In Treaty, lategame Hauds is Mass Forest Prowlers and Light Cannons, which just melts everything, really.
Mix in some Musket Riders if you have issues with Sipahis and Cuirassiers.
Aztec is “Rush from Age 2 onward” civ. You are supposed to always be on the offensive as Aztecs.
They do have great Age cards, because all of their Temple cards have upgrades to your units.
Even the Temple card thatr sends you Vills, improves their Estate gather rate.
Natives need other upgrade in their estates to equal europeans, who have more cards for them.
About treaty, Hauds are worse than aztecs cause they are wood dependents.
The idea of more WP could be fine if they remove that 10 WP limit but their army could be too strong with maxing plaza.
I think one of the 10% cards your mentioning is actually a 20%, 10 percent isn’t that big of a difference so it really doesn’t matter too much, I noticed all native mills have below average gather rate because of low cards, I think the two gimmicks of Aztec are Aztec mining, and warrior priest, I think the only way to play Aztec long term is the 10 wp boom, but even then it’s no where near other booms, and it’s very easy to punish either that or your forgetting a 20% all together, in terms of cards, Aztec have a 20% age 2, a 10% age 2, and a 20% age 4, plus xterm 8 villager 500 gold thing
You are totally right, I forgot some cards for the Aztec. They do have a significant advantage compared to the best farming Euro (+195% to +205% depending on when you did the farm age up compared to +155%).
Their estates gathering rate is at a significant disadvantage though (+120% compared to +210%).
The base gather rate is a bit deceptive. Euros on mills have to walk around the mill to collect food, which means they aren’t always gathering and can bump into each other. Villagers on farms don’t move. This makes the real life base gathering rate pretty much the same.
Aztec farms:
Russian Mills (Most euros have something slightly worse whether its team food silos or something):
Aztec Estates:
Russian Estates (Most Euros have this breakdown, British being a little worse):
I think that Aztec late-game (age IV, age V) is not that bad. Eagle Runner Knights + Coyote Runner combo with attack dance is quite strong. Fully upgraded Farms are also decent.
Aztecs mid-game is the biggest issue.
Additional WPs would just strengthen any Aztec mid-game strategy (quicker villager boom/stronger attack dance more early/quicker shipments).
You are saying that statement very often. How can you know it?
A lot of military cards in II age and ability to quickly age up does not mean that this is everything you can do with a civilization. Evey civ in a game should be competitive. I don’t think that developers stated in any place that some civs supposed to have only one viable strategy. That would be a bad game design.
Aztecs are very interesting civ and they don’t need much to be competitive and have more strong strategies than just a rush. Developers just need to see it.
Easy.
Their unit shipments are very large, all their Big Button upgrades spawn units, and most of their Gather Rate cards affect Food, which is what they need to mass produce units.
It is clear that their design is to get a lot of units, very quickly, which a staple of Rush gameplay.
Aztecs are AoE3’s Zerg, with cost innefective units, but large quantities of them, and geting them very quickly.
Yes, of course, but ability to have a lot of cheap units quickly does not mean that they can’t use other, stronger units in other strategy and win there.
In fact, they should be able to do it without any problem. Unfortunately, any other strategy is problematic for Aztecs 
The more civs a game gets, the more pigeonholed they are. Warchiefs already started this tendency, it is unstoppable now.
You asked for my proof that Aztecs are a Rush civ, and I gave it to you. They even got an overall Politician Age 2 ASge Up speed bonus, which clearly indicates the devs WANT Aztecs to be IN ALL GAMEMODEs, a Rush civ, almost exclusively.
This also makes sense, since because of historical sensibilities, they have no Artillery, and are then by default hamstrung in longer games where they did not cripple the opponent in Age 2.
They do not require much to be competitive in other strategies so why not to change them a little?
Yes, they have Messenger politician but the devs clearly wants players to use others politicians too.
From patch notes 20322:
I think this is a final proof straight from the developers which says that Aztec should be played in other ways too.
No, they just made all the other Age 2 choices Age faster too, just a little slower than the Messenger, because Aztecs, as a Rush civ, would never use any other option than teh Messenger, unless they too Ages faster.
Aztec was at an awkward spot even in Legacy. Most other civs were buffed in DE, and hunts were made plenty. Which resulted in Aztec being more awkward in DE.
Aztec’s eco bonus is huge unit shipments in age 2, so they can stop/kill eco of the enemy and match their own eco with them. This either meant you caught your opponent going too greedy and ended him in age2. Or, you punished thier eco, slowed down their ageup, and massed enough coyotes to kill canons, and won in early age3.
Now with more hunts in DE, you cannot effectively contain any civ. Most of the time you can safely go age3 without even leaving your base. And for some reason, devs decreases the unit shipments in age2 for Aztecs.
Aztecs were a cool civ in RE because they were the most unique civ, even if a little underpowered. In DE, you have even more unique civs. And Inca takes all the spotlight from Aztec, as all the gimmicks and unit styles were given to them. They even copypasted town dance, water ceremony which were unique for Aztec.
Sorry I meant native estates
When is it worth sending 3 warrior priest as first card in age 2? I feel like it could be worth it for more of a 8 minute timing against a semi ff, or is it just better to always send a unit shipment as the first age 2 shipment?
What about giving Arrow Knights the ability to deal splash damage, that way they could act like cannon/culv (the thing they lack the most). Maybe they can also implement an animation of them throwing fire to units with each arrow.
That’d be weird without some sort of napalm or greek fire that can splash over the affected area before they shoot the arrow at it. I’d rather they just be made tougher so they can survive long enough to actually be useful.
imo Arrow Knights can be fixed simply by just making their projectile faster. Imagine if the arrow flew at the speed of a longbowmans, but because the projectile is so slow combined with the windup animation, you end up losing a good amount of arrow knights before they can take out arty, usually causing you to trade even or sometimes negatively.
I’m not sure that would be necessary. Morale seems to be integrated into HP, and a giant Spear impaling the guy next to you would probably decrease morale.
This would be similar to how a cannonball currently does splash damage. The cannon balls don’t explode, and only hit a few people. But it does freak people out and decrease morale.
I am a bit concerned with making arrow knights falconets though. Mortar + culverin + falconet is a bit too much role compression. But Aztecs really need all 3, so not sure what a great solution would be.
Honestly I think Arrow knights are fine, you just need 10-15 of them and then it makes all cannon die in 1-2 volleys. Your opponent wont be making cannon when he sees them dying so fast. and they are great then to pressure buildings from afar. Always have 30 eagle runner knights when using arrow knights.
BTW Aztecs do have great food production, but very weak coin on estates… always use the age 4 1000 coin card.
The problem is Coyotes are really too weak vs the mass skirm with just a few musket/ melee inf that will force Aztec to go mostly melee for bad trades. I think they need a multiplier 1.5 X light inf.
You can’t buff these units too much or they will dominate.
(note I mostly play FFA on legacy and I use Aztecs quite a lot as they are very fun, and much better than people expect late game, for me they suffer most vs. China, Russia, Haudes, )
AS for Huades in TR. have a niche roll on maps with good natives. They have the most complex economy but also the boomiest… You get Cow boom, Fast villager spawn, 119 vils, and fur trade all in one… By end of TR enough wood and coin will be stored up that you just need to have fire put vils and some on food. You can delete down quite a bit and have a large army pop, and send the native cards, and whatever natives are on map and its overwhelming for most. (especially backed by a large number of light cannon) The weakness is when the wood runs out… so if you have a team mate with the wood trade forget about it. It takes a lot more skill to manage all this but if you can is quite a pain to fight vs.
For them they are either a great rush civ or a strong TR boom civ, but for FFA there is no good in between economy.
