This is exactly what I do. I'll also try hard to get the leaning tower, Hagia Sofia, and the Porcelain Tower. All of these increase GP costs, so they're a mixed blessing for other civs. For the Mayans, however, you might as well forget about driving GPs with specialists and focus on getting as many freebie GPs as you can.
Underpowered Civilizations
- Thread starter ASLunar
- Start date
This is exactly what I do. I'll also try hard to get the leaning tower, Hagia Sofia, and the Porcelain Tower. All of these increase GP costs, so they're a mixed blessing for other civs. For the Mayans, however, you might as well forget about driving GPs with specialists and focus on getting as many freebie GPs as you can.
Play on marathon/huge on a land-heavy map with Germany and you will see the power (I totally agree its not very good on smaller maps/quicker games).
Honor for the camp locations and bonuses vs barbs and bonus xp.
Don't *need* to build troops but a couple of horse archers help if you can. You can just concentrate on useful buildings/techs.
Mob the first poor fool you meet and destroy him/her. You dont need to care about losing a few units, they replace quick enough when the other civ is dead and their land goes back to being under FOW.
Keep grabbing more troops up to your limit, disband warriors if you need space. You want an army of spearmen with a few ranged.
Beeline to civil service. All your spearmen upgrade into the landknecht for an incredible 5 gold each.
Go on a massive rampage!
Honor for the camp locations and bonuses vs barbs and bonus xp.
Don't *need* to build troops but a couple of horse archers help if you can. You can just concentrate on useful buildings/techs.
Mob the first poor fool you meet and destroy him/her. You dont need to care about losing a few units, they replace quick enough when the other civ is dead and their land goes back to being under FOW.
Keep grabbing more troops up to your limit, disband warriors if you need space. You want an army of spearmen with a few ranged.
Beeline to civil service. All your spearmen upgrade into the landknecht for an incredible 5 gold each.
Go on a massive rampage!
Light Cleric
ElCee/LC/El Cid
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See, people say that, but if you time things right, you can create a pretty solid window in which to generate your own GP manually. The last time I played the Maya I was able to generate several Great Scientists by leaving the General and Admiral for near the end of the game.
Although if you do go the free GP route, make sure to go for The Lovure for those 16 GA turns.
See, people say that, but if you time things right, you can create a pretty solid window in which to generate your own GP manually. The last time I played the Maya I was able to generate several Great Scientists by leaving the General and Admiral for near the end of the game.
Although if you do go the free GP route, make sure to go for The Lovure for those 16 GA turns.
I don't see how leaving the General and Admiral until the end helps. They don't increase civilian GP costs (unlike the civilian GPs).
Light Cleric
ElCee/LC/El Cid
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That's the point. Take all the civilian GPs first, then the rest of the game you don't have anything else driving your costs up and have 4 specialist slots available to drive your GPoints up faster.
But that doesn't make any sense. Driving up the costs earlier doesn't help you one bit. It only hurts you if your goal is to manually create GPs. If you drive up your costs later, you still arrive at the same cost point when you have your 4 specialists, although you might get a manual GP earlier when your costs are lower.
budweiser
King of the Beers
How many GP can you make in a game 12, 15, 20? How many free GP do Maya get, 7 or 8? Of course you can still make GP yourself as Maya.
Light Cleric
ElCee/LC/El Cid
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You get the costs out of the way early, get all the benefits of the civilian GPs earlier(the Admiral is map specific and I don't know that you'd need another GG unless you're dropping a whole lot of Citadels) and then you're sitting at a flat amount so you don't have to worry about a Bak'tun popping up and screwing up your timing and bumping the cost up by 100. Later in the game you'll have more than the 4 specialist slots, you'll have Gardens, National Epic, Leaning Tower of Pisa, etc. to plow through the 500 base cost along with whatever points you've already generated. The last Maya game I played(admittedly it was a good while back) I generated either 4 or 5 Great Scientists manually with enough modifiers.
I was going to try some math here but the times of the specialist slots becoming available and when you hit Theology varies enough that it would be blah
bcaiko
Emperor
The problem is the fighter is best on the defensive and Japan is a wholly offensive Civ. But tangling with a decent Japanese air force, between bushido and the Zero's interception, is definitely no easy task.
budweiser
King of the Beers
It is if you know how. You need to use a Thatch Weave approach.
The number the Maya get from their UA is mostly dependent upon which turn number they discover Theology by. These are turn number based, and so there are some turn numbers that are one turn too late to get a free person.
In addition, if you win the game before 2012, you miss out on that free person (unless you use the just one more turn afterwards)
There are several more free GP you can get: Liberty finisher / HS (locked to Prophet) / PT (locked to Scientist), Leaning Tower of Pisa, sub policy of Honor (GG), sub policy of Commerce (Great Admiral), and with Industrial era faith based great persons.
Number generated during the game depends upon wonders built / how fast you build Gardens and National Epic and weather or not you use the Freedom tree in addition to how many specialist slots do you fill.
The Maya Long-Count GPs appear on turns 62, 72, 86, 101, 117, 133, 152, 183, 234 and 433 (which corresponds to 2013). In general, you must have researched Theology 2 turns before the turn on which the GP can be chosen (e.g., turn 61 is one turn too late for the turn 62 GP).
Don't forget Hubble and Louvre
Maya's UA is fine. Dumb (because GP's were not one of the things Mayans were known for), but not underpowered by any means. Get to Theology, and it's on auto-pilot from there.
Iroquois UA is fine too. Not OP or UP, IMO. Abilities that make troops more mobile are useful. Mohawk warriors are amazing in the woods. Longhouses are amazing in the woods (cheaper than a workshop to boot). Guess where the Iroquois should be in any given game?
Now, Sweden I just tried for the first time last night. I've formed some DoF's, and that's the sum total of use I've gotten out of them, and I'm on the cusp of the renaissance. Just haven't had any GP's to toss around. I only got to build Great Lighthouse and Hanging Gardens. Finished Liberty get a GE to rush Machu Pichu. Used a GM to gain money + alliance from a friendly CS (instead of just an alliance). Pretty uneventful beyond that. I probably did a bad thing in going for both universities and workshops, but I wanted both of their specialist slots equally.
Thing is, I doubt I'm going to like their UU's. Sometimes people forget that the extra abilities can come with increased costs. Those lancers cost 185! That's about 50% extra.
Iroquois UA is fine too. Not OP or UP, IMO. Abilities that make troops more mobile are useful. Mohawk warriors are amazing in the woods. Longhouses are amazing in the woods (cheaper than a workshop to boot). Guess where the Iroquois should be in any given game?
Now, Sweden I just tried for the first time last night. I've formed some DoF's, and that's the sum total of use I've gotten out of them, and I'm on the cusp of the renaissance. Just haven't had any GP's to toss around. I only got to build Great Lighthouse and Hanging Gardens. Finished Liberty get a GE to rush Machu Pichu. Used a GM to gain money + alliance from a friendly CS (instead of just an alliance). Pretty uneventful beyond that. I probably did a bad thing in going for both universities and workshops, but I wanted both of their specialist slots equally.
Thing is, I doubt I'm going to like their UU's. Sometimes people forget that the extra abilities can come with increased costs. Those lancers cost 185! That's about 50% extra.
50% extra compared to what? Regular Lancers cost 185 
and Hakkapeliitta's cost 185 .
and Hakkapeliitta's cost 185 .
Say hello to my little friend: http://www.dndjunkie.com/civilopedia/
Light Cleric
ElCee/LC/El Cid
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Sweden's UA works much better when you murder people and give the spare GGs to city-states 
Just got through playing a very long game as Sweden. King difficulty on continents plus. Was about five turns from a science victory when the Dutch beat me to it. He ran away with the game pretty hardcore over on the other continent. Seems to be a reccurring theme. Probably would have pulled it out if I beeline into Rationalism instead of dipping into Patronage and going one step too deep into Freedom.
Anyway, when the renaissance hit I pretty much exploded with GP generation. And gave a away about four generals and a couple of admirals. It was effective, especially when I discovered that I wound up on a part of the map deprived of oil.
Had three DoF's going through most of the game. Was annoying that there's no notification when a DoF expired. I'd just have to go look periodically and see if the DoF proposal was available.
Never used the Hakkawhatever lancers. I guess this was supposed to put the player in the position of making a strategic decision about whether to keep GG's around or prize them all off, but lancers just aren't that enticing. Better things to be researching and building at that point in the game.
The Caroleans, OTOH, were incredible. March is a very potent promo.
Anyway, when the renaissance hit I pretty much exploded with GP generation. And gave a away about four generals and a couple of admirals. It was effective, especially when I discovered that I wound up on a part of the map deprived of oil.
Had three DoF's going through most of the game. Was annoying that there's no notification when a DoF expired. I'd just have to go look periodically and see if the DoF proposal was available.
Never used the Hakkawhatever lancers. I guess this was supposed to put the player in the position of making a strategic decision about whether to keep GG's around or prize them all off, but lancers just aren't that enticing. Better things to be researching and building at that point in the game.
The Caroleans, OTOH, were incredible. March is a very potent promo.
