Than both. Ichcahuipilli was more than capable of stopping arrows because of the unique way it was intended to tie-up projectiles as they entered, alongside the double layers of crystalized jute on either side of it. It was one of the reasons the Spanish tended to ditch their own plate armor, as the protection offered by the ichacahuipilli was basically the same as their own armor, while being lighter, more maneuverable, and more comfortable in the jungle.
Again, the only reason difference between the two was the lack of direct protection into stabbing motions from a melee weapon. While yes, Spanish swords were excellent for this, the number of people using a sword was small enough to nullify that threat, and that Aztec weaponry was more than capable of being too threatening to bother getting that close in the first place. The reports indicating that a macahuitl was capable of lopping off a horseâs head in a single swing were likely exaggerated, but there is enough direct evidence that they were capable of decapitating a human in a single swing. If your main weapon is also in that same range and you have direct weaknesses to the weapon in question, you are probably going to avoid getting anywhere near melee with someone using that weapon.
If it comes down to wars, technological advantage by itself canât assure victory.
Diplomacy, trade, logistics, resources and many other factors can change the favor.
Sure 1 Conquistador is terrifying, especially on the horse with his gun and lance, but still he can only fire once than he needs long to reload, and once you figure out how to take down the horse, he is no match against dozens of natives.
It required centuries for Europe to conquer Africa, and a lot of nations that resisted were not more technological advanced than Meso-americans, like Zulu.
https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianCountry/comments/q3c5vi/as_more_people_are_learning_about_the_grand/
I found a post yâall might find interesting, but basically just more of the same - Native Americans and Indigenous peoples around the globe deserve attention in games like this, not just Eurasian nations. A solid 95% of what yâall have been taught about indigenous peoples around the globe is just flat-out false on all accounts, history rewritten to make the colonizers and imperialists feel better about themselves. Native Americans were often written to appear as savages and uncivilized, with colonizerâs defeats erased and their victories over-glorified to make it less apparent that they almost lost entire wars against these âsavagesâ.
it didnât, it took decades.
the reason why it took europe so long to conquer africa is 2 things:
1 no incentive, most of what european powers wanted could be gotten from trading at the coast, why push 1000s of km in land when the local ruler is all too happy to trade you the things you want?
2 disease, especially things like malaria which would cut any European army to pieces before they actually faced someone in battle, this means you cant just land 10.000 soldiers and expect to put down any resistances.
what changed is technology, both in medicin and in weaponry, which let smaller european armies outperform native forces significantly bigger than themselves and which let them not all die of yellow fewer.
Heh obviously not that terrifying since as AnaWinters said that bullet would do nothing. At the end of the day Europeans are lucky that Aztecs didnât board their bulletproof ships and didnât conquer whole of Europe.
More powerful or not, isnât it unfair to exclude two continents? Plus, thereâs no Africa either. Three continents are being left out. I donât expect an Australia, but itâd be interesting I guess.
malaria came with the europeans to the new world
this is why slave Labour ended up being used, most European states actually tried to make their plantations run off âunwantedâ in Society like a prison/punishment system but the europeans died in droves to tropical diseases.
also a lot of the americas was just easier to settle than africa, europe historically has had a population higer than that of africa until relatively recently.
Malaria was a factor on both continents,
still it did not prevent Europeans from conquer the South American continent.
exactly!
TLDR: Aztec military tech was lacking, especially because they didnât have any experience with cavalry. This doesnât mean they had 0 chance of achieving marginal success had other complicating factors not lead to their rapid collapse. American civs are a great opportunity to implement meaningful asymmetry in aoe4 and I look forward to seeing how they are implemented.
To enter the discussion about cloth armor vs steel armor, steel is strictly better at stopping things from piercing it but that isnât the only thing armor has to do. The majority of the time you are using armor you arenât fighting, you are traveling, eating, standing around, doing chores, and if something offers good enough protection while being overall more comfortable it is commonly what people end up using.
Cloth armor likely wouldnât stop a direct hit at short range from an early firearm but I am assuming (correct me if I am wrong) that the material being referenced for Aztec cloth armor stopping bullets isnât a lab test of it. In a real life scenario cloth armor could absolutely stop a bullet but likely it wouldnât be something you want to bet your life on. Either way early firearmâs kinda sucked and are overemphasized based on our modern understanding of guns (not that they werenât important).
The biggest thing in all of this IMO is one key thing. Horses. A man on horseback with a lance is like the tank of the pre-modern battle field. To extend the analogy it makes no sense to argue over if using bolt action instead of automatic rifles would have changed the outcome of a battle or war when one side is rolling over the other with tanks. This is particularly relevant because it is by far the easiest to adopt once you get your hands on a couple of horses.
Moving on from the specifics of the military mismatch, the Spanish were going to win battles in North America eventually. At a similar time the Portuguese were establishing colonies in India and had the Spanish been less lucky in having disease free up a lot of space in the Americas, they likely would have colonized as the Portuguese did. Setting up a few trading colonies on the coast and slowly expanding their political influence in land through diplomacy and warfare.
Tying this into aoe4 itâs silly to argue that the Aztecs or other American civs should be left out because they would have a tech disadvantage. Several civs already included in the game failed to compete with European militaries at the very tail end of the time period. Similarly Mongol cavalry is strong in the mid game, not unbeatable. Itâs trivial to set up Mesoamerican civilizations to struggle vs armored units in the early castle age before giving them horses and new military technologies in the late castle age and imperial age which allow them to compete in an asymmetrical fashion.
I personally hope that we get neither a zerg rush strategy nor completely non-historical balance. Remove heavy units and crossbowmen from their castle age roster. Add a technology that either unlocks an anti-cavalry unit or adds a bonus vs cav to their existing infantry to show their initial weakness to mounted fighters. Similarly they can build cavalry in the castle age but only after researching a technology. In the imperial age they should get access to gunpowder units only after researching a chemistry replacement tech. Their priest should have a unique technology that allows them to convert siege units to symbolize how in later rebellions they were often using weapons they obtained in earlier victories. On water they should be able to garrison units in fishing boats which fire arrows when garrisoned. This lets them be viable in the early ages without trying to hack in a navy for mainly land based militaries. Iâm still not settled on a specific bonus for imperial age water but there are many ways it could be implemented.
Heh I forgot how big the number disparity was there. 500 conquistadors with few hundred native allies crushed 40 000 Indians. Thatâs crazy. They must have forgot to bring their bulletproof suits.
No offense, but why is calling natives Indians still a thing? Columbus wasnât the first person in Europe, but when he called them Indians it stuck somehow? I donât understand, but then again Iâm not well versed in Post-Columbus America.
Dunno I was raised like that. America got Cowboys and Indians. 
They donât really crushed 40 000 Americans ^^ they killed the head of the army ^^.
Anyway i donât think Amercians should have âeuropeanâ weapon at all. They can have theirs one weapon and be more âzerg likeâ for the most part. This is a great opportunity for asymetrical stuff, no reason to standardize them ^^
Actually, the biggest Aztec disadvantage was their religion.
The Entire collapse of Mesoamerica, can be narrowed down to : Aztec were a very bad neighbors.
Human sacrifice in Aztec culture, constant attacks on their weaker neighbors and their military might with big central position, basically created a nation everybody feared and hated.
Therefore, Spain seemed to the people like the lesser evil.
yeah, itâs outdated terminology but it is still a thing. The Canadian government had a âdepartment of Indian affairsâ as recently as 2018 though it is now split into two departments respectively called the Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada (CIRNAC) and Indigenous Services Canada (ISC)
Meh, being a bad neighbor doesnât bring about the downfall of your civilization. it can contribute to it but you need more than one cause and a few decades of disaster to really pull it off. One of the ingredients in the fall of the aztecs was absolutely Spanish military tech.
But yes it did make it easier than it could have been for the Spanish.
For the foreseeable future, Iâd rather they focus on post-iron age civs. I especially want to see more Indian kingdoms, and not just ones based on Persian and Turkish dynasties/ descendants of the Persian invasions/ etc.
After that, I wouldnât mind seeing the Japanese make their way into the game.
In this particular case, it really does. Once the Aztecs subjugated kingdoms rose up against them, they were heavily outnumbered and demoralized. It didnât take much for the Spanish to convince those smaller kingdoms to rise up and fight.
Totally fair. My argument here is purely a theoretical one, that the Spanishâ military edge made it easier for them to gain allies and achieve meaningful victories. Iâm by no means a expert on this period and place in history so thereâs a pretty good chance I am wrong.