Aztecs Still have NO CHANGES in new Update

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
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They still remain the same with the newest patch even when we all know they need big buffs. They are by far the weakest civ in the game.

You know, there is a reason why we don’t see Aztecs being used by top players in tournaments. The “High Win Rate” they supposedly had is mainly in LOW ELO matches, but every pro player considers them as weak.

Fixes they may need:

  • 1 priest per age (Or a new building to train them)
  • Increase AK’s HP, Animation Speed, or Range
  • Increase Coyotes HP or Range Armor (they are super weak and poor cost-effective in late game)
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arrow knights: 50 siege resist added, or at the very least 10 hp

warrior priests: enable ceremony in age 1 for them to get a head start, 6wp age 3 as a shipment added.

coyote are like, whatever. maybe give silent strike some hp or armor buff

100% agree azzy is weak but yeah buffs need to be age 3+ oriented, their age 2 is still rather good

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I would like to see arrow knights perform as well as yabumsame vs artillery. As weird as it is, it might be easier to just remove the infantry tag from them instead of siege resist. AK also are not population effective, and they hold Aztec back from being able to use JPK/Slinger

Yabusame: 126 ranged damage towards arty, 320 VS (60 food, 150 coin). Takes 2 full falc shots

Arrow knight: 100 ranged damage towards arty, 183 VS (50 food, 75 coin). Takes 1 full falc shot

Proposed AK: 120 ranged damage towards arty (increase multiplier to 6 from 5).
320 VS (88 food, 131coin to keep its ratio, or 60f, 120c to match yabusame).
Takes 2 full falc shots (whether increase HP to 200, change resist to siege, or remove infantry tag)

I think the same price would be fine since the AK trade away speed and countering a unit for range and siege damage.

This is cool, but I think going Age 1 will make the rush better. And the devs have made it clear that the Aztec rush can’t get any better. I wouldn’t recommend that. 6 wp would competewith 8V/Vill support car, but could add some nice utility.

I somewhat disagree with you here, but it would be nice to be able to invest in upgrade on them. Similar to the armor discussion on the other thread

For my ideas:

I would like to go part way back back to where they were originally with Agrarian Ways. When TWC was released, this just applied all farm and plantation effects immediately when received. This was HUGE, Aztec was a age 3 boom civ. But it was a bit OP for Aztec and BROKEN for Hauds.

I think this change to Agrarian Ways would give Aztec that Age 3 boom option:

Agrarian Ways: Ships 1 homestead travois that can turn into either an Estate or a Farm. All Estate and Farm technologies, barring Age 5 upgrades and big buttons, are free and research in 10 seconds.

Effectively, Aztec would be able to choose between coin and food general upgrades. It will still take ~85 seconds after hitting Age 3 for it to full come online. So it will still be punishable.

85 seconds breakdown

45 for the card to ship, 10 for the travois to build, 30 seconds for the three farm upgrades

I’ve been meaning to make a post with a bunch of suggestions for Aztecs to make tweaks to give them options. But I’ve also been pretty busy.

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5/6 Warrior Priests card would be a really great Age III card. It would encourage Aztec players to try strategies other than Age II rush (maybe FF). Very good idea.

Additional 1 Warrior Priest added to every Council Member is also an excellent idea. This would be an overall buff and fix for weak Aztec Politicians at the same time.

Some buffs for Jaguar Prowl Knight/Arrow Knight/Otonting Slinger/Coyote Runner may also be considered. Of course we do not expect to buff all of them, but definitely we can easily find a weak point of every one of these units.

There were so many Aztec threads so far. I believe that developers will consider our ideas and we will finally get some Aztec buffs. I’m very curious which one will be chosen by developers as “the most needed”. And hope they’ll do it soon. I would love to see top players like Hazza, Kaiserklein, Mitoe, Knusch or others playing as the Aztecs in the tournaments.

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I thought coyote were pretty good for their cost, just not uber like chimu runners.

How about giving arrow knights a bonus vs counter-cav, it would make them useful for something other than sucking up pop space and tickling the enemy from afar.

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The problem with aztecs is that they can be quite oppressive at lower elos.
The devs are trying to balance the game for high and low elo at the same time, and it’s hard.
League of Legends has had the same problem for years, a lot of documentation has been produced by devs and analyst alike on the subject, and I am pretty sure it can transpose to RTS.

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Funny, though I was watching a stream recently of double hausa vs aztec and china. top 200 plus ranking ( fitzbro, drongo) Everyone made it to imperial except the China player who was pretty weak, it was a looong game. and the Aztec player basically carried it and won. His eco was around 19000, while the 2 hausas were toping out at 10000

These buffs to arrow knights are great… they may seem weak (but aren’t) but they need a little deficit, because they are or would be so good at countering artillery then no one could even have a chance to use it… its already very annoying and costly to take out well protected arrow knights. they out range everything and not even culverins get bonus… so you have to use heavy cav… but where aztec has a deficit… now it has a huge advantage in extremely good cav counters… so having them out on the field really dictates the way the other player has to play. Depending on how much your opponent likes to make always have 10-15 on them in army.

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funny man, I was actually the one playing as the Aztecs in that game you refer to :wink: Once the Aztecs have fully upgraded units and a full tribal place dancing for attack then there is no army in this game that can stop the Aztecs. But until you get to that point it is super difficult for an Aztec player as their eco really sucks.

Coyotes are not cost effective at all.
Jaguar Prowler Knights are too slow.

Aztecs definitely need an eco boost somehow. Once you lose too many units EARLY in a fight in age 2 you are not able to remass them quickly enough if there is a counter attack…

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inca only get 5 priestess card age 3, and they are way worse than warrior priests. No way they give them a 6 wp card and if they did incas would need changing to 8 priestess at least

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Aztec are my #2 civ for FFA in legacy and even then they are much better late game than expected. It is one of the funnest civs to play IMO. But I do not really play that 1v1 hard rush… FFA is more forgiving in that sense usually.

Even though their eco may not look like the biggest numbers with some good eco cards the eco is sustaining even in TR like settings if they have some access to wood. The key is to use that 1000 infinite coin card shipment and a good mass of ERK which tank DPS to give the eco lots of time to breathe.

The problem with the civ has always been, and for some reason always will be the coyote runner as Aztec have no good way to deal with large masses of infantry. I think starting with a simple. 1.5 multiplier vs them would be enough to fix most of the civ without changing too much.

2 Likes
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sorry yes, you are correct, the priests have a value of 200c (in theory) so 5 wp would be tge correct value for an age 3 shipment. still, I think this shipment added would pretty much fix the midgame of aztec and give some ff related options

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What? Why? AK do deal 50 dmg but yabusame only 63, it´s 9x7=63 but if you´re taking the 1.5 rate of fire to make it 126 dmg every 3 sec then the AK also has 1.5 rof so it would be 100 dmg every 3 sec.

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You’re completely correct. I’ve updated the relevant text. My apologies for overlooking that.

I think my case still stands. If you make the AK perform as well as a yabusame against cannons, then you’ll change a population inefficient unit into a more efficient unit. I would still do this through the multiplier so that they don’t become too strong vs everything.

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Don´t worry at all haha we all make mistakes now and then :slight_smile: it happens to everyone, sorry if i sounded too harsh xd

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its important to remember yabusame shadowtech in age 3 to 9*1.2 which is 10.8 damage, while arrow knights are 10 damage (in age 3). the multipliers are the main difference

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I guess the same multiplier would make the most sense then. Make AK have x7 vs artillery. (x5 → x7, extra shot to kill, increase cost by 75%)

Anecdotally, this would make sense. With the other changes, this would make the arrow knight perform ~1.5x better vs artillery. When EP made them 1 pop, they were too effective. Pushing their stats up by ~1.5x and keeping them a 2 pop unit would track a bit better.

I guess my main point is you should be able to go infantry as Aztec (marketed as the infantry civ: no cav, no cannons) without having to dedicate a ton of inefficient population into a culverin equivalent. Compare 2 culvs to 4 arrow knights.

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I think the Arrow Knights are actually ok.

The coyote need a buff somehow. Why not make it like Tashunke’s and let them have more HP and attack when they are in higher numbers… or give them more range resist from the start. They die so easily :frowning:

Aztec’s need an eco boost. Some sort of a trickle. Or give them gold for every killed military unit, food for every killed vill and wood for every destroyed building.

Make the Jaguar knight a lot faster!

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AK are okay from a cost perspective, but not from a pop efficiency perspective. They are the only thing Aztecs have to level the playing field with artillery. I think by making them better, you’ll be able to go Slingers and JPK a lot more easily. Aztec will also have an actual response to 2 falcs instead of just completely forgoing infantry.

The consensus from higher level players seems to be that coyotes are in a good spot. They are supposed to funtion more like Uhlans rather than Hussar. When viewed in that regard, they are really good. I could see a buff to the Silent Strike card to give +10% Ranged resist, but I don’t think they’re that bad.

Eco: I mentioned buffing Agrarian Ways, I think that would work well. The 5 War Priest Age 3 card could also give some flexibility. Changing the mechanics around the Alarm Ceremony and the insane wind up animation on Warriors would allow the Aztecs to get away with booms a bit easier.

JPK speed: I agree. I’m not sure how to do this though. Add a tech in the noble’s hut to give +15-20% speed to JPKs? I don’t know if I would recommend having the base speed increased. But also having to wait until the Age 4 Temple card seems a bit too late.

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But Inca have basically factories in age 2, aztec have 0 options for eco in age 2/3. At least they need another way to get Warrior Priests and create more villagers.

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You only need skirmisher + (musk or helbardier) to keep an aztec in line. Theres not much they can do vs that because of their lack of artillery. Then you can start sieging with 2 mortars (wich can’t be touched by arrow knights).

Aztec have no cav, and coyotes die instantly vs that combo. Thats why coyotes need a buff to survive enough to be cost effective.