Mayans have the following advantages
The UB - Pyramid
-Replaces the Shrine
The Pyramid is extremely cheap and comes up before the Library. It provides +2
and +2
which is +1
over a normal shrine and a science bonus equal to 4 population. This serves as a great boost and can be reasonably be used to delay libraries and the NC for a while if going Tall or to skip it all together if going ICS.
The UU - Atlatlists
-Replaces Archer
-Available at Agriculture
This is basically a free Archery tech... the unit is cheaper than the Archer by 8
on Standard and allows you to dive straight for Theology for the Mayan UA without worrying about not having ranged to defend. While the Archery tech is cheap, the faster you hit Theology, the more GP you can get as the earlier turns are worth more years due to the extreme time compression.
The UA - Mayan Long Count
This UA is a blessing and a curse. It gives you a 'free' GP every B'ak'tun or 394.3 years. You can pick any GP however you can only pick each type once until all choice have been chosen then it starts all over again. In G&K 'free' GP now increase the normal GP counter meaning it will be almost impossible for cities to catchup and generate GP of their own, especially if you get Theology early. Therefore it is best to plan you game around how well you can optimize your free GPs.
Popular and effective choices are
- Get an early Great Prophet to found/enhance a religion
- An early Great Scientist to plant an Academy
- An early GE to Rush a key Wonder. Especially effective on higher difficulties. Chain rushing Pisa->PT comes to mind
- A free GA to supplement your culture or to launch a Golden Age. Golden Age would be more effective on a wider empire.
- An early Great General to place an emergency Citadel or to lead your army should you avoid Honor and it's your first war.
- An early Great Admiral to explore across oceans to meet new Civs/CS.
- An early Great Merchant to grab a CS ally super early or settle to boost GPT.
Empire Strategies
ICS(8+ Cities)
Mayans are built for this. By synergizing Pyramids and Messenger of the Gods, each new city gives +6 to your base science (+2
from MotG, +2
from Pyramids, +1
from Pop, +1
from City)
To really get the most bang for your buck taking Ceremonial Burial as your Founder belief can alleviate 25-33% of your initial happiness issues per city. Pagodas will alleviate another 25-33% and give you more Faith, Culture and allow you to hit pop two without additional happiness investment due to the way local happiness is handled vs Empire happiness. Meritocracy will handle another 25-33% meaning on Huge maps you actually gain 0.2 Happiness per new city.
Social Policies
Liberty and Order and the right side of Commerce are going to be your best friends. Meritocracy is a key policy and later in the game, Order's opener will be a enormous boost to your empire as you should be toting around 20+ cities by that point. The entire right side of Commerce helps as -25% from rush buying, +2 Happiness from Luxuries and -33% road maintenance are nothing to scoff at.
If you have a lot of Cultured CS allies then dipping into Tradition and Honor for free Garrisons and Happiness can be worth it. If anything else having a million archers will bloat your army size despite them not being centralized.
Pros:
- Very rapid early science gain
- Atlatlists provide a cheap and effective defense
- More effective on bigger maps (Large costs 2.4
per city; Huge costs 1.8 per city)
- Extremely high per turn. At least +4 per city
Cons:
- Until religion kicks in new cities are a huge drain on Happiness. Belong able to settle on Luxes helps.
- Least effective on Standard and Smaller maps (Cost 3 per city)
- Meritocracy requires you to detour from rushing Theology for The Wheel. Not huge but it could cost you a GP or two in the end.
- Pagodas require 200 each at the start. Once they start popping, the next comes faster but the initial delay can be annoying.
- On higher difficulties your religion choice may be stolen by the AI. ICS is not advised for Deity unless you are confident you can pull it off without these bonuses.
Small and Tall (1-4 cities)
Mayans also work well staying small. Between 4 cities you essentially get a free Academy(Babylon) without sacrificing a land tile or 4 specialists(Korea) without needing them to stop working. While this doesn't scale as well as the other two Civs, it still help tremendously in the early game though the UA still inhibits the success of GP intensive VCs (Science/Cultural). In my opinion, after rushing for Theology and optionally Education, war is the best option. If you push directly for the NC you can turn around and hit Machinery alarmingly quick, relying on Atlatlists to protect you while you Tech dive. Pushing through to Education still nabs you Pikemen which can do the job just as well. Nothing Scarier than a wall of Medic II, Cover II Pikemen which can eventually become Medic II, Cover II, March Helicopter Gunships
Social Policies
The 4 City Tradition Opener work perfectly well here. You can find that
here
Another option is to go Honor first and hunt camps religiously before embarking into Tradition. With luck and some dedication you can greatly speed up your initial culture gain to make up for the delayed policy. This also gets your foot in the door for when you decide its time to spill blood. I recommend the left side first.
At this point my train of thought has broken and I'm not sure what else to say. Ill add more later and maybe even move this to it's own thread. Enjoy.
always hated ics
)
If you don't like it, you can do just fne without it.
