Want to go wide? Try the Mayans

chazzycat

Deity
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Oct 13, 2010
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I just played my first immortal game and I have to say the Mayans seem incredibly powerful for a wide empire/REX playstyle. Built 6 cities right off the bat and thats all I needed all game.

The pyramid giving plus 2 science as well as 2 faith is absolutely huge. This allows you to offset the loss of science from the early NC, while at the same time, almost guaranteeing first religion. Then with their free GP, the free one from liberty, and the prophets you'll get naturally, you can enhance your religion first AND get a nice early wonder. Or do anything really....it's so flexible.

Messenger of the gods seems to be perfect for this approach...getting 4 science from just a road and a shrine is pretty insane. Later I selected tithe and religious texts and totally dominated religion. All the money from tithe (about 150 GPT towards the end) enabled me ally all the CS and I sailed to diplo victory without too much of a threat.

The only funny thing about the Mayans is that their UA makes it really hard to generate your own GP, since "free" ones still up the cost of the next one. In fact in that game apart from prophets, I didn't actually generate ANY the "old fashioned way." It may be wiser to focus on faith generation and forget GPP entirely.
 
This sounds like the game I'm working on now. I found myself with a few jungle cities as well, so the science output is insane. My main problem is that my production capability isn't very strong, and right now, I can't possibly build (or buy) enough to keep up with technology. I'm either going to build the spaceship or just restart now that I've proven that that what I was trying to do works.

I've also noticed that religion as a whole really benefits wide empires over tall.
 
Ancestor Worship + Feed the World + Organized Religion + Pyramids = 2 science, 1 Culture, 1 Food, 3 Faith from a building with 1 Gold maintenance cost. Yes Please.

I've never thought about Messenger of the Gods with Maya, though it makes a lot of sense.
 
Yeah. I've been trying Messenger of the Gods + Pyramids a lot lately. Though I've yet to found a religion(Playing on Deity).
 
I did something similar. If you have enough room to expand, spam as many cities as possible. A 2 pop city using Meritocracy (and later the Order opener) will provide 6 science just for being there at the cost of 2 (1) happiness once you have a colosseum built. If you get the +2 happiness from temples, you can even grow them to size 4.

The main problem in the game I played was that, with the 3 tiles minimum city distance, you can't actually fit that many cities onto the map. I played one game where I had something like 13 and was forced to grow them larger than their building happiness in order to work more of my tiles. Building settlers is also quite an investment as your cities stop growing while they do that.
 
I did something similar. If you have enough room to expand, spam as many cities as possible. A 2 pop city using Meritocracy (and later the Order opener) will provide 6 science just for being there at the cost of 2 (1) happiness once you have a colosseum built. If you get the +2 happiness from temples, you can even grow them to size 4.

If you can pickup Ceremonial Burial that will cover another +1 global happy per city. With Meritocracy and Order that completely eliminates per city unhappiness. You can then grow as many cities as you want as much as you can build local happiness in each.
 
Im thinking the following will be the best Religion for Mayans who are REXing:

Pantheon: Messenger of the Gods
Founder: Ceremonial Burial
Follower: Feed the World (2 Pop cities working Hills and a Forest/Plains) or Pagoda (+2 Happiness? Yes please. Sure it costs 200 Faith but with REXing and I assume ICS, that will be recouped quick. +2 :c5culture: and +2 Faith is great as well.)
Follower 2: Feed the World/Pagoda (If not already taken)
Enhancer: Any but I would go with Defender of the Faith, Religious Texts or Just War due to guaranteed GPs.

Just did an Emperor Large game REXing as Mayans. I got out 7 cities before Rome and Netherlands DoWd me. But by that point I already had Composite Archers lol. I basically steam rolled early and late science putting out a new city here and there. Got Stonehenge, Leaning Tower, Porcelain Tower and Macchu Pichu so all is good. Turn 210 and churning out 500+ Science per turn and just completed Rocketry. With an isolated start I would have become a monster. Also RAs are still really really good. You just have to get a decent BPT up relative to your current Tech level.
 
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