Can you share please.
it may be on Fitzbro’s (Fitzbro) channel… hes worth checking out, my favorite AOE3 streamer.
I think skirm and musk is strong for sure, but its not a guarantee. Now Jan Abus is a little different but lets get back to skirms and musk and how to deal with them.
These are my 2nd favorite civ to play in FFA (playing Legacy since 2008) and I would not play them if I easily lost to that. So keep in mind I am not providing deck build suggestions but more conceptual models on how to use the Aztec units.
As stated in a earlier post I make an army that is about 10-15 arrow knights (20-30 pop) then you have have about 30-50 eagle runner knights(ERK) as the core of your army, these are important to tank and provide the back bone DPS. Even vs. musk/ skirm the ERK resist pretty well and shred muskets especially if you can out the attack dance on. They essentially are slow to kill and slow to be killed skirmishers that get slightly killed by other skirmishers.
Your advantage is speed… and can draw out the front line muskets by retreating back to your OP war huts to get the defensive advantage and maybe leave some of their skirms standing picking their nose.
But if your enemy is clearly going skirm musk, you really do not need those arrow knights. and can then use that pop for more coyotes and mix in a few jag knights. You have to flood and spam some extra coyotes units out to get the surround but then once you can break that, is very hard for them to regroup from. and the jags then get on top of the FB and they go down ooh soo fast.
Skirms may seem like a counter to Jags but you really need to kite them back. 1 for 1 un-microed though and jags just rip all… but if they retreat vs a wall of jags are going to get caught up and die to the faster ERK and coyotes and they will have to sacrifice their heavy infantry. and the same will happen to the skirms…
When to use the big buttons… If it is like TR or something many people like to start with a big button army and this is fine as it can make you gain the center… but another option is to use it for a more opportune time.
Such as your about to break their defenses and they start to go for a base trade, or maybe a team mate is coming to attack you when you are busy else where… this is where you can pop out that big button army to continue to hold where you were and defend and if its from the same player… likely win on both fronts. Which can really swing the direction of a game and save you from disaster.
Also choose your battles if you can. Side flank diversions… make people think your about to set up an attack somewhere just to get response… abandon it and push harder in another spot…
Jags have cloak use it… send them forward of the army. as a LOS scout and when on top of army crush it… be patient. USE your army wisely, your vils worked hard for those res.
And if all that is still troubling you… then use your OP defenses… get the extra build and range to war huts, extra HP, then you can make walls and war huts and they will take forever to destroy, meanwhile, you can make a raiding destroying party and flank their base while they waste their time destroying 75 wood worth of walls. the attack on the war huts alone will delete armies.
GL and HF!
2 Likes
Well you start with 1 and can ship 3 early age 2 and they spawn fast from the dance, it doesn’t take long to get 10. once you have 10 you can get a ton of shipments from the xp dance or put it on fertility and do a villager boom.
You can do a very strong villager boom at no cost to your eco because you have the priests which are equivalent to 20 villagers dancing, compare that to lakota which have to use vills to dance thereby sacrificing a lot of villager gather time.
I play quite a bit of aztec, and the only thing I feel they need is a buff to coyote runners.
You can’t have inca with a 5 priestess card and give aztec 5 warrior priests, if anything the priestess card needs to be infinite or increased because 5 are not worth 1000 res for an age 3 shipment. If they change the inca shipment then by all means aztec can have a 5 wp card.
Inca don’t exactly have factories either, they have houses that gather food, to do a full kancha boom you need almost 3000 wood and to send chicha brewing, you’ll likely send the 600w card at least once in order to do the boom so its a huge amount of res + cards in order to get the equivalent of like 10 vills on food, for comparison the houses cost the same as brit manors but are far worse eco wise. If you do this boom your also delaying early aggression and allowing your opponent to boom freely too.
Easier said than done. Even if you send 3 WP early it takes about 4 min to fully complete 10 WP from the moment they are sent. That time in supremacy is huge, 3.2 min you have no XP income to send more shipments.
Not to mention that you sacrifice the 1st shipment, important for Aztecs because if you don’t send Puma they really vulnerable to raids. You won’t have wood crates or more unit shipments in a while.
While aztecs have this lack of options at this point, other civs can do a great boom (Inca included) easy surpassing them. Aztec won’t start booming until 10 WP are completed and that’s about 10 min.
1 Like
maybe they can get 1 priest with age ups and that will help speed up there momentum.
2 Likes
Yeap, I saw a week ago Mitoe and Hazza both saying that Coyotes are actually pretty decent units. Additional 0.1 Range Resistance in Silent Strike card would not make them OP in my opinion but maybe pros are right and Coyotes are not the biggest issue for the Aztecs.
I don’t think Jaguar Prowl Knight needs much more in terms of speed. This unit is very strong - he is kind of weaker Skull Knight (he will kill every unit if he is able to finally catch it). His base speed is 4.5. After and upgrade 4.75 - 5.0 (5.0 is a Pikeman’s speed) seems reasonable. So it is only 5-11% more.
This technology could be available in Fortress Age in Noble’s Huts.
Good idea with the Agrarian Ways. This little change and 5WP available in III Age is also a good way to boost Aztecs.
2 Likes
By the way I would like to hear pro players opinion. They are not using Aztecs considering them as weak civ. At the same time they have a big impact of game balance so they can fix it.
So, what are their suggestions?
1 Like
Aiz has a build that goes for early colonial pressure followed by a war priest boom fueled by infantry train time instead of 3 WP. I don’t remember the build exactly, but it’s something along the lines of 3V->700w->5V->Infantry train time.
There is a breakpoint where that card is better depending on number of people at the community plaza. You then get the benefit of faster training Maces/JPKs for the rest of the game.
I’m not saying this is sufficient, but you should check it out.
Thats a cool buff to agrarian ways, but incas would have 2 cards with the same effect. What about buffing chinampa and great chinampa?. The first one only boos agriculture by a 10% while eco theory does the same for every resource since age 1. Great chinampa boost by 20% while inca card boost by the same ratio, boosting building and tech times.
Also someone talk about a buff to base gather rate, making this cards and upgrades more worth it.
Any hopes for buffs to aztecs in September?? In PUP they have made cheaper puma spearmen but weaker too. This change weaks their rush I think (less units by cards for 5 less resources) nevermind if it buff that rush by doing easier that strategy (more units at the end for same ress). Whats the point of doing changes for early games if aztecs need mid-late game options instead???
3 Likes
Puma Spearman change looks fine but it will not change Aztec gameplay in any meaningful way.
Aztec needs age III options and a few changes to their units. I still hope to finally see it.
6 Likes
Aztecs would rather need a rework.
2 Likes
pumas lancer are cheaper now,
since puma keep getting nerf3d, can we get arrow knight siege buffed, please? compare them to a hand mortar, the closest unit. its embarrassing, honestly. I used to be a diehard aztec main and now I don’t even play them at all
2 Likes
List of units that hard counter Aztecs:
- Skirmishers
- Heavy artillery
- Walls
It’s getting really sad.
1 Like
Btw. if Puma Spearman are now weaker and cheaper and Age II card contain 7 of them instead of 6, Age III card should also be updated.
Currently it has 9 Pumas if I remember correctly. It should be changed to 10 or 11 to increase value of a card to 1000 resources or slightly below.
I just thought about this but to snatch an idea from otto, what if for JPK, instead of just dealing bonus against Heavy infantry, they deal bonus against all infantry? would that make them too OP?
3 Likes
One idea I had would be a large temple, which could be the Aztec temple of the campaign retextured (so as not to look like a ruin), or a double temple, like the Templo Mayor, in tenochtitlán (there are codices that show the existence of several double temples dedicated to Tlaloc and Huitzilopochtli, in various cities of the empire). The great temple could have an attack (since the temples were where the warriors defending the city stood last to defend it when the city was invaded), and produce warrior priests and Cuachic warriors, the “berserkers” of the Aztecs, which could be a few units, one or two, that inspired the other units, increasing the attack, as occurs with the Indian units that inspire the warriors. Native embassies are such architecturally out of step constructions, in all civilizations, that they could be replaced in all civilizations by constructions that assumed their functions and existed in those civilizations. The indigenous embassy could be replaced by an Aztec palace, which would produce a certain amount of coins per unit of time and would also have the function of the native embassy (since the palaces received the tributes of the conquered tribes, concentrating the wealth of the empire in the new Aztec cities, and it was where the political representatives of the empire were located locally, who established political relations with the conquered peoples, where the mercenaries could come). The Incas could have a similar palace, which could function as markets too, as the palaces had intense economic control of Inca society. In the Haudenossaunee, it could be replaced by a council construction, which would generate a wise woman, who could influence the production capacity of some specific construction, on which she interacted, and perform the functions of the native embassy. Among the Lakota, I would even suggest either a tribal council building, or something related to the Sun dance, which brought together many peoples around the same ritual. This could suggest the mercenary mechanics related to the sun dance, I don’t know if that would be appropriate, if any Lakota friend reads this and thinks it’s huge nonsense, comment why! Europeans could have their native embassies replaced by European embassies. The Indians could have caravanserais and the Africans, Japanese and Chinese could have a distinct military construction for recruiting mercenaries.
1 Like
The new change to puma spearmen is definitely a big buff, not sure if it’ll be enough though.
2 Likes