posted 11-12-08 09:15 PM EDT (US)
We know Aztec are unusually strong in colonial due to various factors. Flexibility of their age 2 military shipments is one of the big ones. They've got a cavalry(coyote) unit ship, a couple of *LI ships and a pike ship. Additionally, the 3 priest can give you a boost to your firepit without sacrificing villagers. The firepit is another bonus. All natives get these, but unlike other natives, Aztec put up the pit at the start 99% of the time. The three starting dances are:
Yet another bonus that is native wide, Raxes have an attack for 50 extra wood. Same cost as a Euro tower, but trains units too. If you are a Russian player, the aggressive style will probably suit you.
The Warchief himself is another bonus early game. Converting guardians can aid in getting bigger treasures and scouting. Additionally, since the azzy chief is a native explorer, he has more HP than European explorers. He is at a bit of a disadvantage to other native explorers, who have ranged attacks, special attacks, and occasionally ride horses.
Eventually, you will end up having almost a deck for each civ, because some cards work well for some and are a waste of space for others. Here is a list of cards that should be in every deck.
Now hers a list of cards that will be used for various colonial strats:
For rushing, you will use this basic discovery:
-2 Villagers to nearest hunts, 3 to their own food crates.
-Queue a villager at about 8 seconds, earlier is best.
-After first food crate is down switch one to wood crates to get that firepit up fast. Should be started before 25 seconds.
-Send one villager to build a pit when 100 wood, then a hose after the second hundred. TC on food.
-All on food, put priest on Gift dance to speed up first shipment of 3 villagers. After 1st shipment is sent, switch to Fertility Dance.
-Plan for an age up around 3:10 with 15 villagers or squeeze in a 16th for a 3:30 click time. 16 is not advised for fast rushing if you failed to pick up any good treasures.
-Age up with 2 Skull Knights.
Now here is where build orders alter against different civs. Lets start off with some off the easy matchups.
Some of the most broken matchups in the game. Qiang pikes are now rubbish against coyotes, and the only way to get keshiks is with pikes(and keshiks will still die cost effectively). With no musk unit, both these civs have a tough time against Aztecs so...
-For standard transitioning to colonial, put 10 on wood to get 250 for forward hut. Wood treasures are priority, as you will be housed unless you get wood fast. Put 11-12 if you did not pick up any wood treasures.
-Send 2 wood villagers forward forward, when 250 wood build a war hut.
-Keep 10 on wood, you need a house right after age 2 or you will be housed.
- Set Town Center waypoint food.
-Ship 5 coyotes.
-Build a house
-After house, train more coyotes. Dance should be on XP dance.
-When 6-7 on food put back to wood. You will always need way more on wood at the start for houses and coyotes.
-Second shipment is
-Keep pumping coyotes, but if you are at pop limit, make room for a villager with one less coyote being trained. Adjust your TC way point to food or wood depending on which is in surplus.
-Now if dutch went pikes, do not engage him until coyote combat comes. Let him whack your war hut for a bit. Then, after the card arrives, put 5 wood villagers on the pit to dance the
-Ship macehualtin next if dutch continues spamming pikes. If he was going skirms, get the 3 priests and start going for 10 priests. Continue coyote production, and rearrange villagers according to your food/wood needs.
-Against china, simply mass coyotes and after coyote combat, ship your military shipments to finish him off.
Now for a slightly harder matchups. This is against a LI/HI combo so scouting is key here. If you see a stable up first with any of these, refer to next build. Some of the civs below will start with pure LI then switch to HI after they see your coyotes. I included India as they will likely start off HI, then go sowar and ghurka mixed in.
-With all these civs, you will be shipping macehualtin first, then going coyote/mace.
-First ship 10 macehualtin
-You will be housed at about 31 pop, so get that next house up
-Now queue coyotes
-Second card is 9 macehaultin.
-Queue more coyotes.
-Due to housing delay, it is OK to have idle TC time in order to have more military in queue.
-Now the goal here is to have 2 skull knights, 19 macehualtin, and 5-10 coyotes to attack with, and 6 pumas and 5 macehaultin on the way by 6:15. If they send 3 hussars, 5 cossacks, or 4 sowar to raid, garrison villagers but keep coyotes/pumas at his base. If his cavalry is distracted, your maces will be free to massacre his infantry or stray villagers.
-Use coyotes as a meat shield against cavalry. They will hold their own, especially with mace support. Against russia, the troops are the priority, not the blockhouse, too kill off his infantry in smaller groups before the more muskets come out. Take them one batch at a time.
-Now it's an issue of keeping the right ratio of coyotes to macehaultins. People tend to use all their troops to focus on the coyotes, leaving your mace free to pick off units one by one. This is good for you because he is neglecting to use his LI on your mace, and instead is using them on a unit of which they only do 75% of their damage to. While your coyotes may die faster, in the long run he is doing less damage to you.
-Now, alternatively for Spanish, they could go rodelero/musket. If this happens just go straight mace with the leftover coyotes shielding from the rods melee.
-Finish off by shipping 6 pumas then 600 gold for pumas to get the buildings, or if he switches to cavalry.
So a cav start or a cav semi FF?
We are talking a
-2 villagers forward
-Gather 250 wood with 11 villagers, then put 5 on food, 4 on gold and the rest on wood.
-Start hut
-Build house when 100 wood.
-Set shipment waypoint to hut. Ship 6 puma spearmen. You should have 27 pop when next ship arrives. Ship 10 macehaultin. Queue puma with free pop space.
-You should have 37 out of 50 pop with houses, so add to puma queue until 5.
-Goal is 2 skull knights, 11 puma spearmen, and 10 macehaultin, with a shipment of your choice and queued units on the way, by 6:30.
-This is for ff's, semi ff's and cavalry opponents. The pikes are plenty for cav and 10 mace is good enough to pick off HI or bow riders so pike can take down TC and buildings.
-If port calls militia, run pikes out first while shooting with mace. Return full force, but be sure to pick of remaining MM with mace before pumas come back in, so they don't kill any. Chances are, you took down the first TC, but he still aged up with the second, so ship coyotes and train more mace to deal with cassadore/musket/organ gun shipments.
-If souix ships the card that turns axe raiders into rifle riders. Pull back start going mace/coyote. Ship 5 villagers and get a good eco rolling. Otherwise, mace are fine vs bow riders, but dont be stupid when he tries to hit and run, fight by your WH.
Now, I use the same build for Japan and Ottoman, because they both start going HI, then bring in abus or nagis, both of which rape macehualtins. So the key is to keep 5 coyotes in the back until you see abus or nagi. Then produce coyotes along with mace. The 5 coyotes will deal with the initial 3-5 nagis and 5-10 abus, until you can get coyotes rolling.
-Against Japan, make usual forward base. Against otto, place blockhouse more defensively, as he will probably age up first, and if you come in to attack, he will camp his abus behind market/rax/foundry and it gets really annoying.
-Ship 10 macehualtin. When house is built, queue more macehaultin.
-Second shipment 5 coyote.
-At a little earlier than 6:00, harass him If he has anything more than jans or ashi pull back until coyote arrive. Goal is to kill as many jan/ashi so coyotes can kill the rest with ease. Third shipment is 9 mace, and keep queuing coyotes. Do NOT let him have abus attack you, you have to be sneaky to outsmart their long range.
-Against otto, go and take out his forward rax, but DO NOT lose your army. If you can't kill the fb, start semi booming and beat his slow eco in fortress. If he managed to put his foundry forward, go for foundry first. Then ship 700 wood for a forward war hut and more houses.
-If jap ships export and makes shinobi, micro on his ashi, and get as many as you can, then bring around the coyotes.
-Japanese die to a fast rush. As long as you kill him before his shrines start kicking in, you will have the advantage. Have your 2 skull knights hunt his shrines while his army is distracted.
For Iroquois, there is already a strong strategy. The ZAP rush. Look it up, it's what I use, and it works very well vs all the iro unit combos.
Finally we have the aztec mirror match. This is pretty straight forward, because Aztecs themselves have no good counter for coyotes after they've been upgraded, since pumas have a smaller multiplier vs coyotes than euro pikes do.
-Go standard, but put war hut in more defensive position.
-Ship 5 coyotes and queue coyotes.
-Switch villagers around to put on 8 on food. Waypoint on food.
-Second card is Coyote Combat.
-Queue more coyotes.
-At 6:15 you should have 2 skull knights, 11-15 upgraded coyotes with a shipment on the way.
-Now what I like to do is ship in 3 priests and start getting priests. When you attack, switch the dance to attack dance, which boosts combat. Now your coyotes beat his coyotes and will even beat puma spearmen. Also the priests can do the alarm dance, which spawns warriors. You may need this due to having a smaller army a the start, to fend off the first wave. Let him attack your hut, wait with your coyotes, do alarm dance, switch back to attack dance, and counterattack.
-From there just keep pumping coyotes, and shipping military.
Well that, that covers almost all the different colonial variants you can pull as Aztec. Pretty impressive, which is why they are one of the top civs in the market now. You will notice the lack of BB jags. This is because that really weakens your eco and you will be pretty broken if the rush fails.
Also, I find germans the hardest matchup on ESO right now, mostly because even if they don't have pikes, uhlans >
I'm also toying with a strat that requires being on Patagonia, and involves the 3 TP travois card.
Next guide?
Thats it for now mates.
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[This message has been edited by Marneus Calgar (edited 11-13-2008 @ 08:13 PM).]
