Hey guys, spirit of the law here. This civ overview is going to cover the last of the Age of Conquerors
civilizations that I haven't done yet, and that's the Aztecs.
They're considered one of the most aggressive early
civilizations, with bonuses that help you jump quickly into the game and get your military out before your
Opponent which I think is a big part of the reason why they're a bit of a pro player favorite on Arabia
[I] know lots of people have been waiting to take a look at them. So let's check them out
The team bonus is that their relics generate
33% more gold
Now normally relics give 30 gold per minute, so for aztecs and their allies that means it's 40 gold per minute. To get a sense
of it on bigger scales, that's an extra 100 gold every 10 minutes or
600 for every hour of gameplay. That's just for a single relic too - as a team bonus that means if your team together
manages to grab all 5 relics on a map collectively, you'd be getting
3000 more gold per hour than you normally would
It's probably most
significant though in one versus one games, since you won't have access to trade partners and late-game gold is otherwise pretty hard to come by
Now to take a look at their personal
civilization bonuses, the first is that the Villagers carry an extra 5
resources before they have to drop them off. To figure out the impact of this bonus in the early game
I ran some tests of how their collection rate compares to a generic
civilization in the Dark age. The first thing that jumps out is the farming rate, which is much better.
It's pretty much on the same level, as getting wheelbarrow which I've noted for the Aztecs
Before in a video on farming rates. In fact, the conclusion of that video was that
Aztecs are by far the best farmers before the new HD expansion civilizations. Looking at the wood collection
It doesn't seem to be affected very much at all. Of course
This is assuming the lumber Camp is right up against the wood line which isn't always going to be the case. If the wood line
Is further away,
We see a larger effect of the Aztecs extra carry capacity. Just to prevent any
Misconceptions here, this doesn't mean they're collecting faster when the camp is further from the wood line, it
Just means the penalty to their collection rate isn't as bad [as] it is for other civilizations
[so] they're less hurt by it. On the other hand civilizations with faster collection rates are
disproportionately affected by longer walking distances
and maybe surprisingly Celts with their 15% faster wood cutting bonus, only collect wood about 6 percent faster than
Aztecs when the Trees have [3] tiles between them and the
lumber camp. The gold and stone collection rates are also improved a little bit
but since the walking distance tends to be fairly small most so that's probably coming from a bit of reduced bumping and
Traffic back and forth. I also saw a pretty notable effect size for this bonus when hunting deer aways away from the mill
mostly because three aztec Villagers can take all [of] the food from a deer
Instead of having to make a trip back and leaving a bit of food to rot. We'd expect
No effect if [you] hunt deer with groups of four Villagers
Since then the Aztecs wouldn't get to use their extra carry capacity at all so it's fair to [say] for this bonus that it depends
On how you're taking the food from the deer the only downsides the bonus
I ran into is that the more carry
Capacity also means they aren't dropping off with their gathering as quickly and in general
I find I have to do
Significantly more manual drop offs from sheep early on just to keep villagers coming out some people might be in the habit of force dropping
Off resources anyway, but if you aren't in that habit yet
It's something to keep an eye on to prevent idle Town [center] time
especially when you're playing [as] the aztecs the next bonus is that their military units are created 15% faster personally, I'd have worded it as
17.6% faster or 15% less time but it's really not a big deal the bonus itself is actually pretty awesome because it's not
That far off having the goth
Britain and kelp team bonuses all wrapped up in one as well as a few new ones for monks and warships
Plus they can still benefit from those other civilizations team bonuses to make for even faster recruiting times I find
It's really easy to underestimate this sort of bonus that applies to a variety of different strategies
[you] don't necessarily notice it
But it's probably helping you out in every game the difference in recruiting times for individual units may only be a few seconds each
But that adds up [pretty] quickly
especially in the early game when you only have a few military buildings or docks and
Slight military Advantages have a tendency to snowball this bonus also contributes to a small
Exploit that lets you create units from super speed barracks if Aztecs convert a goth post imperial barracks
It retains its speed boost from [their] perfusion technology and team bonus plus it also gets the Aztecs extra 15%
millage recruitment bonus on top of that and forgotten empires if you have an Italian ally that lets you create [qaulity] arrows in
2.8 seconds each though that's more of a fun trivia fact than anything to base a strategy around
The next bonus is that they're monks get [+5] hit points for every monastery
Technology research with 10 texts in total that's a lot of hp
especially when one of them adds 15 Hp as its effect anyway after all of the text possible aztec monks end up with
95 Hp overall that's more than three times the baseline and more than double of any other
Civilizations monks the real question though is what does that mean in game?
Well it means fully upgraded aztec monks can take a direct [siege] on [a] jur hit whereas every other
civilizations monks die just to a regular old audigier shot an
Aztec monk even has a roughly even chance of converting an auditor before it can kill him and nine times out of ten an aztec
Mount can convert a close-range manganiello remember though that's after all the text so in a castle [a] two monk rush
They'd only be slightly above average depending on how much you prioritize your monastery
Technologies in terms of converting some other units against persian paladin starting nine tiles away
Mongol persian viking and berber monks convert them about 10% of the time whereas civilizations with the sanctity [tech] giving them an extra
50% Hp
Convert about double that to around 20% of the time aztecs are just less than double that hp
but this time it jumps [to] a
[60%] conversion rate in that scenario of course that kind of effectiveness
Doesn't scale up in bigger fights since it's much harder to micromanage monks than other military units
But the point still stands that charging monks converting your units is generally a bad [idea]
Against the Aztecs their last [have] bonus is that the villagers get loom for free now?
This is a great bonus for two reasons first [of] all there's the save town center work time
So you never have to interrupt Villager creation to get loom if you're not confident about a boar lure
since it takes the same [amount] of time at the town center to research as it does to create a
Villager that means you're theoretically a villager ahead soon as your opponent picks up bloom which adds up
Surprisingly quickly if they get loom early on besides that there's also the saved cost of loom which
Superficially is just [fifty] gold
So what's the big deal?
But it means in Dark age you can create five Militia instead of two with your starting gold other
civilizations have to pick up ten gold in order to do a
Standard three Militia rush in the Dark age so the Aztecs end up being the top Dark age rushing civilization
Especially once we also factor
And they're 18 percent faster working barracks
Extra collection rate and the fact that their eagle scout is better at scouting in the Dark age which I talked about in the last
Video, so I won't dwell on that here
So that's all other bonuses and now let's move on and take a look at their unique unit the Jaguar warrior or if you're American
the Jaguar Warrior
They cost 60 food and 30 gold which is a pretty typical price for an infantry [unit] and like most infantry they have a decent
Attack pretty low Hp and move relatively slowly to line them up compared to other infantry units
They leg a bit behind in Hp and pierce armor which makes them particularly vulnerable to archers
So you want to pair them with something like Eagle warriors or skirmishers in order to make up for that?
To pull back the curtain on some of the more hidden stuff
They also have an attack bonus of +10 against infantry
Which if you can get your opponent into that matchup means most infantry don't have a chance
they also get a slight +2 bonus against buildings and
Seem to do an extra 2 damage against Eagle warriors though lots of other infantry units have a bonus against one or both of those
Things they're also created in 17 seconds from the castle
Which is about the same as swordsmen units from the barracks taking a look at the elite upgrade it cost
[1,000] food and 500 gold which is enough for about 17 units it pays off pretty quickly though
And it's definitely worth grabbing since it gives them 50% more hp
Along with +2 attack and +1 Melee armor a question that's popped up a few times in comments is people wondering about how they do
against Samurai and teutonic knights
Samurai are of course infantry so Jaguar warriors do [+10] bonus damage against them
but samurai also have their own attack bonus against unique units like the Jaguar Warrior a
comparison is pretty straightforward since they cost the same to create and with their bonuses perfectly balanced the [stat] suggests the Jaguar warrior has the
Advantage as it turns out hidden Shenanigans are afoot and samurai attacks significantly faster than the Jaguar warrior
So this ends up being a good trade [for] the japanese as for the teutonic knight
It wins against the Jaguar warrior one-on-one
But on the other hand it's a more expensive
Unit if we give them both equal gold worth of units the Aztecs
Completely dominate and if we balance them based on total
resources spent the Aztecs still end up winning with about half [the] Jaguar warriors left
So I'd say the aztecs have the edge even [if] their units are technically losing one
So jumping back to the role of the unit and [anti-infantry]
Infantry might seem like a bit of a weird niche but it's surprising how often that comes in Handy
One of the most common ways other players deal with your eagle warriors is to make Swordsmen Line units which
Jaguar warriors are really
specialized to handle Eagle warriors for their part also had the speed and pierce armor to take out any archers and get a bit of
bonus damage
against cavalry
So the two units tend to work nicely together and handle lots of different units the big thing you're really going to struggle to deal
With is hand Cannon ears though which unfortunately have a bonus against both of them moving on now
We'll take a look at their unique tech which gives their infantry +4 attack it costs a pretty reasonable
450 food and a whopping
750 gold which [I] think is [interesting] because it seems to mirror the cost of the halberd erupt grade
That's part of what I think the most interesting aspect of this bonus is
Asking whether or not it makes up for the aztecs not having halberdiers the answer is it kind of depends on what you're fighting
[stech] Pikemen are able to take out generic fully upgraded halberdiers
So in terms of a late-game trash unit fight the unique tag ends up giving you some pretty good value
They can even stand up fairly well against Japanese Halberdiers
And it's easy to see why they're doing two more damage with every attack and only have 5 less Hp
normally though you think of the role of pikes as being a counter to
Cavalry and that's where the +4 attack certainly doesn't make up for the missing [halberd] [your] upgrade
Pikemen have a plus 22 attack bonus against cavalry while Halberdiers have plus
32 Aztec Pikemen still do [ok] against paladins and other cavalry and there's certainly cost effective
But they're not equivalent to halberdiers
So that's the unique unit
And you need tech and now let's take a look at the hD
expansion changes
The first update is a bit of a nerf and that [their] free loom bonus changes to simply plus 50 gold at the start now
Loom costs 50 gold so that might sound like it balances out, but this weakens the bonus because you lose that saved researched
I'm putting you back on even Villagers with other civilizations
You still have the potential for extra lycia in your rush?
But you will have to remember to pick up loom at some point
The second change dimension is the aztecs get a new unique tech that gives us skirmishers [+1] attack and range
it's pretty cheap at 400 food and
350 gold and ends up making the aztecs pretty decent at Late-game
Trash battles since as we just saw there pikemen also performed quite well against halberdiers
Another big change is the introduction of the Eagle scout so that's an extra
400 resources and 50 seconds of research time plus. It's just one more technology you have to remember
essentially the Eagle warrior in the original conquerors
Expansion is now the eagle scout and available in the feudal age with a really slow
Creation time and the New Eagle Warrior is a castle age variation with stats Halfway between the [scout] and the Elite Eagle warrior
The last change [dimension] is that the Jaguar?
Warriors now get an extra +1 pierce armor I kind of like that and I did find that in the base game
They felt a little bit too weak to archers which are already a good counter to champions and other infantry
So making the Jaguar warrior even weaker against range units and defensive buildings feels overly punitive
Sometimes in that matchup [and] this just helps bring them up to where other infantry are already at
So now that we've seen the changes
Let's take a quick stroll through the tech tree and give out some grades
starting with the archers the archer rush is solid on account of the early economy boost and
Faster archery range work speed in the Castle age you'll be missing the thumb ring and cavalry archers of course
but in the imperial age you do have the are [blessed] in order to upgrade any left over crossbows as
Things go on you'll find you're missing the last armor upgrade and hand cannon ear so their late-game archer options are definitely below average
I'd say it's a B-minus overall though
It's probably best captured to say it's an [a] early on [NSC] in the late game next up is
infantry
And the big blemish [here] is the lack of halberd ear which as we've seen
against cavalry isn't entirely offset by the extra four attack on their pikemen so they can get
Overwhelmed Aside from that though they have great champions ego warriors Jaguar and all the Blacksmith upgrades
I'd say it's [an]
A-Minus
And it really comes down to how well you can work around the missing halberd ear and take advantage of having access [to] the evil?
Warrior next up is the cavalry which isn't really applicable here, but one thing I found interesting is in the expansions
They do now have stables made for the mesoamerican civilizations if you play with Alt x which is pretty cool
Moving on though next up is the siege now the only real bonus here
Is that they're created faster though the extra gold from relics is going to help out subtly as well
There's no bombard Cannon, but they do have the siege ram and siege audigier to me
They're an above-Average B+
but not a top-tier siege
civilization next up is the navy I'd say that the aztecs have the steepest drop off of all the
Civilizations on the water as the game progresses early on they're fairly strong though
Maybe not as strong [as] they [are] on land maps because a big piece of their fuel economy
strength comes from their farming [rate] bonus
And you [probably] won't be doing a lot [of] farming early on if you're going for water and fishing ships
Thanks to the faster Galley creation time though you'll certainly have an edge over some of the other
Civilizations, so on water maps. It's [maybe] a B-plus early on on the other hand in the late game
They're the only civilization
without the galleon and managed to miss out on Demo ships and Cannon galleons entirely in the imperial age you're basically left with
Castle age war galleys and fast fire ships
I'd say it's an f on the water in the late game because they really aren't
Viable at that point for an overall C on the water taking a quick look at the monks now Aztecs are [hands-down] the best
monk
Civilization all of the monk Tech's are present and they all give your monks an extra 5 Hp as well you also have the relic
Bonus to give you an extra incentive to create monks and to top it all off. They're created faster than anyone elses. It's true
They're missing an early gold bonus, but I'm still going to give them an a+ for monks moving on now to defenses
There's not too much here to really love they max out at guard Towers and have no bombard Towers hoardings and not
Even masonry which is usually an easy pickup for some cheap extra building armor they do have fortified walls and a few other
Defensive texts, but overall I'd [say] it's a c-class
There's certainly a much better fit for an aggressive style of player
Finishing up now on economy as we saw at the early carry capacity and free loom setup the Aztecs [were] one of the best
economies heading into the feudal age of any civilization
In the late game they have a bit of help from the extra gold from relics as well
And the carry capacity effect is still going to be present I'd say overall it's an a for economy the one weakness
I've found is that they're pretty gold dependent through their siege
Eagle Warrior and monk heavy armies, so it's easy to burn through a lot of gold
But at the same time the skirmishers are solid especially [in] the expansions and the Pikemen actually hold up
Surprisingly well in trash fights against other halberdiers so just to end on a few concluding thoughts
I find the aztecs are really strong in the dark and feudal ages
thanks to a great economy and a strategy of either going for a Militia rush or
Archers both tend to work pretty well [as] [techs]
Do you take a bit of adjustment in the Castle age I found because of the lack of knights
[I] think that's part of a bigger problem for Aztecs in the castle age
And there's a window where you're stuck without any cavalry and your monks and infantry are still
Average and I find it can be tough [to] come up with something strong to do in the castle age besides
Maybe crossbows, but even those are missing thumb ring and don't have any bonuses besides
Just being made a little bit faster when you hit the imperial age you can get a bit of momentum
Back and the Eagle [Warriors] have Load a [rating] potential
They're monks HP starts to accumulate by that point you get the [+4] attack on your infantry and your siege options all start to open
Up so you get a flood of solid units that you can choose from depending on what you're up against?
Ideally it's nice to go for a few of those powerful units mixed in Gather
But those are my thoughts on the aztecs. Thanks for watching guys. I'll see you [next] time