[NFP] Maya First Look

[GAGA Extrem]

I'm also finding that I'm starting next to fresh water, or coast, as often as just about every other civ. So I expect that natural fresh water / coast spawn bias hasn't been removed from Maya, which makes them getting a good start a bit harder because if they have bias for plantations and/or jungle, that's competing with a water requirement for spawning when IMO it shouldn't be. [...]

You can still get the fresh water bonus via aqueducts, so being near a fresh water source is actually quite benefitial. I beelined towards Engineering in my game and it really helped me to get those cities off the ground.

Still lost, sadly, by a few turns (and despite only playing on king), ultimately because I got forward-settled and bum-rushed by both Harald and Bolivar, who dragged me into an extend war that grinded my early game development to a halt. That being said, the Maya are absolutely vicious when fighting near their capital. Not only did I decimate an army that would probably have killed me off with my usual Inca pick, but I also managed to raze both forward settlements, thanks to their proximity to my capital.

It does feel like the Maya are quite terrain dependend, though. I didn't have particular good land and had to settle rather close together and with few plantage resources, which meant I wasn't able to deploy a nice farm carpet later down the line. Also their reliance on farms is pretty dangerous due to droughts. I got my first 3 farms wiped by one almost immediately, which forced me to buy another worker. Later down the line I had a triple drought in the food basket area between two cities, which destroyed another 6 farms and starved multiple pops. Maybe I was just unlucky, but it seemed quite harsh.

 

[IvoryPavane]

You can still get the fresh water bonus via aqueducts, so being near a fresh water source is actually quite benefitial. I beelined towards Engineering in my game and it really helped me to get those cities off the ground.

Still lost, sadly, by a few turns (and despite only playing on king), ultimately because I got forward-settled and bum-rushed by both Harald and Bolivar, who dragged me into an extend war that grinded my early game development to a halt. That being said, the Maya are absolutely vicious when fighting near their capital. Not only did I decimate an army that would probably have killed me off with my usual Inca pick, but I also managed to raze both forward settlements, thanks to their proximity to my capital.

It does feel like the Maya are quite terrain dependend, though. I didn't have particular good land and had to settle rather close together and with few plantage resources, which meant I wasn't able to deploy a nice farm carpet later down the line. Also their reliance on farms is pretty dangerous due to droughts. I got my first 3 farms wiped by one almost immediately, which forced me to buy another worker. Later down the line I had a triple drought in the food basket area between two cities, which destroyed another 6 farms and starved multiple pops. Maybe I was just unlucky, but it seemed quite harsh.

I think as a Civ they can be pretty marred by an unfriendly start, and that lack of consistency is what will stop them being branded a mega, omglolwutzor S tier gold plated cherry on top by the creators of such lists.

Whereas I kind of love it. I like Civs who can have either adverse starts where you have to overcome your surroundings, or a great start where you turn into a giant Mayan shaped snowball - it really mixes the game up for me!

Conversely, my partner has been playing GC (and he looooooves him, I have to admit I’m rather envious of the movement) and his games have been more of less the same every time. Very consistent indeed!

 

[GAGA Extrem]

If Great Plains would still existed, it would probably be an amazing map for the Maya.
But sadly looks like the Inca will remain my primary pick. They can shine under pretty adverse conditions, thanks to their universally useful terrace farms. With the Maya, meanwhile, I just had to re-roll three starts in a row because I just had awful terrain & resource placement.

 

[Kmart_Elvis]

Currently in the classical era with my first game with the Maya. It's way too early to see that 10% bonus in effect. But the housing malus is felt quite well! You definitely need some workers to build farms and chop jungle just to get off the ground.

I'm low on production but doing great with gold. You're encouraged to settle flatland, so some of my cities have awful production. But that +1 farm gold is deceptively nice because it really adds up.

Defensively, so far so good. I like being able to have slingers hit barbs at 25, the base strength of the Archer. And the Hul'che is fantastic. My Hul'che in my cap is hitting wounded units at 48. It's a damn good thing I have them because otherwise I'm feeling quite weak with this civ.

They definitely feel like a civ with a slow start and great potential, but I'm not too keen with weak early games. That's the most dangerous time from barbs and neighbors invading you. As long as I get out of the gate, I should be fine.

 

[Morningcalm]

Concur with everyone who thinks that translating the Mayan leader's name makes it sound ridiculous. "Theodore Roosevelt" is a mouthful too, but for some reason we don't have it translated to "God-Loving Rose-Field".

The primarily American and/or European audience that is into Civ games and knows about Civ is going to have a far easier time pronouncing and remembering Roosevelt's name than "Ix-Wak-Chan-ʼAjaw-Lem" or "Ix Wak Chan Ajaw" (two ways to say Lady Six Sky's name elsewise). Read any archaeological papers on her, they refer to her as Lady Six Sky as well. The name "Lady Six Sky" is a rendered translation of the Maya glyphs on stelae. If you want to take issue with Firaxis' rendering of the name, you'll probably find you have to be annoyed at a large number of scholars and archaeologists too. And it's not Firaxis wiped away her name anyway--you can see her Maya name in Civilopedia.

 

[Kmart_Elvis]

If Great Plains would still existed, it would probably be an amazing map for the Maya.
But sadly looks like the Inca will remain my primary pick. They can shine under pretty adverse conditions, thanks to their universally useful terrace farms. With the Maya, meanwhile, I just had to re-roll three starts in a row because I just had awful terrain & resource placement.

I've been thinking of the comparisons too while playing my Maya game. With the Inca, you get terrace farms without all the strings attached. The Inca get food, growth, and production... Right now it's hard to grow and get production. The Maya have a stronger military, but the Inca are tucked away in mountains and hills so you get a strong, defensive start with them anyways. Campus adjacency is no problem with mountains either. They are both similar playstyles, but the Inca don't have to deal with the tough start and clunkiness getting off the ground.

 

[WillowBrook]

I knew an eruption could destroy an improvement but did they always have a chance of completely removing the resource as well?

Any harvestable resource can be destroyed by a volcano.

Concur with everyone who thinks that translating the Mayan leader's name makes it sound ridiculous. "Theodore Roosevelt" is a mouthful too, but for some reason we don't have it translated to "God-Loving Rose-Field".

If academics in another language refered to him with a translation of his name's linguistic roots, I would expect the game translators to use the same name as the academics in that language version of the game. So I have no objection to 'Lady Six Sky' in the English language version. But I don't know how Spanish-language academics refer to her.

 

[Danthor]

You're entitled to your opinion, but most scholars refer to her with her "Lady Six Sky" name, since her original name is a mouthful (and even for Mayan archaeologists it seems). The average gamer is hardly going to be able to pronounce her original name either, so I think it's a simple enough decision on their part. And the translation issue in Spanish is hardly directly Firaxis' fault--as far as I know there are localization staff that decide how to translate the English version of the name. So my point is even Spanish localization staff could have changed her name to the original Mayan name if they wanted to. It's not Firaxis' fault for calling her Lady Six Sky.

And you're entitled to yours. I care about her original name, not what language handicapped people try to call her.
In any case, it was easy enough to find the translation file and change it to Wac Chanil Ajaw and oh! surprise! most languages use this name already ^^

 

[Guynemer]

With the gold from farms, the Maya are well-positioned to win a diplomatic victory in Apocalypse mode. With all the natural disaster emergencies, I just won a diplo victory around 1500 AD, and would have won sooner had I been smarter about my early WC votes.

 

[IvoryPavane]

I've been thinking of the comparisons too while playing my Maya game. With the Inca, you get terrace farms without all the strings attached. The Inca get food, growth, and production... Right now it's hard to grow and get production. The Maya have a stronger military, but the Inca are tucked away in mountains and hills so you get a strong, defensive start with them anyways. Campus adjacency is no problem with mountains either. They are both similar playstyles, but the Inca don't have to deal with the tough start and clunkiness getting off the ground.

The Inca are quite similar to Maya in terms of starts as well. They are slightly reliant on getting a few decent mountains, and their bias activating. I’ve seen a few multiplayer matches where they spawned with 2 mountains and faded quickly.

But the Inca have a much more generous and forgiving opening, but I don’t think they have the snowball science potential of the Maya either.

It’s interesting, I’ve had Maya pegged as a nice introductory Civ which will ease my friends into the game, but actually I think its one of the more mechanically difficult Civs because you really need to know how to manage your cities in both placement and development

 

[Morningcalm]

And you're entitled to yours. I care about her original name, not what language handicapped people try to call her.
In any case, it was easy enough to find the translation file and change it to Wac Chanil Ajaw and oh! surprise! most languages use this name already ^^

And the scholars are also entitled to their practice of primarily referencing her as "Lady Six Sky", a practice which I follow.

My first Observatory had a +4 bonus; my second +6; my third +5. My weakest Observatory is +3. It's very strong.

Right? I found it not too difficult to up them from +4 too. People may yet revisit their opinions on Korea being "OP" perhaps. I do think the Maya are tricky to use if they start near the coast though.

 

[Danthor]

And the scholars are also entitled to their practice of primarily referencing her as "Lady Six Sky", a practice which I follow.

*english speaking* scholars you mean. There lies the handicap

 

[IvoryPavane]

After a few more games, I think the saving grace for their opening is their propensity to start near Maize.

20/20 test load ups and 3 full games and I’ve had Maize on my capital in every single one, and it’s an oasis in a sea of jungle lol. Worked Maize is 3 food, 3 gold and 1.5 housing. (And a badly needed boost to irrigation).

I think it’s a mini Mali situation where you are encourage to buy a few units as opposed to produce them

 

[Morningcalm]

*english speaking* scholars you mean. There lies the handicap

And English speaking people who made the game, for a majority of players who speak English. If you have issues with the Spanish localization, that's an issue with the localization team, not Firaxis.

 

[Brutus2]

Just had my first win with the Maya. Flew through an emperor space race win. I built six cities around my capital. I couldn't fit any more due to the map layout and AI settling. By the end of the game most of those cities were size twenty. Three of them were close to 30. It was fun to play a tall civ again, as I feel like I usually just end up going wide.

Yep. Just finished my Mayan science win as well. One size 30 city and several over 20. I had size 10 cities very early. One nice added bonus of growing quickly was the loyalty pressure you exert on smaller nearby cities. I managed to flip three AI cities without trying, just because my cities were so much larger.

 

[Leucarum]

It’s interesting, I’ve had Maya pegged as a nice introductory Civ which will ease my friends into the game, but actually I think its one of the more mechanically difficult Civs because you really need to know how to manage your cities in both placement and development

Really true, I was showing a friend via a multiplayer game earlier and they wanted to try out the Maya. The number of times I had to say "Oh, you also want to bear this in mind too" was silly.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I have to be honest with you guys . . . "Farms Everywhere" feels good.

 

[IvoryPavane]

Not sure if this has been shared, but the fantastic Zigzagzigal has determined the Maya have this starting bias: (nothing about Maize so either I have a weird stroke of corny luck or Maize is common on flatlands)

• Tier one start bias for flat grassland and plains
  
  
• Tier two start bias for citrus, coffee, cocoa, cotton, dyes, gypsum, jade, marble, mercury, olives, salt, silk, spices, sugar, tea, tobacco, wine, incense and ivory
  

 

[bengalryan9]

Not sure if this has been shared, but the fantastic Zigzagzigal has determined the Maya have this starting bias: (nothing about Maize so either I have a weird stroke of corny luck or Maize is common on flatlands)

• Tier one start bias for flat grassland and plains
  
  
• Tier two start bias for citrus, coffee, cocoa, cotton, dyes, gypsum, jade, marble, mercury, olives, salt, silk, spices, sugar, tea, tobacco, wine, incense and ivory

The luxury bias is nice but you could end up with a map like mine where you're short on plantations because you've got a lot of mining resources.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

The Inca are quite similar to Maya in terms of starts as well. They are slightly reliant on getting a few decent mountains, and their bias activating. I’ve seen a few multiplayer matches where they spawned with 2 mountains and faded quickly.

But the Inca have a much more generous and forgiving opening, but I don’t think they have the snowball science potential of the Maya either. [...]

I'd say the thing with the Inca is that their UI is great even if you only get a single solid tile for it, and even without mountains they can still pull off an aqueduct + terrace farm combo as a fallback option, which makes them at least passable. The Maya, meanwhile, seem absolutely terrible without plantation resources and the 6-tile limit makes them quite inflexible when it comes to terrain. A few hours earlier I abandoned a game because I had (again) ended up in a spot where none of my Observatories had any decent adjacencies, and the only decent city spot with a +5 Observatory would have been too far from my capital.

That being said, the Maya do indeed snowball pretty hard once/if they get off the ground. The extra gold from their farms is really useful. Given that I don't abuse AI trade for extra income I usually have to build at least 1-2 early Commerce Districts, but with the Maya I can just tech towards Aqueducts + Industrial Zones, which synergizes quite well with their above-average tech pace.

Funnily enough they remind me quite a bit of the Calabim from FFH2, as they had a rather similiar farm-focused, rather slow and terrain dependened playstyle.