztec game....[after taking a bit of a rest playing a game as my favourite...Spain...that game is temporarily on hold....and it's unusually interesting .....four wonders incorporated [I count the 'Reef as two]....and I'm now planning a naval assault of the annoying Casimir... But I digress, back to the Aztecs...]

So, following the advice in this thread, my capital is in a fairly good location and is somewhat productive....I quickly got three Jaguars out...the original plus two I built instead of Scouts.....and they have been very effective.... First with the Barbs...then I turned them on my English neighbours..... though we're at peace now.

I want to get a couple more units out then I think for the next while I'll send them around "sowing terror in the hearts of my neighbours"...the English and the Carthagians... I think it probably is best to avoid taking any cities for now ...???...though I guess that is situational.

Getting my second city out has again been difficult....I'm at about turn 70 and have just about finished my first Settler...I don't think that is good enough ... But was delayed a bit by the Great Library....I thought I'd start building it to get a bit of Gold when the project failed, but to my amazement I was actually able to complete the GL at about Turn 65....it seems in my Spain games the GL is usually gone much earlier than that....

So my cautious conclusions at this point about the Aztecs in BNW are that Food won't be a problem, Science won't be a problem, but Production will be...and I think you also have to be prepared to be nearly constantly at war....you have to be nasty and keep those Jaguars bringing in the Culture, whether it's the Barbs or your hapless neighbours.....

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

And Poland gets about 5 free policies throughout the game, still trying to figure that one out...

But Aztecs get way better UU and UB + its UA allows more freedom then Poland one

 

[Laurwin]

Aztec UB is quite powerful for it's type of thing, in the game, compared to other such things.

Just build on next to fresh water (lake or river)

with lighthouse + floating garden you get 4 apple tile, out of these lake tiles early game. (not requiring worker improvement, but 4 apple requires lighthouse + floating garden, otherwise it's 3 apple)

This is basically like dutch polder in marsh, (it's also early-mid game 4 apple tile)

Marsh terrain bias seems kind of weird in my opinion, but lake bias also works either really well, or just doesn't do so much at all.

What promotions should you take though, for aztec military? You heal a little bit after killing units in melee, I would think that maybe medicII would be solid thing, if you stack your melee close to eachother, each unit being medicI-II.

 

[Illinus]

For those pointing out that the UA should be a faith reward: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=203339384

 

[topfoxrider]

well back in the vanilla days Aztec UA used to be OP. Declare war on everyone + turtle with artillery = win

 

[Astennu]

Aztec UB is quite powerful for it's type of thing, in the game, compared to other such things.

Just build on next to fresh water (lake or river)

with lighthouse + floating garden you get 4 apple tile, out of these lake tiles early game. (not requiring worker improvement, but 4 apple requires lighthouse + floating garden, otherwise it's 3 apple)

This is basically like dutch polder in marsh, (it's also early-mid game 4 apple tile)

Marsh terrain bias seems kind of weird in my opinion, but lake bias also works either really well, or just doesn't do so much at all.

What promotions should you take though, for aztec military? You heal a little bit after killing units in melee, I would think that maybe medicII would be solid thing, if you stack your melee close to eachother, each unit being medicI-II.

Lighthouse only improves ocean tiles, not lake tiles.

You only need Floating Gardens for a 4 food lake tile.

 

[GoStu]

Aztec UB is quite powerful for it's type of thing, in the game, compared to other such things.

Just build on next to fresh water (lake or river)

with lighthouse + floating garden you get 4 apple tile, out of these lake tiles early game. (not requiring worker improvement, but 4 apple requires lighthouse + floating garden, otherwise it's 3 apple)

This is basically like dutch polder in marsh, (it's also early-mid game 4 apple tile)

Marsh terrain bias seems kind of weird in my opinion, but lake bias also works either really well, or just doesn't do so much at all.

1) You don't need a lighthouse to improve a Lake, in fact you can't build a Lighthouse if your only water adjacent is a lake.

2) There is no "Marsh" or "Lake" bias. That's the one downside to the Floating Gardens - it's hard to leverage the Lake bonus as a lake of any size is rare. Of course, the +15% food on a river is still really really good.

What promotions should you take though, for aztec military? You heal a little bit after killing units in melee, I would think that maybe medicII would be solid thing, if you stack your melee close to eachother, each unit being medicI-II.

I generally give my Jaguars Cover 1 & 2. That way they can focus a little more heavily on melee attacking things with less fear of Ranged reprisal. Then I often do a round of Medic promotions before trying to stack as high as March.