Postclassic Maya (aka Itza) - Exploration Age Civ Concept

[evonannoredars]

I've been thinking for a while how a postclassic/late classic Maya civ could be included in a way that differentiates them from the ancient era Maya, it occured to me recently that they'd be perfect to tie into the overbuilding mechanic. Although building pyramids over previous ones wasn't a new development in the postclassic (almost the opposite with a decline in large-scale architectural construction), overbuilding only becomes possible in the Exploration and Modern ages. However, with the timing of the exploration age, a late classic to postclassic Maya civ works out quite nicely.

I also thought it'd be interesting to allude to the Maya 'collapse' with abilities that might be powerful now, but could become dangerous in the long run if managed poorly. Most significant here are warfare and overpopulation/taxation of the land, I wasn't able to figure out how to incorporate drought and trade disruption - but too many aspects might've made it feel more overcomplicated than it already is. Many design elements were inspired by information about Chichen Itza, so this could also be an Itza empire.

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Unique Ability
Rains of Chaak: New buildings retain the base yield of the buildings they have overbuilt.
Name parallels the Skies of Itzamna ability of the Ancient era Maya. Doesn't really have much to do with the ability itself.

Attributes
• Scientific
• Militaristic

Civic Trees
Río Bec
• Tier 1: Overbuilding grants minor production proportional to cost of original building. Unlocks 'Multepal' tradition.
• Tradition - Multepal: Increased gold but decreased influence per urban tile.
Puuc
• Tier 1: Unlocks the Ek' Na' unique building. Unlocks unique 'star war' war declaration, which grants a period of bonus war support followed by a minor period of reduced war support. Unlocks 'Chak Ek'' tradition.
• Tradition - Chak Ek': Killing an enemy unit grants happiness.
Chenes
• Tier 1: Unlocks the Sak'be unique building. Improving rural tiles grants an immediate production boost. Rural tiles adjacent to urban tiles have reduced food. Unlocks 'Slash and Burn' tradition.
• Tradition - Slash and Burn: Settlements gain increased production, but require more food to grow population.
Tula
• Tier 1: Settlements conquered in this age provide increased yields. Reduced town food output to cities. Unlocks 'Chacmool' tradition.
• Tradition - Chacmool: Increased combat strength for each settlement conquered in this age.
Rio Bec branches off into Puuc and Chenes, branches recombine into Tula (in reference to the Toltec capital, as Maya-Toltec is a bit wordy). All names of architectural styles, names don't correspond to the abilities really except for Tula.

Unique Infrastructure
Kun: Unique Quarter. During a war, gains science and culture per positive war support. If war support is negative, reduces yields. If quarter yields become negative, applies additional happiness penalties.
Ek' Na': Unique Building. Science base. Culture adjacency for quarters, doubled for unique quarters.
Sak'be: Unique Building. No base yield, even if overbuilding. Gains the highest yield from any adjacent tile, per yield.
Platform (in reference to the levelled ground platforms, not sure if I've used the right word though), observatory (attempted translation of 'snail house', in reference to El Caracol because I couldn't find an actual/better translation for obervatory, but I probably botched that) and 'white road' (authentic translation) respectively.

Unique Civilian Unit
Bak: Unique unit created by the unique general. Can be activated in a settlement to provide happiness or to grow the population.
Captive. Can basically either be sacrificed or made into a worker.

Unique Military Unit
Batab: Unique general. Upgrade to existing general. Is able to create Bak units from attacking cities.
I'm not sure if this quite the correct word for general.

Associated Wonder
Temple of Kukulkan: Increased happiness and gold during wars.
Naturally

---

The overall effect is that this civ can be very powerful - if managed well. The negative effects can compound to cripple your civ, especially once the crisis hits. Conquering is rewarded, but overextend yourself and it'll come back to bite you. Cities can be grown to grant incredible yields, but become difficult to grow with food and maintain with happiness - both of which conquering can help alleviate, so you see where the problem arises.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

I've been thinking for a while how a postclassic/late classic Maya civ could be included in a way that differentiates them from the ancient era Maya, it occured to me recently that they'd be perfect to tie into the overbuilding mechanic. Although building pyramids over previous ones wasn't a new development in the postclassic (almost the opposite with a decline in large-scale architectural construction), overbuilding only becomes possible in the Exploration and Modern ages. However, with the timing of the exploration age, a late classic to postclassic Maya civ works out quite nicely.

I also thought it'd be interesting to allude to the Maya 'collapse' with abilities that might be powerful now, but could become dangerous in the long run if managed poorly. Most significant here are warfare and overpopulation/taxation of the land, I wasn't able to figure out how to incorporate drought and trade disruption - but too many aspects might've made it feel more overcomplicated than it already is. Many design elements were inspired by information about Chichen Itza, so this could also be an Itza empire.

---

Unique Ability
Rains of Chaak: Buildings retain the base yield of buildings which are overbuilt.
Name parallels the Skies of Itzamna ability of the Ancient era Maya. Doesn't really have much to do with the ability itself.

Attributes
• Scientific
• Militaristic

Civic Trees
Río Bec
• Tier 1: Overbuilding grants minor production proportional to cost of original building. Unlocks 'Multepal' tradition.
• Tradition - Multepal: Increased gold but decreased influence per rural tile.
Puuc
• Tier 1: Unlocks the Ek' Na' unique building. Unlocks unique 'star war' war declaration, which grants a period of bonus war support followed by a minor period of reduced war support. Unlocks 'Chak Ek'' tradition.
• Tradition - Chak Ek': Killing an enemy unit grants happiness.
Chenes
• Tier 1: Unlocks the Sak'be unique building. Improving rural tiles grants an immediate production boost. Rural tiles adjacent to urban tiles have reduced food. Unlocks 'Slash and Burn' tradition.
• Tradition - Slash and Burn: Settlements gain increased production, but require more food to grow population.
Tula
• Tier 1: Settlements conquered in this age provide increased yields. Reduced town food output to cities. Unlocks 'Chacmool' tradition.
• Tradition - Chacmool: Increased combat strength for each settlement conquered in this age.
Rio Bec branches off into Puuc and Chenes, branches recombine into Tula (in reference to the Toltec capital, as Maya-Toltec is a bit wordy). All names of architectural styles, names don't correspond to the abilities really except for Tula.

Unique Infrastructure
Kun: Unique Quarter. During a war, gains science and culture per positive war support. If war support is negative, reduces yields. If quarter yields become negative, applies additional happiness penalties.
Ek' Na': Unique Building. Science base. Culture adjacency for quarters, doubled for unique quarters.
Sak'be: Unique Building. No base yield, even if overbuilt. Gains the highest yield from any adjacent tile, per yield.
Platform (in reference to the levelled ground platforms, not sure if I've used the right word though), observatory (likely botched attempted translation of 'snail house', in reference to El Caracol) and white road (authentic translation) respectively.

Unique Civilian Unit
Bak: Unique unit created by the unique general. Can be activated in a settlement to provide happiness or to grow the population.
Captive. Can basically either be sacrificed or made into a worker.

Unique Military Unit
Batab: Unique general. Upgrade to existing general. Is able to create Bak units from attacking cities.
I'm not sure if this quite the correct word for general.

Associated Wonder
Temple of Kukulkan: Increased happiness and gold during wars.
Naturally

---

The overall effect is that this civ can be very powerful - if managed well. The negative effects can compound to cripple your civ, especially once the crisis hits. Conquering is rewarded, but overextend yourself and it'll come back to bite you. Cities can be grown to grant incredible yields, but become difficult to grow with food and maintain with happiness - both of which conquering can help alleviate, so you see where the problem arises.

This is a really cool design

 

[evonannoredars]

This is a really cool design

Thanks, spent a lot of time researching for it haha.

 

[sTAPler27]

I love this. I really hope the devs go this route instead of just making them evolve into the Aztecs or something. My hope is that since we have Pyramid of the Sun as a wonder we might see Teotihuacan as an Aztec predecesor instead.

 

[evonannoredars]

I love this. I really hope the devs go this route instead of just making them evolve into the Aztecs or something. My hope is that since we have Pyramid of the Sun as a wonder we might see Teotihuacan as an Aztec predecesor instead.

Teotihuacan are definitely up there on my wishlist for a civ, my worst fear is we'll get the Aztecs and then never any other mesoamerican civs after that.

 

[Txomin]

Great ideas! It's such a shame we haven't gotten Maya star wars in official civ designs. I really hope we do get an exploration Maya civ or at least a Maya leader. I think your design gives a better feeling for the classic era Maya then the official Maya civ does, at least as it comes to Maya warfare.
I agree that it would be terrible for the Aztecs to be added and that be it for all of Mesoamerica.

 

[notNamed]

My hope is that since we have Pyramid of the Sun as a wonder we might see Teotihuacan as an Aztec predecesor instead.

We have Pyramid of the Moon renamed to Pyramid of the Sun by the game. Which hints that Teotihuacan might not really be that high on the priority list.
It's just one of the many ideas they got from Humankind, which also features Pyramid of the Sun as a wonder but only had Olmecs, Classical Maya and Aztecs to cover Mesoamerica (at least as far as the game has been able to get on release and the limited DLC due to unfavorable reception). Though they at least used the correct pyramid.

 

[evonannoredars]

Great ideas! It's such a shame we haven't gotten Maya star wars in official civ designs. I really hope we do get an exploration Maya civ or at least a Maya leader. I think your design gives a better feeling for the classic era Maya then the official Maya civ does, at least as it comes to Maya warfare.
I agree that it would be terrible for the Aztecs to be added and that be it for all of Mesoamerica.

Thanks Yeah the classic era civ feels a bit generic Maya rather than specifically an ancient era/preclassic-early classic Maya, which makes me uncertain if we will get an exploration era civ if they don't have enough detailed knowledge of the Maya to make a sufficiently different era civ in the way they've done it with India and China.

 

[ehecatzin]

Cool ideas, my best scenario regarding civ VII is that Mesoamerica and south America really get fleshed out. Incas, Mayans and Aztecs aren't intercheangable pieces. Mayans could very well be Antiquity Mayans, Itza, and maybe even a mix of Tayasal with Chaan de Santa Cruz flavour for modern.

As for the Itza, I think it would be interesting to also give them some diplomacy perks, as in this period Chichen Itza formed part of the Mayapan league.

The early overbuilding mechanic is interesting,tho maybe a bit overtuned. if anything I think it would be cool to tie it with exploration era Codexes, maybe overbuilding could give codexes?

The Sak'be as a building doesn't quite fit tho, they were straight roads that connected cities directly (and yes in many places they were elevated). I would be really cool tho to be able to build Sak'be maybe up to 10 tiles from the capital?

again really nice concept!

 

[evonannoredars]

Cool ideas, my best scenario regarding civ VII is that Mesoamerica and south America really get fleshed out. Incas, Mayans and Aztecs aren't intercheangable pieces. Mayans could very well be Antiquity Mayans, Itza, and maybe even a mix of Tayasal with Chaan de Santa Cruz flavour for modern.

As for the Itza, I think it would be interesting to also give them some diplomacy perks, as in this period Chichen Itza formed part of the Mayapan league.

The early overbuilding mechanic is interesting,tho maybe a bit overtuned. if anything I think it would be cool to tie it with exploration era Codexes, maybe overbuilding could give codexes?

The Sak'be as a building doesn't quite fit tho, they were straight roads that connected cities directly (and yes in many places they were elevated). I would be really cool tho to be able to build Sak'be maybe up to 10 tiles from the capital?

again really nice concept!

Thank you! Yeah I considered involving codices, but I decided to ignore them to focus on a limited selection of aspects of the late classic/postclasic Maya - plus codices weren't unique to the postclassic so I felt like they were less of a priority. Similarly I wanted to incorporate ecological and trade networks aspects into the classic maya collapse but couldn't think of a cohesive way to include them, focusing instead on warfare/happiness aspects and alluding to the diminishing power of kings.

Sak'be weren't exclusively for connecting cities, so I chose to use them for their use within ceremonial centres for gameplay reasons over historical ones as a different spin on adjacencies (with the reasoning they're roads to the adjacent yields), although using them as a unique road improvement would've been interesting also.

 

[sTAPler27]

Thank you! Yeah I considered involving codices, but I decided to ignore them to focus on a limited selection of aspects of the late classic/postclasic Maya - plus codices weren't unique to the postclassic so I felt like they were less of a priority. Similarly I wanted to incorporate ecological and trade networks aspects into the classic maya collapse but couldn't think of a cohesive way to include them, focusing instead on warfare/happiness aspects and alluding to the diminishing power of kings.

Sak'be weren't exclusively for connecting cities, so I chose to use them for their use within ceremonial centres for gameplay reasons over historical ones as a different spin on adjacencies (with the reasoning they're roads to the adjacent yields), although using them as a unique road improvement would've been interesting also.

I see the vision. I think I would've gone the unique road infastructure route but honestly with the new movement system i'm not sure what the difference between different roads would even be.