I am not talking with balance, but purely by game design, what you can do with a civ, purpose of units and research, etc.
I have been playing Incas and, oh boy, I wish Aztecs had the same love they were given.
Big Button variety : Aztec just spawns military units. Okay it can be great for an overpop spawning, but it’s not very interesting. Incas has some of that, but also unique research (granting armor), or permanent passive, or even villager spawn!
Meaningful units variety : since tiers 1 units cost 1 pop, and tiers 2 units cost 2 or 3 pop, there is a meaning of doing the tiers 1 units after the mid/lategame. No units outclass another, they all have their place. Meanwhile the Aztecs have no meaning of doing Tiers 1 units (maybe except Coyot) once their economy is good. Jaguar outclass Puma, Eagle outclass Macehuiltin.
Building Variety : the Incas has more structure and different research to upgrade / place your buildings. And you have access to a Fortress, which bring life to a battle field. Aztecs have just age 2 military building, and age 3 military building. Aztecs have click to upgrade building 1, click to upgrade building 2.
I think cards are nice for both side, but core gameplay and gamedesign of Aztecs, and as much as I love it, is clearly poor. And it’s even more true when you see and play the Incas.
My suggestion would be adding at least one building for the Aztecs, having a unique mechanic, and where you could train the Berserkers in exchange of some condition.
I would love also a rework of the big buttons, bringing more variety or balance, things that would motivate me to do Tiers1 units in mid/late game.
Do you think Aztecs should stay “easy and simple” or do you think a slight rework would do great?
An Azzy revamp would be nice but tbh comparing them to Inca isn’t gonna help. Inca is a broken (as in fundamentally flawed design and execution not OP) civ at the moment.
I have posted something similar to this the last day, the Incas have everything the Aztecs have to offer, even the unique Aztecs units have been copied and pasted (priest, skull knight) of which the skull knight (maceman for them) is even trainable for the Inca. They are not only so similar to the aztecs, they are highly superior to them.
There is literaly 0 reasons to play Aztecs anymore, as the Incas do the exact same and better.
@KylluaZ mentioned this in another topic that was deleted, or something like this.
I always though the Aztecs should have extra experience for every fallen soldier, because of the (kind of violent) human sacrifices culture they have. Something like the Norse’s on Age of Mythology, that gets gods favor on battle.
So, my suggestion to improve them is to give XP for both enemies and their own soldiers that had fallen into battle. This would be realistic-ish to their culture that sacrifices their own population to appeal their gods. And also would gave new in-game life for they, because of the loop of going into battle, get experience points, send shipments to replenish the army quickly and going into battle again to get more experience for more shipments…
Also maybe adding some infinite cards of military units to help replenish the army over and over again would be nice. That would add a nice dynamic to a game with a Aztec player involved, with fighting breaking out all the time.
That’s a nice idea, I like it ! Since Aztecs should be “offensive” oriented, like Spanish, a bit ahead with XP with a well balance sounds cool ! Incas in the other hands are defensive, but right now they have a better rush than the Aztecs lmao.
I hope some game designer see this, and give us something similar than what has been said just above and this :
a new building, not necessary a Fortress, but somewhere to train Skull Knight ? It could be fun and maybe balance to be able to create one Skull Knight for each kill count you’ve made and some resources. It would be consume and it would create tempo to battles. And, maybe if so, disable the auto upgrade of the unit.
reworked ability for the Warchief. The aura for nobles is pretty underwhelming. I like the discussion that has been said here
reworked big buttons ! Even if post 30min it means an insane amount of units floods, I would rather have some unique research/bonus for Big Buttons. For example, Incas get 0.1 additional armor, maybe Aztecs could have 10% hp ? I don’t have really other ideas, but I always found “create x units for every 2 mins of the game” pretty underwhelming.
unique mechanics/passive getting a few xp bonus by unit kills, if it’s not too broken, proposed by @ ToroidalLeaf69 . It will make them more aggressive, which should be. Right now, Incas are better than them, and Incas are “defensive” oriented. EDIT : it seems I’ve mistaken the Warchief aura. It already gives 200% more xp on kills, and the upgrade from the Plazza makes it 300% XP on kill. So I don’t think we need this last suggestion
What do you guys think ? I think it’s important that Aztecs reach as much diversity and options than the Incas. If they’re “too simple” or “too predictable” it’s not really a good thing competitively.
