The general consensus, pre-1.01 of TAD, was that the Aztecs were a civilization made for rushing. If you were playing the Aztecs and not doing a BBR or puma or coyote/mace rush, you would lose. However, even then those statements were wrong, and with the war priest boost in 1.01, they’re more wrong than ever. I present to you a unique Aztec strat that will allow you to utilize the Aztec’s war priest bonus to its fullest, and to pull off a wicked boom in colonial WHILE out massing your opponent with hordes of Coyote Runners, Macheultans and Puma Spearmen mowing through their troops/ buildings. I present to you, ladies and gentlemen: the



Aztec Warpriest Explosion

This strat uses the Aztec fire pit/war priest advantage to start an almost unstoppable train. If you can make it past 10-12 minutes with this strat, your chances of winning the game are excellent. I’d like to take credit for this strategy; however, I’m positive that there are people out there using the same strat, to good success. This version was 100% my own idea, but I’d like to credit some random Sioux guy I played against, who showed me the true power of the fire pit.

How does this work, you ask? Well the goal is to get 10 War Priests (the maximum amount that can be built) in sub 8-10 minutes. From there, you can pull off a wicked fast boom whilst flooding the enemy with masses of units.

Sound good? Well, it will require at least 8 minutes of your opponent not attacking or coming up with light siege, repelable attacks. In this case, it not a “one strat fits all” sort of build. However, this strategy decimates Fast Fortresses, can surpass a Portuguese Colonial boom quite easily and can stand up to a British colonial house boom with ease. Anybody that delays their attack for at least 8 minutes, or will attack with a small, light siege army is the perfect civ to destroy with this strategy. So this strategy is good against British, Dutch, French, German, Japan and Portuguese. It can also work against any FFing civ not listed here (i.e. Spain, China), but against those civs, good scouting is required to establish that they are FFing and not rushing.

The Strategy

Onto the strategy itself! By now, you should have figured out that this strategy revolves around one unit, unique to the Aztec civilization: the Warrior Priest.



Inn he cute? You start the game off with one War Priest in addition to your 5 villagers. They’re basically like a priest/ imam unit… that has the special ability to dance at the fire pit. With the patch, this guy counts for 2.5 villagers while dancing at the fire pit. That means that for 10 pop, you can have the equivalent of 25 dancers on the fire pit, which I believe is the max for Sioux and Iroquois. This also means that you can have 10 more villagers if you choose, for a total of the equivalent of 35 villager’s boogying around your pit. This also means that you get the equivalent of 25 villagers, without having to maim your eco by taking 25 vills off of work. Sounds nice, huh? Where do I sign up? Unfortunately, there are only 2 ways to get these babies:

1.Card Shipments: The cards 3 Warrior priests and TEAM 2 Warrior Priests can be sent in the Colonial ages, for a total of 5 War Priests.

2.

Holy Dance: A special dance at the fire pit that spawns Warrior Priests! Grant it, it’s not exactly super speedy, but as you near the War Priest cap, you will see that they will begin to spawn in 20 seconds, or even less!

This strat will utilize both methods to get you a strong 10 War Priests, within the first ten minutes of the game, at most. Alright, now on to the meat and taters: the rough build order itself. For use on primarily land maps, although you could easily do a fish boom with this strat later.

-For the starting vills: put two on food crates, two on hunt and one on wood crates. Queue vills ASAP, and put them on hunt. Continue villager production.

-Build a fire pit right nect your TC with one of your wood vills, then a house. It is important to build the pit next to your TC in case you get attackes, so you can quickly garrison your War Priests. As soon as the pit is built, send your WP to the pit, and do the Fertility Dance. Put all vills on food. Don’t forget to herd!!! This is very important, as you’ll be quite vulnerable for the first bit. I like to have at least two hunting groups in my base by the time I hit Colonial.

-First card is the predictable Three Villagers.

-Age up at 18 or 19 vills, whichever feels more comfortable. Choose the Shaman age up politician for the free war hut travois.

-Immediately shift your vills to around 50/50 food/ wood, and change the fire pit dance to Gift Dance (for now at least). No point dancing Fertility when you’re not producing any units, now is there? Build as many houses as possible, and look for any treasures. EXP, food and wood are all very valuable. Even gold is nice, because it allows you to produce a few Puma Spearmen, or research market techs.

-As soon as you hit Classical, get ready for some quick reaction time. Ship either 3 Warrior Priests (TEAM 2 Warrior Priests if your HC is under 25) for a faster time or 10 Macheultans , 5 Coyote Runners or 6 Puma Spearmen. I prefer the war priests, because they really reduce the time it takes for you to get to your 10 WP max, but 11 Maces may be essential if you find your opponent is going to be putting on some heavy pressure.

-Send anywhere from 5-10 vills to the fire pit, and switch the dance to the Holy Dance. If you want to keep up a decent military production, choose less vills on the pit; if your opponent will not attack, go with 10.If you shipped the 3 WPs, stick them on the fire pit ASAP.

-Send your War Hut travois to wherever you need it most. For example, if your wood spot is far away from the TC, send it there to protect your villies from raids. If they’re putting on heavy pressure, build it near your TC. (This is not the best strat for a rush or anything, but if they pull anything unsuspected…)

-Keep vill production up, with them tasked to wood. Keep on building houses, as getting housed is not nice with this strat. Try and build either Maces or Coyotes to counter your opponent’s army with left over resources.

-Continue the WP dance. When I auto- task them to the fire pit, it doesn’t work, but it may for you. If not, manually micro them to the fire pit each time there is a war priest produced.

-If you are pressured heavily: Don’t sweat too much. You can always abort this strat at less than 10 War Priests and start to pump out a quick army, thanks to your Fertility Dance. If you get stuck with a terrible eco, ship 10+9 maces ASAP and use the Alarm Dance to spawn warriors. This, plus TC/ WH fire, should be able to fight off an early wave.

-Send either res shipments (700 food, 700 wood and 700 gold are all good choices), military shipments, or even 5 villagers.

-Once you have the magical 10 war priests, switch the dance to Fertility Dance once more. Believe me, now you’ll understand why I call this strat an “explosion”. Your score will simply shoot up, and so will your pop, so keep more people on wood than you usually would and/ or ship 700 wood crates. Take all of the vills off of the pit now, and usually put them on food, because your villagers shooting out will consume a lot a food.

-From here, your options are open: you can do a full turtle/boom or you can pump out a ton of military. With the ranged infantry nerf and coyote/ mace boost, Aztec Colonial is far from broken now. You can even do a sort of semi- FF strat if you like. Against more passive enemies (cough Ports cough), a Colonial flood can totally destroy them. Just remember to use your fire pit well and switch to War Dance whenever you get into a fight, as it really is an awesome dance. Really, it’s up to you.


As my last words, I’m going to say to you to feel free to change this strat any way you like, as long as it works for you. This strat has the bonus of being very flexible, and you can adopt in whatever way you need to. Good luck playing the Aztecs, and feel free to add comments/ criticism if you like.

[This message has been edited by Flair (edited 04-04-2008 @ 08:28 AM).]