Maya Redesign

[Leoreth]

I think you can get a lot more food from agriculture in tiles without jungle (remember that jungles aren't very fertile), so the reduced food is appropriate. Grassland jungles don't even produce hammers that could be reduced.

 

[strijder20]

Shouldn't most jungle tiles have plains beneath them instead of grasslands? Chopping jungles usually leads to very quick soil erosion and soil degradation.

 

[Visard]

And that is why they can't be farmed before biology.

One hammer to one food conversion would be relevant when the jungle is on hill or there is resource like elephant or gems. Plains jungle hill would get worse, banana jungle better. But yeah, maybe this would be too big change to make.

 

[strijder20]

And that is why they can't be farmed before biology.

One hammer to one food conversion would be relevant when the jungle is on hill or there is resource like elephant or gems. Plains jungle hill would get worse, banana jungle better. But yeah, maybe this would be too big change to make.

I wasn't suggesting this with gameplay, but with realism in mind. Former jungle soil is really not as fertile as China or Europe.

 

[archcapitalist]

i played a bit with the mayans the other day. i do like the new third goal a lot but i think it could be altered a bit. the one thing is that it's so dependent on when the other civs reach astronomy.


i love the new native city. and its a precise combination of moves to get the first two goals.

playing on viceroy, i got calendar using the starting spot in 600. it can be done a bit earlier starting from the silver.


i was only able to get the third goal by using the silver city, though. but it does cause instability from not having any cities in my core. this would probably act up more on higher difficulty and make the starting spot a better city. but, as of now, i dont see how to get to astronomy unless you got lucky.

unless someone has figured the path. i run two scientists as soon as possible in both cities. (in capital, one as soon as you whip the library and then get back to two, a second at pop 5) i got lucky in popping a needed tech (monarchy once, compass once)

i settle the first scientist.(the alt would be popping alphabet, but i think he saves more than the 6 turns to research alpha, over the course of the game) then save the second, as i get machinery and feudalism to one turn left, then grabbed one and popped philosophy. finish up withguilds and optics,

by the time you get optics you have the third scientist waiting and the 4th around the same time period(the third is a 50-50 because of kulkulkan) the two of them are enough to pop astronomy but i couldnt do it before 1400 by which time, someone has it.

would settling a third city be beneficial? once i popped a settler and thought about using him on the gold. i think that would definitely work, but i didnt want to try something so unreplicatable. would it be worth it to build a settler and when in the build order? it would have to be fairly early to get it running on time to contribute

 

[Leoreth]

That's valuable feedback

I think it's advisable to settle more cities, and I definitely expected people to do so, at least in the New Orleans spot or on Cuba.

 

[Akbarthegreat]

You got the native city after getting calender or before? And did you flip it or conquer it?
I hate to settle Yax Mutal. Olximche (1S of Silver), Chichen Itza and the native city are perfect for utilizing all the resources.

 

[archcapitalist]

You got the native city after getting calender or before? And did you flip it or conquer it?
I hate to settle Yax Mutal. Olximche (1S of Silver), Chichen Itza and the native city are perfect for utilizing all the resources.

Well I played through a bunch of time but usually just around the time.

Before is possible if they send a holkan off the mountain and you don't lose one.

After if I need to whip the catapult.

It also depends on what happens with their warriors. Sometimes they wander north and are killed. On my last attempt, they had five warriors sitting there. So after cat and 2 promoted holkans killed their holkans, their warriors killed my injured units.

On epic I think they have more chance to be killed by barbs.

Calendar is pretty straightforward but I've seen a ton of iterations of defenders in native city at around 600.

Also. Never flipped it. Not sure when that would have happened.

I think oxilmche is impractical outside of viceroy because its not core. I think a 3 city lineup would be tax mural native and new Orleans or Colombia.

Not sure how defensible new Orleans and its improvements would be. I Luke the idea of Colombia because you could plant it on gold. Haven't tried it though.

The third city is initially a drag. So it has to be worth it. I thick chichen would be a bad move.

I can almost do it using native and yax and raising technoc asap. Keeping technoc was an auto fail.

 

[Akbarthegreat]

No city other than Olximche can use the two fish.

In my game the natives kept all their units in the city and kept buil, and I started building a holkan (stupid, I know) instead of a library.

I think Leoreth should make some Yucatan city spots more optimal to encourage more city placement there. New Orleans is just horribly ahistorical.

What's technoc?

 

[Leoreth]

What is there to do to encourage Chichen Itza? Maybe I can move additional seafood into its vicinity but that's about it.

 

[Akbarthegreat]

At least one fish into Yax Mutal's BFC would help. Chichen Itza I'm not so sure.

 

[archcapitalist]

What is there to do to encourage Chichen Itza? Maybe I can move additional seafood into its vicinity but that's about it.

i think it would need a lot to be used. the way it plays now, with yax as the capital, the chichen itza spot will hold a village/town for most of the game, which represents it sorta.

i just tried a quick couple of rounds and the third city as is now is going to be colombia.

i think the build order is library/whip 4 to 3. scout. (it costs one turn and three huts to pop minimum) then holkan then catapult. (while running one scientist)

that gets you calendar reliably. by the time the cat rolls out, you shoudl be close to COL and reaching pop 6.

from there i think a settler is possible, because yax is pop-stable at 6 running two sci and all 4 decent tiles. i havent tried this yet, but getting to this point is reliably done.

but since deciding to try it, i havent been able to take danni ba.

 

[archcapitalist]

a couple of suggestions to make the maya game better/less luck dependent

1. make the aztecs spawn at war, or at least greatly increase the chances. having to wait ten turns while your second city is useless is not good.

2. change something about danni ba. i think it would be fine if it didnt produce so many warriors. im not sure how my first few plays they didnt have that many. my last few dozen attempts, they always have at least 5 by 700 and thats only if i manage to lure 2-3 out of the city and kill.

i even had a result in which luckily, they sent both holkans down after mine, i lost one and they lost two, and i then later couldnt take all the warriors with two cats and three holkans.

to me the point of the strong defense is to keep you from taking the city before 600 and forcing you to get calendar with one city. but at that point, it should be somewhat easy to take with a reasonable amount of troops. and easy to take if youve whipped your city to the bone.

right now its possible to take it if you whip yax every other turn after 600 and get lucky with rolls.

 

[JiimBV]

What is there to do to encourage Chichen Itza? Maybe I can move additional seafood into its vicinity but that's about it.

I know you don't like the idea of moving the stone to Chichen Itza much, but combined with another change it could actually fix some of the problems people are having with Maya, including myself. My last game, Danni Baa accumulated thirteen warriors by 670 AD! On top of the two holkan, that many warriors really is an impenetrable defense with only Yax Mutal to build and support an army.

My suggestion would be to move the stone to Chichen Itza, and have a second native city built there, also with two holkans. With this change up, neither Chichen Itza nor Danni Baa would have overwhelming production so conquest of at least one city would be more reasonable.

However, I understand there might be some repercussions along with this: Chichen Itza might be too easy to conquer and then provide a fair amount more production for the conquest of Danni Baa. If this is the case, though I would give the original idea a run first, a wall could be added to Chichen Itza or an extra holkan.

There are benefits of this idea, methinks. It would allow more interesting and gradual expansion, given that twice the amount of Native cities and holkans are present. Since Chichen Itza would be easier to conquer and stands on stone, the Temple of Kukulkan could be built there (historical) or in Yax Mutal (slightly closer to historical).

 

[Titoudeff]

Was it ever? The spot is just a bad location for production, stone or no stone.

I know but I've always prefered to build it here for historicity. Moreover it was quite challenging to get a GE in time for the UHV.

 

[archcapitalist]

What's technoc?

Tenochtitlan

 

[Leoreth]

That's a reasonable point, but I don't know if Chichen Itza is ultimately beneficial even with stone or if most players would raze it anyways. I mean, you also get the stone from this tile by building a quarry on it.

The outrageous amounts of Zapotec warriors are an entirely separate problem which I agree should be toned down. But that's more of an AI question. I'm not sure why it's not just going for a culture building there first.

 

[archcapitalist]

That's a reasonable point, but I don't know if Chichen Itza is ultimately beneficial even with stone or if most players would raze it anyways. I mean, you also get the stone from this tile by building a quarry on it.

The outrageous amounts of Zapotec warriors are an entirely separate problem which I agree should be toned down. But that's more of an AI question. I'm not sure why it's not just going for a culture building there first.

i think i would raise it and quarry it. and then maybe not even bother attacking da banni until after the jags weaken it around 730.

you can easily build a force that can clean up weakened da banni in 730 by the time you get COL, so if yax can build kulkulcan, which it might be able to with the stone and the ability to whip from 6 to 3 when the deadline gets close, i wouldnt need da banni much at all

to the second. i dont think ive seen them build a cultural building ever. the latest ive taken it is 750 and they still have never hit the first expansion

 

[archcapitalist]

easiest solution to the many warriors: make the stone spawn in 700.

i loaded up a korean start and watched what they do. they build an ikhanda first. i didnt notice before that the warriors are all promoted but they are. some city raider but most combat 1.

once your city pops up close to them they build nothing but warriors but if they are in the middle of an ikhanda they finish it.

without the stone, it takes them much longer to finish the ikhanda and have 2 warriors at about the time they use to have 8-10.

 

[Visard]

In my monarch game I kept one promoted Holkan next to Danni Baa and the warriors made random suicides attacks giving nice food bonus.